Chapter 6: Rescue Beauty (Part 2)

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  Zhu Yinglong patted Lu Haotian's shoulder and said, "General Lu, you reminded me that something big must have happened in Houjin. We can't linger here anymore, we need to hurry up to Ningyuan City."

  Lu Haotian was also very happy. In the Shenji Camp in Beijing, no one had ever taken his words seriously before. He thought he would just continue to be mediocre, but unexpectedly, his superior eliminated dissenting voices and kicked out those who didn't get along with them, including some troublemakers in the military, to Xinyue Wangye. Working under Xinyue Wangye was a bit tiring, but it was much more comfortable than before. Xinyue Wangye also didn't put on airs around them. The brothers who followed him out initially planned to sneak away midway, but now they all had one thought in mind: following Xinyue Wangye was better than before. They earned more money and didn't have to look at others' faces to survive. So from Lu Haotian down, everyone had the heart to follow Xinyue Wangye. Now Xinyue Wangye humbly accepted their opinions, and they also had a sense of loyalty, willing to die for him as if he were a knowledgeable friend.

  The sky had darkened, Zhu Yinglong ordered to set up camp, and at the same time sent a few people out in all directions to search around, with safety being the top priority.

  They arrived at the camp, but found that Xiong Hu was not there. This made Xiong Tingbi panic and Zhu Yinglong extremely anxious. All along the way, Xiong Hu had been taking care of Sun Shenxing, who was on a hunger strike. But when everyone asked Sun Shenxing where Xiong Hu had gone, he said he didn't know either. He hadn't eaten or drunk anything for days, and was only forced to drink some meat soup every day, still in an unconscious state, dazed from hunger. How would he have known that Xiong Hu had slipped away from his side?

  "Master, what should we do?" Shen Xi was the most flustered and kept asking.

  What to do, leave ten people and Shen Xi to guard the camp, the rest of more than 40 people are divided into three directions to find, it is impossible to walk in front of everyone, Xiong Tingyi is on the left, Lu Haotian is on the right, Zhu Yinglong leads people in the middle, dispersing to search for the road that has just been walked.

  "Li Niang, Li Niang..." The cries echoed far and wide in the desolate mountains and wilderness. Three search parties had been searching until they returned to where bloodstains and signs of a struggle were first found, but still couldn't find her. Everyone remembered that at that time Li Niang was still there, but afterwards it seemed like she vanished into thin air.

  "What should we do, Prince Wang? The person is still nowhere to be found." Lu Haotian had almost screamed his lungs out, but there was not a single response.

  Everyone was exhausted, and the commotion just now had consumed their last bit of energy. Zhu Yinglong's heart was also filled with distress. They had searched all the places they should have, but there was no sign of anyone. What to do? Including Xiong Tingyi, everyone looked at Zhu Yinglong, waiting for him to make a decision.

  Because of his own negligence, he had already hurt Xiong Hu once. If he were to abandon her again, Zhu Yinglong would never forgive himself for the rest of his life. The reason was that he really liked Xiong Hu, so he made a decisive decision: "Commander Lu, take your men back first. I and General Xiong will continue searching. We'll definitely be back before dawn."

  "Prince Wang, I'll stay behind and accompany you in finding Miss Xiong. Let them go back on their own." Lu Haotian opposed.

  Zhu Yinglong glared at Lu Haotian and said, "The three of us are not here, what if something special happens and who will command you? You take the men back for me!"

  "Yes, Your Highness!" Lu Haotian led his men back to the camp along the same route.

  "Lianiang, where are you?" Zhu Yinglong and Xiong Tingyi repeated this sentence, one after the other, shouting as they searched along the same route.

  Actually, Xiong Hu wasn't deaf, but she had already fallen asleep at that time. It turned out that when she arrived at the first fighting location, she followed the bloodstains and rushed to the second location where a large amount of blood was found before the crowd. When she observed the direction of the bloodstains, she suddenly heard a cry for help, so she went towards the sound. Who knew that she saw a bloody scene? Four Mongolian men, three were already dead, and one was about to die. The cry for help came from a clump of grass, so Xiong Hu parted the grass, but unexpectedly found a large hole under the grass. A beautifully dressed girl with blood all over her face shouted in a language that she could barely understand. She was shouting "save me" in Manchu, fortunately, her father had taught her a few commonly used Manchu phrases, otherwise, she really wouldn't have known someone was crying for help.

  Xiong Hu was just about to find a rope to go down and rescue the person, but she never expected that a person who was on the verge of death and almost out of breath would suddenly take advantage of her carelessness, struggle to get up from behind her, and rush towards herself with his body. As a result, the two of them also fell into the deep pit together. The Mongolian man who pushed Xiong Hu down instantly became a pile of flesh, and the two women were trapped in the deep pit and couldn't get out.

  The girl in the cave thought she was saved, but then realized that her savior was also trapped with her deep inside the cave. Overwhelmed with sorrow, she couldn't help but burst into tears. This was a desolate mountain wilderness, where nobody ever passed by. By the time someone discovered this cave, they would probably have turned into two piles of white bones.

  Xiong Hu's comfort did little to console the girl, possibly due to the language barrier. Before long, she fell asleep, still crying.

  At first, Xiong Hu still shouted for help from time to time, but as the sun set, the cave grew colder and colder, especially with a dead body beside her. Although Xiong Hu had a lighter on her, there was no tinder in the cave, making it useless. The Mongolian man's clothes had been stripped off and worn by the two women, but they had no food to replenish their energy, so they were still freezing. As time went on, they became colder and colder, until they didn't even have the strength to speak.

  Xiong Hu was found here relying on his voice and bloodstains. If it were daytime, Zhu Yinglong and others might have been able to find him without much effort, but at night it was extremely difficult. So they could only search forward step by step based on their impression, while constantly shouting, hoping to hear Xiong Hu's voice.

  Xiong Hu and the stranded girl hugged each other tightly. Their lips had turned purple, frozen to the point of no return, with only a hint of warmth left in their hearts. If they were discovered in this cave by dawn, it was likely that only two corpses would be found!

  "Lianiang, where are you?" Zhu Yinglong cried out in sorrow, almost exhausting his last bit of strength.

  Still no response, Zhu Yinglong was desperate. He regretted that he shouldn't have been distracted at that time and regretted not explaining his intentions immediately!

  "Prince, you've done your best, let's go back." Xiong Tingbi couldn't help but shed tears, without this daughter and the new life of her father, unable to find his daughter, how could he not be heartbroken.

  "King, King Ye, Li, Li Niang is here!" The intermittent voice brought by the bleak cold wind also brought hope to Zhu Yinglong and Xiong Tingyi.

  "Over there!" Chu Yinglong and Xiong Tingyu suddenly burst forth with infinite power, rushing in the direction of the sound.

  When he arrived at the place where the sound was coming from, he only found three corpses that had frozen into ice blocks, without any sign of Xiong Hu. The two of them became anxious, as they were clearly just here, but couldn't find him anywhere. So the two of them continued to shout out loud in the place where the sound came from.

  Fortunately, Xiong Hu still had a last bit of strength left, allowing Zhu Yinglong to discover the pit and rescue the two women from it.

  They stripped the clothes off three corpses, gathered some dry branches and lit a fire to warm themselves up. At this time, they didn't care about male-female etiquette anymore. Xiong Tingyi hugged Xiong Hu, while Zhu Yinglong hugged the Manchu girl who had fallen into trouble. First, he used his own body heat to help them regain consciousness, then warmed them by the fire for a while before taking them back to the camp.

  Xiong Tingbi and Xiong Hu were not related, they were father and daughter, so there was no awkwardness. But Zhu Yinglong was different, he didn't know the girl in his arms at all. Although what he did was to save her life, if she pursued it, a woman's chastity wasn't something to be trifled with. However, looking at the other party, she seemed to be a Manchu woman, so maybe it would be better, not like the women of the Central Plains who attached great importance to so-called chastity. Zhu Yinglong thought so, could he just let a girl freeze to death? This was something Zhu Yinglong couldn't do!