Mercenary Princess - Chapter 61
"Insolence!" A furious shout suddenly came from behind the young master. Almost in the blink of an eye, a burly man rushed in front of Rongyue and lifted her up from the ground like a chick: "You audacious madman, how dare you speak disrespectfully to the young master! Do you know..."
"Sha Ye! Step back!" The young master, with a stern face, shouted, stopping the burly guard from speaking.
"But young master..."
"Step back!"
"Yes, young master." Reluctantly releasing Rongyue, he glared at her with his bull-like eyes, giving her a fierce warning look, before pacing back behind the young master.
"Husband! Husband, are you alright?" Yu Yan rushed to Rong Yue's side in a panic, looking Rong Yue up and down anxiously.
Shaking her head and chuckling, Rongyue indicated that she was alright. Straightening her slightly wrinkled long robe, Rongyue sighed with a smile, "Looks like someone's gotten angry out of embarrassment!"
Upon hearing this, the young man smiled, though the smile was somewhat sinister: "Indeed, you have provoked my anger! However, as you said, presenting a fake jade to a beauty is rather impolite... How about this, in two days it will be Yangcheng's annual archery competition, and I have learned by chance that this year's winner will receive a piece of jade in addition to a thousand taels of gold! Hehe, what a coincidence, this jade is none other than Phoenix Jade! I wonder if I will win the prize today and present it to the beauty?"
Rongyue chuckled, "Since you have such refined tastes, then I cannot very well refuse your peculiar hobby, can I?"
Seemingly unperturbed by Rongyue's sarcastic tone, the young master slapped his left palm against his right, smiling as he said, "Since you don't object, then this matter is settled! In two days, I will surely win the jade and take the beauty home! I hope you won't renege on your promise then!"
Something seemed off about his words, and Rongyue asked suspiciously, "Reneging on a debt? Reneging on what debt? And winning the heart of a beauty? Winning the heart of what beauty?"
His handsome face darkened: "Don't play dumb with me! Kid, are you having second thoughts? But a promise is a promise, and it's too late to back out now!"
She felt a tightness in her chest: "Can you please explain yourself clearly! I really don't understand what you're saying! I promised? What did I promise? This is all nonsense!"
His deep eyes scrutinized Rongyue's displeased expression. Seeing that she didn't seem to be pretending, he hesitated and asked, "Aren't you a citizen of our country?"
Rongyue was taken aback by the sudden question. After a long while, she composed herself and said, "Uh... my husband and I are indeed not from Nancha Kingdom. We wandered here from a small border country..."
"No wonder!" A mysterious smile crept onto his face again. He opened his folding fan, paced around Rongyue, and then stroked his fair chin, seemingly deep in thought. "What should we do? The customs of our Nancha Kingdom are different from other countries. Here, there are no arranged marriages or matchmakers. Men and women pledge their love with jade! They search for pearls and jade by the sea and borrow golden needles to embroider mandarin ducks! When a man meets a woman he admires, he can present her with a beautiful jade. If the woman is unmarried, then the woman who accepts the jade becomes the man's wife. If the woman is already married, then as long as he gets the husband's approval, the man who gave the jade can still win her heart! Although you are from another country, you have now entered our Nancha Kingdom. Logically, you should follow our customs... Sigh, what should we do? This is truly a headache!"
Turning her face away from the pretentious man, Rongyue's heart was churning with turmoil! She struggled to process this shocking news, and now she was filled with unbearable regret!
Why did she reply that way when he asked for the jade? She should have shouted back righteously – whoever wants your worthless jade can have it! We, husband and wife, don't want it and don't care for it!
She regretted it! She wanted to take it back! Especially when she saw Yu Yan's pale face, she wanted to deny her promise!
However, just as she was about to open her mouth and deny everything, she was shocked to find that they were now surrounded by a dense crowd of onlookers...
"No matter where they're from, once they enter the Southern Kingdom, they have to abide by our country's rules!"
"That's right, using jade to pledge love is a rule passed down for thousands of years. How can we break this rule for a foreigner!"
"Once that young master obtains the Phoenix Jade, this beauty will belong to him!"
"That's right! Since her husband has already promised in person, she'll be looking for someone else once she gets the jade!"
"Actually, I think following that young master is much better than following that pedantic boy! Look at that young master, not only is he handsome, but just his luxurious and elegant clothes...tsk tsk, he must be from a very wealthy family! Following him, I won't have to worry about food, drink, clothing, or shelter, how wonderful!"
"Alas, why am I not so fortunate..."
...
Taking a deep breath, Rongyue knew she was in a bind! Gritting her teeth, Rongyue steeled her resolve, "Where will the archery competition be held in two days?"
The smile on his lips paused for a moment, then the young man burst into laughter: "What, you want to compete with me for the championship? Haha, you? That's laughable..."
"Excuse me, please reply first before you smile!"
The laughter abruptly stopped. The fan bone lifted Rongyue's chin: "Two days later, Jiuqu Taimen East Street."
With one hand, he brushed aside the fan ribs: "Two days from now, see you there!" He pulled Yu Yan along, and the two of them pushed through the crowd, gradually disappearing into the golden sunlight…
Gazing at Rongyue's petite and slender back, a faint smile flickered in his tormented eyes: "This lad certainly has guts!" He liked people with backbone! However, he was quite curious to see what he would be like two days later, after he had missed his chance with the beauty! Would he still be as calm and fearless as he was today? Heh, he couldn't wait any longer!
After the crowd dispersed, he pulled off the silk sachet hanging from his waist and handed it to the guard behind him. He whispered in his ear, "Give this to Luo Gui, the magistrate of Yangcheng County, and tell him to add this to this year's archery competition prizes! Remember, tell him not to make a fuss about it! Go and come back quickly!"
"Understood!"
Volume Two: The Resolute Heroines' Chronicle, Chapter Four: The Archery Competition (Part One)
Two days later, on Jiuqutaimen East Street.
On the archery field, drums thundered and shouts echoed!
Outside the stadium, a sea of people stretched as far as the eye could see—a dense, dark mass of people! The festive-loving people of Yangcheng wouldn't miss this once-a-year event. Early in the morning, just as dawn was breaking, large numbers of people donned their traditional festival attire, hastily dressed, and then, with their wives and children, flocked to the stadium, hoping to arrive early and secure a good vantage point… In an instant, the entire city of Yangcheng was deserted…
After finishing her warm-up exercises, Rongyue stretched her wrists and ankles, took a breath, and relaxed her tense muscles. With a mixture of curiosity and bewilderment, she glanced again out of the corner of her eye at the man standing to her left, who was trying to compete with her for the "wife".
Frankly, Rongyue strongly suspected that she wasn't standing on an archery range, but on a battlefield! He was clad in silver armor, complete with helmet, knee pads, arm guards, leg guards, and boots—all fully equipped! Bathed in golden sunlight, the silver armor shimmered with golden halos, dazzling the eye! At first glance, holding a longbow and carrying a quiver, standing in the gentle sunlight, he resembled a war god, tall and imposing, exuding an unapproachable aura of nobility. In any other setting, Rongyue would have admired this striking man. But now, as his opponent, facing such a fully armed man, Rongyue couldn't help but feel a little uneasy—was he dressed like this to deal with her?
As Rongyue secretly observed him, he, too, smiled, leisurely watching her. His coarse black clothes, far from making him appear vulgar, actually accentuated a touch of heroic spirit! A red strip of cloth was tied across his fair forehead, spanning his forehead and knotted at the back of his head, the rest hanging down naturally, fluttering gently in the breeze. What intrigued him was the strange writing on the cloth in thick ink, its folds and twists resembling neither words nor images—truly bizarre! And Rongyue's recent warm-up exercises, in his eyes, both amused and intriguing…
He strode over and pointed a finger at Rongyue's forehead: "What is this drawing?"
She rolled her almond-shaped eyes in annoyance. "This isn't a painting! This is writing, okay! It's writing!"
"A character?" He looked closely at Rongyue's forehead and chuckled softly. "This can be called a character?"
He nearly ground his teeth to powder! These ignorant ancient people from another time dared to insult five thousand years of Chinese civilization! Damn it! Your earthworm-like characters aren't even characters!
She glared at him, then turned her head away angrily to watch the competition. When they first entered the arena, there were about three hundred archers participating. As soon as they arrived, the archers were divided into more than thirty groups of ten by the organizers. And, incredibly, Rongyue and that man were assigned to the same group—the twentieth group!
At this moment, the first round of selections is underway on the field. Groups are proceeding one by one, each group standing a hundred meters away from the target. However, according to the rules, the target is not the target itself, but a ring about ten meters in front of it. There are ten rings in total, arranged in descending order of size, one meter apart. The last ring, only about the width of a thumb, is just inches from the bullseye of the target! Each contestant has three arrows, meaning each person has three chances. The preliminary selection is relatively lenient; as long as one of the three arrows hits three of the ten rings, they can advance to the second round! Even so, by the time it's almost Rongyue's group's turn, more than half of the three hundred-plus contestants have already been eliminated!
For Rongyue, a newcomer, the archery competition was completely unclear—what it entailed, how it was conducted, and even how many rounds it consisted of! Therefore, before arriving at the competition venue, she was constantly on edge, fearing that the event would be one she wasn't good at, causing her to lose and miss out on the Phoenix Jade! But when she was informed of the event for this round, her anxiety subsided considerably. Shooting rings? Ha! Even at nine years old, she had disdained such a childish and low-level game! If she wasn't mistaken, the following rounds would likely be similar to the first round, probably just changing the requirement from shooting three rings to shooting seven, eight, or ten—in the old-fashioned way of shooting the bullseye! If that were the case, the Phoenix Jade would undoubtedly be hers!
Just then, a man in the nineteenth group, wearing a blue collar, hit the seven rings with his second shot, and cheers and shouts of approval erupted from the crowd outside the arena...