"It's over! They can't stop it! The narrow stone bridge is only five paces ahead, and beneath it is a cold lake two zhang deep. If horse and rider crash into it, they're certain to die!"
Lin Wan'er collapsed into her chair in terror, covered her face with both hands, and screamed, "Ling'er-!!"
In the distant pavilion beneath the parasol tree, Su Wanqing, the heir's wife, who had been quietly reading, abruptly rose, her cool phoenix eyes narrowing in an instant.
Only now did Xiao Yuxuan, the heir, who had been boasting and drinking tea with his disreputable friends nearby, frantically fling away his teacup and leap up. His face deathly pale, he bawled at the top of his lungs, "Ling'er?! Hold on tight, Ling'er! Are you useless corpses only good for eating?! Hurry up and cut that beast down for me!!"
His shouting shook the heavens, yet his own unsteady legs seemed nailed to the spot. He dared not move even half a step forward!
Ten paces! Eight paces! Five paces!
The crazed horse swept along on a rank wind, about to crash headfirst into the narrow bridge lined with sharp stone railings!
Instructor Zhang's eyes nearly split with fury. He was still a full ten paces behind the horse's tail, utterly beyond reach!
At that desperate, hairbreadth moment, when everyone thought the Third Young Miss's fragrant soul would surely perish today-
Boom!
Without warning, a thin figure in ragged gray work clothes shot out from behind a stone table only five paces from the riding path, like an arrow loosed from a fully drawn bow!
It was Chen Xuan!
From the moment he heard the scrape of the bamboo spike, the blood and Qi of the Boulder Art and Eight Desolations Prison-Suppressing Yang Gang within him had already been poised to erupt through his meridians!
Others were thirty paces away and could not react in time, but he was only five short paces from the riding path!
Save her or not? What a stupid question. If the Third Young Miss falls to her death from a horse I led here, the First Madam won't even need to investigate the mastermind-she'll flay me alive this afternoon to bury with her! I have to go all in on this one. It's not just about staying alive; it's my ladder to the heavens, out of the stables and into wealth and glory!
Thoughts flashed like lightning through Chen Xuan's mind. The muscles beneath his trouser legs suddenly swelled, and the savage blood and Qi of early-stage Bright Force poured without reservation into his feet!
Crack!
The bluestone slab beneath his right foot instantly fractured into a fine spiderweb under that explosive force!
He covered two zhang in a single stride!
But at the last instant before he reached the crazed horse's forward flank, Chen Xuan caught the countless watching eyes in his peripheral vision. He forcibly checked his proper martial artist's landing stance and deliberately caught his left foot in the mud, pitching forward in a wretched, stumbling lunge-
How did he look anything like an expert trained in martial arts? He was plainly a witless servant scared out of his mind, throwing himself forward heedlessly on brute strength alone!
"Don't be afraid, Third Young Miss!! Your servant Chen Xuan is here to save you-!!"
Chen Xuan threw back his voice in a heart-rending howl of canine loyalty and, while airborne, seized the flailing black leather reins in a death grip!
His five fingers closed like an iron band!
"Stop-for me!!"
Chen Xuan roared inwardly. The thick blood and Qi of his minor-accomplishment Boulder Art mingled with the domineering fiery force of the Eight Desolations Prison-Suppressing Yang Gang deep within his dantian. Through the Laogong point in his palm, it surged into the reins like an invisible iron chain, rushing straight toward the iron bit in Treading Snow's mouth!
"Neigh-!"
Galloping wildly, Treading Snow felt as though a scorching boulder weighing a thousand jin had suddenly been stuffed into his mouth. A terrifying, utterly domineering force clamped tightly around his head. In pain, he reared his forelegs high again and charged onward, dragging Chen Xuan bodily along!
Screeeech-!
Chen Xuan clenched his teeth until they cracked. His feet drove into the gaps between the bluestone slabs like two cast-iron stakes, yet the thousand-jin crazed horse forcibly dragged him sliding along the stone path!
His ragged cloth soles scraped violently against the bluestone, instantly raising two streams of acrid blue smoke and a scorched smell!
One zhang! Two zhang!
Savage recoil battered Chen Xuan's meridians through his right arm. The rough black leather reins split the flesh of his palms, and blood streamed through his fingers!
Yet at the same time, under this terrifying pressure at the very limit between life and death, the two cultivation arts deep within his mind went into overdrive like barrels of gunpowder tossed into boiling oil, circulating and accelerating at an unprecedented speed:
[Under extreme external pressure, dual-art resonance efficiency has surged!] [Boulder Art: minor accomplishment (180/1000)...(240/1000)...(310/1000)!] [Eight Desolations Prison-Suppressing Yang Gang: initial mastery (195/500)...(230/500)...(265/500)!]
"Whoa-!! Get down!!"
Drawing on the savage surge of force within him, Chen Xuan's eyes turned bloodshot, and the veins in his neck bulged like coiling dragons. A deep roar like muffled thunder exploded from his chest as he gripped the reins with both hands, swung them down, and pressed!
Thud-!!
A deafening, muffled crash rang out!
With that brutal yank, charged with Yang Gang An Jin, he forcibly slammed both forehooves of the fierce horse Treading Snow, weighing nearly a thousand jin, back onto the ground. The hard bluestone slabs shattered on the spot!
Treading Snow panted violently, his black muscles spasming and trembling like chaff in a sieve. He barely slid another three paces forward with Chen Xuan-
One pace. Two paces. Three paces.
Creak!
The hooves came firmly to a halt on the line between life and death, three paces before the rear garden's narrow stone bridge! Another three chi forward lay the bottomless cold lake!
The entire place fell deathly silent; a falling pin could have been heard!
Chen Xuan knelt on one knee amid the broken slabs, both arms shaking violently from exhaustion. A thick layer of skin had been rubbed from his palms by the reins, and crimson blood ran down them, striking the bluestone drop by drop in a shocking sight.
He raised his sweat- and dust-covered face toward the rider, panting heavily, his voice as hoarse as broken bellows. "Hah... hah... Third Young Miss... the horse has stopped... you're safe now..."
On horseback, Xiao Ling'er's face was white as paper, her delicate body trembling like a fallen leaf in the autumn wind.
Her little snow-white hands clutched the pommel so tightly that her nails were nearly splitting. That wild, headlong gallop had almost jolted her three souls and seven spirits apart.
Hearing that hoarse reassurance, Xiao Ling'er lowered her head in a daze and immediately saw Chen Xuan's mangled, bloody hands, still gripping the reins like iron pincers without letting go.
"You... your hands..."
Her red lips parted slightly. She had barely uttered those words when the will to survive held so tightly in her chest abruptly scattered.
All her strength drained away in an instant. Her long legs, clamped tightly against the horse's belly, went limp, and she only had time to give a startled cry. "Ah-!"
She toppled stiffly off the side of the saddle toward the ground!
"Watch out, Third Young Miss!!"