"You're not going to help, but you came to find me first?" Fang Zhiyi looked at Xu Xiaocao with interest.
Xu Xiaocao immediately lowered her head. "I—I can't help... Sister just ran off after them, and I didn't know what to do."
Someone nearby said, "Report it to the officials! There are plenty of patrolling constables on the street today, why didn't you—"
"Those constables wouldn't bother with this. All the beggars in Huai River are connected, everyone knows that."
"That's right. Last time I saw that old beggar Six Fingers chewing on roast chicken with a smug look on his face. He ate better than my family on New Year's Eve."
Fang Zhiyi stood up, and Xu Xiaocao quickly followed behind him.
But once he stepped outside, he didn't go looking for Xu Xiaoya. Instead, he headed straight in the opposite direction.
"Brother Fang, aren't you going to look for Sister..."
Fang Zhiyi shook his head. "Her own karma. I can't interfere."
A flicker of delight passed through Xu Xiaocao's eyes. "Sister really is troublesome, always causing trouble for Eldest Brother Fang. When she comes back, I'll have to talk to her properly."
Fang Zhiyi glanced at her but ignored her and kept walking.
Xu Xiaocao followed behind him, watching as, without even blinking, he paid for a quiet little courtyard.
"This should be enough for her to live in," Fang Zhiyi said with a deep breath.
By now, Xu Xiaocao's inner sense of unfairness had turned into jealousy, barely hidden. If Xu Xiaoya hadn't told her so much, hadn't shared her story, she wouldn't have started thinking this way. She might even have been grateful. But now that she knew Xu Xiaoya had also suffered, her resentment churned relentlessly.
Fang Zhiyi was well aware of all this, but he couldn't be bothered to deal with it. As he tucked his silver back into his pouch, his gaze landed on the fake talisman Xu Xiaoya had begged for him the night before.
"This little girl actually dared to follow all the way here?" The old beggar was surprised. Xu Xiaoya also realized she probably shouldn't have come, but seeing herself surrounded by several beggars, she forced herself to stay calm. "I—I'm warning you, my little sister went to notify my family! Give me back my money pouch!"
"Six Fingers, she's threatening you!" another beggar jeered.
The old beggar called Six Fingers gave a lecherous grin. "Little girl, do you even know where you are? This is our home. Easy to get in, but getting out? Now that's the hard part."
"What are you going to do?" Xu Xiaoya started to panic.
At that moment, she finally felt a wave of regret. She should have listened to Gousheng earlier—if it wasn't her business, she shouldn't have stuck her nose in it. If she hadn't given that beggar money, would all this have happened?
"Do? Hehe... Someone guard the door, keep your eyes sharp!" Six Fingers rubbed his hands together. "Not a bad-looking little thing. What a shame."
Xu Xiaoya suddenly dashed toward a door, rushed inside, spun around, and slammed it shut, pressing her entire body against it.
The beggars outside froze for a moment, then burst into laughter.
"She actually ran right into the trap?"
Xu Xiaoya smelled a strong, foul odor. Only then did she notice several half-grown children in the room staring at her in terror. Their hands or feet were bound with straw ropes. One of them had no legs at all.
"AAAAAHHH!!!"
Her scream only made the beggars outside laugh even harder.
"Stop screaming. Be good, and you'll have better days ahead. Don't think your family will find you. Look at these kids—none of them ran away from home. Ask them now, do their families even want them anymore?"
Xu Xiaoya's mind flashed back to the threats her foster mother, Widow Li, used to scare her with. She said naughty children who ran away from home would be grabbed by beggars, their legs cut off, tongues sliced out, eyes gouged, and then sent out to beg.
Terror filled her face. "Aren't you afraid of the authorities?"
"The authorities? Hahaha! Let me tell you—our boss has connections high up!" The voice outside dripped with arrogance. "Come out now, let us have some fun with you, and maybe we'll let you off easy..."
"Little ass, who are you talking to? Huh? Who wants to come in?" The voice suddenly turned confused.
"Who the hell are you?"
"Crap—Little ass, he—he's dead!"
Chaos erupted outside. Xu Xiaoya still held the door shut, not daring to speak. She just stared at the children inside.
"The gate of heaven~ The souls of the dead~ I, the Taoist, am a man of leisure~" Faintly, she heard someone singing, the tune strange and off-key. It sounded familiar. Then—a hand slammed hard against the door.
She flinched, but the hand, along with the body it belonged to, slid to the ground.
Silence fell outside.
Ignoring the stench, Xu Xiaoya took a deep breath and slowly cracked the door open. One look was all it took—she saw the old beggar lying at her feet, eyes wide open, dead with a look of endless regret.
"This thing works pretty well for collecting souls too. Hmph."
She followed the voice and saw Fang Zhiyi flick the black sword in his hand with his middle finger, a look of satisfaction on his face.
Had Gousheng killed again?
Fang Zhiyi turned and met her gaze.
"Let's go?"
Relief flooded Xu Xiaoya's heart. She pushed the door open, glanced back at the children, and was about to ask Fang Zhiyi something. But he had already walked out of the courtyard.
Fang Zhiyi leaned against the wall by the gate, carefully wrapping his black sword in cloth, showing no intention of helping.
Xu Xiaoya came out, followed by several filthy children. Two of them were being carried by their companions.
"Breeding and mutilating for begging—some people really have no shame," Fang Zhiyi said with a cold laugh.
"Wait!" Xu Xiaoya turned and ran back inside. When she came out again, she was holding her small money pouch.
Fang Zhiyi curled his lip. "Is it really worth it..." Before he could finish, he caught sight of smoke rising from the yard.
"You—"
"Gousheng, don't worry. I'll protect you too!" Xu Xiaoya said earnestly.
Fang Zhiyi looked at the fire she had set, not knowing how to react. Was this the decisiveness of a villain? Just casually killing people and burning the evidence? That didn't seem right.
"Not afraid of me killing people this time?" Fang Zhiyi asked.
Xu Xiaoya stared into his eyes and replied, "They deserved it. Gousheng, you did a good thing." She looked at the children. As she made up her mind to lead them out, she had seen two smaller children dead in the corner—the foul smell came from there.
The destruction of a beggars' den barely caused any ripples. To the authorities of Huai Jiang City, a few dead beggars meant nothing.
When Fang Zhiyi led Xu Xiaoya back to the little courtyard he had bought for her, disappointment flashed through Xu Xiaocao's eyes.
If only Xu Xiaoya hadn't come back.
But the next moment, she still smiled and rushed forward. "Sister, I was so worried about you!"
d intelligence to keep the plot moving, and sometimes even the protagonists are forced into absurdly dumb decisions. Why does the A-list celebrity heroine in urban romance novels ditch the top-tier movie star and become a lovestruck fool for a pockmarked male lead? Why do the leads in historical tragedy novels keep dancing between love and death, only for the blind healer to end up suffering the most? And Gu Wei never expected that after finally landing a villain role to stir up trouble, she’d pick the wrong gender! No choice now—she’ll just have to crush the protagonists as a girl!
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
