Rain-soaked bamboo branches bent under the weight, droplets falling from the leaf tips.
The brick path ran close beside the river. Xiao Yi hid in the grass by the bank, her clothes drenched through by the rain, yet she did not dare move. Her wet hair felt slightly heavy. Fortunately, no mosquitoes crawled onto her during the rain.
She was terrified.
First, she had witnessed a waterfall turn into a snake. Then a massive flood dragon had appeared. What excited her most was the handsome man in red transforming into a Fire Phoenix—a phoenix that had existed only in ancient poetry.
The sole fiery red in that dim world.
But the beast claw descending from the black clouds shattered her dreams. She watched helplessly as the Fire Phoenix fell, plunging into the mud and becoming stained by the mortal world...
She had lain in the grass for a long time. Judging by the sky, it should have been evening.
She was almost certain that Princess Yu had truly forgotten her. Perhaps the other woman had never cared about her at all.
All sorts of emotions churned over and over in her mind. The rain continued to fall. Desperate and lost, Xiao Yi had no idea where to go next. A weak woman unfamiliar with the land, unable to prove her identity and without a Travel Permit—one could easily imagine that her fate would not end well.
The authorities had two ways of dealing with strangers.
If they could not defeat them, they turned a blind eye. If they could, they captured them and sold them.
Suddenly, while Xiao Yi was lost in wild thoughts, she felt a branch moving. When she had lain down, she had pinned the branch beneath herself. She did not know who was tugging hard on