Not following the expected path? Reborn and unexpectedly married to a demon.

"They're just ahead, hurry!"

After waiting for a while, Chu Luo finally heard Chen Shu's panting, hoarse, and anxious voice.

She lifted her heavy eyelids and glanced at them. It wasn't a hallucination; they really had all arrived, much faster than she had expected.

She wondered if Chen Shu's actions could be considered an effort on her behalf.

Before they could even get close, Jin Wuchen impatiently picked up Chu Luo, leaped onto his horse, and quickly left the area.

"Chu Luo, don't fall asleep! If you do, I'll kill your guards!"

Seeing that she was about to fall into a deep sleep without any worries, Jin Wuchen threatened her with a life, knowing it would work.

Hearing this, Chu Luo perked up again: "They did nothing wrong, why are you killing innocent people indiscriminately?"

"They failed in their duty of protection, and neither will your girl Xingzhu nor anyone else escape."

"Don't... kill them, it's all my... fault, I... won't sleep, won't sleep, please let them go, I won't sleep." Chu Luo's consciousness was so blurred that she didn't know what she was saying.

All she knew was that if she fell asleep, this demon Jin Wuchen would kill innocent people.

After she finished reciting those words, she suddenly remembered that Chen Shu had once told her that if she was too sleepy, reciting poems would make her feel better.

She recalled the poem her mother had taught her to recite: "At the head of the Xunyang River, seeing off a guest at night, maple leaves and reeds rustle in the autumn breeze, the host dismounts, the guest remains on the boat..."

After reading it aloud, she repeated, "We can't sleep, if we sleep Jin Wuchen will kill them, but we can't sleep... It's so heartwarming."

Holding her in my arms was so warm and safe; it was really agonizing to stay awake.

For a moment, Jin Wuchen felt cruel upon hearing these words.

She finally couldn't stay awake any longer and fell asleep.

After a long sleep, Chu Luo was awakened by intermittent crying.

Chu Luo looked at Xing Zhu kneeling before the bed, her eyes as red as peaches.

"Hey, I'm not quite dead yet, why are you crying, Xingzhu?"

"Miss, you're awake! That's wonderful! Don't move, I'll go call Young Master Fei."

Xingzhu's alternating crying and laughing left Chu Luo momentarily speechless.

Before Xingzhu could run out to call out, Fei Zhiyou, who had heard the noise, rushed in like a gust of wind, asking, "Beauty, how are you? Is anything hurting?"

"No, I'm perfectly fine, I'm just still very sleepy."

Even so, Chu Luo was in a very low mood.

Before she woke up, she had another nightmare, a dream about everything that had happened in the past few days.

In her dream, she saw the horrific scene of corpses strewn across Shouyuan Village, and saw people using children as bait to catch fish. It was also the first time she had ever heard the word "fresh" used to describe children.

This absurd yet real event, because she failed to strike successfully on her first attempt, caused the tragedy in Shouyuan Village to occur sooner than expected.

Xingzhu looked at Chu Luo, who seemed listless, with great concern. "Young Master Fei, Miss has been sleeping for three days and three nights, but she still says she's tired and has no energy. Please take a good look at her again."

"It's already considered good. She lost too much blood. If your young master hadn't arrived in time to quickly treat her wounds, and thankfully her internal organs weren't damaged, the consequences would have been unimaginable."

Fei Zhiyou was terrified when he heard this. He thought she was just going on a normal trip and didn't send her any more guards.

If Jin Wuchen hadn't arrived in time, it's hard to say whether he would have been able to see Chu Luo alive.

Fei Zhiyou abandoned his usual playful demeanor and earnestly apologized, "My beauty, I'm sorry, it was my negligence that caused you to get hurt."

Chu Luo had never seen Fei Zhiyou so serious before, and was a little unaccustomed to it. "It's not your fault. It was my rash action that led everyone into this dangerous situation. If you blame yourself, I'll only feel more guilty."

Chu Luo kept reflecting on her own problems. She couldn't blame anyone else for this; it was because she hadn't thought things through and because she had doubts and distrusted Fei Zhiyou.

However, upon closer examination, there are many suspicious points in this matter, especially how Jin Wuchen suddenly appeared in Mianshui Town and went to save her.

Such a backward and impoverished little place, even if it has a dock, why would it need the dignified young master of the canal gang to personally come and inquire about it?

The assassin from the Canal Gang that she saw that night was probably not a coincidence; Jin Wuchen should have already arrived in Mianshui Town at that time.

Fei Zhiyou did not return after leaving the courtyard associated with Regent Feng Zhe that night.

Based on her time with Fei Zhiyou, she found that he had a very regular schedule and rarely stayed out all night or was out traveling.

The imperial court and the top scholar treated Fei Zhiyou with great respect. They didn't have the power to order him around at night, except for Jin Wuchen.

So when she asked about Jin Wuchen's whereabouts, he avoided the question. He already knew he was there, and the two of them were doing something unknown to others, one openly and one secretly.

Fei Zhiyou didn't ask some questions. He felt that Chu Luo's act of saving people wasn't a spur-of-the-moment thing. If it wasn't, why didn't she let him know and ask him for help? She must have become suspicious of him.

Fei Zhiyou watched as Chu Luo took the medicine, and only left after seeing that her pulse was stable.

After he left, Chu Luo sent Xing Zhu away and summoned the waiter to inquire about what had happened in Mianshui Town during the days she was unconscious.

"This imperial envoy was a man of action; he personally went into the village to investigate. But strangely, the corpse in Shouyuan Village, which hadn't been there long, decomposed rapidly on the day the envoy entered, as if it had been dead for a long time."

Chu Luo was astonished. They had arrived a day earlier and were perfectly fine, but Xu Zhuangyuan's group was only a day late. "How could this be?"

The waiter had no idea why, and he was curious too.

Is there anything else? Chu Luo wanted to know more.

The waiter, fearing he might break a taboo, quietly told Chu Luo...

"What's even stranger is that when the imperial envoy realized something was wrong and went into the village to investigate, a fire suddenly broke out in Shouyuan Village, almost burning the imperial envoy and his party alive."

"Have you found the arsonist?" Chu Luo had been asleep for three days and didn't know that this had happened again.

"There was no arsonist. Everyone says it's an evil spirit haunting people and demanding their lives. Otherwise, how could even the inn where the imperial envoy was staying have caught fire?"

"Did the imperial envoy encounter two major fires in just a few days?" Chu Luo exclaimed in astonishment.

"I wonder what sins the people of Shouyuan Village committed to offend Heaven, that they were punished by Heaven, suffering a miserable death and not being allowed to investigate."

Seeing his rambling, Chu Luo said, "Don't talk nonsense, or someone might come looking for you to argue with them tonight."

"It was my fault for speaking out of turn. Please, they must not come looking for me." The waiter bowed and kowtowed, begging the Bodhisattva for protection.

Chu Luo knew that Shouyuan Village was a man-made disaster, and those who wanted to kill the imperial envoy were naturally trying to cover up the truth.

Chu Luo wondered if the rapid decomposition of the corpses in Shouyuan Village was related to Fei Zhiyou. She felt that Fei Zhiyou's purpose might be more than just helping the imperial envoy.

Chu Luo wanted to find out the truth, but given her current physical condition and having just escaped death, she was ultimately powerless and could only think about it.

At that time, she had used all the hemostatic powder on the right guard's wound, and only one hemostatic pill with a slightly weaker effect remained on his body.

Even if she had taken the medicine in time, without Jin Wuchen's timely arrival and Fei Zhiyou's superb medical skills, she would probably be a corpse by now.

"My beauty, I've made you something delicious."

Chu Luo thought that Fei Zhiyou was really someone she couldn't mention, because he would show up as soon as she did, unlike Jin Wuchen, whom she hadn't seen since she woke up.