“Murder! Longying’s people are going to commit murder!” Someone in the crowd cried out.

“Brothers, we cannot let outsiders run amok here — they’re going to kill someone! They’re going to kill someone!”

In an instant, the dozen or so onlookers and more than ten family members all surged toward Feng Jiu’er and the others.

“Blood demands blood! Blood demands blood!” The people at the front puffed out their chests and pressed forward.

From somewhere at the rear, another group appeared without anyone noticing.

These newcomers were dressed as ordinary townspeople, but a single glance was enough to tell that their movements were far from ordinary.

Shoved forward by those behind them, the people at the front surged ahead as though they had lost all regard for their own lives.

“Protect Miss Jiu’er!” the lead brother called out.

“Yes!” the other brothers responded as one.

“Try not to harm the innocent bystanders.” Feng Jiu’er’s low, steady voice cut through the noise.

Her meaning was clear to every brother there. Among this crowd, there were certainly those who had come specifically to cause trouble.

And since they had come looking for trouble, there was no reason to be gentle with them.

“Yes!” the brothers replied again in unison.

“Look after yourselves!” Feng Jiu’er called out the final word, then launched herself into the air.

Jian Yi followed close beside Feng Jiu’er, leaping up almost at the same moment.

Feng Jiu’er’s thoughts remained fixed on the elderly woman lying on the stretcher — the one who had lost consciousness after coughing up blood.

As a physician, she understood the woman’s condition clearly.

The elderly woman had been gravely poisoned. Her life could fail at any moment. Feng Jiu’er’s only thought was to get to her and save her.

“What do you think you’re doing?” A child kneeling beside the elderly woman threw her arms around Feng Jiu’er’s legs.

She clung to Feng Jiu’er tightly, terrified that she would bring further harm to her grandmother.

A woman looked back and immediately rushed over, dropping to her knees on the other side of Feng Jiu’er, wrapping her arms around her legs as well.

“Don’t hurt my child — don’t!” The woman looked up, her face a picture of desperate pleading.

“I won’t let you hurt my grandmother!” The child’s voice was young and unsteady, but the eyes fixed on Feng Jiu’er blazed with hatred.

On one side, a child; on the other, a woman. Jian Yi hesitated for a moment, uncertain whether to act. Feng Jiu’er was effectively immobilized by these two.

“I am here to save her, not to harm her,” Feng Jiu’er said patiently to the two clinging to her legs.

She could see the hostility in their eyes, but she also knew perfectly well that neither of them posed any real threat to her.

So before she spoke, she gave Jian Yi a look that told him not to worry.

“No!” The child gritted her teeth hard. “My father said it was your medicine that hurt my grandmother. I want to avenge my grandmother!”

The words had barely left the child’s mouth when a flash of crimson flickered through her eyes. She suddenly lowered her head, opened her mouth, and brought it toward Feng Jiu’er’s leg.

Jian Yi moved in an instant, snatching the child up before her teeth could reach Feng Jiu’er.

“No! Don’t hurt my child!” The woman looked up, her face white with terror. She released her hold on Feng Jiu’er and scrambled to her feet.

She looked at Jian Yi, imploring, “Please — don’t hurt my child.”

Jian Yi held the child who had very nearly bitten Feng Jiu’er, something cold and lethal stirring in his eyes.

Feng Jiu’er glanced at him and said softly, “Let him go.”

Only when Jian Yi turned to look at Feng Jiu’er did that coldness begin to recede from his gaze.

The woman was frantic. Nothing about today had gone as she had imagined, and right now, the only thing she cared about was her only child.

Seeing that Jian Yi had not released his grip, the woman let out a dull thud as she fell to her knees once more.

“I beg you — please let my child go. He is innocent. He doesn’t understand any of this. Please, I beg you.”

She kowtowed against the ground in rapid succession, her voice worn to a rasp.

Jian Yi held Feng Jiu’er’s gaze for a moment, then set the child down.

“Son.” The woman, still on her knees, moved forward and gathered the badly frightened child into her arms.

Feng Jiu’er’s gaze returned to the elderly woman on the stretcher.

She frowned slightly and stepped forward.

Just at that moment, a large group of people appeared from nowhere and came surging forward from the other direction.

Jian Yi saw this and instantly drew his longsword to meet them.

Feng Jiu’er was undisturbed. She reached the elderly woman’s side and crouched down.

She extended her hand — and had not yet made contact with the elderly woman when two children who had been standing a short distance away came running over.

Of the two, the taller boy was nearly level with Feng Jiu’er in height.

Feng Jiu’er felt the approach and glanced back, then rose to her feet.

The two boys looked at Feng Jiu’er without a trace of fear and continued to advance.

“You hurt my grandfather — it was you who hurt my grandfather!” the shorter boy cried. He was perhaps seven or eight years old.

The eyes he fixed on Feng Jiu’er were already brimming with tears.

Suddenly, several bystanders carrying sickles and hoes crowded in and shoved the boy who had been crying for Feng Jiu’er to “return his grandfather” to the ground.

The fighting circle still held a number of ordinary townspeople, and the brothers, occupied with managing the chaos, could not get to him in time.

Feng Jiu’er watched the child get knocked down and then stepped on, and without another thought, she strode forward.

Two quick bursts of palm force pushed away the people who had been standing on the child.

But just as Feng Jiu’er reached down to help the fallen child up, the taller boy who had been standing behind her suddenly drew a short knife.

Qiao Mu and Tang Xiaohua, leaping in from elsewhere, caught sight of the blade that had appeared at Feng Jiu’er’s back, and both went cold with alarm.

“Jiu’er!” Qiao Mu called out.

“Watch out!” The words that followed were from Tang Xiaohua.

Feng Jiu’er had just lifted the child upright when the child suddenly opened his mouth and sank his teeth into her arm.

Pain flared from her forearm. For just a moment, her focus slipped — and at her back, the short knife was nearly at her.

Jian Yi heard Qiao Mu’s voice and, heedless of the assassin’s sword bearing down on him, spun around to turn back.

One of the assassins seized the opening. He raised his sword and brought it down in a sweeping blow.

Jian Yi took the strike squarely, yet it did not slow him — his only thought was to protect Feng Jiu’er.

In the very instant the situation turned most dire, a sudden gust of wind came spinning in, forcing nearly everyone in the area to squeeze their eyes shut.

The wind vanished as swiftly as it had come. By the time Qiao Mu had landed and gathered her wits, she could find no trace of Feng Jiu’er anywhere inside the circle.

She raised her eyes to the roof of the apothecary, and the corner of her lips curved upward. The breath she had been holding released in one long, deep sigh of relief.

The gust just now had been strange — inexplicable — affecting every last person within the fighting circle.

Now, everyone had stopped fighting. All eyes turned toward the figure on the rooftop.

There, a man dressed in dark robes stood on the ridge of the roof, a woman in a pale yellow dress cradled in his arms.

He was tall and powerfully built, and the commanding presence that radiated from him was utterly impossible to overlook.

Most striking of all was the man’s face — as though it had been carved by some divine hand beyond any mortal’s skill.

Eyes deep-set and fathomless, the bridge of his nose high and sharp, lips perfectly formed, his complexion finer than that of many women.

A man of such beauty — rivaling an immortal — was something most people present had never once encountered in all their lives.