Chapter 269
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"You sure you're feeling better today?" Tong Xue asked. I nodded, stretching my arm to test if it worked. There was still some slight soreness, but otherwise I was perfectly fine. I could probably fight right now if I had to, as long as it wasn't an opponent of Sha Chen's caliber.
"Yeah. Besides, if I want to rest, I would rather do it at home instead of staying in the hospital here. No offense to Duchun Hospital, of course. It's just that…we can't afford the hospitalization fees if we stay here for too long."
"Oh, you don't have to worry about that," Lian Rou assured me. "The academy has that covered. Our student healthcare insurance scheme will cover all medical costs incurred for injuries sustained during a mission. Besides…" she narrowed her eyes. "You actually defeated that Dark Sage. The reward for that alone can pay for several decades' worth of hospitalization."
That would be an incredible waste of money, but obviously I didn't say that. Instead, I merely nodded sagely.
"Well, even so I would rather go see my family. I think they're pretty worried about me. The last time I talked to them, they were about to fly to Duchun Town to check on me."
Fortunately, I had told them that I was on my way back, and promised to return home to show them how healthy I was before I went to the academy. It would be a short detour, given how my family lived in some other city instead of Wu Ling City, but that was fine with me. It was good to go home once in a while.
So many xianxia protagonists just forgot that they have families or a home when they ran off to other continents for exploration or whatever. Or they got orphaned. Or their parents got kidnapped or something and went missing for hundreds of chapters (like Xiao Yan's Dad). You would think Xiao Yan's first priority would be to track down and rescue his Dad, but he got sidetracked by so many stupid other things, like prioritizing his harem over his father, that it literally took over a thousand chapters before he finally found his Dad, who was near death by the time they reunited.
Like…dude…
"Good point." Tong Xue was nodding in agreement, for he also understood the importance of seeing one's family. He turned to Yi Ding Si. "What about you? Are you feeling all right? Up to traveling back to Wu Ling Academy?"
"Yeah. I recovered before Fei Wu, so I really have no excuse. And just like him, I should go talk to my family too. My parents almost went mad with worry when they learned I was poisoned." Yi Ding Si bowed deeply to me and Tong Xue. "I owe you my lives." He also turned to Lian Rou. "And thank you for developing the serum that served as the antidote. Or I wouldn't be alive to thank you today."
"It's nothing. I only did what was natural." Lian Rou waved his gratitude away. Tong Xue also laughed.
"Yeah! It's only normal for comrades to help each other out!"
"You would have done the same if you were in our shoes," I added. Yi Ding Si snorted and raised an eyebrow in disbelief.
"No, I wouldn't. Hell, most people wouldn't. Who the hell would go fight the legendary Heavenly Venom King just to grab the Black Venom Toxin sample?! I mean, I'm really grateful to you two, but that was reckless!"
"It really was," Lian Rou agreed, looking at us disapprovingly. "Try not to take such ridiculous risks in future, okay?"
"Don't worry. We won't die. Look, Fei Wu even defeated the Dark Sage! Who do you think can threaten him now?"
"Oi, don't jinx us," I growled. "When you say that, we'll get assaulted by an even stronger enemy later."
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I shuddered to think what sort of enemy would face us in future. Even if Tong Xue didn't jinx us with his statement, it was inevitable. Now that I had won against Sha Chen, there would inevitably be new enemies who surpassed his strength.
Such as Lie Yang of Blazing Sun Sect, Li Tian Zun of Heavenly Fiend Sect and Bai Yue from Lunar Moon Sect. At that time, I was completely unaware that they had planned to invade Wu Ling City, but we already knew of their reputations.
"Okay, let's go home then!" Tong Xue began skipping toward the direction of the bus station. "I managed to charter a bus that will bring us back to Wu Ling City!"
"Then we can go home from there," I agreed, already tracing the bus route from Wu Ling City to my house. Probably my parents would show up to pick me up from the terminal the moment I reached Wu Ling City anyway, but best to be prepared.
"I'm down for it," Yi Ding Si added. "I can't wait to get home!"
"Me too…but I have a question."
Lian Rou was scowling as she put a dampener on our plans. Whirling around, she jabbed a finger at a fifth person, who had remained silent this entire time.
"What are you doing here?"
"Me?" Song Ting Yu shrugged innocently. "Of course I'll be joining you on your trip back to Wu Ling City."
"You don't live in Wu Ling City or attend Wu Ling Academy!" Lian Rou complained. "Why are you following us back there?!"
"Ara, do I need permission from you to visit Wu Ling City?" Song Ting Yu asked coyly, raising a sleeved hand to hide her mouth as she giggled. Lian Rou blanched.
"No, but…"
"I have business there. With Principal Xiao Zhang. Are you satisfied now?" Song Ting Yu sighed wearily. "It has something to do with the movement of the demonic sects."
"Oh! The rumors that three of the biggest demonic sects have gathered together to attack Wu Ling City?" Tong Xue exclaimed. Song Ting Yu glanced at him in surprise.
"You are pretty well-informed," she commented. Then she snickered. "I guess that's to be expected, since you're formerly from the Smart Shadow Sect."
"Don't remind me," Tong Xue groaned. After Divine Shadow Sect was annihilated, its branch Smart Shadow Sect was naturally destroyed as well. There were no survivors except Tong Xue, but he had renounced his membership and pledged himself fully to Nine-Tailed Fox Sect during the invasion and didn't count as a member anymore.
"In any case, I would prefer if you allow me to meet with Principal Xiao Zhang as soon as possible," Song Ting Yu resumed the conversation from before. "The Alliance will cooperate to help establish defenses for Wu Ling Academy. After all, Wu Ling Academy is officially under the jurisdiction of the Martial Arts Alliance."
"Not the Imperial Guard?" I wondered out loud. Song Ting Yu shrugged nonchalantly.
"Well, I'm sure the royal family will send the Imperial Guard to help if they see activity from the demonic sects. Problem is that the Imperial Guard is pretty stretched at the moment, dealing with several uprisings from demonic sects along the borders." She frowned, her pretty face darkening. "Those three big demonic sects chose an opportune time to strike."
"In other words, everything was planned out from the beginning," I muttered. "The skirmishes at the borders…they're diversions!"
"Most likely…but with no proof, we can't just leave the border towns and cities to suffer at the hands of demonic martial artists. You wouldn't be pleased if the Royal Family just abandoned the city where your parents live in to focus on defending the capital or the bigger cities, right?"
"I'm not suggesting they do that," I told her.
"Well, the Martial Arts Alliance will help. Even though we've been weakened, we still have a large reserve of orthodox martial artists. Not to mention, even the sects who ceded from us will still lend a helping hand if Wu Ling City asks them for help. Lots of their disciples are enrolled in Wu Ling Academy, after all."
That was a good point. I doubted Blood Blades would be mobilized in their entirety, but even Nine-Tailed Fox Sect would send out forces to help when their disciples in Wu Ling Academy came under attack.
…what? You think this was Spirit Realm? That Sect Leader Zi Shou De will just abandon us disciples in Wu Ling Academy just like how the Armament Sect Leader abandoned Qin Lie's friends and Ling family because he thought Qin Lie was dead? Not everyone in xianxia stories were assholes and ingrates.
"Fine. You can come with us." Lian Rou was sulking. "But on one condition. You've to stay away from Fei Wu!"
"Huh? Why?" Song Ting Yu was looking extremely perplexed. She glanced at me and Tong Xue. "I thought you are in a relationship with Tong Xue, not Fei Wu? Why should you care who Fei Wu solicits with?"
"It's not like that. Fei Wu belongs to my sister! I'm not letting anyone take him away from Qi Hong!"
"Tang Qi Hong?" Song Ting Yu's brow furrowed and she considered this. "But isn't she…?"
"Don't you dare say it!" Lian Rou snarled. "I don't care if she's no longer here. But Fei Wu will remain loyal to her forever!"
She turned to me, and I shrugged noncommittedly.
"Yeah, that's right."
"…you'll have to move on someday, but I guess it's still too soon. Nonetheless…" Song Ting Yu narrowed her eyes at Lian Rou. "You don't have the right to make that choice for Fei Wu. It's up to him whether he wishes to honor Tang Qi Hong's memory, or if he finally decides to move on. That's not for you or anyone to say."
"You…"
"Lian Rou, she is right," Tong Xue told her gently. He turned to me. "Fei Wu, this is something only you can decide on yourself. Lian Rou, or even Sect Leader Zi can't make this decision for you. But Lian Rou might have a point. It's still too soon to move on."
"I'm not moving on," I declared, despite feeling uncomfortable with all this talk. "But if Lian Rou wants me to be single my whole life to stay faithful to Qi Hong, then that's what I will do. At least that's what I feel at the moment."
"No, as I said, you've to decide this on your own, not based on what Lian Rou says," Tong Xue protested.
"…yeah, sorry. I didn't mean you should stay single your whole life." Lian Rou looked abashed and ashamed. "I…wasn't thinking."
"That's fine. Why don't we just go home for now? All this will take time anyway, and we should hurry back before the demonic sects move." I sighed. We had just fended off an invasion on Nine-Tailed Fox Sect, and now there was another imminent attack coming from three demonic sects. This just never ended, did it?
On the other hand, my victory over Sha Chen gave me a bit more confidence. If I could go toe-to-toe against the legendary Heavenly Venom King and win against him, then I could theoretically face any one of the Supreme Evils, whether it was Li Tian Zun or Lie Yang, and prevail over them. Of course, I would probably be beaten to within an inch of my life again, but…there was a precedent.
History could be repeated. And I doubted the demonic sects knew about my feat…yet. Even if they did, they probably had no idea how I did it, and could hardly come up with a counter against it. Or so I hoped.
"Let's go. The bus is here." Song Ting Yu waved us toward the terminal, where an armored-looking bus awaited. I frowned, suddenly remembering something.
"What happened to your limousine?" I asked.
"Towed back to the Alliance HQ," Song Tong Yu replied flippantly. "My father was about to assign me new bodyguards and a new driver, but I refused. Told him I would be safer with you, the guy who defeated the Dark Sage."
Lian Rou twitched, but she glanced at Tong Xue, and remained silent. She was furious that Song Ting Yu seemed to be stealing me away from the late Tang Qi Hong, but she also understood she had no right to intervene.
I sighed and shook my head. This whole mess was beginning to give me a damned headache. Not literally, but still…I wished there were more elegant solutions to this than dancing around the topic and avoiding the mention of Tang Qi Hong's death.
Tang Qi Hong was dead. I was still alive. I had to move on. But obviously that didn't mean I should just accept whatever girl who threw herself into my arms. Song Ting Yu, as beautiful as she was, had her own agenda, and I would be incredibly stupid to allow her to seduce me. No doubt she wanted to sway me into becoming a weapon or tool for the Martial Arts Alliance.
I was determined to prevent that from happening, no matter the cost.
Wait, what was that? A few of the commenters were yelling at me for not killing her? What do you think this is, the dark ages? Ancient China? Do you really think I could go around killing whoever offended me without any actual legitimate reason like self-defense? That people should die because they are manipulative? What kind of bullshit was that?
Man, these readers' edge were so sharp I was actually bleeding from reading their comments. Did they really think murder was the solution to everything? News flash: it is NOT.
This was modernity. If I murdered someone, I would have to face the consequences. I would be arrested and imprisoned. Not to mention, Song Ting Yu was the daughter of Alliance Chief Song Yu. I couldn't just go kill her and run away. I would end up spending my entire life on the run, and my family would be in danger or put to shame.
This wasn't some xianxia story where the protagonist could go around killing people who offended him without facing any repercussions. I had to take into account the bigger picture and how my actions affected others. And besides, it wasn't as if Song Ting Yu was trying to kill me. she was trying to manipulate me, not harm me.
What kind of psychotic bastard would kill over something as trivial as that? When I say trivial, I don't mean literally trivial, but come on, you must have some sort of twisted values if you're going to murder someone just because she manipulated you or tried to use you. that was just…idiotic. Only edgelords who spam comments about killing or destroying the world would subscribe to that sort of distorted logic. Hell, it probably couldn't even be called logic.
In any case, there was no killing, all right? I wasn't some psychotic homicidal maniac like Lin Feng or Chu Feng who went around killing people because they offended me. I was an upright, proper guy. If someone tried to kill me, I would hold nothing back and fight with everything I had, even if it resulted in my opponent's death.
But for something like using me or manipulating me? Hell, no. why would I kill someone over something as relatively trivial as that?
In any case, the discussion ended here, and we all boarded the bus.
*
I dozed off for most of the journey, occasionally waking up here and there when we hit a bump (though I admittedly slept through most of the bumps) or at random. Let's be honest. Sleeping upright in a bus wasn't the most optimal sleeping conditions, though I was someone who could sleep anytime, anywhere, thanks to my military training in my previous life.
It was during one of those moments when Tong Xue's sudden exclamation woke me up. Rubbing my neck, which had also fallen asleep for some reason, I creaked it and glanced in his direction, bleary-eyed. Okay, that was way too many commas.
"What's up?" I asked him.
"Someone…someone is in trouble!" he shouted, pointing out of the window. Hurrying to the front of the bus, he waved wildly. "Please stop!"
"Eh? Okay."
The bus driver was supposed to be a professional, but he didn't expect an order straight from one of his passengers. He was good enough to oblige, however, slamming on the brakes and bringing the bus to the side of the road.
I saw that we had stopped alongside a stretch of forest. Further across, past the dense cluster of trees, was a river. It was clear as day, sparkling in the daylight despite having mangrove trees growing at the banks. It was only thanks to my specialized glasses with sensors and automatic functions that I could spot it at all.
Then I saw what Tong Xue was referring to. Beached on the riverbank was a raft, which had evidently been floating for quite a while before it hit the sides of the river. There was a family lying spread out over the bobbing wooden draft, all four of them completely motionless.
"We should help them," Lian Rou said, her voice imbued with urgency. The moment the bus stopped, the driver opened the door, and all five of us began disembarking and heading toward the family on the raft.
"Who still uses a raft in this day and age?" I wondered aloud with a frown. Seriously? A raft? Why not a proper boat? Why the fuck were the family using a raft? Even if they were going kayaking or on a family trip, they should have rented out a proper boat! Or a fishing boat, at least!
But a…raft?!
There was something fishy about all this, but I couldn't put my finger on it.
"This is bad!" Lian Rou exclaimed as she approached them. Kneeling beside them, she began to inspect their bodies, and her expression grew grimmer. Feeling their pulses, she shook her head. "They have all been poisoned!"
"That's not good," I muttered.
Even without Lian Rou's assessment, it was clear that they really had been poisoned. The color of their skin had turned yellow, a sickly jaundice. Fuming warts had erupted all over their skin like infected warts, disgorging pus as if they were suffering from some kind of pox. Their eyes were all white, turning into blank cataracts.
I could tell from the complete lack of qi and lifeforce that they were all dead. All of them, except for one
Lian Rou noticed it too. She began rummaging through her backpack for an antidote or medicine to help the one who still showed faint lifesigns. It was a girl about our age, her long hair braided and dressed in an oriental dress.
I glanced at the rest of the family. The parents were definitely dead, foam bubbling in their mouths. The last member was a young boy several years younger than us, probably about ten or eleven, and he was just as dead as his parents, also showing the same signs of poison.
"This is horrible," Tong Xue remarked. Yi Ding Si nodded, completely subdued by the horrific sight.
"There's something not right about this," I pointed out with a frown. "Why are they on a raft?"
"…maybe they were on some kind of family trip?" Yi Ding Si offered. I shook my head.
"Even then…why a raft instead of a proper boat? You would think a family going on a trip would be able to rent a proper vacation boat. And they don't look like they were kayaking either." I glanced around the mostly empty raft, which had some supplies and food, as if they were going on a picnic, but none of the sailing equipment required. "Where's their life vests? You think parents would be stupid enough to bring their kids on a raft without any lifejackets?"
"…that's true." Tong Xue's brow was also crinkling in confusion. "This whole scene seems staged somehow."
"Exactly."
"Maybe we'll find out after Lian Rou cures the girl," Yi Ding Si suggested. We all turned to her, as she injected a serum into the girl's arm.
A few seconds later, the color returned to the girl's complexion and the warts all vanished, as if they never existed to begin with. My doubts began to grow when I noticed how fast the poison was purged from her system.
It was as if she already possessed some resistance to poison to begin with, and she was faking her near-death earlier.
"Are you all right?" Lian Rou asked as she helped the bewildered girl up. She held out a cup. "Here, some water."
The girl ignored her, and upon seeing her dead family on the raft, she began to burst into tears. Throwing herself at them, she wailed, cluching at their swollen, distened bodies. Her cries drifted deafeningly across the forest.
"Father! Mother! Brother!"
"I'm sorry…I can't save them…" Lian Rou bowed her head apologetically. Tong Xue stepped forward and placed a hand on her shoulder.
"It's not your fault. You did your best and you saved one person at least."
"…yeah."
While the couple were engaging in their flirting, I studied the crying girl with a scowl. Something struck me as not right.
She was addressing her brother as younger brother, and not by name. I guess that was normal for some families, but most elder sisters would address their younger brothers by name. Usually you only address the older sibling by title (like Older Sister). But the reverse was less common. Perhaps I was being paranoid, but it was as if she was deliberately avoiding the use of names because she didn't know the guy's name.
This was good acting…a little too good, to be honest, to the point where I found her actions unnatural. Normally, wouldn't the girl go into shock first, rather than dashing toward her family and crying? Not to mention, they were poisoned, so you shouldn't just grab their bodies like that, yet the girl had no compunctions in doing so.
Something was gravely amiss.
However, Lian Rou had noticed my expression and she was staring at me sharply. I sighed and nodded, backing off obediently. There was no reason for me to get into a fight with her here. she wanted me to be more sensitive with the girl, especially now that she had lost her parents.
After a while, the girl finally stopped crying and she slowly got up. She sniffed and wiped her tears away. Lian Rou kindly offered her tissue.
"Here, use this."
"T…thank you."
The girl nodded quietly and accepted it, wiping her face.
"What's your name?" Lian Rou asked gently. The girl stared at her, and after a moment, nodded.
"Liu Xing."
"I see. Liu Xing, can you tell us what happened?"
"…my family was attacked by demonic martial artists while we were returning to Wu Ling City, and they…those despicable bastards used poison on us! We tried to run but…but all of us succumbed to the poison." Liu Xing sniffed and dabbed at her eyes. "Father shielded me from their strikes…which is probably why I managed to survive longer than the rest…"
"You tried to run…on a raft?" I asked skeptically, only for Lian Rou to glare at me. I shut up, even as Tong Xue and Yi Ding Si shot me a sympathetic stare.
"I'm very sorry." Lian Rou lowered her head. She then glanced at the rest of us before turning back toward Liu Xing with a smile. "We're heading back to Wu Ling City anyway. Why don't you come with us?"
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"You sure you're feeling better today?" Tong Xue asked. I nodded, stretching my arm to test if it worked. There was still some slight soreness, but otherwise I was perfectly fine. I could probably fight right now if I had to, as long as it wasn't an opponent of Sha Chen's caliber.
"Yeah. Besides, if I want to rest, I would rather do it at home instead of staying in the hospital here. No offense to Duchun Hospital, of course. It's just that…we can't afford the hospitalization fees if we stay here for too long."
"Oh, you don't have to worry about that," Lian Rou assured me. "The academy has that covered. Our student healthcare insurance scheme will cover all medical costs incurred for injuries sustained during a mission. Besides…" she narrowed her eyes. "You actually defeated that Dark Sage. The reward for that alone can pay for several decades' worth of hospitalization."
That would be an incredible waste of money, but obviously I didn't say that. Instead, I merely nodded sagely.
"Well, even so I would rather go see my family. I think they're pretty worried about me. The last time I talked to them, they were about to fly to Duchun Town to check on me."
Fortunately, I had told them that I was on my way back, and promised to return home to show them how healthy I was before I went to the academy. It would be a short detour, given how my family lived in some other city instead of Wu Ling City, but that was fine with me. It was good to go home once in a while.
So many xianxia protagonists just forgot that they have families or a home when they ran off to other continents for exploration or whatever. Or they got orphaned. Or their parents got kidnapped or something and went missing for hundreds of chapters (like Xiao Yan's Dad). You would think Xiao Yan's first priority would be to track down and rescue his Dad, but he got sidetracked by so many stupid other things, like prioritizing his harem over his father, that it literally took over a thousand chapters before he finally found his Dad, who was near death by the time they reunited.
Like…dude…
"Good point." Tong Xue was nodding in agreement, for he also understood the importance of seeing one's family. He turned to Yi Ding Si. "What about you? Are you feeling all right? Up to traveling back to Wu Ling Academy?"
"Yeah. I recovered before Fei Wu, so I really have no excuse. And just like him, I should go talk to my family too. My parents almost went mad with worry when they learned I was poisoned." Yi Ding Si bowed deeply to me and Tong Xue. "I owe you my lives." He also turned to Lian Rou. "And thank you for developing the serum that served as the antidote. Or I wouldn't be alive to thank you today."
"It's nothing. I only did what was natural." Lian Rou waved his gratitude away. Tong Xue also laughed.
"Yeah! It's only normal for comrades to help each other out!"
"You would have done the same if you were in our shoes," I added. Yi Ding Si snorted and raised an eyebrow in disbelief.
"No, I wouldn't. Hell, most people wouldn't. Who the hell would go fight the legendary Heavenly Venom King just to grab the Black Venom Toxin sample?! I mean, I'm really grateful to you two, but that was reckless!"
"It really was," Lian Rou agreed, looking at us disapprovingly. "Try not to take such ridiculous risks in future, okay?"
"Don't worry. We won't die. Look, Fei Wu even defeated the Dark Sage! Who do you think can threaten him now?"
"Oi, don't jinx us," I growled. "When you say that, we'll get assaulted by an even stronger enemy later."
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I shuddered to think what sort of enemy would face us in future. Even if Tong Xue didn't jinx us with his statement, it was inevitable. Now that I had won against Sha Chen, there would inevitably be new enemies who surpassed his strength.
Such as Lie Yang of Blazing Sun Sect, Li Tian Zun of Heavenly Fiend Sect and Bai Yue from Lunar Moon Sect. At that time, I was completely unaware that they had planned to invade Wu Ling City, but we already knew of their reputations.
"Okay, let's go home then!" Tong Xue began skipping toward the direction of the bus station. "I managed to charter a bus that will bring us back to Wu Ling City!"
"Then we can go home from there," I agreed, already tracing the bus route from Wu Ling City to my house. Probably my parents would show up to pick me up from the terminal the moment I reached Wu Ling City anyway, but best to be prepared.
"I'm down for it," Yi Ding Si added. "I can't wait to get home!"
"Me too…but I have a question."
Lian Rou was scowling as she put a dampener on our plans. Whirling around, she jabbed a finger at a fifth person, who had remained silent this entire time.
"What are you doing here?"
"Me?" Song Ting Yu shrugged innocently. "Of course I'll be joining you on your trip back to Wu Ling City."
"You don't live in Wu Ling City or attend Wu Ling Academy!" Lian Rou complained. "Why are you following us back there?!"
"Ara, do I need permission from you to visit Wu Ling City?" Song Ting Yu asked coyly, raising a sleeved hand to hide her mouth as she giggled. Lian Rou blanched.
"No, but…"
"I have business there. With Principal Xiao Zhang. Are you satisfied now?" Song Ting Yu sighed wearily. "It has something to do with the movement of the demonic sects."
"Oh! The rumors that three of the biggest demonic sects have gathered together to attack Wu Ling City?" Tong Xue exclaimed. Song Ting Yu glanced at him in surprise.
"You are pretty well-informed," she commented. Then she snickered. "I guess that's to be expected, since you're formerly from the Smart Shadow Sect."
"Don't remind me," Tong Xue groaned. After Divine Shadow Sect was annihilated, its branch Smart Shadow Sect was naturally destroyed as well. There were no survivors except Tong Xue, but he had renounced his membership and pledged himself fully to Nine-Tailed Fox Sect during the invasion and didn't count as a member anymore.
"In any case, I would prefer if you allow me to meet with Principal Xiao Zhang as soon as possible," Song Ting Yu resumed the conversation from before. "The Alliance will cooperate to help establish defenses for Wu Ling Academy. After all, Wu Ling Academy is officially under the jurisdiction of the Martial Arts Alliance."
"Not the Imperial Guard?" I wondered out loud. Song Ting Yu shrugged nonchalantly.
"Well, I'm sure the royal family will send the Imperial Guard to help if they see activity from the demonic sects. Problem is that the Imperial Guard is pretty stretched at the moment, dealing with several uprisings from demonic sects along the borders." She frowned, her pretty face darkening. "Those three big demonic sects chose an opportune time to strike."
"In other words, everything was planned out from the beginning," I muttered. "The skirmishes at the borders…they're diversions!"
"Most likely…but with no proof, we can't just leave the border towns and cities to suffer at the hands of demonic martial artists. You wouldn't be pleased if the Royal Family just abandoned the city where your parents live in to focus on defending the capital or the bigger cities, right?"
"I'm not suggesting they do that," I told her.
"Well, the Martial Arts Alliance will help. Even though we've been weakened, we still have a large reserve of orthodox martial artists. Not to mention, even the sects who ceded from us will still lend a helping hand if Wu Ling City asks them for help. Lots of their disciples are enrolled in Wu Ling Academy, after all."
That was a good point. I doubted Blood Blades would be mobilized in their entirety, but even Nine-Tailed Fox Sect would send out forces to help when their disciples in Wu Ling Academy came under attack.
…what? You think this was Spirit Realm? That Sect Leader Zi Shou De will just abandon us disciples in Wu Ling Academy just like how the Armament Sect Leader abandoned Qin Lie's friends and Ling family because he thought Qin Lie was dead? Not everyone in xianxia stories were assholes and ingrates.
"Fine. You can come with us." Lian Rou was sulking. "But on one condition. You've to stay away from Fei Wu!"
"Huh? Why?" Song Ting Yu was looking extremely perplexed. She glanced at me and Tong Xue. "I thought you are in a relationship with Tong Xue, not Fei Wu? Why should you care who Fei Wu solicits with?"
"It's not like that. Fei Wu belongs to my sister! I'm not letting anyone take him away from Qi Hong!"
"Tang Qi Hong?" Song Ting Yu's brow furrowed and she considered this. "But isn't she…?"
"Don't you dare say it!" Lian Rou snarled. "I don't care if she's no longer here. But Fei Wu will remain loyal to her forever!"
She turned to me, and I shrugged noncommittedly.
"Yeah, that's right."
"…you'll have to move on someday, but I guess it's still too soon. Nonetheless…" Song Ting Yu narrowed her eyes at Lian Rou. "You don't have the right to make that choice for Fei Wu. It's up to him whether he wishes to honor Tang Qi Hong's memory, or if he finally decides to move on. That's not for you or anyone to say."
"You…"
"Lian Rou, she is right," Tong Xue told her gently. He turned to me. "Fei Wu, this is something only you can decide on yourself. Lian Rou, or even Sect Leader Zi can't make this decision for you. But Lian Rou might have a point. It's still too soon to move on."
"I'm not moving on," I declared, despite feeling uncomfortable with all this talk. "But if Lian Rou wants me to be single my whole life to stay faithful to Qi Hong, then that's what I will do. At least that's what I feel at the moment."
"No, as I said, you've to decide this on your own, not based on what Lian Rou says," Tong Xue protested.
"…yeah, sorry. I didn't mean you should stay single your whole life." Lian Rou looked abashed and ashamed. "I…wasn't thinking."
"That's fine. Why don't we just go home for now? All this will take time anyway, and we should hurry back before the demonic sects move." I sighed. We had just fended off an invasion on Nine-Tailed Fox Sect, and now there was another imminent attack coming from three demonic sects. This just never ended, did it?
On the other hand, my victory over Sha Chen gave me a bit more confidence. If I could go toe-to-toe against the legendary Heavenly Venom King and win against him, then I could theoretically face any one of the Supreme Evils, whether it was Li Tian Zun or Lie Yang, and prevail over them. Of course, I would probably be beaten to within an inch of my life again, but…there was a precedent.
History could be repeated. And I doubted the demonic sects knew about my feat…yet. Even if they did, they probably had no idea how I did it, and could hardly come up with a counter against it. Or so I hoped.
"Let's go. The bus is here." Song Ting Yu waved us toward the terminal, where an armored-looking bus awaited. I frowned, suddenly remembering something.
"What happened to your limousine?" I asked.
"Towed back to the Alliance HQ," Song Tong Yu replied flippantly. "My father was about to assign me new bodyguards and a new driver, but I refused. Told him I would be safer with you, the guy who defeated the Dark Sage."
Lian Rou twitched, but she glanced at Tong Xue, and remained silent. She was furious that Song Ting Yu seemed to be stealing me away from the late Tang Qi Hong, but she also understood she had no right to intervene.
I sighed and shook my head. This whole mess was beginning to give me a damned headache. Not literally, but still…I wished there were more elegant solutions to this than dancing around the topic and avoiding the mention of Tang Qi Hong's death.
Tang Qi Hong was dead. I was still alive. I had to move on. But obviously that didn't mean I should just accept whatever girl who threw herself into my arms. Song Ting Yu, as beautiful as she was, had her own agenda, and I would be incredibly stupid to allow her to seduce me. No doubt she wanted to sway me into becoming a weapon or tool for the Martial Arts Alliance.
I was determined to prevent that from happening, no matter the cost.
Wait, what was that? A few of the commenters were yelling at me for not killing her? What do you think this is, the dark ages? Ancient China? Do you really think I could go around killing whoever offended me without any actual legitimate reason like self-defense? That people should die because they are manipulative? What kind of bullshit was that?
Man, these readers' edge were so sharp I was actually bleeding from reading their comments. Did they really think murder was the solution to everything? News flash: it is NOT.
This was modernity. If I murdered someone, I would have to face the consequences. I would be arrested and imprisoned. Not to mention, Song Ting Yu was the daughter of Alliance Chief Song Yu. I couldn't just go kill her and run away. I would end up spending my entire life on the run, and my family would be in danger or put to shame.
This wasn't some xianxia story where the protagonist could go around killing people who offended him without facing any repercussions. I had to take into account the bigger picture and how my actions affected others. And besides, it wasn't as if Song Ting Yu was trying to kill me. she was trying to manipulate me, not harm me.
What kind of psychotic bastard would kill over something as trivial as that? When I say trivial, I don't mean literally trivial, but come on, you must have some sort of twisted values if you're going to murder someone just because she manipulated you or tried to use you. that was just…idiotic. Only edgelords who spam comments about killing or destroying the world would subscribe to that sort of distorted logic. Hell, it probably couldn't even be called logic.
In any case, there was no killing, all right? I wasn't some psychotic homicidal maniac like Lin Feng or Chu Feng who went around killing people because they offended me. I was an upright, proper guy. If someone tried to kill me, I would hold nothing back and fight with everything I had, even if it resulted in my opponent's death.
But for something like using me or manipulating me? Hell, no. why would I kill someone over something as relatively trivial as that?
In any case, the discussion ended here, and we all boarded the bus.
*
I dozed off for most of the journey, occasionally waking up here and there when we hit a bump (though I admittedly slept through most of the bumps) or at random. Let's be honest. Sleeping upright in a bus wasn't the most optimal sleeping conditions, though I was someone who could sleep anytime, anywhere, thanks to my military training in my previous life.
It was during one of those moments when Tong Xue's sudden exclamation woke me up. Rubbing my neck, which had also fallen asleep for some reason, I creaked it and glanced in his direction, bleary-eyed. Okay, that was way too many commas.
"What's up?" I asked him.
"Someone…someone is in trouble!" he shouted, pointing out of the window. Hurrying to the front of the bus, he waved wildly. "Please stop!"
"Eh? Okay."
The bus driver was supposed to be a professional, but he didn't expect an order straight from one of his passengers. He was good enough to oblige, however, slamming on the brakes and bringing the bus to the side of the road.
I saw that we had stopped alongside a stretch of forest. Further across, past the dense cluster of trees, was a river. It was clear as day, sparkling in the daylight despite having mangrove trees growing at the banks. It was only thanks to my specialized glasses with sensors and automatic functions that I could spot it at all.
Then I saw what Tong Xue was referring to. Beached on the riverbank was a raft, which had evidently been floating for quite a while before it hit the sides of the river. There was a family lying spread out over the bobbing wooden draft, all four of them completely motionless.
"We should help them," Lian Rou said, her voice imbued with urgency. The moment the bus stopped, the driver opened the door, and all five of us began disembarking and heading toward the family on the raft.
"Who still uses a raft in this day and age?" I wondered aloud with a frown. Seriously? A raft? Why not a proper boat? Why the fuck were the family using a raft? Even if they were going kayaking or on a family trip, they should have rented out a proper boat! Or a fishing boat, at least!
But a…raft?!
There was something fishy about all this, but I couldn't put my finger on it.
"This is bad!" Lian Rou exclaimed as she approached them. Kneeling beside them, she began to inspect their bodies, and her expression grew grimmer. Feeling their pulses, she shook her head. "They have all been poisoned!"
"That's not good," I muttered.
Even without Lian Rou's assessment, it was clear that they really had been poisoned. The color of their skin had turned yellow, a sickly jaundice. Fuming warts had erupted all over their skin like infected warts, disgorging pus as if they were suffering from some kind of pox. Their eyes were all white, turning into blank cataracts.
I could tell from the complete lack of qi and lifeforce that they were all dead. All of them, except for one
Lian Rou noticed it too. She began rummaging through her backpack for an antidote or medicine to help the one who still showed faint lifesigns. It was a girl about our age, her long hair braided and dressed in an oriental dress.
I glanced at the rest of the family. The parents were definitely dead, foam bubbling in their mouths. The last member was a young boy several years younger than us, probably about ten or eleven, and he was just as dead as his parents, also showing the same signs of poison.
"This is horrible," Tong Xue remarked. Yi Ding Si nodded, completely subdued by the horrific sight.
"There's something not right about this," I pointed out with a frown. "Why are they on a raft?"
"…maybe they were on some kind of family trip?" Yi Ding Si offered. I shook my head.
"Even then…why a raft instead of a proper boat? You would think a family going on a trip would be able to rent a proper vacation boat. And they don't look like they were kayaking either." I glanced around the mostly empty raft, which had some supplies and food, as if they were going on a picnic, but none of the sailing equipment required. "Where's their life vests? You think parents would be stupid enough to bring their kids on a raft without any lifejackets?"
"…that's true." Tong Xue's brow was also crinkling in confusion. "This whole scene seems staged somehow."
"Exactly."
"Maybe we'll find out after Lian Rou cures the girl," Yi Ding Si suggested. We all turned to her, as she injected a serum into the girl's arm.
A few seconds later, the color returned to the girl's complexion and the warts all vanished, as if they never existed to begin with. My doubts began to grow when I noticed how fast the poison was purged from her system.
It was as if she already possessed some resistance to poison to begin with, and she was faking her near-death earlier.
"Are you all right?" Lian Rou asked as she helped the bewildered girl up. She held out a cup. "Here, some water."
The girl ignored her, and upon seeing her dead family on the raft, she began to burst into tears. Throwing herself at them, she wailed, cluching at their swollen, distened bodies. Her cries drifted deafeningly across the forest.
"Father! Mother! Brother!"
"I'm sorry…I can't save them…" Lian Rou bowed her head apologetically. Tong Xue stepped forward and placed a hand on her shoulder.
"It's not your fault. You did your best and you saved one person at least."
"…yeah."
While the couple were engaging in their flirting, I studied the crying girl with a scowl. Something struck me as not right.
She was addressing her brother as younger brother, and not by name. I guess that was normal for some families, but most elder sisters would address their younger brothers by name. Usually you only address the older sibling by title (like Older Sister). But the reverse was less common. Perhaps I was being paranoid, but it was as if she was deliberately avoiding the use of names because she didn't know the guy's name.
This was good acting…a little too good, to be honest, to the point where I found her actions unnatural. Normally, wouldn't the girl go into shock first, rather than dashing toward her family and crying? Not to mention, they were poisoned, so you shouldn't just grab their bodies like that, yet the girl had no compunctions in doing so.
Something was gravely amiss.
However, Lian Rou had noticed my expression and she was staring at me sharply. I sighed and nodded, backing off obediently. There was no reason for me to get into a fight with her here. she wanted me to be more sensitive with the girl, especially now that she had lost her parents.
After a while, the girl finally stopped crying and she slowly got up. She sniffed and wiped her tears away. Lian Rou kindly offered her tissue.
"Here, use this."
"T…thank you."
The girl nodded quietly and accepted it, wiping her face.
"What's your name?" Lian Rou asked gently. The girl stared at her, and after a moment, nodded.
"Liu Xing."
"I see. Liu Xing, can you tell us what happened?"
"…my family was attacked by demonic martial artists while we were returning to Wu Ling City, and they…those despicable bastards used poison on us! We tried to run but…but all of us succumbed to the poison." Liu Xing sniffed and dabbed at her eyes. "Father shielded me from their strikes…which is probably why I managed to survive longer than the rest…"
"You tried to run…on a raft?" I asked skeptically, only for Lian Rou to glare at me. I shut up, even as Tong Xue and Yi Ding Si shot me a sympathetic stare.
"I'm very sorry." Lian Rou lowered her head. She then glanced at the rest of us before turning back toward Liu Xing with a smile. "We're heading back to Wu Ling City anyway. Why don't you come with us?"
"You sure you're feeling better today?" Tong Xue asked. I nodded, stretching my arm to test if it worked. There was still some slight soreness, but otherwise I was perfectly fine. I could probably fight right now if I had to, as long as it wasn't an opponent of Sha Chen's caliber."Yeah. Besides, if I want to rest, I would rather do it at home instead of staying in the hospital here. No offense to Duchun Hospital, of course. It's just thatwe can't afford the hospitalization fees if we stay here for too long.""Oh, you don't have to worry about that," Lian Rou assured me. "The academy has that covered. Our student healthcare insurance scheme will cover all medical costs incurred for injuries sustained during a mission. Besides" she narrowed her eyes. "You actually defeated that Dark Sage. The reward for that alone can pay for several decades' worth of hospitalization."That would be an incredible waste of money, but obviously I didn't say that. Instead, I merely nodded sagely."Well, even so I would rather go see my family. I think they're pretty worried about me. The last time I talked to them, they were about to fly to Duchun Town to check on me."Fortunately, I had told them that I was on my way back, and promised to return home to show them how healthy I was before I went to the academy. It would be a short detour, given how my family lived in some other city instead of Wu Ling City, but that was fine with me. It was good to go home once in a while.So many xianxia protagonists just forgot that they have families or a home when they ran off to other continents for exploration or whatever. Or they got orphaned. Or their parents got kidnapped or something and went missing for hundreds of chapters like Xiao Yan's Dad. You would think Xiao Yan's first priority would be to track down and rescue his Dad, but he got sidetracked by so many stupid other things, like prioritizing his harem over his father, that it literally took over a thousand chapters before he finally found his Dad, who was near death by the time they reunited.Likedude"Good point." Tong Xue was nodding in agreement, for he also understood the importance of seeing one's family. He turned to Yi Ding Si. "What about you? Are you feeling all right? Up to traveling back to Wu Ling Academy?""Yeah. I recovered before Fei Wu, so I really have no excuse. And just like him, I should go talk to my family too. My parents almost went mad with worry when they learned I was poisoned." Yi Ding Si bowed deeply to me and Tong Xue. "I owe you my lives." He also turned to Lian Rou. "And thank you for developing the serum that served as the antidote. Or I wouldn't be alive to thank you today.""It's nothing. I only did what was natural." Lian Rou waved his gratitude away. Tong Xue also laughed."Yeah! It's only normal for comrades to help each other out!""You would have done the same if you were in our shoes," I added. Yi Ding Si snorted and raised an eyebrow in disbelief."No, I wouldn't. Hell, most people wouldn't. Who the hell would go fight the legendary Heavenly Venom King just to grab the Black Venom Toxin sample?! I mean, I'm really grateful to you two, but that was reckless!""It really was," Lian Rou agreed, looking at us disapprovingly. "Try not to take such ridiculous risks in future, okay?""Don't worry. We won't die. Look, Fei Wu even defeated the Dark Sage! Who do you think can threaten him now?""Oi, don't jinx us," I growled. "When you say that, we'll get assaulted by an even stronger enemy later." Find authorized novels in Webnovelfaster updates, better experiencePlease click www.webnovel.com for visiting. I shuddered to think what sort of enemy would face us in future. Even if Tong Xue didn't jinx us with his statement, it was inevitable. Now that I had won against Sha Chen, there would inevitably be new enemies who surpassed his strength.Such as Lie Yang of Blazing Sun Sect, Li Tian Zun of Heavenly Fiend Sect and Bai Yue from Lunar Moon Sect. At that time, I was completely unaware that they had planned to invade Wu Ling City, but we already knew of their reputations."Okay, let's go home then!" Tong Xue began skipping toward the direction of the bus station. "I managed to charter a bus that will bring us back to Wu Ling City!""Then we can go home from there," I agreed, already tracing the bus route from Wu Ling City to my house. Probably my parents would show up to pick me up from the terminal the moment I reached Wu Ling City anyway, but best to be prepared."I'm down for it," Yi Ding Si added. "I can't wait to get home!""Me toobut I have a question."Lian Rou was scowling as she put a dampener on our plans. Whirling around, she jabbed a finger at a fifth person, who had remained silent this entire time."What are you doing here?""Me?" Song Ting Yu shrugged innocently. "Of course I'll be joining you on your trip back to Wu Ling City.""You don't live in Wu Ling City or attend Wu Ling Academy!" Lian Rou complained. "Why are you following us back there?!""Ara, do I need permission from you to visit Wu Ling City?" Song Ting Yu asked coyly, raising a sleeved hand to hide her mouth as she giggled. Lian Rou blanched."No, but""I have business there. With Principal Xiao Zhang. Are you satisfied now?" Song Ting Yu sighed wearily. "It has something to do with the movement of the demonic sects.""Oh! The rumors that three of the biggest demonic sects have gathered together to attack Wu Ling City?" Tong Xue exclaimed. Song Ting Yu glanced at him in surprise."You are pretty well-informed," she commented. Then she snickered. "I guess that's to be expected, since you're formerly from the Smart Shadow Sect.""Don't remind me," Tong Xue groaned. After Divine Shadow Sect was annihilated, its branch Smart Shadow Sect was naturally destroyed as well. There were no survivors except Tong Xue, but he had renounced his membership and pledged himself fully to Nine-Tailed Fox Sect during the invasion and didn't count as a member anymore."In any case, I would prefer if you allow me to meet with Principal Xiao Zhang as soon as possible," Song Ting Yu resumed the conversation from before. "The Alliance will cooperate to help establish defenses for Wu Ling Academy. After all, Wu Ling Academy is officially under the jurisdiction of the Martial Arts Alliance.""Not the Imperial Guard?" I wondered out loud. Song Ting Yu shrugged nonchalantly."Well, I'm sure the royal family will send the Imperial Guard to help if they see activity from the demonic sects. Problem is that the Imperial Guard is pretty stretched at the moment, dealing with several uprisings from demonic sects along the borders." She frowned, her pretty face darkening. "Those three big demonic sects chose an opportune time to strike.""In other words, everything was planned out from the beginning," I muttered. "The skirmishes at the bordersthey're diversions!""Most likelybut with no proof, we can't just leave the border towns and cities to suffer at the hands of demonic martial artists. You wouldn't be pleased if the Royal Family just abandoned the city where your parents live in to focus on defending the capital or the bigger cities, right?""I'm not suggesting they do that," I told her."Well, the Martial Arts Alliance will help. Even though we've been weakened, we still have a large reserve of orthodox martial artists. Not to mention, even the sects who ceded from us will still lend a helping hand if Wu Ling City asks them for help. Lots of their disciples are enrolled in Wu Ling Academy, after all."That was a good point. I doubted Blood Blades would be mobilized in their entirety, but even Nine-Tailed Fox Sect would send out forces to help when their disciples in Wu Ling Academy came under attack.what? You think this was Spirit Realm? That Sect Leader Zi Shou De will just abandon us disciples in Wu Ling Academy just like how the Armament Sect Leader abandoned Qin Lie's friends and Ling family because he thought Qin Lie was dead? Not everyone in xianxia stories were assholes and ingrates."Fine. You can come with us." Lian Rou was sulking. "But on one condition. You've to stay away from Fei Wu!""Huh? Why?" Song Ting Yu was looking extremely perplexed. She glanced at me and Tong Xue. "I thought you are in a relationship with Tong Xue, not Fei Wu? Why should you care who Fei Wu solicits with?""It's not like that. Fei Wu belongs to my sister! I'm not letting anyone take him away from Qi Hong!""Tang Qi Hong?" Song Ting Yu's brow furrowed and she considered this. "But isn't she?""Don't you dare say it!" Lian Rou snarled. "I don't care if she's no longer here. But Fei Wu will remain loyal to her forever!"She turned to me, and I shrugged noncommittedly."Yeah, that's right.""you'll have to move on someday, but I guess it's still too soon. Nonetheless" Song Ting Yu narrowed her eyes at Lian Rou. "You don't have the right to make that choice for Fei Wu. It's up to him whether he wishes to honor Tang Qi Hong's memory, or if he finally decides to move on. That's not for you or anyone to say.""You""Lian Rou, she is right," Tong Xue told her gently. He turned to me. "Fei Wu, this is something only you can decide on yourself. Lian Rou, or even Sect Leader Zi can't make this decision for you. But Lian Rou might have a point. It's still too soon to move on.""I'm not moving on," I declared, despite feeling uncomfortable with all this talk. "But if Lian Rou wants me to be single my whole life to stay faithful to Qi Hong, then that's what I will do. At least that's what I feel at the moment.""No, as I said, you've to decide this on your own, not based on what Lian Rou says," Tong Xue protested."yeah, sorry. I didn't mean you should stay single your whole life." Lian Rou looked abashed and ashamed. "Iwasn't thinking.""That's fine. Why don't we just go home for now? All this will take time anyway, and we should hurry back before the demonic sects move." I sighed. We had just fended off an invasion on Nine-Tailed Fox Sect, and now there was another imminent attack coming from three demonic sects. This just never ended, did it?On the other hand, my victory over Sha Chen gave me a bit more confidence. If I could go toe-to-toe against the legendary Heavenly Venom King and win against him, then I could theoretically face any one of the Supreme Evils, whether it was Li Tian Zun or Lie Yang, and prevail over them. Of course, I would probably be beaten to within an inch of my life again, butthere was a precedent.History could be repeated. And I doubted the demonic sects knew about my featyet. Even if they did, they probably had no idea how I did it, and could hardly come up with a counter against it. Or so I hoped."Let's go. The bus is here." Song Ting Yu waved us toward the terminal, where an armored-looking bus awaited. I frowned, suddenly remembering something."What happened to your limousine?" I asked."Towed back to the Alliance HQ," Song Tong Yu replied flippantly. "My father was about to assign me new bodyguards and a new driver, but I refused. Told him I would be safer with you, the guy who defeated the Dark Sage."Lian Rou twitched, but she glanced at Tong Xue, and remained silent. She was furious that Song Ting Yu seemed to be stealing me away from the late Tang Qi Hong, but she also understood she had no right to intervene.I sighed and shook my head. This whole mess was beginning to give me a damned headache. Not literally, but stillI wished there were more elegant solutions to this than dancing around the topic and avoiding the mention of Tang Qi Hong's death.Tang Qi Hong was dead. I was still alive. I had to move on. But obviously that didn't mean I should just accept whatever girl who threw herself into my arms. Song Ting Yu, as beautiful as she was, had her own agenda, and I would be incredibly stupid to allow her to seduce me. No doubt she wanted to sway me into becoming a weapon or tool for the Martial Arts Alliance.I was determined to prevent that from happening, no matter the cost.Wait, what was that? A few of the commenters were yelling at me for not killing her? What do you think this is, the dark ages? Ancient China? Do you really think I could go around killing whoever offended me without any actual legitimate reason like self-defense? That people should die because they are manipulative? What kind of bullshit was that?Man, these readers' edge were so sharp I was actually bleeding from reading their comments. Did they really think murder was the solution to everything? News flash: it is NOT.This was modernity. If I murdered someone, I would have to face the consequences. I would be arrested and imprisoned. Not to mention, Song Ting Yu was the daughter of Alliance Chief Song Yu. I couldn't just go kill her and run away. I would end up spending my entire life on the run, and my family would be in danger or put to shame.This wasn't some xianxia story where the protagonist could go around killing people who offended him without facing any repercussions. I had to take into account the bigger picture and how my actions affected others. And besides, it wasn't as if Song Ting Yu was trying to kill me. she was trying to manipulate me, not harm me.What kind of psychotic bastard would kill over something as trivial as that? When I say trivial, I don't mean literally trivial, but come on, you must have some sort of twisted values if you're going to murder someone just because she manipulated you or tried to use you. that was justidiotic. Only edgelords who spam comments about killing or destroying the world would subscribe to that sort of distorted logic. Hell, it probably couldn't even be called logic.In any case, there was no killing, all right? I wasn't some psychotic homicidal maniac like Lin Feng or Chu Feng who went around killing people because they offended me. I was an upright, proper guy. If someone tried to kill me, I would hold nothing back and fight with everything I had, even if it resulted in my opponent's death.But for something like using me or manipulating me? Hell, no. why would I kill someone over something as relatively trivial as that?In any case, the discussion ended here, and we all boarded the bus.*I dozed off for most of the journey, occasionally waking up here and there when we hit a bump though I admittedly slept through most of the bumps or at random. Let's be honest. Sleeping upright in a bus wasn't the most optimal sleeping conditions, though I was someone who could sleep anytime, anywhere, thanks to my military training in my previous life.It was during one of those moments when Tong Xue's sudden exclamation woke me up. Rubbing my neck, which had also fallen asleep for some reason, I creaked it and glanced in his direction, bleary-eyed. Okay, that was way too many commas."What's up?" I asked him."Someonesomeone is in trouble!" he shouted, pointing out of the window. Hurrying to the front of the bus, he waved wildly. "Please stop!""Eh? Okay."The bus driver was supposed to be a professional, but he didn't expect an order straight from one of his passengers. He was good enough to oblige, however, slamming on the brakes and bringing the bus to the side of the road.I saw that we had stopped alongside a stretch of forest. Further across, past the dense cluster of trees, was a river. It was clear as day, sparkling in the daylight despite having mangrove trees growing at the banks. It was only thanks to my specialized glasses with sensors and automatic functions that I could spot it at all.Then I saw what Tong Xue was referring to. Beached on the riverbank was a raft, which had evidently been floating for quite a while before it hit the sides of the river. There was a family lying spread out over the bobbing wooden draft, all four of them completely motionless."We should help them," Lian Rou said, her voice imbued with urgency. The moment the bus stopped, the driver opened the door, and all five of us began disembarking and heading toward the family on the raft."Who still uses a raft in this day and age?" I wondered aloud with a frown. Seriously? A raft? Why not a proper boat? Why the fuck were the family using a raft? Even if they were going kayaking or on a family trip, they should have rented out a proper boat! Or a fishing boat, at least!But araft?!There was something fishy about all this, but I couldn't put my finger on it."This is bad!" Lian Rou exclaimed as she approached them. Kneeling beside them, she began to inspect their bodies, and her expression grew grimmer. Feeling their pulses, she shook her head. "They have all been poisoned!""That's not good," I muttered.Even without Lian Rou's assessment, it was clear that they really had been poisoned. The color of their skin had turned yellow, a sickly jaundice. Fuming warts had erupted all over their skin like infected warts, disgorging pus as if they were suffering from some kind of pox. Their eyes were all white, turning into blank cataracts.I could tell from the complete lack of qi and lifeforce that they were all dead. All of them, except for oneLian Rou noticed it too. She began rummaging through her backpack for an antidote or medicine to help the one who still showed faint lifesigns. It was a girl about our age, her long hair braided and dressed in an oriental dress.I glanced at the rest of the family. The parents were definitely dead, foam bubbling in their mouths. The last member was a young boy several years younger than us, probably about ten or eleven, and he was just as dead as his parents, also showing the same signs of poison."This is horrible," Tong Xue remarked. Yi Ding Si nodded, completely subdued by the horrific sight."There's something not right about this," I pointed out with a frown. "Why are they on a raft?""maybe they were on some kind of family trip?" Yi Ding Si offered. I shook my head."Even thenwhy a raft instead of a proper boat? You would think a family going on a trip would be able to rent a proper vacation boat. And they don't look like they were kayaking either." I glanced around the mostly empty raft, which had some supplies and food, as if they were going on a picnic, but none of the sailing equipment required. "Where's their life vests? You think parents would be stupid enough to bring their kids on a raft without any lifejackets?""that's true." Tong Xue's brow was also crinkling in confusion. "This whole scene seems staged somehow.""Exactly.""Maybe we'll find out after Lian Rou cures the girl," Yi Ding Si suggested. We all turned to her, as she injected a serum into the girl's arm.A few seconds later, the color returned to the girl's complexion and the warts all vanished, as if they never existed to begin with. My doubts began to grow when I noticed how fast the poison was purged from her system.It was as if she already possessed some resistance to poison to begin with, and she was faking her near-death earlier."Are you all right?" Lian Rou asked as she helped the bewildered girl up. She held out a cup. "Here, some water."The girl ignored her, and upon seeing her dead family on the raft, she began to burst into tears. Throwing herself at them, she wailed, cluching at their swollen, distened bodies. Her cries drifted deafeningly across the forest."Father! Mother! Brother!""I'm sorryI can't save them" Lian Rou bowed her head apologetically. Tong Xue stepped forward and placed a hand on her shoulder."It's not your fault. You did your best and you saved one person at least.""yeah."While the couple were engaging in their flirting, I studied the crying girl with a scowl. Something struck me as not right.She was addressing her brother as younger brother, and not by name. I guess that was normal for some families, but most elder sisters would address their younger brothers by name. Usually you only address the older sibling by title like Older Sister. But the reverse was less common. Perhaps I was being paranoid, but it was as if she was deliberately avoiding the use of names because she didn't know the guy's name.This was good actinga little too good, to be honest, to the point where I found her actions unnatural. Normally, wouldn't the girl go into shock first, rather than dashing toward her family and crying? Not to mention, they were poisoned, so you shouldn't just grab their bodies like that, yet the girl had no compunctions in doing so.Something was gravely amiss.However, Lian Rou had noticed my expression and she was staring at me sharply. I sighed and nodded, backing off obediently. There was no reason for me to get into a fight with her here. she wanted me to be more sensitive with the girl, especially now that she had lost her parents.After a while, the girl finally stopped crying and she slowly got up. She sniffed and wiped her tears away. Lian Rou kindly offered her tissue."Here, use this.""Tthank you."The girl nodded quietly and accepted it, wiping her face."What's your name?" Lian Rou asked gently. The girl stared at her, and after a moment, nodded."Liu Xing.""I see. Liu Xing, can you tell us what happened?""my family was attacked by demonic martial artists while we were returning to Wu Ling City, and theythose despicable bastards used poison on us! We tried to run butbut all of us succumbed to the poison." Liu Xing sniffed and dabbed at her eyes. "Father shielded me from their strikeswhich is probably why I managed to survive longer than the rest""You tried to runon a raft?" I asked skeptically, only for Lian Rou to glare at me. I shut up, even as Tong Xue and Yi Ding Si shot me a sympathetic stare."I'm very sorry." Lian Rou lowered her head. She then glanced at the rest of us before turning back toward Liu Xing with a smile. "We're heading back to Wu Ling City anyway. Why don't you come with us?"
