The horse was galloping at full speed when he gave it a sudden, brutal yank, wrenching its head to the side. It was not any fine-bred steed, just a common draft horse unused even to carrying a rider. Thrown off balance, it toppled with a long, piercing neigh, skidding across the ground as if forced into a sliding tackle.

The rider’s seat dropped sharply, scraping the ground before they were then flung clear. The silhouette’s target vanished in an instant; still hurtling through the air, it lashed out a snake-like appendage straight toward He Chunhua.

One strike from that thing would mean certain doom.

So, the mastermind had laid a double trap: one killer blow for Ke Jihai, and another for He Chunhua.

However, the He couple rolled with the momentum, tumbling into some undergrowth. The snake-like appendage missed He Chunhua’s face by barely several tens of centimeters, and then the distance grew wider and wider.

Madame Ying let out a scream.

Though her husband had shielded her in his arms during the fall, he could not protect her completely. A branch drove straight through her calf, piercing from front to back.

The dark figure landed with a catlike bounce, weightless as a shadow, twisting mid-air to spring once more at He Chunhua....