Your Highness, Did You Miss Me? (Growing Up Arc)

Watching Zhou Ye make these arrangements, Wei Mingxiu felt deeply conflicted.

He did not understand why Zhou Ye wanted him to win the princess's favor.

Could it be that the Junior Preceptor wanted him to marry her?

But wouldn't that be exactly what Wei Zhao wanted, costing him his eligibility to compete for the throne?

Aside from these questions, Wei Mingxiu understood that what truly troubled him more was that he did not want to win the favor of any man or woman other than Zhou Ye.

Yet his Junior Preceptor had never realized it...

"Your Highness, why is your face as dark as your heart? Are you all right?" A-Nan asked with "concern" from beside him.

His words pulled Wei Mingxiu from his thoughts.

He was in a bad mood and unwilling to scold A-Nan again, so he simply tucked the letter into the leather pouch he carried, went forward, and told Lord Wu of the Censorate, who had come with him, to keep to the original itinerary and continue escorting the corrupt officials back to the capital.

Then he returned to A-Nan's side. "Come with me."

With that, he cracked his whip and rode toward the border.

"Hey! Your Highness, wait for me! You still haven't told me where we're going!"

No matter how bad a mood Wei Mingxiu was in, he would never let it interfere with important business.

Especially not Zhou Ye's orders.

This was because he trusted Zhou Ye absolutely.

He immediately took A-Nan with him, traveling day and night, and reached the official road just as the State of Chu's delegation was passing through Nanlu Town.

They arrived just as bandits launched a sneak attack on the delegation!

Dozens of longbows appeared from the woods, their arrows aimed straight at the delegation!

Arrows rained down from the sky, and an envoy traveling with the party hurriedly cried, "Bar the carriage doors and windows! Protect the princess!"

The carriage must have been reinforced beforehand, for it was much sturdier than an ordinary one.

But even though it stopped the arrows, the force of their impact could still be felt.

The State of Chu's third princess had only just come of age. She had never seen anything like this, and her face turned pale with fright. Her hand was sweating as she gripped her maid Xiaolian's.

"Don't be afraid, Princess!" Xiaolian was scared too, but she still comforted her princess. "Everything will be all right. His Highness the Crown Prince's people will keep us safe!"

But these bandits were clearly no ordinary men. When they saw that their arrows could not pierce the carriage, they drew their blades and charged out of the woods, attacking the delegation's guards.

Every slash followed a practiced form. Clearly, every one of them was highly skilled in martial arts and no ordinary opponent.

In no time, they had killed more than a dozen people.

Wei Mingxiu saw this from afar.

Still on horseback, he seized the black-and-gold longbow hanging beside his saddle.

It was the black iron bow Zhou Ye had specially commissioned for him and given him on his birthday.

With his inner force, he could use it to hit a willow leaf from a hundred paces.

Wei Mingxiu nocked an arrow, leaned back to keep himself steady, and then strained every muscle in his body.

His dark eyes were cold and sharp as a hawk's.

The next instant, the arrow left his hand. A sonic boom erupted as its metal tip tore through the air and, even from that distance, slammed through the chest of a bandit climbing onto the carriage!

It pinned him fast to the carriage door!

"Who is it?!"

The bandits were all stunned by the power of that arrow.

They looked up at Wei Mingxiu and A-Nan riding toward them from afar, and their pupils contracted.

"The black iron bow! It's Prince You! What's he doing here?"

The masked bandit in the lead recognized Wei Mingxiu's bow, and his face darkened. But a vicious expression soon appeared on it. "There are only two of them. Why don't we kill them both while we're at it?"

"That would clear an obstacle for that lord!"

The bandits deliberated for only an instant before resuming their slaughter of the delegation.

But by then, Wei Mingxiu and A-Nan had already ridden up to them.

A-Nan pushed off his horse's back and leaped down, slashing fiercely at a bandit's neck with the two shark-toothed long blades in his hands. Their fearsome serrations tore away half the bandit's neck, and blood sprayed across the boy's face.

He did not even blink, calling out, "Careful, assassin brothers! Your little brother is here to take your lives~"

As he plunged into the crowd, he was the very image of a smiling god of slaughter!

Compared with him, Wei Mingxiu was more like a cold-faced King of Hell. Killing intent filled his eyes, and every move was clean, decisive, and vicious to the extreme.

After all, he had survived far too many assassination attempts over the past five years.

When he faced these killers, nothing but cold indifference remained in his eyes.

He would not show them the slightest mercy.

Seeing how formidable the two of them were, the delegation seemed to glimpse hope. Their fighting spirit immediately rose, and before long, they had driven the bandits steadily back.

The masked man who had initially wanted to take Wei Mingxiu's life now realized just how strong Wei Mingxiu and A-Nan were.

After an expression of indecision crossed his face several times, he finally raised a hand and shouted, "Retreat!"

"I'll chase them!" A-Nan immediately made to mount his horse.

But Wei Mingxiu grabbed him by the back of his collar and pulled him down.

"Do not pursue a desperate enemy."

Wei Mingxiu said, "Our task is to keep the princess safe. If we leave and someone else attacks the delegation, our trip will have been for nothing."

A-Nan thought Wei Mingxiu had a point, but he still could not accept it.

He stamped his foot and said, "Judging by how well trained they were, they weren't ordinary bandits. If we could have caught one alive, we might at least have found out who was behind them."

Wei Mingxiu bent down, pried open a dead bandit's mouth, and pointed to a packet of poison hidden between his teeth.

"They're all death soldiers. There'd be no point in questioning them."

Only then did A-Nan give up entirely. He looked at Wei Mingxiu with a touch of genuine admiration.

After all, Wei Mingxiu was so clever and levelheaded that he was practically a monster.

Only when Junior Preceptor Zhou came up would he show a loss of control unlike his usual self.

"Young heroes, thank you both for saving our lives!" Lord Zheng, Zheng Feng, who led the State of Chu's delegation, stepped forward. He placed his right hand over the left side of his chest and gave Wei Mingxiu a salute in the State of Chu's fashion.

"There is no need for ceremony, Lord Zheng." Facing an outsider, Wei Mingxiu resumed his gentle, refined manner. "You are guests sent by the State of Chu on a mission to our Great Wei. As Great Wei's Prince You, I was passing through when I saw you being attacked by bandits. Naturally, I had to help."

"You are His Highness Prince You?" Hearing Wei Mingxiu identify himself, Zheng Feng's eyes lit up, and his manner grew even more respectful. "Your Highness, you are so young, yet so righteous and possessed of such skill. Great Wei is truly fortunate to have you!"

Wei Mingxiu narrowed his eyes slightly. It seemed to him that Lord Zheng of the State of Chu was praising him sincerely.

But that did not quite make sense.

After all, although Great Wei and the State of Chu did not fight as often as they did with the Hu People, their border was far from peaceful, and conflicts broke out every few days.

There were lives owed on both sides.

So Lord Zheng's attitude struck him as rather strange.

But before he could say anything more, A-Nan suddenly cried out in surprise beside him.

"Your Highness, are my eyes playing tricks on me?"

"Why does it look like those bandits from earlier have come back?"

"And they've been gagged and brought back under guard!"

Wei Mingxiu froze.

He looked up and saw a carriage and three flatbed carts approaching from afar. Two of the carts carried goods, while the third carried the bandits who had just fled. Every one of them was tightly bound and gagged, presumably to keep them from killing themselves.

Noticing this, Wei Mingxiu narrowed his eyes and put a hand on the long sword at his waist.

His gaze, however, fell on the man sitting on the carriage at the front.

The man wore a dark blue-green, wide-sleeved robe and a silver mask over the upper half of his face, with a sprig of foxtail grass dangling casually from his mouth.

When he reached them, he jumped down from the carriage with a flourish and approached Wei Mingxiu. Then he quietly lifted the half mask for the wary-faced youth alone to see.

It was Zhou Ye.

Smiling, he asked Wei Mingxiu, whose peach-blossom eyes had widened into round cat eyes in shock:

"Your Highness Prince You, it's been so long. Did you miss me?"

--

Hehe!

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