What Bad Intentions can the Yandere Crown Prince have?-Chapter 263 - 259: Second Miss, Save Me

After the young girl shed a single beautiful tear, she covered her face and sobbed, "Why did you save me? It would have been better to let me die!"

Tang Xiaobai was suddenly at a loss for words.

Indeed, why did he save her?

"Hang her back up," Li Mu said.

Mo Ji, being an emotionless task machine, immediately picked up the girl without expression when Li Mu spoke.

"Hey—" Tang Xiaobai quickly stopped them, "No! No! Put her down! Put her down!"

Though the girl was strange, hanging her back up would indeed be too much.

Probably frightened by Mo Ji, the girl also stopped crying, her big, watery eyes wide open, tears on the verge of falling, looking very pitiful. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

"Will you speak now?" Tang Xiaobai asked patiently.

If she didn’t want to talk, he wouldn’t force her, as forcing brings no happiness.

This time the girl wisened up, still covering her face and crying, but said what needed to be said.

And indeed... quite tragic...

The girl was from some nearby village, living with her elderly parents, depending on each other for survival.

Early this morning, a group of bandits suddenly broke into their house. Besides robbing grain, they also attempted to kidnap her with ill intentions.

During the resistance, they alarmed the neighbors, scaring the bandits away.

But in their desperate attempt to save their daughter, her elderly parents were thrown to the ground by the bandits and had already passed away.

"...My father and mother are both gone, living only subjects me to humiliation. I’d rather go with them..." the girl cried, out of breath.

Tang Xiaobai’s eyes turned red as he listened, turning to Li Mu, unsure what to say.

Li Mu nodded, "Hedong hasn’t had good harvests these past years, leading to rampant banditry. In the Three States Outside the Pass near Yanmen, it’s even worse because of Turkic occupation."

"Is no one managing this?" Tang Xiaobai asked gloomily.

Li Mu squeezed her wrist, "I’ll ask around when we get back."

His job was leading troops to battle; matters of public safety hadn’t been his concern.

Tang Xiaobai nodded, softly comforting the girl, "The Court’s troops have already recaptured Yunzhou, and the bandits will be dealt with too. Go home first and arrange your parents’ affairs. When the bandits are caught—"

Just as he was saying this, they heard someone shouting from afar: "Xiao Lian—Xiao Lian—they caught the bandits!"

...

Though the girl had a pure, innocent aura, her name was not Xiao Lian; it was Chen Xiaolian.

The misfortune of the girl Chen Xiaolian was real.

Chen Family Village wasn’t far from the woods, sparsely populated, with scattered low houses.

A crowd had gathered outside Chen Xiaolian’s house.

On the way over, the villager who brought the news explained the incident once through.

After the neighbors arrived and found Father Chen and Mrs. Chen killed, they were enraged and chased after the bandits.

There were four bandits in total, and they chased down one of them.

"We’ve sharpened the butcher’s knife, waiting to dig out that villain’s heart to honor Uncle Chen!" said the young, lean, dark-skinned villager who looked no more than fourteen or fifteen, his face full of ferocity.

Tang Xiaobai was taken aback by his words and then heard the crowd explode in shouts: "Kill him! Kill him!..."

It’s said that the people of Hedong are fierce and prone to forming bandit gangs, and it’s truly not just a rumor.

Tang Xiaobai frowned and glanced at Li Mu.

The bandits were indeed vile, but they couldn’t just be killed here.

Li Mu knowingly nodded.

At this moment, a distinct voice came from the crowd: "I told you I’m not one of them! I want to see an official!"

Tang Xiaobai was greatly surprised.

The villagers were just ordinary people, merely shouting at the top of their lungs, but this voice was powerfully resonant, surprisingly notable in the noisy crowd.

But what shocked Tang Xiaobai was that she was too familiar with this voice.

"Brother Tao!" Tang Xiaobai shouted in surprise.

Li Mu immediately gave a signal, ordering his men to disperse the villagers.

On the ground in front of the earthen house, a man in reddish-brown clothes, bound with countless loops of hemp rope, huddled a bit, yet his tall, strong build was still evident. His face was down, unclear.

But once the crowd dispersed, the man adjusted his body, raised his face, and looked over.

Upon seeing Tang Xiaobai, he revealed surprise and joy, "Second Miss, quickly save me!"

Indeed, it was Tao Fen.

Tang Xiaobai hastened over, glanced at him, frowned, and asked, "How did you get here so fast? And became a bandit?"

Tao Fen, midway, had taken Tao Zi back to Capital City, agreeing to visit Zhong Chuchu before coming to Hedong to find her.

Though Capital City and Hedong were generally in the same direction, they weren’t quite along the way, at least not in Tang Xiaobai’s expectations. Tao Fen shouldn’t have found her so quickly unless he left Capital City right away.

Given how much Tao Fen cared for Zhong Chuchu, he’d usually stay a couple of days to reunite, right?

But this wasn’t the time for small talk; Tao Fen, dodging his gaze twice, pitifully explained, "I was just going to Yunzhou Prefecture to find you, passing by here when this group caught me as a bandit—"

"Nonsense! They’re obviously the bandit gang, caught by us after falling behind!" interrupted a villager with a furrowed brow.

Tang Xiaobai glanced at him, recognizing him as the young villager who brought the news.

Tao Fen looked helpless, "See, no matter how I explain, they won’t listen."

Tang Xiaobai scrutinized him for a moment, then turned to Chen Xiaolian, "You’ve caught the wrong person. He’s not a bandit accomplice."

The young news-bringing villager standing beside Chen Xiaolian changed his expression upon hearing this, gruffly saying, "How do you know he’s not? Unless you’re with him too—"

Before he finished speaking, the news-bringing boy flew backward.

Li Mu retracted his long whip, looping it around his arm, and glanced at Tao Fen on the ground, "Still not getting up?"

Tao Fen was momentarily stunned, then sprang up like a carp, shrugging his shoulders a few times, moving his hands behind him, and the ropes slipped off quietly.

"If he were an accomplice of bandits, you wouldn’t be able to catch him," Tang Xiaobai said.

This village was already near the border, occupied by the Turkic people for a year, so there weren’t many able-bodied men around.

Either they were over fifty, or merely half-grown boys; though they looked fierce, their combat ability couldn’t match someone like Tao Fen who practiced martial arts.

"Who... who are you people?" Chen Xiaolian asked shakily, her watery eyes glancing at Tang Xiaobai, then at Li Mu.

Looking at Li Mu, her expression was both fearful and pitiful, making one feel sorry for her.

But Li Mu didn’t spare her even a sidelong glance.

He was born noble, used to having questions answered for him, not the other way around.

Tang Xiaobai pursed her lips, ignoring her as well, turning to ask Tao Fen, "They say you fell behind and were caught up. Did you encounter that bandit gang?"

Tao Fen indeed encountered them.

But being new, there was no "bandit" label on the bandits’ faces, so they just brushed past each other.

That mere brush of shoulders was seen by the villagers, leading to the misunderstanding that he was a trailing bandit.

"Don’t you think, that the villagers’ misunderstanding is too hasty?"