Chapter 16

Not only did the Head Boss agree to Liang Ji’s request, but he also directly vacated this room, leaving Liang Ji and me alone here to “express our mutual feelings.”

Once he left, the entire room emptied out. Neither Liang Ji nor I spoke; the atmosphere was quiet to an eerie degree.

Finally, Liang Ji broke the silence. “I apologize for the offense. If I didn’t do this, he would have taken you tonight…”

“I understand. It was just an emergency measure.”

Silence fell again. I stretched my arms and legs, unable to stand the bizarre atmosphere, and asked him, “How did you end up getting kidnapped? Weren’t you going to Yannan to find the divine doctor?”

I regretted the words as soon as they left my mouth. Yannan wasn’t far from Mount Yan. It wasn’t surprising that he ran into trouble and got abducted.

“Did you find the divine doctor?”

He nodded, then shook his head, revealing a look of disappointment. “Just a charlatan.”

I looked at him sympathetically. Failing to find the person he wanted to meet and getting kidnapped by bandits—what rotten luck.

“Liang Ji,” I called out to him. As he looked over, I lowered my head and touched the tiger skin beneath my hand. “Did you give the dagger I gave you to someone else?”

Because of that dagger, I had thought something happened to him and almost blew my cover.

But nothing had happened to him; the dagger was just in someone else’s hands, which made me even angrier.

“It’s here.”

He pulled it out from his robes. The dagger lay quietly on his palm. I felt my eyes light up, the gloominess instantly vanishing into thin air.

“How did I see a bandit holding an identical one?”

“When I was first kidnapped, it was indeed snatched away. Later, after I gained their trust, I asked for it back. But he couldn’t bear to part with it, so he had a craftsman forge an identical one for his own use.”

I nodded, concealing my inner joy, and teasingly asked him, “How do you manage to thrive in every bandit lair you end up in?”

“I am a doctor, and they need doctors too.”

“It’s not like Mount Yan doesn’t have other doctors. Why does he trust you so much?”

He thought about it and touched his own face. “Perhaps it’s because I have a trustworthy face.”

He said it as a joke, but hearing it, I actually agreed. Looking at that highly affable face of his, who would have thought he was cruel enough to make me drink Coptis root soup for so long? Truly, one cannot judge a book by its cover.

The past was unbearable to recall.

He went outside to take a look, closed the door, and shared some of the observations he had made over the past days. I memorized them one by one. With Liang Ji there, they felt much more at ease with me and didn’t specifically assign anyone to watch me. I managed to scout out the terrain and defense points thoroughly. As the wedding date approached, the stronghold was decorated with lanterns and festoons. The Head Boss even arranged for someone to escort Liang Ji and me to the town to buy supplies.

I spotted Ji Wenmu disguised as an old man and slipped the prepared intelligence into his stall. He asked in a low voice, “You’re getting married?”

The news had already spread this far?

While surprised, I nodded, keeping an eye on the bandits behind me. Liang Ji drew their attention away, and I held up three fingers to Ji Wenmu.

Three days later, Liang Ji and I held our grand wedding in the mountain stronghold.

I thought I’d never have this chance in my life, yet because of bandit-suppression campaigns, I had ended up putting on a wedding dress twice.

Ji Wenmu suddenly grabbed me, a storm seeming to brew in his eyes. His voice was extremely low. “Since we know their internal situation, you don’t need to go back. It’s too dangerous to stay there.”

I looked back. Liang Ji had drawn the bandits a bit further away. Only when I was sure they hadn’t noticed did I relax and quickly say,
“We agreed to coordinate from the inside and outside…”

“We didn’t agree that you were going to marry him.”

“Forced by circumstances, it’s just a fake marriage. What’s there to be so petty about?”

I shook off his hand, worried he’d act on impulse. I grabbed a random item from his stall and paid for it.

“Have you fallen for him?”

My movements paused, just as the bandit behind me called out, “Sister-in-law, are you done picking?”

“Done, I’m done.”

Holding the item, I hurried back, my heart suddenly a tangled mess.

Because I realized… I actually didn’t want to deny it.