I was reborn after cheating on the aloof and powerful man.

Chapter 72 The Vanished Flower Thief

"My lord, Tongcheng is just ahead. It is still early. Should we continue our journey or stay overnight? Please advise."

Cui Chou glanced at the closed carriage curtain, said "Stay overnight," and then spurred his horse forward at breakneck speed.

His two subordinates behind him exchanged a glance, both showing expressions of "I knew it."

Luo Wu glanced at the woman in front of the carriage, then, urged by his companion, followed his superior without looking back.

Tongcheng, located on the upper reaches of the Sui River, was a necessary stop on the way to the capital. As the gateway to the capital, it was possible to reach the capital within two days by waterway along the Sui River, hence Tongcheng was also known as "Little Shangjing" by some enthusiasts.

This was the first time Mu Qingfeng had ever seen such a bustling city.

The streets were teeming with people, shoulder to shoulder, a cacophony of noise rising and falling. Shops all around displayed a dazzling array of goods, a feast for the eyes. Vendors called out their wares loudly, drawing passersby to stop and admire their wares.

Mu Qingfeng became increasingly itchy to look at the stalls, and she couldn't help but glance at the stalls selling figurines of tiny people.

At this moment, she wished she could fly to the inn immediately and drag her senior sister and senior brother Ji around to explore this bustling place. But there were just too many people around, and she struggled to steer the carriage forward.

"Excuse me, please make way!"

The clear and melodious sound attracted the curious glances of the surrounding crowd, and once they saw it, they couldn't take their eyes off it.

Even though Mu Qingfeng was dressed in a simple blue dress and had no makeup, the moment she appeared on the streets of Tongcheng, she immediately attracted the attention of passersby who surrounded her carriage in awe.

Some of the bolder ones even went so far as to approach and stop the carriage:

"Beautiful lady, what is your name? Where do you live? Are you married?"

"Little beauty, come with me, I promise you'll live a life of luxury, wearing gold and silver every day."

"No! If you come any closer, I'll make my move!" Mu Qingfeng was utterly disgusted with this group of boring men.

As she grew older, her blossoming beauty became as captivating as a flower.

Now, no matter where she goes, men always surround her and harass her, which annoys her greatly.

"roll!"

Ji Zhongxuan leaped from his horse onto the carriage and knocked away a group of vagrants blocking the carriage with a single palm strike.

Among the dissolute youths were some who knew martial arts. Seeing that Ji Zhongxuan had ruined his plans, they gave a signal to the guards at home, and a group of people immediately surrounded him, wanting to teach this arrogant brat a lesson.

When the crowd saw that a fight had broken out, those who did not know martial arts immediately kept their distance, fearing that the weapons would be indiscriminate and they might accidentally get hurt; those who knew martial arts carefully kept their distance, hoping that when both sides were exhausted, they could take the opportunity to get close to the beauty.

To their disappointment, Ji Zhongxuan beat them to the ground in less than a round.

The dissolute young man, knocked to the ground and howling in pain, was resentful and uttered even more threatening words:

"You filthy bastard, don't you dare leave today! In Tongcheng, no one dares to offend me, Second Master Xiang, and still get away unscathed. If you know what's good for you, obediently hand over the beauty, kowtow three times to me and admit your mistake, and I might spare you."

"The Xiang family...which Xiang family?"

Tang Huaiyi leaped down from his horse and walked to Ji Zhongxuan's side. He wore an ivory-white brocade robe with cloud-patterned sleeves and a jade-inlaid hair crown. Every step he took was like that of an immortal, his figure ethereal and his temperament otherworldly. The nobility and confidence he exuded in every gesture left the playboy Xiang Hanjian speechless.

Xiang Hanjian wasn't completely naive. He didn't take Mu Qingfeng and Ji Zhongxuan seriously because of their simple clothes. But when he saw Tang Huaiyi's extraordinary demeanor and his much richer attire than his own, he knew that he might not be able to afford to offend the person in front of him.

After getting up from the ground, he was both scared and embarrassed, so he made a show of bravado and shouted:

"Who...who are you? Elder Xiang of the Xiaoyao Sect is my great-uncle. This beauty is so pitiful, I have no ill intentions. If she were to follow me, it would definitely be better for her than to follow this poor boy."

"Xiang Xiaoer, he is Tang Huaiyi, the young master of Tang Family Fortress and the youngest master of Confucianism and Taoism. How can you say such things in front of him? Aren't you ashamed?"

A flippant voice came from a restaurant on the street.

Everyone looked over at the sound and saw a carefree young man half-lying on the railing of the restaurant, hugging a wine jar and drinking it down in large gulps. He was wearing a tattered blue robe, and his hair was disheveled and unkempt, as if he had just grabbed it and tied it up with a cloth strip.

The young man looked lazily at the crowd downstairs and let out a burp.

Then, in full view of everyone, he fell from the building as if he were drunk, landing right on the carriage.

The carriage shook violently after being thrown from such a height. If the carriage hadn't looked sturdy, those around it wondered if it would have been crushed to pieces.

"Yang Lao Er, are you doing this on purpose?!"

As the strange man suddenly appeared and acted strangely, a soft yet angry female voice came from inside the carriage.

Is there anyone else in the car?

The woman outside the car was already an absolute beauty, and the onlookers couldn't help but wonder what kind of celestial beauty would be inside...

To their disappointment, when the carriage curtain was lifted, all that appeared before them was an ordinary woman with delicate features.

The woman wasn't unattractive, but standing next to a stunningly beautiful woman, she appeared utterly insignificant.

Xiang Hanjian withdrew his disappointed gaze and looked up at the strange man sitting on the roof of the carriage, continuing to drink: "Yang Xingzhou, you still dare to show your face in front of me! Consider yourself lucky today, you have a benefactor here. Let's go."

After uttering those harsh words, Xiang Hanjian fled with his servants like a mouse seeing a cat.

With the annoying outsiders gone, Mu Qingfeng was both surprised and delighted. She waved towards the roof of the car and called out, "Second Senior Brother, what are you doing here?"

"Second senior brother."

Ji Zhongxuan greeted the strange man who was drinking, then darted back onto his horse.

"This is Yang Xingzhou, our Qingcheng Sect's long-time missing person, the eternal second-in-command. Brother Yi, you can just call him Second Brother Yang."

Fei Xi introduced Tang Huaiyi briefly, then pulled Mu Qingfeng back into the carriage, leaving behind only a blunt command:

"Yang Lao Er, you drive the carriage."

"Ugh, so annoying!"

Despite his bluntness, Yang Xingzhou remained lazily seated on the roof of the carriage, but as soon as he snapped his fingers a few times, the horse seemed to obey his command and began to gallop forward.

"Brother Yang, I've long admired you."

Tang Huaiyi smiled, clasped his hands in a salute, then leaped onto his horse and followed closely behind the carriage.

The crowd, scattered by the fight, saw that Xiang Hanjian, who had always been lawless in Tongcheng, had run away and the beauty had disappeared into the carriage, so they scattered like birds and beasts, each going about their own business.

With no one blocking their way, Fei Xi and her group quickly arrived at the largest inn in Tongcheng—Ruyi Inn.

Inside the inn's main room, Yang Xingzhou strolled around lazily, casually looking up and down at the room's decorations, occasionally making "tsk tsk" sounds of admiration.

"Second Senior Brother, what does the flower thief you mentioned look like?" Mu Qingfeng asked curiously after hearing the reason why her second senior brother was in Tongcheng.

“If he had seen him, he would have caught him long ago,” Fei Xi interjected while adjusting her junior sister’s veil.

The junior sister wanted to go shopping together after dinner, but she was fed up with the playboy and offered to cover her face.

Yang Xingzhou didn't answer Mu Qingfeng's question immediately. Instead, he crossed his arms and asked curiously:

"Fei girl, have you become a gigolo? You're renting two rooms a day for 5 taels of silver?"

"You ill-mannered perennial second-in-command, please call me Senior Sister with respect! I make a living with my cooking skills; one meal here is worth more than catching a hundred flower thieves."

"Tsk, the other party is quite generous. I'm really curious, who is this poor sucker? Could it be like this young master Tang with his peculiar tastes, who got on your pirate ship but felt sorry for you and couldn't get off?"

After he finished speaking, he reached out and put his arm around Tang Huaiyi's shoulder, acting like a close buddy, and advised him:

"Hey, what do you see in this girl? Look at the way she talks, she has no femininity at all. I'm curious how a man could be unmoved by Xiao Feng and still fall for this girl. Don't let her average looks fool you, she's not as pretty as you, she's cold and aloof and not easy to win over."

"Xiao Xi is wonderful in every way. Just seeing Xiao Xi makes Huai Yi very happy."

"Tsk!" Seeing the man smiling so happily, looking at his senior sister with such tenderness, while she turned her head away serenely without refusing, Yang Xingzhou felt a pang of bitterness in his heart, as if the cabbage he had painstakingly planted had been dug up by someone.

Remembering his junior sister's question, he quickly changed the subject and said to Fei Xi:

"You're wrong. I did see that flower thief, but when I chased him to the end of the alley, he seemed to disappear into thin air."