After a few steps, Ji Mingshao glanced back at the main house with its rehung red lanterns, likely preparing for the wedding. Would she be furious when she discovered his absence and chase him down?
Ruan Ning discovered Ji Mingshao was missing an hour later. The tenant guards outside were sound asleep – Yu Qiu’s knockout drug was very effective, rendering anyone who inhaled it unconscious for three hours.
Ruan Ning was stunned. The revolution hadn’t succeeded, and the sickly one had escaped first – what was happening?
“Jiao Jiao, help me locate him!” she urgently ordered.
“No such function,” the standard female voice replied. “Host should use traditional methods. Not much time has passed, so it shouldn’t be difficult to find him.”
With no other option, Ruan Ning sought help from her adoptive father. Ruan Shi Xin jumped three feet high: “What, he ran away?
This sickly ghost – I’m already being generous by not despising him, and he dares to run?”
He angrily led out a horse and flew away. Ruan Ning anxiously waited all afternoon. As evening approached, Ruan Shi Xin returned alone, his face dark: “Spent all day hunting the hawk, only to have it peck my eyes. This guy has help, probably someone from the jianghu. I searched everywhere but couldn’t find him.”
A jianghu person – so that was the sickly one’s hidden identity. Where could they find him now?
“I’ll write another letter to my friends in the industry for help,” Ruan Shi Xin frowned. “Ji Mingshao – is this even his real name? I’ve never heard of him in the jianghu.”
Ruan Shi Xin sent out his search letters by fast horse.
The lights in Ruan Manor burned late that night. Ruan Shi Xin didn’t dare tell his wife that their daughter had been taken advantage of by the sickly one. Chen Shi was more pleased about the failed marriage and fell asleep early. Only Ruan Shi Xin tossed and turned, finally jumping up to knock on his daughter’s window: “Ning Ning, the sickly one ran away. Dad will find you a handsome one. Don’t do anything foolish!”
He remembered a local woman who threw herself in the river after a strange man touched her hand.
His daughter had been kissed by a man, which worried him. He feared she might do something desperate.
