Your Highness, Please Love Me Tender

45. Killing with a Tiny Bone

Translator: Flying Lines

The carriage came to a sudden stop when Xiao ShengNian was lost in thought.

“Your Highness, bandits on the way.” There came Zhui Xing’s bland voice.

“Um, you and Yu Che take care of them.” Xiao ShengNian gave an order lightly, not a bit affected.

Then he handed Su Jie a bulging parcel, from which Su Jie thought he was taking out a pile of bank notes but actually turned out to be several small water-proof parcels.

“What’re these?”

“Refreshments and roasted duck prepared for you.”

“You’re not eating them?”

“I don’t have a greedy tummy like yours that gets hungry frequently.” Xiao ShengNian said in a teasing tone with smile in his eyes. He had only recently found this trait of Su Jie: This boy got hungry often and couldn’t stand hunger for long.

Even when he had enough food, he wouldn’t refuse whatever handed to him. When his stomach couldn’t take any more food, he would place the food on his desk and ate them occasionally during the day, not wasting a bit.

Xiao ShengNian found his little habit quite cute but also a bit strange. He had never met such a man with such obsession to food. Out of curiosity, he asked, “My little slave, were you a farmer that you never waste every single grain?”

Su Jie started to talk nonsense with a serious face, “My parents said it’s bad to waste food.”

But in reality, he was just too afraid of hunger. The Guqin Master would starve him when he was young if he didn’t finish the task.

There was a time when he felt giddy and light-headed out of hunger and nearly fainted if Prince Qin hadn’t given him food by stealth. Prince Qin had been kind to him, probably because he was the most good-looking among Men of Sacrifice and also because they were of similar age.

The Guqin Master turned a blind eye to all these, as it also helped Xiao LuoXuan to win Su Jie over. Think of that, Su Jie had a slight mood swing before he was captivated by the aroma of roasted duck, forgetting all annoyances.

“Get out, these two carriages are expropriated.” There came from outside the curses and shouts of the bandits, which, however, didn’t affect Su Jie who was burying himself with the roasted duck.

“Zhui Xing, we’re out for official business. It’s okay to show our status when necessary,” ordered Xiao ShengNian as he curled up his lips.

“Yes, Your Highness.” Zhui Xing then jumped off the carriage and showed the token of Prince Rui, saying in a cold voice, “Prince Rui in the carriage, get out of the way.”

The bandits all laughed as their head took the token with feigned fear who then threw the token to the ground, stepped on it and mocked, “Stop your crap. Prince Rui wouldn’t go out with only two poor carriages. Now get out or don’t blame us for being rude.”

“Yeah, get your ass out of there.”

“Right, we want the money and the beauty.”

“Let’s see which beauty is in there.”

…

The bandits all laughed, making quite a scene. Yu Che had moved to Zhui Xing’s side the moment their carriages stopped. The two nodded at each other after exchanging a glance and then dashed straight to the bandits, who were quite taken aback as they had never met such straightforward ones throughout their whole career of robbery. They had been having their way all these years by dint of their grouped act, yet they never dared to rob carriages of officials. The court had tried to dispatch troops over to wipe them out but the bandits had dug a secret tunnel in the mountain where they would hide whenever the troops came and came back to rob when troops left.

Unfortunately, these bandits met Zhui Xing and Yu Che, two of the most capable hands of Prince Rui, who could even defeat a well-trained army of this number, not to mention these inorganized bandits. Yet to maintain Prince Rui’s image of being kind and amicable, they didn’t kill them but only disabled these bandits.

For a moment, the mountain path was overwhelmed with cries and groans of pain.

One bandit’s arms were just dislocated when the other’s legs were broken the next second…The rest of them only heard their brother’s cries but had no idea of what was happening till one of them shouted, “These two have superb kung fu.”

That panicked the bandits. Some clever ones sneaked to attack the carriage when Zhui Xing and Yu Che were occupied.

One of the bandits approached the first carriage, holding his broadsword high as he lifted the curtain in a flash with his free hand.

At this critical moment, Su Jie was still enjoying his roasted duck, grease all over his face, which gave Xiao ShengNian quite a headache. He rummaged the carriage for quite a while before he finally took out a handkerchief to help wipe Su Jie’s mouth when the curtain was lifted.

Xiao ShengNian narrowed his eyes, about to say something when he saw from the corner of his eyes Su Jie throwing something out that went straight to the bandit’s forehead.

That bandit froze, his hand lifting the curtain down, his body falling to the ground as blood oozed out from his forehead.

The other bandits sneaked along were terrified when seeing their brother lying on the ground, eyes glaring and mouth open to say something with a tiny bone penetrating his head, blood oozing out and staining the earth.

They were seized by extreme horror when making out the ‘weapon’.

It was a tiny bone, a bone of a drumstick.

This was way more terrifying and bloodier than what Zhui Xing and Yu Che were doing. Compared to killing with a drumstick bone, breaking legs and arms were way much gentler. Though experienced for blood and kills, these bandits couldn’t help but tremble out of fear.

“Run! Killing Maniac in the carriage!” A young bandit shouted as he fled into the mountain in fluster.

Several bandits around him were frightened as hell and also escaped, leaving those disabled by Zhui Xing and Yu Che panicking on the ground, chilled by what their dead brother looked like.

Though Zhui Xing and Yu Che had superb martial skills, they didn’t kill, which led the bandits to believe that they could outnumber the two. And seeing their brothers being disabled, they didn’t flinch as their hearts were burning with rage to avenge their brothers, yarning to put a hole in either Zhui Xing or Yu Che to vent out their wrath.

However, all that wrath turned into fear and horror when their brother was killed right on the spot.

This was seeking for death, not robbery.

All bandits wanted to escape, but that wasn’t something Zhui Xing and Yu Che could tolerate as they believed trouble should be nipped in the bud. Since these ignorant bandits dared to offend His Highness Prince Rui, then they had to pay for it, either killed here or sent to the local prefecture to be executed.