Xiao Rong, who had been full of heroic spirit just moments before, immediately rolled his eyes and hid behind Qin Chang Ge, loudly declaring: “I didn’t sign any document with you, so killing me would be illegal.”
“Illegal?” Yu Zixi said gently: “Here, at the foot of Shanglin Mountain, all around are my people. If I killed you and your mother, who would know?”
Xiao Rong looked up at Qin Chang Ge, then at Yu Zixi, and said with a grin: “Kill my mother? That would be such a waste, wouldn’t it? My mother is very beautiful—would you really bear to kill her?”
Little brat, what do you mean by that!
Qin Chang Ge sighed sadly. It seemed she had worried for nothing. She had been concerned that if they really encountered the kind of situation she and Rong Rong had discussed earlier, would Rong Rong disregard life and death to rush out and save her? He wouldn’t save her at all. Look—the moment someone threatened to kill him, not only did his heroic declarations immediately vanish, but he shamelessly prepared to offer up his mother’s beauty…
Ignoring that shameless little brat, Qin Chang Ge didn’t take Yu Zixi’s threat seriously at all. If he really wanted to kill her, given Yu Zixi’s nature, why would he waste so many words? His habit of not killing women and children apparently hadn’t changed.
“This victor, how do you plan to fulfill your promise?” Qin Chang Ge pointed to the disabled young man who sat cross-legged on the ground with his head down. He had slowly released the long-dead fat man and was wiping his blood-stained fingers on the corpse’s body. He wiped very slowly and carefully, as if those weren’t fingers but the blue edge of a peerless sword.
Though his fingers could indeed compare to the sharpness of a treasured blade.
“Promise?” A trace of cunning smile suddenly flashed across Yu Zixi’s face. “What promise?”
Qin Chang Ge pointed to the life-and-death document and smiled: “You wouldn’t want to go back on your word, would you?”
“This king has always kept his word—how could there be talk of reneging,” his smile growing more mysterious, Yu Zixi said: “But count the names on the life-and-death document. How many are there?”
Qin Chang Ge looked and said: “Seventeen.”
Her gaze shifted, and she frowned.
In the field, including both living people and corpses, there were eighteen.
Yu Zixi smiled: “He didn’t sign the life-and-death document.”
Stunned, Qin Chang Ge turned her gaze to the thin young man and exclaimed: “You didn’t sign the life-and-death document, then you…”
The man didn’t raise his head, only continued wiping his fingers.
“Didn’t you notice he kept refusing to kill?” Yu Zixi laughed: “When I encountered this group of beggars, they were ganging up to bully him, pressing him to the ground and beating him mercilessly. I could see he actually had martial arts foundations, but seemed unable or unwilling to use them. I wanted to know why, so I proposed signing the life-and-death document. I never really wanted those beggars—I just wanted to see his skills. I didn’t expect that, probably having grown accustomed to being beaten, he refused to sign the life-and-death document and firmly prevented the beggars from signing it. So this group, thinking he bore grudges and was somehow trying to prevent them from escaping their bitter existence, mostly attacked him. On one hand, they resented him for blocking their path; on the other, they bullied him for being disabled, wanting to take advantage of an easy target.”
“Since he didn’t sign the life-and-death document, naturally he couldn’t kill. The more he refused to use martial arts, the more interested I became, until finally I forced out his true capabilities…” Yu Zixi smiled, as if killing so many people just to see whether one person had martial arts was a very relaxed and interesting matter. “Now, you didn’t sign the life-and-death document, yet you finally killed someone… Ha, a life for a life—do you understand?”
He slowly paced to the young man’s side, smiling as brilliantly as deep summer roses, his radiance captivating: “Mm… you saw through my intentions long ago, didn’t you? You didn’t want to become my subordinate, did you? You prevented them from signing the life-and-death document to save their lives, didn’t you? You never struck to kill—on one hand, you didn’t want to let me achieve my desires; on the other hand, you wanted to preserve their lives, didn’t you? But the people you wanted to protect wanted to use you as a stepping stone for advancement, treading on your blood to curry favor. For these ungrateful ones who desperately bullied you, who didn’t understand your good intentions and wanted to repay kindness with enmity—were your forbearance and sacrifice worth it?”
Qin Chang Ge looked at Yu Zixi indifferently. This person was just so maliciously twisted, most fond of forcing out the darkest and most shameless things in human nature to reflect the selfishness and ugliness in everyone’s hearts, making people moan, cry, and harbor resentment in reality’s cold ruthlessness. He most detested seeing kind, warm, gentle, and other bright, beautiful things. If such beautiful things appeared before him, he would certainly use every means to stain the bright with darkness, smash warmth to pieces, destroy kindness, and wither gentleness.
The young man finished wiping his fingers clean, looked at them silently again, then suddenly spoke: “I only kill those who deserve killing.”
This was the first time he had spoken here. His voice was slightly low and hoarse, his throat seeming to have suffered some injury, but it didn’t sound unpleasant. Instead, it had a faint quality of rippling water waves, those waves washing against the shores of people’s hearts, rising like successive swells, each word rustling and grinding at the soul.
Yu Zixi smiled charmingly: “Many people have bullied you—why did only he deserve killing? So your kindness was also pretense. When you faced mortal danger yourself, didn’t you still strike ruthlessly?”
His gaze sweeping over the fat man’s corpse, the young man said coldly: “You—tampered with something.”