A pure heart in a jade pot

Chapter 133

Mo Yan said angrily, "So the princess is in a very dangerous situation now, and we must find her as soon as possible."

"How can we find her if we don't even know where she is?"

"That's why we're looking!" Mo Yan was furious. "If it were your princess or your prince who went missing today, I don't believe you would still be standing here saying such things."

Author's Note: Off to watch the Olympics!

Chapter Sixty-Five

“You’re mistaken, young lady!” Atuo’s voice rose as well. “We are all guards, and we should follow the orders of our superiors. The situation is unclear, and even the princess is not here. How can we make decisions on our own?”

"you……"

Mo Yan gritted her teeth. Having said all that, and knowing that she couldn't command them in terms of status and rank, she didn't want to say anything more to them.

“Returning to the main camp is indeed too slow, and the round trip takes too long,” another Liao man said. “We should find His Highness first and await his instructions.”

Upon hearing this, the Song guards remained silent, exchanged glances, then cut down thick branches nearby, poured oil onto strips of cloth, wrapped them around the branches, and started a fire.

Mo Yan silently accepted the torch handed to her by one of them. They quickly assigned directions, but because there were only six of them, there was little room for deliberation. They split into pairs, and Mo Yan volunteered to go alone. So the group went in four different directions.

The Liao people who were still standing looked at each other in bewilderment as the Song people silently departed, seemingly never expecting these usually polite and refined people to be so fearless. After a while, Atuo also mounted his horse: "Let's go, let's go find His Highness."

The four Liao men from the Iron Cavalry Battalion remained still. After discussing for a moment, they said to Atuo, "We were ordered to protect the Song princess. Now that she has gone missing, we also bear responsibility. You go and report this to His Highness. We have decided to continue searching for the Song princess."

"That's fine then." Atuo nodded. "Just be careful yourselves." With that, the two groups parted ways and disappeared into the night.

After walking alone through the dense forest for a while, and looking back, she could no longer see any other firelight, and a sense of fear began to creep into Mo Yan's heart. Although she spent her days roaming the mountains at home, she had only ever encountered pheasants and ducks at most, unlike here, where jackals, wolves, tigers, and leopards roamed freely. She had been too reckless earlier, thinking that the more people there were, the greater the chance of finding the princess, but she hadn't considered that if she couldn't even protect herself, how could she possibly search for someone else?

A few wolf howls echoed from afar, startling her so much that her hand holding the torch went limp before she hurriedly gripped it tightly again. She had heard wolf howls several nights before, but then there were many people around and campfires burning, so she hadn't felt afraid. Now, walking alone in the forest, she cried out, "Princess...Princess...answer me if you're there." Mo Yan's eyes widened, trying desperately to discern something in the darkness.

Silence reigned.

Fearing that Zhao Yu might faint and not be able to hear her, Mo Yan dismounted and walked slowly forward, while using torches to illuminate the surroundings.

Even the brightest torches were only so-so in the dark forest. After walking for a while, she still couldn't find any trace of Zhao Yu. They reached a mountain hollow, where the horse snorted uncomfortably and kicked its front hooves restlessly, seemingly unwilling to go any further. No matter how much Mo Yansheng pulled and dragged it, it refused to move.

"Sweetie, I'll find you something delicious to eat after dawn. Let's walk a little further, maybe we'll find the princess soon." Unable to pull it, Mo Yan tried to persuade it gently.

The horse remained unmoved, instead retreating even further, dragging Mo Yan backward. Caught between holding the torch and pulling the horse, Mo Yan was in a frantic state. Just then, the previously bright flame suddenly dimmed rapidly and went out before she could even react.

A slight, eerie breeze swept through the forest, carrying with it the dampness. Mo Yan seemed startled, frozen in the sudden, strange darkness, not daring to move a muscle except for her eyes.

After a while, when nothing happened, she finally breathed a sigh of relief, loosened the reins, and took out a flint from her bosom, trying to light it with a "click-click-click" sound. For some reason, she couldn't light it after several tries, which only made her more nervous.

She was getting impatient, unable to start the fire, when she suddenly heard something rustle in the darkness ahead. Without thinking, she quickly drew her silver sword from her waist...

"With that piece of junk, what do you think you can stop?" A cold, mocking voice came from the depths of darkness.

It is a person, and a living one at that.

Having confirmed these two points, Mo Yan breathed a sigh of relief and didn't pay any attention to what he was saying.

A person slowly emerged from the darkness, and she could see his face clearly by the faint moonlight falling through the gaps in the trees—Yelü Pusa Nu.

"How did you get here?" she asked in surprise.

“That’s a question I should be asking,” Yelü Pusa Nu said coldly. “Aren’t you the maid of that Song princess? How did you end up here? Do you know what’s ahead?”

"My princess is missing, and I'm looking for her," Mo Yan said truthfully, then casually asked, "Have you seen her?"

Yelü Pusa Nu's eyes flashed with a strange light: "Wasn't the princess with His Highness? How could she get lost?"

"It's a long story, but to put it simply, the tiger startled the horse, and the horse ran away carrying the princess, so the princess was lost." Mo Yan was also a little dejected after searching for so long. "We still haven't found her, and we don't know if the princess fell off the mountain."

Yelü Pusa Nu remained silent for a moment, then took a few steps back and disappeared without a trace. After about the time it takes for an incense stick to burn, he returned, holding a broken saddle that he had picked up from somewhere, and handed it to Mo Yan.

Is that her saddle?

Mo Yan's heart tightened, and she quickly took it in her hand. Although it was damaged, she still remembered the leather pattern on the saddle, which was the same saddle Zhao Yu had used.

“Princess…Princess…” She could feel the damage to the saddle from wild animals, and she stammered, unable to speak.

His voice, cold and unchanging for millennia, sounded remarkably calm at this moment: "The horse is dead, it's just ahead."

"Dead..."

Assuming that Zhao Yu had also met with misfortune, Mo Yan was stunned for a moment, then tears streamed down her face, "It's all my fault, Princess, Princess..." She cried louder and louder, making Yelü Pusa Nu frown.

"A horse died, is it really necessary for you to cry like this?" Unable to bear it any longer, he spoke up to stop her tears.

"...You said the princess, the princess she..." Mo Yan was already sobbing uncontrollably.

"I mean the princess's horse is dead!"

Yelü Pusa Nu impatiently repeated it again.

Mo Yan wiped away her tears and widened her eyes: "Huh? Then...the princess is alright?"

"How should I know? I didn't see her."

Even so, Mo Yan still saw a glimmer of hope and was about to rush forward: "So that means the princess is very likely nearby?"

Yelü Pusa Nu grabbed her: "She won't be up there. I just came from that side. There are no footprints around the horse's carcass. She was probably thrown off by the horse a long time ago."

Upon hearing the word "corpse," Mo Yan's face paled slightly, but she still insisted, "I have to go and see; maybe there are some clues."

Yelü Pusa Nu had no objection. He stepped aside slightly to let her pass, but he himself remained standing still.