Actually, Tantai Jin was awake. He had awakened from his coma when the yellow dog had approached him. After it was poisoned to death by his blood, the group of kids had come close.
He silently lay prone and inwardly thought, When they come near, even if we die together1, I must think of a way to kill them. He was in pain. The Xuanbing Needle was still embedded in his left eye, the blood had coagulated, and the cold Qi was seeping into his body. Half of his face was buried in the snow, but he wasnât willing to fall asleep.
If I sleep, I might never be able to open my eyes again.
Even if I must die, I want to watch how I die. However, he didnât expect to hear a familiar voice.
The girl jumped out of the forest, dragged the children by their ears, and drove them away.
His disabled body stiffened for a moment. If Tantai Jin had a choice, Su Su would be the last person he wanted to see at this moment. He had originally thought that even if she was alive, when they met again, he would be a superior king that could abuse or torture her at will and decide her life or death.
He never expected that it would be such a situation.
The tendons of his four limbs were severed, and his left eye was blinded, making him completely handicapped.
The following parts of the text will be scrambled to prevent theft from aggregators and unauthorized epub making. Please support our translators by reading on secondlifetranslations (dot) com
Gp pbl yrrasynble okvb zktbv pvlrp, xydu vbswtbvp qzypble vbaswtb Mydvyk Kkdâp xkde. Qse jdsop bso xwnb bl byvle bkp nwaaldv pkvwyvksd, yde clqsal Fw Fw vwadle bkx shla, bl lhld oydvle vs qklanlzu ulzz yv bla vs tlv zspv.
Seeing him look at her with such a twisted and sinister expression, Su Su felt extremely annoyed, so she slapped him on the head, âShut up, you talk too much.â
She put Tantai Jin down, turned around and left. After walking away a fair distance, she could still feel his gaze relentlessly following her2. Su Su didnât bother to care about his thoughts and didnât look back.
She found her chestnut horse and as she led it back to him, she saw Tantai Jin looking out at the dark and dreary sky with his intact eye. The colour of the sky was dim as it was getting dark.
His gloomy expression was simply uglier than the sky.
At this moment, Su Su somewhat wanted to laugh. The sound of her footsteps returned and Tantai Jin coldly said, âDidnât you leave? What are you coming back for!â
Su Su muttered, âYou obviously want to be saved, so why canât you say something nice?â
Tantai Jin didnât speak anymore.
Su Su remembered that in the past, back in the residence, he was quite good at pretending in front of those servants. But she didnât know when it had started, when he was facing her, Tantai Jinâs mouth seemed to be laced with poison and ice.
Su Su squatted down, took a deep breath, and used her strength to lift him up. She was panting from rushing back, but her arms were incredibly warm. As Tantai Jin leaned on the girlâs childish and feeble body he could smell her hair fragrance.
He turned his head away, thinking that the smell was faintly like a âpink silk flower.â3 He coldly snorted, this woman, even the fragrance on her body is so promiscuous.
Su Su didnât know what he was thinking, otherwise she would have thrown him off, dug a hole in the snowy ground, and buried him. The young man was so heavy that she was staggering, and after a tremendous effort, Su Su managed to get him onto the horse.
Sensing that she would save him, Tantai Jin was unexpectedly quiet.
Su Su humphed. If she hadnât been to his dreamland, she definitely wouldâve been tricked into thinking that he wasnât afraid of death. Heaven and earth created all things. Perhaps, there was no one in this world who wanted to live more than Tantai Jin.
âWhatâs the matter with your injuries? Didnât you go back to the Zhou Kingdom with Madam Lan An? Who hurt you like this?â
Tantai Jin spoke succinctly4, âTantai Minglang.â
He didnât lift his eyes, gazing at the horseâs hooves he hoarsely asked, âWhy did you save me?â
Su Su led the horse and deliberately provoked him, âWho knows, maybe itâs like you said, Iâve never seen a handicapped person before, so I wanted to amuse myself.â
He coldly laughed, âIâm surprised you didnât die after falling into the Huai River5.â
Su Su smacked his shoulder with a branch and resentfully said, âIf I died, youâd have also died today.â
âYou canât save me, I have a Xuanbing Needle in my eye.â
Su Su paused her steps and slightly frowned. She naturally knew what a Xuanbing Needle was. It was an evil thing, and a slowly torturing one at that. Supposedly, when a Xuanbing Needle entered the eye, that person would cry incessantly and feel so much pain that theyâd want to die. There were some people who chose to kill themselves because they couldnât stand the endless torture.
However, there wasnât a single drop of a tear in Tantai Jinâs eye, and he didnât even seem to be in much pain. Earlier, Su Su didnât think of the possibility of a Xuanbing Needle. Now that she was aware of it, Su Suâs heart sank.
She hadnât reached the Abyss of Desolation yet, so naturally, she couldnât let Tantai Jin die. But an eye that had been pierced by a Xuanbing Needle was already necrotic. If she wanted to save him, she had to replace the eye for him before the cold Qi entered his body.
The horseâs hooves crunched on the snowy ground.
Su Su said, âItâs getting dark. Since we saw children, there must be a village nearby. Later, weâll find a house to stay overnight. Itâs very cold in winter, so we canât spend the night in the forest. With your current appearance, you might scare ordinary people. When the time comes, Iâll tell them that youâre my brother, we encountered bandits and ended up in the mountain forest, there will surely be good people thatâll take us in.â
Tantai Jin didnât reply as he was still thinking about his eye.
Sure enough, just like Su Su said, they soon arrived at a village. She stepped forward to knock on a door, but a vigilant eye was watching them through a crack from inside.
âJust leave, we donât take in strangers here.â
Su Su explained their reason, but the host family remained unmoved.
Su Su had no choice but to knock on the next house, and to her surprise, it was the same case for several houses in succession.
Tantai Jin said, âThereâs something wrong with this village.â
âHow do you know that?â Su Su asked.
âThere isnât a single house in the village that has lit their lights when itâs already night but thereâs no sound of livestock. When you went to knock on the door, they were scared and only looked out through the crack of the door. There are either mountain bandits or demons nearby this village.â Tantai Jin calmly said.
Su Su admired him a little. She reckoned that internally he must be trembling with pain, but he still didnât forget to be vigilant and observe his surroundings. She knew that Tantai Jin had a point, so when she knocked on the next house, she said in advance, âWeâre not bad people and weâre not demons. Iâm a demon slayer passing by this village, can you take us in for a night?â