Chapter 6: Flee to Safety (Part 3)
Huo Yuhao stood frozen in place. It felt like a century passed, though in truth it was probably only a few seconds. His heart slammed against his ribs so hard he was half-convinced people outside could hear it. Then, all at once, he snapped out of it—like he'd been scalded. Hands trembling, he bent down and shakily scooped up the weighty, slightly rough little cloth pouch, along with the crumpled, frayed paper ball.
From inside the pouch came the crisp clink of metal, each little sound striking his nerves like a hammer. Panic surging through him, he fumbled desperately and shoved both mysterious items into the innermost fold of his clothes. The cold touch raised goosebumps across his skin. These things were far too conspicuous—nobody could see them.
Had the frightening sounds of battle and shouting outside... stopped? But before the breath of relief could even leave his lungs, a fresh wave of noise came rolling toward him—louder, more chaotic, the thunder of heavy, urgent footsteps. And from the sound of it, there were a lot of them.
Damn it!
The Duke's guards. The commotion must have drawn them. All the color drained from Huo Yuhao's small face in an instant. If they discovered that those three bizarre "creatures" had slipped into his house... that they'd deliberately left something behind... what would happen to him and his mother? He couldn't even bear to imagine it. The thought alone turned his hands and feet to ice.
He paced in frantic circles like an ant on a hot pan, eyes darting wildly across the bare, broken-down room. His gaze landed on the pile of cold, black ash in the corner of the hearth. There was no time to worry about filth. Jaw set, he rushed over, snatched up several handfuls of the icy cinders, and frantically smeared them across his face, his neck, and his already threadbare, washed-out clothes. In moments, he was covered in soot from head to toe, only his wide, terror-stricken eyes still visible. It still didn't feel like enough—he clawed his hands through his hair, messing it up into a bird's nest.
Still, something felt missing... His eyes hardened. He turned to the coarse, uneven earthen wall beside him and scraped his arm hard against it.
Ssss— A searing pain shot through him. The rough surface tore through skin, and tiny beads of blood welled up instantly, mixing with the black ash into something grimy and pitiful, distressingly convincing. Still unsatisfied, he threw himself to the ground on purpose, hitting it hard, coating himself in dust and looking utterly wretched.
He scrambled back to his feet just in time, doing his best to look like someone who'd been scared out of his wits and fallen several times. That was the moment their flimsy, barely-there door was kicked in from the outside with a brutal bang. The door panel slammed against the wall with a pained groan, wobbling on its last legs, ready to collapse.
Several men in the Duke's guard uniforms stormed inside, cold-faced and menacing. Their sharp eyes swept the impoverished, bare little hovel like searchlights. The man in the lead was middle-aged, with a hard-set face and a dangerous glint in his eyes. The soul power fluctuation rolling off him made Huo Yuhao deeply uncomfortable, and the one white and one yellow soul ring circling at his feet made it clear he was not to be trifled with. His gaze swept the room and immediately locked onto the figure cowering in the corner—filthy, arm bleeding, trembling uncontrollably, doing his best to shrink into nothing.
Almost simultaneously, from behind the thin, patched-up curtain leading to the inner room, Huo Yun'er's frail, panicked voice rang out, clearly frightened by the disturbance outside: "Yuhao... what's happening out there? What's going on? Are you alright?"
Huo Yuhao's heart leaped into his throat. Before he could even think of an answer, the lead guard spoke, his voice hard and cold and sharp, dripping with undisguised interrogation: "Brat! Did you see anything strange run past just now?" His eyes hooked into Huo Yuhao like barbs, watching for the slightest twitch.
Huo Yuhao flinched violently, his words coming out in a stuttering mess, voice tinged with tears: "...Y-yes... monsters... a huge crab... and flying... shadows... whoosh—they went right past... I... I was so scared..." He kept shrinking backward as he spoke, as if trying to wedge himself into the cracks in the wall, making himself look even more pathetic. Tears swirled desperately in his eyes—half genuine fear, half the stinging pain in his arm.
The lead guard furrowed his brow, looking him up and down with undisguised disgust. This kid's soul power was so faint it was barely detectable. He was a ragged mess, face and body smeared with ash and blood, wounds pitiful, eyes filled with nothing but terror—the textbook picture of a sniveling, spineless coward. The guard swept a contemptuous glance across the poverty-stricken room, empty save for a broken bed and a broken table, and whatever faint suspicion he'd harbored evaporated entirely. Those three strange, troublesome water-type "soul beasts" had shown considerable strength—they'd even managed to give Young Master Huabin a hard time. What possible connection could they have to some soul-powerless little waste living in the servants' quarters?
Most likely, the three beasts had sensed the guards approaching in force, realized the situation had turned, and fled in a panic, passing by this wreck of a house in their haste. And the brat had simply been scared half to death.
"Which way did they go?" the lead guard pressed, his tone utterly impatient, foul. From his perspective, every second spent in this pauper's sty was wasted—time better spent chasing those three bizarre soul beasts.
Huo Yuhao looked completely stupefied, eyes unfocused. He pointed frantically in two different directions—one toward the dark, twisting alley to the south, another toward the trash-heaped dumping grounds to the west. His voice quavered, rambling and disjointed: "It seemed... seemed like that way... the dark... no, that way... the barrels... too fast... couldn't... couldn't see clearly... hnggh..." He actually managed to squeeze out two genuine tears, which traced comical lines through the black ash on his face, making him look even more pitiful and useless.
The lead guard's lip curled. Patience gone. "Useless!" he spat under his breath, then swung his arm sharply, issuing orders to the men behind him: "Split into two squads! One south, one west! Search thoroughly! I want those three beasts found if we have to tear the ground apart!"
"Yes, sir!" The guards rushed out in a clatter of footsteps, their heavy tread quickly fading into the distance, leaving the courtyard in shambles.
The lead guard cast one last knife-like glance at the trembling, whimpering child still huddled in the corner, then flicked a look at the unmoving inner-room curtain—it never once occurred to him to check inside. With a contemptuous snort, he turned and strode out without another word. Not a single person had spared even the slightest concern for the wound still seeping blood on Huo Yuhao's arm—not even a moment's empty courtesy.
It wasn't until those suffocating footsteps had faded entirely into nothing that Huo Yuhao finally slumped, the strength leaving his body. Slowly, the deliberate trembling stopped. He crept carefully to the door, stuck half his head out, peered around in every direction, strained his ears—again and again—until he was absolutely certain no one remained. Only then did he release the stale breath he'd been holding trapped in his chest in a long, silent exhale. That was when he noticed his back was soaked in cold sweat, his clothes clinging wetly to his skin.
In the inner room, Huo Yun'er was struggling to get out of bed, her voice tearful and thick with worry: "Yuhao... my child... are you alright? Where are you hurt? Let me see..."
"Mom, I'm fine, really. Just scraped a little skin. It's nothing." Huo Yuhao hurried over, pushed aside the curtain, and gently pressed his anxious mother back down. He looked at her pale, gaunt face, so heavy with concern, and hesitated. Then, biting his lip, he reached into his shirt and pulled out the ash-dusted, sweat-damp little pouch and the crumpled paper.
Under his mother's baffled gaze, his trembling hands opened the mouth of the pouch. A glint of gold and a gleam of silver spilled from the opening. It wasn't much—but in this dim, broken-down shack, it was blinding. Huo Yun'er sucked in a sharp breath. Instinctively lowering her voice, she grabbed his wrist, her voice shaking: "This... this... so much money? Where did it come from? Yuhao! You... you didn't do anything foolish, did you?"
Huo Yuhao's heart pounded wildly again. He shook his head and unfolded the letter. The handwriting was crooked and awkward, like a child's, but the meaning was clear: Saw injustice. Travel money. Head south. Find a small town and settle. Don't come back.
Mother and son stared at each other in the weak light filtering through the broken window, their faces a mixture of shock, confusion, and disbelief. Who? Who would send them money? And leave a note like this? Telling them to run? What on earth was going on?
Huo Yuhao looked at his mother's pale, bloodless face, at the deep hollows beneath her eyes from years of grueling labor and illness. He remembered all the humiliation they'd endured in this cold estate, the scorn, the hunger, and the bitter cold. He remembered his mother wasting away in her sickbed with no one to turn to. He remembered the three strange but seemingly harmless "monsters" from moments ago—and the Duke's guards, fierce and cruel, treating them as less than insects... Emotions churned and crashed inside his small chest. His heart beat faster and faster, and then a thought broke through the soil of his mind—wild, insane, but unstoppable. He could no longer hold it down.
"Mom..." He heard his own voice come out dry and hoarse, but carrying a resolve that surprised even him. "Let's go. Let's leave this place! Leave the White Tiger Duke's Manor! And never, ever come back!"
He raised the coin pouch, his voice trembling with emotion: "This money... we don't know who gave it to us, but it's got to be enough to find some little place where nobody knows who we are. Rent a small house, get you proper treatment, start over! You need rest to recover, good food, peace of mind! Here... here we'll never have a good life. Never."
Huo Yun'er listened to her son's words. Her eyes dimmed, flooding with complicated emotions. She shook her head instinctively, her voice weak yet carrying the inertia of years of stubborn hope: "No... Yuhao, we can't leave... let's wait a little longer... just hold on a bit more... your father... he might..."
"He's not coming back!" For the first time, Huo Yuhao cut her off, his voice nearly savage. His eyes reddened in an instant. The委屈 and rage he'd bottled up for so long finally burst through the dam of reason. "If he ever truly cared about us, why has he ignored us all these years? Why let you get this sick and never bother to find a decent doctor? Why leave us in this broken-down shack, worse than the other servants, freezing and starving? Mom, please! Wake up! He forgot about us a long time ago! I'm begging you—just this once—let's live for ourselves. Please!"
Huo Yun'er was stunned by her son's outburst—she'd never seen him like this. She stared at his flushed, agitated face, at the glaring wound on his arm still smeared with ash and blood, listening to the near-breaking desperation in his voice... and then she thought of the terrifying commotion outside just moments ago, and the guards' cold interrogation. That frail, unrealistic hope that had propped her up all these years—already crumbling—finally shattered. Piece by piece. She fell silent, and then the tears came, streaming silently down her gaunt cheeks like beads torn from a string, falling onto the patched-up blanket.
A dead silence settled over the little shack, broken only by the sound of their choked breathing and Huo Yun'er's soundless weeping.
After what felt like an eternity, Huo Yun'er finally nodded—so slowly, so heavily, as if it cost her every last ounce of strength. Her voice was barely a whisper, yet carried a strange sense of release tangled with despair.
"...Alright. Mom will listen to you. We'll... go. Leave this... place of heartbreak."