Amid orderly and powerful footsteps, Ran Min rode near Chen Rong’s carriage and softly chuckled to her: “Little miss, you’ve let me hold and kiss you. Just marry me, eh?”
Chen Rong’s muffled voice came out as a low gnarl: “In your dreams.”
At her words, the soldiers laughed again.
Ran Min also laughed, saying: “Alright, I won’t tease you anymore.”
He went to the front of the queue, recovered his smile and demanded: “Any accomplices?”
The forbidding-looking Li Wei stepped out, clasped his hands and replied: “There are two, sir. They all gave the same answers when we questioned them.”
Ran Min nodded. “Kill them off.”
Li Wei hedged. “General, why don’t we tie them up and hand them to the Nan’yang nobles? That way, they’ll stop pointing their fingers at you.”
“I am a man,” Ran Min answered with a hardened expression. “Why must I care about the words of scoundrels? Besides, they’ll find excuses even if we hand them over.”
Li Wei mulled over his words, nodded, and spoke no more.
After half an hour of travel, Nan’yang was already in sight.
Chen Rong’s icy voice sounded from the carriage at this time: “General Ran, we’ve arrived in Nan’yang. Please allow me to leave ahead.”
Ran Min kept quiet. He turned and stared at the fluttering curtain and the vague silhouette behind it. At length, he smiled and said, “Even if you’re angry with me, you don’t have to speak to me in this tone.”
Replying him was Chen Rong’s emphatic harrumph.
Amused, Ran Min laughed and waved. “Go on, then.”
Chen Rong did not thanked him but instead shouted at her driver: “Drive a little faster.”
“Aye.”
Stunned by the intimacy between his mistress and Ran Min, the poor boy only snapped awake at this time. He complied in a trance and drove the carriage forward.
Ran Min laughed out loud again as he watched Chen Rong’s carriage going away.
Chen Rong’s carriage blitzed through as it scattered smoke and dust into the air. By the time they were two miles from reaching the city gate, she told the driver to stop by a lake. They started again only after they had washed the blood stains from the carriage and horses.
Soon after they continued, smoke was seen billowing from the south. Thousands of men on horseback were galloping forth. Chen Rong saw two flying flags amid that smoke; one read “Min”, the other read “Sun”. Sun Yan had brought his troop to welcome Ran Min’s return.