Drawing His Blade to Help

Shen Jingchuan wasn't all that worried. If he really couldn't hold out, he could return to his own living room with a thought. He was wearing protective gear too, so, when it came down to it, his life wasn't in much danger.

The crossbow had arrived yesterday. He had practiced on the old elm-wood chopping block at home, and at ten meters, the bolts could sink over an inch into it. He had a good idea of its power.

He hadn't properly tested it at thirty or forty meters, but fortunately, the crossbow came with a simple optical sight. Getting a person in its sights wasn't too hard.

The two men in black clearly recognized the crossbow bolts, and they weren't stupid. As they charged, they constantly swerved from side to side, their bodies rising and falling as they used the dips and rises of the earthen slope to dodge the bolts. Yet they didn't slow down at all, racing up the yellow-earth slope.

Shen Jingchuan kept the man in front firmly in his sights, his fingertip resting on the trigger, but he didn't rush to fire.

He knew his aim was limited and that a shot from too far away could easily miss, so he decided to wait until the man came closer.

When the man was a dozen meters away, close enough for the ferocity on his face to be plainly visible, Shen Jingchuan found his chance and pulled the trigger hard.

With a sharp whiz, the carbon-fiber bolt drove straight into the man's chest.

The man in black jolted to a halt, as though someone had slammed a fist into him head-on. The steel saber clattered from his hand, his body twitched twice, and he fell backward into the yellow earth.

The man behind him was half a step slower. When he saw his companion go down to a single bolt, the vicious light in his eyes only grew fiercer. Rather than stopping, he gritted his teeth and sped up, bounding closer in a few leaps.

Shen Jingchuan made a quick estimate. The crossbow was slow to cock, and at this distance, there was no time to load a second bolt.

With an instinctive thought, he instantly put the crossbow into the space and drew his manganese-steel Tang saber into his hand.

The moment his fingers touched the hilt, an idea flashed through his mind—the old-fashioned solid-wood bed was still stuffed in the space!

The man was already just over five meters away, his steel saber raised, its cold gleam bearing down on Shen Jingchuan's face.

Shen Jingchuan didn't even dodge. He focused his thoughts and released it in front of the man.

With a dull thud, an old-fashioned hard-board bed appeared out of thin air and crashed squarely onto the man in black.

The man couldn't even finish his cry before he was knocked to the ground. His entire upper body was pinned beneath the bed, leaving only his legs sticking out, still kicking in vain.

Even Shen Jingchuan froze for a moment, then nearly burst out laughing.

The space could be used like this too. This thing worked even better than a saber.

Saber in hand, he hurried forward and saw the man beneath the bed still struggling and groaning, his legs kicking desperately against the yellow earth as he tried to lift the bed off himself.

The old-fashioned solid-wood bed, mattress and bedding included, weighed at least a hundred-odd jin, and the force of its fall had been even greater. He was lucky to be alive. Lying on the ground, he couldn't get any leverage, so how could he lift it?

Shen Jingchuan hadn't planned to kill anyone else. The first man had caught him off guard, and he had struck to kill. Having only just arrived, he didn't want to needlessly take another life.

The hand holding his saber tingled slightly. He looked down at the man on the ground, then turned to look at the corpse below the slope. He couldn't quite describe what he felt—tension, lingering fear, and a touch of unreality.

Just like that... I've killed someone?

He had lived on Earth for more than twenty years without so much as killing a chicken, yet less than two hours after arriving in this other world, he had taken a life.

It wasn't that he had never imagined hurting someone, but when a life had truly and undeniably ended at his hands, the shock still weighed on his chest.

But on second thought, his heart, which had just begun to settle, suddenly tightened again.

Both men had seen him face-to-face, clearly seeing his face, his strange outfit, and the bed that had appeared out of nowhere.

If he left this man alive and he ran back to report, how could Shen Jingchuan show his face in these parts afterward? All they had to do was ask around based on his appearance, and sooner or later they would come knocking.

He still had goods to buy and resell here. He couldn't go around hiding his head and exposing his tail every day, much less travel back at every little thing.

Shen Jingchuan stared at the man still groaning and twitching beneath the bed and heaved a heavy sigh.

Forget it. Since I've already broken the taboo against killing, I shouldn't leave trouble for later.

By now, the man in black had backed partway out from under the bed, exposing his chest and stomach. He pushed against the edge of the bed with both hands, trying to struggle free.

Shen Jingchuan tightened his grip on the saber, his Adam's apple bobbing.

To hell with it. This isn't my world, and there's no Skynet watching. If I let the tiger return to the mountain, I'll be the one who dies.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly. He closed his eyes, aimed the saber at the man's heart, and stabbed down hard.

Warm blood spurted high with a puff, splashing his pant legs and the tops of his shoes.

The man beneath the bed convulsed violently several times, his limbs kicking twice in vain. Before long, he went completely limp and fell silent.

Shen Jingchuan pulled the saber out and staggered half a step back. He stared wide-eyed at the corpse on the ground, his chest heaving. His stomach churned a little, but he forcibly suppressed it.

He considered himself a fairly good person, but if he didn't kill, he would be killed by others.

If he wanted to live in peace and turn his life around by trading between the two worlds, he couldn't afford to be softhearted.

He had already killed one anyway; a second made no difference. Since he had started, he might as well finish—it was better than being hunted from place to place later.

He steadied himself and searched the man, finding only a few small pieces of silver and a black token engraved with unfamiliar symbols.

He went over and searched the other corpse. Apart from a few pieces of silver, there was nothing else. He pulled the crossbow bolt out of the corpse, put everything into the space, and only then rose and headed down the slope.

The woman in white was still lying on the ground, unconscious.

Up close, her face was as white as paper. The saber wound on her back was still bleeding, and blood continued to seep from her shoulder. Her lips were dry and peeling, and her breathing was so faint it was almost imperceptible.

Shen Jingchuan crouched down and hesitated for a few seconds.

Should I save her or not?

He knew neither the place nor the people here, and the men in black were plainly desperadoes. Saving her would mean bringing trouble onto himself.

Looking at her breathtakingly beautiful face and shapely figure, he felt that leaving her here in this desolate wilderness would be no different from killing her himself.

Besides... he knew nothing about this world. If he saved her and she woke up, he could ask her for information. Yes, he mainly wanted to find out about this world.

Once he had made up his mind, he moved quickly. Shen Jingchuan carefully avoided her wounds and lifted her into his arms.

The woman was heavy, with an athletic build. As he held her, he could smell only a faint scent of blood, mingled with a barely perceptible cold fragrance.

He didn't dare linger. He put the bed away, slipped the girl's shortsword into the sheath at her waist, and carried her deeper into the woods. She was a little heavy.

After walking for about five minutes, he found a secluded thicket. He couldn't go any farther; he had to treat her quickly, since her wounds were still bleeding.

He gently laid her facedown on the ground and rummaged through the space for povidone-iodine, gauze, and hemostatic powder. Before coming out, he had stuffed nearly everything in his home into the space, so he happened to have them. He hadn't expected to need them so soon.

Shen Jingchuan held the bottle of povidone-iodine, his hand already raised halfway, when he suddenly pulled it back.

The bottle had printing on it. The manufacturer, factory address, batch number, and a whole lot of writing from Earth were plainly printed on its side and bottom.

But what he saw was that the manufacturer information, production batch number, and every trace of writing originally printed around the edges had vanished without a trace. The surface of the bottle was smooth and clean, as though nothing else had ever been printed on it.

Shen Jingchuan instinctively rubbed the space ring on his index finger and understood at once.

It was an ability inherent to the ring that could travel between the two worlds. Anything brought over from the other world would automatically have traces of its foreign origin erased, which also served to prevent heavenly secrets from leaking out.

He felt completely relieved at once, and couldn't suppress a surge of delight.

This saves me a huge amount of trouble!

Whatever goods he brought over from Earth in the future, he wouldn't have to remove their packaging and scrape off their labels one by one beforehand. He could just take them straight out of the space, saving himself a great deal of trouble.

Coming back to his senses, he checked her injuries. The wound on her back was over ten centimeters long, so he had to deal with it first.

He hesitated, then used scissors to cut open the fabric below the back of her neck and carefully pulled the cloth away to either side of her back.

The wound gaped open, exposing red flesh smeared with dirt and grit. It was a shocking sight.

Shen Jingchuan kept his movements as gentle as possible, carefully cleaned it with povidone-iodine, and sprinkled on hemostatic powder.

Without a suturing needle and thread, he used adhesive bandages instead, pinching the wound shut with one hand and sticking the bandages on with the other. The bleeding really did stop.

The wound on her shoulder wasn't deep. Only after treating it the same way did he breathe a sigh of relief. He took a quilt and pillow from the ring's space, gently laid the girl on them, and then plopped down on the ground.

With all that done, he finally had time to take a good look at the woman.

Her eyebrows were slender and long, and the bridge of her nose was high and shapely. Even unconscious, she had a cold, aloof bearing in her features, like snow on a mountaintop. She was so beautiful.

Remembering how she had fought several opponents alone, Shen Jingchuan grew even more certain—this woman was most likely one of the heroines described in novels.

Could she be an immortal cultivator? His excitement welled up again, but when he recalled the fight just now, he thought she probably wasn't.

Just as he was about to lean closer and see whether there was anything different about her, the eyelashes of the person on the ground suddenly trembled, and she slowly opened her eyes.

Her cold eyes were like a pair of eyes veiled in thin ice. They were still dazed when they first opened, but the moment she saw Shen Jingchuan clearly, they hardened into a cold glare.

She instinctively tried to get up, but as soon as she moved, the piercing pain in her back and shoulder made her groan, and she sank facedown again.

"Don't move around. Your wounds were just bandaged. It'll be trouble if they split open," Shen Jingchuan said, stepping back half a pace.

He had spoken Mandarin and didn't know whether she would understand him. To his surprise, the woman knitted her brows and spoke, her voice hoarse but cool:

"You... saved me?"

Her intonation was a little odd, like a northwestern dialect, but her words were clear. She was actually speaking the same language as him.

Shen Jingchuan was slightly surprised, but he kept it off his face and nodded.

"I happened to pass by and ran into you. I've already dealt with the people chasing you."

The woman's eyes flickered. Her gaze settled on the tactical helmet and stab-resistant vest he wore, then swept over the Tang saber he had set beside him. A trace of puzzlement passed through her eyes.

His outfit was strange, and she had never seen its materials before. It didn't look like clothing from this world.

She inclined her head slightly. "Thank you for stepping in to save me. I am Lin Qingyao. May I ask your honored name?"