Chapter 1119 — Valentine's Day Special: Xiao Ning's Story, Part 4

Still, having Wei Zhao hold her in his arms was genuinely a little mortifying, and the girl also feared that carrying her this way might put him to inconvenience. She hesitated, then said, "Would you... carry me on your back instead?"

"Heh... very well." It was Wei Zhao's first smile since the enemy had closed in, and it caught the girl completely off guard.

"You can smile? I thought you couldn't - that you were simply born with a cold, sour face!" The girl and Wei Zhao had not been on good terms before, for he was the only retainer who never stooped to flattery, and whatever proposal she put forward he mostly opposed. In his view, the whole purpose of this journey to the small European country was to conclude the business negotiations; anything beyond that was superfluous!

So she had always taken Wei Zhao for a man without the feel of human courtesy, forever pulling that fierce poker face, incapable of bending an inch. Only now did the girl finally understand: everything Wei Zhao had said before had been for her own good!

In a foreign land such as this, her attendants had not the slightest experience in handling trouble, while Wei Zhao's experience was plain for all to see. As with before - had she only listened to him and kept her wealth out of sight, they would never have brought this calamity down upon themselves.

Wei Zhao did not answer her. He simply turned around and let her mount his back.

Sixteen was not so very old an age, yet the girl's figure had already begun to fill out rather nicely. Lying against Wei Zhao's back, she could not help pressing her breasts into him, and the thought of it filled her with shame - though in a situation like this she could hardly concern herself with such things!

Just as Wei Zhao had said: if those men discovered her, she would be ruined if she survived at all!

So the girl did no more than hesitate briefly before she clambered onto Wei Zhao's back and looped her arms around his neck.

When Wei Zhao straightened up, he had no choice but to hoist her bottom with his hands; had he simply let the girl hang from his body, she would have strangled the breath right out of him!

The girl's face flamed at once - but she was behind Wei Zhao, and he could not see. The feel of her bottom was soft and pleasant, and his back could still register the yielding of her breasts against it; yet Wei Zhao could not afford to dwell on such things now - escaping with their lives came first!

Wei Zhao bounded over tree after tree, and a good half hour passed before he finally stopped and dropped from the bough. He had by now covered a great distance; ahead lay a range of mountains, and they must already have passed beyond the armed militants' zone of control.

Wei Zhao set the girl down from his back and said, "That should be far enough. We ought to be out of the enemy's reach. Do you have a phone? Contact the embassy and have them send an aircraft to rescue us."

"Mine's in my backpack - I didn't bring it with me. Don't you have one?" Set down, the girl's cheeks were still burning. Lying against Wei Zhao's shoulder a moment before, his strong masculine scent had sent her heart racing.

Wei Zhao frowned, drew out his own phone and glanced at it, then said evenly, "There's no signal for mine here. Only your satellite phone will connect!"

The phone Wei Zhao had brought was a domestic model, able to use the local networks - but they were at the border now, and this should be a dead zone where no signal reached. Only a satellite phone could communicate with the outside world, and the girl did not have hers on her!

"Ah!" The girl started, and at once a flicker of guilt crossed her face. "I... I didn't know. That satellite phone is too heavy, and I thought everyone's phone would work, so I left it in the suitcase... I'm sorry..."

Wei Zhao shook his head. He supposed this was the girl's first time away from home and she lacked experience, so he said nothing more. Everyone's phones had, after all, had signal before; she could never have guessed what the satellite phone might be good for. And a satellite phone was bulkier and heavier than an ordinary one - decidedly inconvenient for a girl to carry about.

"My phone has a GPS function. All we can do is wait for friends back home to notice that the coordinates don't add up, and then come looking for us." Wei Zhao, at least, was not unduly worried; he switched on the phone's GPS. This was, in essence, a passive fix - he had no way of transmitting his present information back of his own accord.

"Thank you..." At that moment, the girl's gratitude toward Wei Zhao came wholly from the heart.

"No need to thank me," Wei Zhao said flatly. "There's a cave just ahead. Let's rest there a while - I'll go and find something to eat..."

"Wait... what is your name?" The girl suddenly mustered her courage and asked.

"Eagle. Don't you know that already?" Wei Zhao replied evenly.

"I mean your real name..." the girl explained.

"Zero-One," Wei Zhao said.

"Zero-One? What's that?" The girl blinked.

"A code name," Wei Zhao said.

"If you won't tell, then you won't tell!" The girl pouted, a little put out. "My name is Yu Ning."

"Mm." Wei Zhao answered with a single syllable, turned, and went off in search of food. Preparations had to be made early; the rescuers might arrive at any hour, and if they were not ready, they could very well die here.

The cave was shallow - sitting inside it, one could see everything that lay outside. The girl curled up in its mouth with her arms about her knees, quietly watching Wei Zhao's figure walk away, watching him vanish from sight. All at once a very lonely feeling stole over her, and she felt somewhat deflated.

That was the whole of what had happened...

Yu Ning trailed at Wei Zhao's side, wanting to help, but he moved so swiftly that he was already back at the cave with an armful of branches. The girl could only follow along behind him, at a loss for what to do.

The two of them returned to the cave and sat around the fire. Wei Zhao closed his eyes and cultivated the Xuanyuan Dragon-Taming Art. Few souls lived in this place, and the spiritual energy in the air was far richer than elsewhere; Wei Zhao had no intention of wasting so fine an opportunity to cultivate. If they had been cast down here, then it was calamity and blessing in equal parts.

Yu Ning watched Wei Zhao sitting there with his eyes closed, half bored and half curious.

Although Yu Ning did not move in large circles, she had met her share of young masters from distinguished families - and those men were either unfailingly attentive to her or fawning by every means. Yet not one of them had ever ignored her the way Wei Zhao did!

Of course, Yu Ning did not believe that Wei Zhao was playing some novel trick, deliberately acting this way to capture her attention. If he had been doing it on purpose before, then now that the two of them were alone together and she had shown him nothing but goodwill, why was he still exactly the same?

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