Chapter 10: Returning Home
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Blood spurted from Liu Ying's neck, her body convulsed once, then went still. The words she had intended to speak would remain forever unspoken, a secret buried with her.
"Junior Sister Ying!"
The other two screamed in anguish. Seeing Liu Ying lying motionless, they turned, their faces twisted with rage, and roared, "I'll kill you!"
To outsiders, it seemed that Rong Jiu had only succeeded because she caught Liu Ying off guard, so the two men were filled with nothing but murderous intent towards her. They saw Rong Jiu as the weakest among them, yet it was this ordinary person without any Xuan Qi who had killed their junior sister!
She deserved to die!
However, Rong Jiu remained still, coldly watching them.
Her calm and composed demeanor only provoked them further, making them feel that the only way to quench their rage was to tear her limb from limb.
But before they could take more than a few steps, Ye Tianlin intercepted them.
Ye Tianlin’s actions were even more decisive and efficient than Rong Jiu's. In just two or three swift moves, he snapped their necks, ending the threat.
The crisis was over.
The deaths of the three were nothing more than a minor ripple in their journey, and no one mentioned it further. They simply moved to a different spot and continued to rest.
No one noticed that Rong Jiu had a cut on her palm, self-inflicted. She was holding a piece of highly corrosive poisonous herb in her hand. It was this herb that had breached Liu Ying's defenses.
Rong Jiu quietly clenched her fist.
She wasn’t afraid of being poisoned because her blood was already toxic. Combined with the corrosive properties of the herb, Liu Ying would have died from the poison even if she hadn’t been killed by the knife wound to her neck.
But Rong Jiu didn’t want anyone to figure that out, so she created a diversion to cover up the real cause of death.
The bodies were quickly disposed of. After this, the way Xia Mu and the others looked at Rong Jiu changed completely, from disdain and suspicion to admiration. And when Rong Jiu handed the beast core back to Ye Tianlin in front of everyone, it won her their unanimous approval.
Not to mention, Xiao Liu's poison had been completely cured.
Xia Mu’s previous doubts about Rong Jiu were unfounded, and after essentially slapping himself in the face, he apologized to her.
"Don’t worry about it," Ye Tianlin said, handing Rong Jiu a fruit with a seemingly random remark.
Rong Jiu didn’t immediately take the fruit. Instead, she asked, "Do I seem like the kind of person who would hold a grudge?" An apology was an apology; she didn’t care about it.
"Your way of killing is very efficient."
He meant that she didn’t seem like someone who was killing for the first time. So his words were just a casual reassurance, not something to dwell on.
Realizing what he was implying, Rong Jiu said, "It was just a coincidence." This body had never killed anyone before, so she could only attribute it to coincidence.
"Doesn't look that way," Ye Tianlin replied honestly.
Rong Jiu calmly took the fruit and began eating it slowly. She didn’t offer any further explanation. This wasn’t the first time she had killed; countless people had died by her hand.
They were all people who deserved to die.
Ye Tianlin’s eyes flickered, but he didn’t press her further.
In the days that followed, more assassination attempts were made on Ye Tianlin. Since encountering those three warriors, they were attacked by two more groups. Originally, Rong Jiu had been walking some distance ahead of or behind them, but the attackers saw her as part of Ye Tianlin’s group, dragging her into the fights as well.
Her disdain for Ye Tianlin reached an all-time high at that point.
Xia Mu and the others noticed her annoyance and quickly tried to console her: "Miss Ah Jiu, please don’t be upset."
"Hmph."
Despite the constant fights, they made good time on their journey.
One small benefit of traveling with them was not getting lost.
Several days passed.
The city of Liu’an was now in sight.
As she thought about finally seeing her father and brother again, the days of traveling and the coldness she felt began to ease.
- Writer
