Chapter 19: Yan Xiaoyi’s Defense Shattered! A Chance Encounter with Fan Ruoruo, Shh! Stay Quiet!
Yan Xiaoyi stood atop the roof.
A cold wind blew, carrying a biting chill.
Yet beads of sweat dotted his forehead.
The tiles beneath his feet were icy and unyielding.
His body, however, had gone rigid.
Below him, the streets remained bustling.
People flowed like ants in an unending stream.
But the small figure he had been tasked to follow, the target he should have had locked in his sights, was gone.
Right under his nose.
Yan Xiaoyi sucked in a sharp breath.
How was this possible?!
He was Yan Xiaoyi, one of the Great Qing’s finest archers!
His skills neared the threshold of the ninth rank.
His tracking and stealth techniques had been honed over years, few could rival him.
He had given this task his all.
Even resorted to his most secretive tracking arts, burning through his qi without reserve.
He had lost a six-year-old child?
The speed the boy had displayed at the end,
That ghostly movement,
It defied everything Yan Xiaoyi knew of martial arts.
That wasn’t lightness skill.
It was more like… some unfathomable teleportation.
For a moment, he wondered if he had fallen prey to an illusion.
But his senses were crystal clear.
The oppressive weight of that speed had been real.
The words crashed into his mind like a hammer.
If word of this spread, how could he ever show his face again?
Outmaneuvered by a six-year-old, outsped,
This was worse than losing outright to a grandmaster.
He took a deep breath, trying to steady his churning qi.
The cold wind cut through him, sharpening his scattered thoughts slightly.
What terrifying secret did the Grand Princess’s newly adopted son hide?
Possessing such inconceivable movement techniques.
This was no ordinary being.
From his perch, Yan Xiaoyi’s hawk-like gaze swept the streets below once more, fruitlessly.
A never-before-felt bewilderment engulfed him.
The Grand Princess had ordered him to watch the boy.
Now, he had lost him.
How would he explain this?
More importantly, the sheer unknown the child represented sent a chill down his spine.
Yan Xiaoyi’s head throbbed.
He pressed his fingers to his temples.
With a silent leap, he dropped from the roof and melted into the crowd, heading in the direction he last saw the boy.
Deep in a quiet alley.
Li Changsheng brushed nonexistent dust from his sleeves.
His demeanor was relaxed, as if the heart-pounding chase had been nothing more than a trivial game.
The prickling presence at his back had completely vanished.
As expected, he followed.
Living up to his reputation.
His tracking skills were top-tier.
But this was as far as it went.
A faint smirk tugged at Li Changsheng’s lips.
He disliked being shadowed, especially by those with ulterior motives.
Showing a hint of “value” was necessary, to reassure his nominal mother, or rather, to make her take him more seriously.
But revealing too much would invite unnecessary trouble.
The “Dragon’s Phantom Step” had only required a wisp of his spiritual energy.
Its true potential remained hidden.
For dealing with Yan Xiaoyi, it was more than enough.
With steps far steadier than a child’s, he walked out of the alley.
A six-year-old’s body.
A soul that knew the future.
The sensation was… peculiar.
He needed to adapt, and use this advantage.
His gaze drifted idly until it settled on a corner near a grand estate’s high walls.
There, a small figure was peeking out furtively.
Understanding dawned.
Two years younger than him.
This must be Fan Ruoruo.
At this moment, Fan Ruoruo was about four years old.
Dressed in a pink quilted dress, her hair tied into two adorable buns.
But her frame looked frail, her small face smudged with dust.
She was tiptoeing, clumsily squeezing through a gap in the wall, more of a dog’s passage than a door.
Her movements were awkward yet carried a clever nimbleness.
The moment she emerged, before she could even dust herself off, her head swiveled nervously.