Chapter Twenty-Nine: The Destination of the Heart, Gao Lan

Gao Lan did not kill Gao Qisheng.

When she was jolted awake by Gao Qisheng’s outrageous actions, she exerted a slight force, shaking off his hands and splitting the webbing between his thumb and index finger. She raised her palm, which shimmered with a crystalline, jade-like metallic luster, aiming to strike down at his head. Yet, the sight of the old man’s frenzied, desperate eyes made it impossible for her to land the blow.

After all, he had raised her as a daughter for several years. Whether his intentions were sincere or feigned, during those years he had pampered and loved her as best he could, allowing her—a girl abandoned at the gates of an orphanage as an infant—to feel the warmth of a home.

Tears streaming down her face, she lowered her hand, grabbed her torn dress to cover herself, turned, and fled the study.

Everything was a lie. Her foster father had only valued her abilities; he had donned a mask of hypocrisy just to ensure she would willingly sacrifice her life for the Gao family. In that instant, she felt not a shred of attachment left for this home or this foster father.

She rushed downstairs, tears falling all the way. Under the stunned gazes of everyone in the foyer, she darted out with impossible speed and reached the courtyard. Then, amidst the shocked and horrified stares of the bodyguards and police, she wove through the crowd like a butterfly flitting among flowers, dashed out the villa gates, and leaped over an ambulance parked across the entrance.

She vaulted over two meters high—a height no human could reach—but she was beyond caring about how shocking her actions were.

Her mind was a chaotic void; her heart was as dead ashes. Gao Qisheng’s words echoed in her head like thunder, striking her shattered heart over and over, as if to grind it into dust. She blindly sprinted out of the villa complex and onto the street, running at her absolute limit, heedless of the massive expenditure of her inner energy.

Fortunately, it was past three in the morning, or her terrifying speed would have shocked countless people. Even so, there were still a few late-night vehicles and pedestrians. Her horrifying, unmasked speed even caused a collision between a taxi and a sedan at an intersection.

Gao Lan did not know that the direction she was unconsciously heading was toward Yan Tian’s ancestral home in the suburbs. Nor did she know that as soon as she had rushed out of the villa, a figure had begun to follow her.

That figure moved faster than her, with movements more graceful, fluid, and eerie. At first, he trailed behind her, slipping through the shadows where buildings and streetlights could not reach, before surging ahead to watch her quietly from a distance. Once Gao Lan passed him, he would drop back to follow her again. It looked as though he were observing her, yet there was a hint of protection in his actions.

At the very least, when Gao Lan was running wildly like a madwoman on the road and was nearly struck head-on by an oncoming truck, it was he who struck out from afar, forcing the truck to swerve and narrowly graze her body.

The truck driver cursed frantically, yanking the steering wheel to regain control of the vehicle that had nearly been pushed onto the sidewalk by an inexplicable force. Two bright beams of light illuminated the shadow of the man standing in front of a building on the sidewalk, revealing his figure for a fleeting moment.

The figure was Yan Tian. Under the glare of the headlights, Yan Tian wore a strange, knowing smile.

He had already discarded his clothes and shoes in a trash bin. After all, he had walked and sat in the Gao villa, and any fibers left behind could become evidence. There was no helping it; modern forensic technology was too advanced. For the sake of caution, Yan Tian had no choice but to "run naked."

In a flash, Yan Tian vanished from the truck’s light. The truck wobbled back onto the road, and the terrified driver failed to notice the ghost-like Yan Tian. As for Gao Lan, who had already brushed past the truck, she had noticed him even less.

Yan Tian soon bypassed her again, watching her from afar. He could clearly see her torn dress and the striking, swollen marks on her face.

"It looks like she’s heading... in the direction of my place!" Yan Tian touched his nose and muttered to himself. "They say a drowning person will instinctively grab at a straw in their moment of greatest despair. Looking at this little girl’s heartbroken state, could she be mistaking me for that straw?"

Gao Lan ran as if her life depended on it, covering the distance from the city to the suburbs in less than half an hour. When she stepped onto the pothole-ridden dirt road leading to Yan Tian’s home, Yan Tian, who had been following, took a few quick steps to get ahead and stood in the middle of the road, waiting silently.

Gao Lan, in her dazed state, seemed to have lost all ability to react. She ignored the figure blocking her path and crashed directly into him. At that moment, her body was filled with surging inner energy, and the collision at such high speed had the impact of a car traveling at sixty kilometers per hour.

Yan Tian felt a shock run through his body. He channeled a soft, internal force to redirect her momentum into the mud beneath his feet, sinking to his ankles.

Gao Lan, running through tears, felt as though she had slammed into a wall, but the wall felt not the least bit hard; instead, it was warm and soft. Given her speed and the inner energy she was wrapped in, if she had truly hit a wall, she would have punched a hole through it, and she herself would have been severely injured.

Yet, Gao Lan remained completely unharmed.

She lifted her head through a haze of tears. The young man, his face filled with compassion, stood before her. His powerful hands were not grabbing at her chest as they had in the past, but were instead gripping her shoulders firmly.

Gao Lan’s chaotic heart suddenly calmed. All her grievances and sorrow seemed to find a vent. She clung tightly to the youth’s waist, burying her head in his broad, sturdy chest, and sobbed uncontrollably. She felt instinctively that only here could she find comfort. Only here, having lost her home again and drifting like a duckweed, was a safe harbor where she could finally stop.

His strong arms and broad chest felt like a mountain, giving her an indescribable sense of security.

Suppressing the suffocating tightness in his chest, Yan Tian smiled gently. Holding her shoulders and patting her back, he whispered softly, "There, there. It’s okay. Cry it out, then get some sleep. When the sun rises, all the pain will pass..."

Gao Lan’s sobbing gradually quieted. Exhausted in both spirit and body, she drifted off to sleep in Yan Tian’s embrace.

In his heart, Yan Tian felt only pity for this poor girl. He did not know exactly what had happened, but seeing her disheveled and wounded state, he could guess that she had suffered a great injustice.

"Sigh, harmless beauties are meant to be cherished... She’s harmless to me now," Yan Tian sighed to himself.

He lifted the soundly sleeping Gao Lan. Her head remained buried in his chest, her hands still tightly hooked around his neck, unwilling to let go for even a moment.

Yan Tian took a deep breath; the faint tightness in his chest had vanished. The internal injury he had sustained from bearing the brunt of her collision when he intercepted her had already been healed by his own immensely powerful inner energy.

"Let’s go home," Yan Tian murmured, looking down at the young girl sleeping in his arms. He took long strides, sweeping toward his ancestral home like the wind.

Shi Kexin, Leng Bingtong, Gongsun Jing, Song Huizhi, and Sun Shangxiang had each moved a reclining chair to the front of the ancestral home’s courtyard, watching the dirt road.

Shi Kexin kept biting her lip, her rosy lips already turning pale. During the time Yan Tian had been away, the other women had explained everything to her; Gongsun Jing, Song Huizhi, and Sun Shangxiang had even let Shi Kexin witness their abilities firsthand.

Only now did Shi Kexin finally understand why Yan Tian was in such a rush to teach her martial arts and why he warned her never to stray too far from him. It turned out that the four beautiful women around her, each striking in their own way, were all roses with thorns—female tyrants carrying ticking time bombs.

And the Gao Lan whom Yan Tian had gone to pursue was actually a core member of the world’s largest assassin organization, "Fate," and the fastest hand in Asia.

After the initial shock, Shi Kexin grew deeply worried for Yan Tian. It wasn’t that she doubted Yan Tian could defeat Gao Lan; in fact, he had already beaten the gun-wielding Gao Lan once with his bare hands. To her, Gao Lan could never be Yan Tian’s match.

However, Gao Lan had the "Fate" organization behind her. According to Leng Bingtong, "Fate" was an international assassin group founded by six artificial gods even more powerful than Gongsun Jing and the others, recruiting the world’s top killers. If Yan Tian had truly provoked such a massive power, would he ever have a peaceful day again?

When it came down to it, the cause of all this was herself. If she hadn’t gone to find him at his school, if she hadn’t been spotted by that wicked young master Gao Qianduo, none of this would have happened.

Alas, there were no "ifs." It had happened inevitably. For her sake, Yan Tian had crossed Gao Qianduo and the Gao family, who held absolute power in He City. Because of his brilliant skills, he had attracted four "female tyrants"—all of them beautiful enough to stir the wandering thoughts of a little lecher like him. And now, he had provoked a core assassin of the "Fate" organization, indirectly making an enemy of a group that had killers everywhere.

"Why am I so unlucky?" Shi Kexin muttered to herself. "Didn't the fortune teller say I have a face that brings prosperity to my husband? Sigh, if only I hadn't come to find Xiao Tian... Or, if I left, would it be better for him? Would his bad luck change?"

She shook her head, her mind made up. She would leave He City, leave Yan Tian’s side, and take the bad luck she had brought him away. This kind-hearted girl had shouldered all the blame herself.

Just then, Leng Bingtong suddenly said, "He’s back."

"Back? Where?" Shi Kexin jumped up, stepping forward to peer into the pitch-black wilderness. Her eyesight couldn’t compare to Leng Bingtong’s; Leng Bingtong had seen Yan Tian sprinting toward the house from a kilometer away, while Shi Kexin saw nothing.

Before long, Shi Kexin finally caught sight of him. She saw the nearly naked Yan Tian, and the woman he was carrying—Gao Lan, with her dress torn at the top. Gao Lan’s head was buried in Yan Tian’s chest, her arms tightly locked around his neck.

Shi Kexin suddenly felt a wave of weakness, her heart filled with bitterness.

"Sigh, forget it. It seems it’s better if I leave," Shi Kexin thought, her heart aching.

Yan Tian, who had sprinted to the courtyard gate carrying Gao Lan, did not notice Shi Kexin’s strange behavior. He smiled at the women and said, "Still awake? Well, I’m back. Everything is handled; you can all rest easy. Kexin, go to the bathroom and run some hot water. You can help Gao Lan take a bath later. She’s exhausted and needs a good rest."

The phrase "she’s exhausted" took on a different meaning in Shi Kexin’s ears. She said coldly, "I’m tired. You should wash her yourself. I’m going to sleep." With that, she walked straight into the courtyard.

Yan Tian stared blankly at her. "What’s wrong with you? Officer Leng, did you guys bully her?"

Leng Bingtong smiled, casting a meaningful glance at the half-naked Gao Lan in Yan Tian’s arms. "How could we bully her? Hero Yan, don't you know the normal reaction of a girl who has fallen for a boy?"

"What are you talking about?" Yan Tian was still confused.

"Nothing. Sisters, let’s go back to sleep, too!" With that, Leng Bingtong and the others picked up their chairs and entered the courtyard one by one.

"I say, what about her? You need to leave someone to help her bathe!" Yan Tian shouted, but no one paid him any mind.

"What’s with everyone? Why are they all acting so mysterious?" Yan Tian hadn’t reached the level of a great romantic, and his understanding of women’s minds was still superficial. The profound philosophical problem of why women get jealous was not something he could figure out yet.

After staring blankly for a long time, Yan Tian chuckled self-deprecatingly: "I guess washing her myself is fine, heh heh..."