Chapter 14: Not Allowed to Go Out
It continued to rain for the next two days, but fortunately, the downpour eased into a light drizzle, and the fog lifted considerably. Even from inside the house, Yunxi could clearly see what was happening in the courtyard.
Every night before going to bed, Lu Yunxi secretly sharpened her arrows, determined to head up the mountain and look for her father.
Now, she was profoundly grateful that their new home had been built as a spacious, multi-entry courtyard house. Her room was tucked far in the back, right up against the outer mountain slope. If they were still living in their cramped old cabin, the grating sound of sharpening weapons in the dead of night would have alerted her mother immediately, let alone her slipping away unnoticed to hunt for someone.
Once her weapons were ready, she double-checked her gear to ensure she hadn’t missed anything.
Bow, arrows, system backpack… Right! She clapped her hands as a vital detail struck her.
She suddenly realized that because her mother kept a watchful eye on her during the day, she could only sneak out under the cover of night. Without any moonlight, she would be completely blind out there. She needed a torch.
Granted, carrying a blazing torch would turn her into an obvious target, but she hoped that if her father caught sight of the fire, he would realize someone was searching for him and make his way toward the light.
She spent a few days making her final preparations. Finally, as twilight began to bleed into evening, she braced herself to leave.
Suddenly, the center of the village erupted into a chaotic din. The muffled sounds of hurried footsteps and frantic shouting cut through the air.
Her mother flinched at the sudden commotion outside, clutching her chest as her breathing turned rapid and shallow.
Yunxi immediately tossed her gear aside and rushed to her side, gently patting her mother’s back to steady her.
“Xi’er, I need to go outside and see what happened,” Lu Yuniang said, her heart sinking at the sound of the uproar.
Ignoring her daughter’s protests, she hurriedly changed her clothes to go out.
However, before she could even slip on her shoes, a heavy, urgent knocking rattled the Lu family’s front door.
Urged by her frantic mother, Yunxi had no choice but to run out and open it first.
“Lu family—is that you, Xi’er? Where is your mother?” The woman standing on the threshold was a neighbor from the village, her face pale and drawn.
“My mother is inside, Auntie. What happened in the village?”
The woman let out a heavy, ragged sigh and reached out to touch Yunxi’s head. A flash of deep, agonizing pity crossed her eyes. “You and your mother need to get over to Doctor Sun’s house right away.”
Just as Lu Yuniang stepped into the courtyard, she caught the woman’s words. Her entire body froze.
A terrible, suffocating dread settled over both mother and daughter.
Without another word, they sprinted through the village toward the doctor’s clinic.
“Yuniang, Xi’er… you need to brace yourselves,” Doctor Sun murmured softly when they burst through the door. He looked at their dazed, trembling expressions and could only shake his head, letting out a low, sorrowful sigh. “Dahu’s injuries…”
That sigh felt like a physical blow, driving straight into Yunxi’s chest.
She looked past the doctor to the bed where her father lay. Her breath hitched, and a cold weight pressed down on her lungs.
A hideous, ragged wound tore across his torso, and blood flowed continuously, staining the wooden floorboards a stark, grim red.
The other villagers quietly filed out of the room, shutting the door behind them to give the family their final moments together.
“Xi’er,” Lu Dahu rasped, offering her a pale, strained smile. “Do you still remember the Lu Family Archery Technique I taught you? The remaining manuals… they’re hidden in the woodshed. Go find them… From now on, it’s just you and your mother. You have to take care of yourselves.”
He tried to raise his hand to touch her face, but his strength had completely evaporated; despite his best efforts, he could barely lift his fingers a fraction of an inch.
Biting back her tears, Yunxi leaned down over the bed, lowering her head so he could rest his palm against her hair.
“Dad, I will take care of Mom. I promise. Don’t worry,” she whispered softly, her voice trembling.
With a final, lingering look, Yunxi quietly stepped out of the room, leaving her parents alone.
As she stood out in the corridor, the hushed, grim murmurs of the waiting villagers drifted into her ears.
“How did Dahu end up so badly hurt?”
“Sigh, I heard the rain caught him off guard. He slipped and took a terrible fall down a ravine, breaking half his limbs. Who could have guessed he’d crawl right into a wild boar’s path while trying to escape? It’s just awful luck.”
“It’s a miracle Doctor Sun stumbled across him while gathering herbs on the lower slopes, otherwise… they wouldn’t have even been able to see him one last time.”
The voices gradually blurred and faded into the background.
Yunxi pressed a hand against her chest, closing her eyes tightly as she took a few deep, shuddering breaths.
It hurt so much.
In the weeks following her father’s passing, Yunxi never left the house. She spent every waking moment by her mother’s side.
Fortunately, the large vegetable garden in their backyard provided a steady bounty of fresh greens, meaning they didn’t have to worry about going hungry.
In truth, her mother was keeping a suffocatingly tight rein on her, refusing to let her out of her sight. In the past, Lu Yuniang had only taught her basic, domestic tasks and happily let her run wild with the village children whenever she pleased.
But now… Everything had changed.
Throughout the day, aside from when they were eating or bathing, her mother kept her tethered to her side. She wouldn’t even allow Yunxi to practice the ancestral archery drills. Whenever Yunxi so much as reached for her bow, her mother reacted with an intense, frantic resistance.
Sensing her mother’s fragile mental state, Yunxi had no choice but to shelf her training entirely and focus all her energy on keeping her company.
The two sat together in the quiet house day after day, their needlework flying through the fabric.
“Mom, look at the flowers I embroidered. Aren’t they pretty?” After days of painstaking effort, Yunxi finally managed to complete a full floral pattern. She held up the cloth, carefully tracking her mother’s reaction.
“Am I a natural or what? A legendary genius—that’s exactly what I am, right?!” Looking at her mother’s perpetually pale face, Yunxi forced a playful, arrogant grin, desperately trying to inject some levity into the quiet room to make her smile.
Lu Yuniang took the embroidery cloth, inspecting the neat stitches carefully before offering a soft, genuine smile.
“Of course you’re a genius,” her mother murmured gently. “A handkerchief like this can easily fetch ten copper coins in town. Once you get faster, you’ll be able to finish a whole piece in less than a day. A scented sachet usually goes for fifteen to twenty coppers! If your craftsmanship is truly exceptional, wealthy patrons will pay an absolute premium for even the smallest piece.”
She reached into her sewing basket, pulling out a collection of beautifully crafted handkerchiefs and sachets to show her. “Why don’t you try making a small sachet next? Let me see what you can do.”
Without a word, Yunxi took the materials and began stitching diligently, carefully applying the precise techniques her mother had demonstrated.
Lu Yuniang watched her daughter’s focused profile from the corner of her eye, letting out a silent, aching sigh.
She knew her daughter still yearned to master the Lu Family Archery Technique. She knew her late husband had desperately wanted his ancestral martial arts passed down to their only child. But she simply couldn’t bear it.
She had already lost her husband to the wild terrors of the mountains. She absolutely, unconditionally could not lose her daughter too.
Hunting was a dangerous man’s game, and Yunxi was a girl—naturally smaller, and a mere nine-year-old child at that! How could a mother ever find peace at home knowing her little girl was tracking lethal beasts in the wilderness?
Her husband hadn’t even finished teaching their daughter the fundamentals before he passed, meaning Yunxi would have to decipher the rest from old manuals entirely on her own. Studying from a book without a master to correct your form was a recipe for disaster.
After agonizing over the dilemma for weeks, Lu Yuniang had firmly resolved that instead of letting her daughter chase danger in the mountains, she would pass down her own trade.
While her embroidery might not rival the legendary grandmasters of the capital, her skills were still phenomenal. The large, intricate silk tapestries she created could easily command hundreds of taels of silver from merchants. Aside from elite court artisans, few could match her precision.
As the quiet days turned into months, Yunxi’s needlework improved at a staggering pace, seamlessly grinding its way to the beginner tier.
