Untouchable Lovers-Chapter 166 - 149: A Thousand Pounds Hang by a Thread
Chapter 166: Chapter 149: A Thousand Pounds Hang by a Thread
The steed ran wildly, having lost control, and also its sense,.
And so did Chu Yu on the carriage, feeling that she, too, had lost her reason.
At this life-and-death moment, she actually wanted to stay, willing to live or die with another person.
But she couldn’t control herself, her heart filled with a searing sensation, and her mind flooded with frenzied thoughts that prevented any calm from setting in.
Fear, reluctance, confusion, hesitation… Countless emotions intertwined, like a mix of colorful paints seeping into one another, yet in the end, they returned to a pure, snowy white.
The cliff was getting closer.
The sun set in the west.
Chu Yu looked ahead, not far from the carriage, where she should have been terrified, but suddenly due to an ironic twist, she thought of a joke about how in martial arts novels, people who jump or fall off cliffs hardly ever die. Instead, they usually encounter a reclusive master or discover a martial arts manual at the bottom, or find some miracle elixir that increases their power. One way or another, a great disaster would bring a blessing in disguise.
With that thought, Chu Yu couldn’t help but laugh a little.
She didn’t believe that she would be so fortunate, nor did she expect any martial arts manuals or miraculous elixirs; all she wanted was for her and Rong Zhi to barely escape with their lives.
Seeing her smile, Rong Zhi asked in surprise, “What are you laughing for?” Her face was pale, not only from the blowing wind but also from fright, and her eyes still harbored a deep sense of fear. Yet that smile was genuine. When compared to her other expressions, it was quite the contradiction.
Chu Yu smiled again, “We’re almost at the top of the cliff.”
Rong Zhi nodded, and he glanced at the Longsword still weakly held by Chu Yu, who hastily came to her senses and handed the hilt to him.
After taking the sword, Rong Zhi said, “Princess, please hold tight.” Then he let out a breath and abruptly leaned back!
One leg was wedged into a crossbar, and the other hooked under the carriage bottom, his legs bent, his waist pulled taut like a flexible bow, and his arms extended in tandem. Without a glance, he swung his sword backward, its tip grazing over the left rear leg of the horse on the left.
In just an instant, Rong Zhi used the rebounding force from lying back to catapult his body upright again, like releasing a taut bowstring. He took a light breath, leaning against the carriage side, closed his eyes, and let go of the sword.
Chu Yu was stunned. Rong Zhi’s movement hadn’t been fast, and she saw it clearly, but what good could such a strike do? It merely injured one of the horses; even if that horse couldn’t run, the other was still frisky, wasn’t it?
The subsequent change quickly resolved Chu Yu’s confusion before she could voice it. After the left horse was injured and took another step, its leg bent in pain, and fresh red blood spurted from the bend of the leg. Having been injured on the side, the horse’s direction of advance also shifted—not along the straight path to the summit anymore, but towards a large tree thick enough for a person to embrace.
The other horse, though uninjured, was also slightly deflected by its partner’s movement.
The two horses, which had been running side by side, charged past either side of the large tree. Chu Yu felt the brown trunk approach the carriage at a swift pace, nearly crashing into it, but luckily there was a wood frame and sturdy sinew that had held the two horses side by side. These, after breaking from the tremendous force, reaching the front of the carriage, had already lost nearly half their strength, so even if they did crash into it, Chu Yu wouldn’t be hurt.
But what about Rong Zhi?
Chu Yu saw at a glance that the crossbar holding Rong Zhi’s ankle was positioned at the front of the carriage. If it crashed in such a manner, the powerful impact would crush his bones against the crossbar.
Her mind went blank, and all she could do was stare fixedly at Rong Zhi’s leg.
Then the violent collision came as expected, with such great force that it nearly threw Chu Yu out of the carriage. It took a considerable effort for her to steady herself, her limbs numb from the shock. By then, the carriage had stopped; one horse broke free and continued to run forward while the other, the one Rong Zhi had struck, lay on its side on the ground.
Because of the impact, the large tree also trembled, and moments later, a shower of leaves cascaded down.
Chu Yu immediately thought of Rong Zhi’s foot and urgently looked down, only to see that the crossbar hadn’t hit the tree trunk. It was just an inch away from the tree, but fortunately, the worst had been avoided.
But what had the carriage hit that had caused it to stop?
Chu Yu looked around but couldn’t find anything more prominent than the carriage that could have been the obstacle. Seeing her puzzled face, Rong Zhi couldn’t help but smile and pointed upwards.
Chu Yu looked up and finally understood. The carriage’s canopy had an overhang used to shelter the driver from the rain, sticking out roughly two or three inches more than the crossbar below. Thus, the first thing that hit the tree was the overhang.
Although it seemed that Rong Zhi had only made one strike on the surface, not everyone could have achieved what this one strike accomplished.
Exhausted as he was, Rong Zhi had enough strength left for only one sword strike, which needed to be used in the most effective place. Even if he were to separate the carriage from the horses, due to the tremendous inertia, the carriage would still rush forward until it went over the cliff.
Therefore, Rong Zhi used that one sword strike on the horse’s leg. He had neither the strength nor the need to sever the leg, it was enough to inflict an injury. At the most critical moment, he calculated the timing, angle, and environment to perfection in the blink of an eye, ensuring the horse deviated from its original direction and used the resistance of a large tree to bring the carriage to a stop.
Calm, precise, decisive, and courageous.
If he were not calm, he would not have come up with a way to rescue them and calmly gathered his strength.
If he were not precise, a slight mistake could have possibly led them to fall off the cliff.
If he were not decisive, acting a moment too late would not have achieved the effect of rescue.
Even with calculations so precise, at such a life-or-death moment, it still represented a huge risk; a hair’s breadth away could lead to being miles off the mark. A person without courage would not take such action.
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Chu Yu stared blankly for quite a while before she recovered her breath and heartbeat, while Rong Zhi just calmly lifted his eyelids and smiled at her very naturally as if revealing the first smile upon waking in the morning, “Princess, can I trouble you for a moment? Please cut down the crossbeam.”
Compared with the earlier peril, they now had plenty of time. Even if they took it slow, there was no need to worry that the carriage would roll towards the edge of the cliff by itself.
But there was no time to delay with Rong Zhi’s leg; Chu Yu quickly jumped off the carriage, picked up the longsword Rong Zhi had thrown down, and carefully dismantled the crossbeam under his guidance. Thus Rong Zhi’s leg was finally freed.
As she watched Rong Zhi lift his leg, holding her breath, the boulder that had been suspended in Chu Yu’s chest finally fell to the ground. Rong Zhi said nothing more; he just leaned against the tree the carriage had crashed into, removed the wooden hairpin that tied his hair, and twisted it lightly about two-thirds of the way down, revealing the hairpin was hollow inside. Inside the hairpin were two compartments: one contained more than a dozen silver needles, while the other held only one. Rong Zhi took out a needle from the compartment with the silver needles and inserted it into his injured leg with a flick of his wrist.
Chu Yu couldn’t bear to look at his bloodied leg and tried to shift her attention, pointing to the needle that occupied one compartment, “Why is there only one needle here?”
Rong Zhi took another needle from the same compartment and inserted it into his leg, “Because the needles in that compartment are poison needles.”
Poison needles?
Chu Yu immediately understood how Rong Zhi had dealt with the assassin in front of the carriage, but…
“Why didn’t you use this against He Jue?”
Before her words finished, a cold voice came from behind her, “I would also like to know; why didn’t you use a poison needle on me?”
Chu Yu’s body suddenly stiffened, and she turned around. By this time, the dawn light had dimmed, and He Jue walked towards them slowly, longsword in hand, eyes malevolent.
