Hui Ying didn't expect her new life plans will go off trail so quickly. She thought back and wondered in her mind where things have gone wrong. It was just before sunrise when the wedding progression departed from her maiden house. Hui Ying popped her head out to her head maid after she had done sorting her stuff and inquired about the time of arrival, which the maid told her would take around early evening to reach the next city gates, then from there, they will head for the groom's mansion just in time for the banquet ceremony.
About roughly three-thirds of the journey travelled, the wedding sedans finally stopped to take a rest. The servants and guards took the time to stretch and enjoy a short break. Hui Ying wasn't allowed to step out of the sedan. Instead, she was given a pre-packed lunch filled with a couple of meat buns and some dry pastry as snacks to eat while inside the sedan. She was also given a cup of tea to drink and then lastly she had some water stored in a bamboo tube that have been put in there next to her during this short break time. After that, the group packed up and continued on towards the next city as planned.
Everything seems fine then. However, a few minutes later down the road, a couple of men from the guards spotted a dead cat about five miles away blocking the way. After some talks with the head of the guards, the whole team rerouted the entire procession towards the mountain road instead in order to avoid the bad omen, which is how she ended up meeting with this group of robbers in the mountains on her supposedly wedding day in the first place.
The gang of robbers were surprisingly acting quite gentlemen at first. They were pretty civil during the whole robbery thing after they had done surrounding the wedding group with what sounds like a good hundred of armed forces. One robber from the group who should be their leader then told the guards to disembark the sedans containing her dowry and to leave them behind for the robbers. He also said the rest of the guards and servants will be free to leave if they don't resist. Their goal was only the dowry belongings. But when her personal head maid heard this, she disagreed and loudly yelled at him, in dispute with the robber guy. She argued that the Young Lady needs to have at least some dowry with her when she goes over to her husband's family or her status will be thrown out and so pleaded for a least three sedans out of the total eight dowry sedans to not be taken. The robbers were much unhappy over this, but after staring at her 40-plus people, where more than half of which were guards, they relented and allowed for two sedans to remain while they took over the remaining six sedans to their hideout. With that, this means the robbery incident should have been resolved, right?
Hui Ying was deducing what is happening outside based on what she heard while being stuck inside her sedan. She hadn't been allowed to go out throughout the whole day so she remain situated inside the wedding sedan at all times, not even during the short lunch break earlier. Anything that she wants will be brought over to her inside the sedan by her personal maids. Hui Ying couldn't even stretch herself out and could only endure until she arrived at Wang's estate before she could finally get out from the stuffy sedan where she will then be meeting her husband for the first time.
Back to the incident, just when everything was have been settled, a commotion could be heard as a young robber suddenly reach out his hand toward her sedan. His arm was aiming to open the red curtain to look at the bride's face which is a huge taboo. The head maid bravely blocked him and refused, but the young robber was stubborn and insisted on pushing aside the head maid to peek inside her sedan. He then incited the rest of the robbers, by saying that don't they want to see the rumoured beauty of the young lady from the famous Li family? And that this could be their only lifetime chance to see a pretty noble girl face to face in real life. Intrigued by this young robber's words, the rest of the robbers also started advocating for her curtain to be pulled up to show off her pretty face. The head maid tried to stop them once more which caused the furious young robber to push her aside from the front of the sedan, causing her to faint. Seeing this, the guards hold up their weapons in defence, in front of her sedan. The robbers too started taking out their weapons and lo and behold, the fight began. The sound of fighting scared the rest of the servants and maids into hiding, and one courageous maid even dared to climb into her sedan to hide.
Hui Ying looked at the fifteen-year-old girl shivering just right in front of where she sat, muttering words like sorry for offending the young miss and repeatedly asking for pardon for intruding upon her. Hui Ying sighed internally in her mind. Looks like her new life won't be a peaceful one yet. Hui Ying comforted the young girl and said she would not take offence over her actions. The young maid was so touched, that she burst into tears and replied that she will remain loyal to her for the rest of her life. Hui Ying then ask for her name after she had calmed down significantly enough and the girl told her, her name is Ah Xin (昕), the Xin character that means Dawn, as it is the time of her birth in Li family estate from her servant parents. She mentioned that she would be the third generation of the family to be serving Li family, after her grandparents were sold into the Li family as servants back in those days. Her tone was proud, quite unlike her earlier timid ones, which Hui Ying prefers more since Hui Ying believes that one should always be confident in what they do as to not let others look down upon them. Hui Ying smiled gently at the young maid, encouraging her to speak out further about her origins so that Hui Ying can find out more about her maiden house affairs.
After they both talked for a while, the fighting sounds from outside subsided, and from the hurrah cheers erupting from that band of robbers, she knew her wedding guards have lost. The red curtain on her sedan was suddenly lifted up causing a bright ray of sun to shine through it. Knowing that the game was up, Hui Ying patted the maid in front of her to move inwards, while she took her first step out of the sedan.
A collective gasp sounds were heard all around her. Hui Ying looked around her and found the group of guards and man servants being tied up in one corner, while in the other corner laid the rest of her maids in waiting who was sobbing silently as they await their fate. The head maid appeared to have been still knocked out, for she would have spoken up and admonished her for coming out of the sedan without being carried. On the other side were the bunch of robbers led by a roughly twenty-looking young man with a scarf covering half his face. She tries to see which one of the teen boys surrounding her is the young robber that caused them to fight but to no avail. She puts that aside for now and waited for the robber's leader to decide their fate. The robbers seems stunned as they continued staring at her figure. Finally, the twenty-year-old robber head guy cleared his throat and all attention was shifted onto him.
No matter what happens next, Hui Ying has no plans to resist and her only way out is to negotiate for better treatment from this group of robbers. If this was her original body, there may have been some chance for escape as she was black belt taekwondo but with her current young fragile noble girl's body that has little to no stamina, there's no chance. Fighting back would only make matters worse for her.
The robber's leader finally spoke up to her and said that she will be treated well if she agrees to follow them obediently without resisting. Hui Ying nodded her head, to show that she will comply with whatever they asked for. So together with the maids, she will be brought back to the robber hideout, while the rest of the man servants and guards who refused to become bandits will be killed off. This sounds cruel, but the robbers have to be ruthless in cutting off all danger and there is nothing she could do to prevent this from happening. After all, her very life wasn't even guaranteed at this moment. Hui Ying could only shut her eyes as she listened to cries after cries of the loyal servants' voices as the robbers began killing them off one after another. The loyal guards knew their fate a long time ago, and thus committed suicide instead as they knew their life would be forfeited even when they returned to Li family alive.
Just like that, her next life is now at the hands of the robber where she will be spending her new life in the mountain hideout since her initial plan of marrying the Wang family can no longer be feasible anymore. Hui Ying felt really sorry for the Li family as she knew that her body's family will be worried after the news breaks out that instead of being the prestigious Wang family's wife, the young miss is to be a mountain bandit's wife instead.
