Why Couldn't You Have Come Sooner?

Let us turn back the clock five minutes.

Constable Chen sensed the tension in the air, as if swords had been drawn and crossbows cocked. His heart skipped half a beat, and sweat broke out on his palms, but he did not dare speak.

The woman held hostage by the bandit chief was pale, her clothes disheveled. Her collar had even been torn open, exposing her fair, delicate skin.

There was not a glimmer of life in her eyes. They were hollow, vacant, deathly still—the look of someone who had endured great sorrow and despair.

She was like a lifeless puppet, unable to feel pain or show emotion. She let the bandit chief handle her body without resisting or crying out.

One could only imagine what torture and suffering this woman in the flower of her youth had endured before this.

Constable Chen had a daughter about the same age as the woman. Seeing the young woman like this, he felt as though a great hand had seized his heart and squeezed it hard.

He wanted to urge Gao Yunyi to back down, but he knew very well that before an immortal, he had no right to make decisions.

The immortal stood his ground, and the bandit grew increasingly agitated. The atmosphere quickly became unbearably tense.

Constable Chen's heart leaped into his throat. Perhaps it was because he would be held responsible if the hostage was hurt, or perhaps he did not want to see a girl in the flower of her youth, the same age as his daughter, die horribly before his eyes.

But then the immortal gave a gentle flick of his sleeve, and the bandit's head fell to the ground. The hostage was unharmed. Constable Chen breathed a great sigh of relief, and the heart lodged in his throat finally settled back into place.

He immediately took off his official uniform, hurried over, and draped it around the woman. Then he helped her sit up where she had collapsed on the ground.

The woman's face was ashen, her eyes vacant and her long hair hanging loose. She sat leaning against Constable Chen, as though her soul had left her.

Only when the bandit's blood flowed past her and stained the fingertips hanging limply against the ground did her hollow, lifeless eyes slowly begin to focus.

She slowly raised the bloodstained fingers, and something flickered in her eyes. When she saw the head on the ground, its eyes still open in death, it was as if she had recalled something terrifying. Her frail body began to tremble violently.

Feeling her violent reaction, Constable Chen hurried to comfort her. "It's all right now, child, it's all right. The enemy who hurt you is dead. Don't be afraid, don't be afraid."

Constable Chen's voice was gentle, his tone sincere, as though he were comforting his own daughter.

But the woman said nothing. She kept her head lowered, her gaze fixed on the bandit's head.

Constable Chen had thought she was too frightened to speak, but her next action caught him completely off guard.

Smack...

The crisp, loud slap rang out in the quiet night.

The sudden slap left Constable Chen utterly dumbfounded. His whole body went rigid.

The woman slowly raised her head and looked at Constable Chen. Her eyes, which had been hollow and vacant moments before, now held something else.

But it was an emotion Constable Chen could never have expected.

No pain, no sorrow, and certainly no gratitude,

Only anger, resentment, and undisguised hatred.

"Why couldn't you have come sooner?"

The question left Constable Chen at a loss. His lips trembled, and he started to speak, then stopped.

He wanted to explain, but he did not know how to begin.

Yes.

If they had come sooner, they could have rescued the woman sooner and spared her this pain and torment.

But before Constable Chen could sink any further into guilt and regret, the woman shoved him away with both hands and staggered to her feet. Then she tore the uniform from her shoulders and hurled it to the ground.

"Why did you only come now? If you'd come sooner, my father, mother, and elder brother wouldn't have died."

The woman who had seemed as frail as a little flower moments ago now looked like an enraged tigress, her face twisted and her voice shrill.

Constable Chen remained silent, but the constables and yamen runners could no longer hold back.

"The county magistrate posted notices long ago forbidding anyone from passing below Crouching Ox Mountain. The notice was right there at the city gate. You were the ones who broke the rules and took the road beneath the mountain, so how can you blame us?"

"We saved you. It's one thing not to thank us, but you even slapped Chief Chen. You're repaying kindness with enmity!"

"Exactly! This is too much!"

The constables and yamen runners spoke up in righteous indignation.

"Shut up! All of you, shut up! It's all the fault of you useless fools, you lowly constables and yamen runners! My second uncle is the prefect of Dingzhou. I'll tell him to have every one of you arrested, sentenced, and thrown in prison to be buried with my family!"

The woman shrieked and roared hysterically, looking like a madwoman and acting like a vengeful ghost.

Back then, she herself had complained that the road was too long and would take too much time. She had thrown a tantrum and insisted on taking the shortcut, and her family, unable to talk her out of it, had reluctantly chosen the road beneath Crouching Ox Mountain.

They had never expected to run into the bandits from Crouching Ox Mountain. Her parents, elder brother, and the servants traveling with them had all been killed, their valuables looted clean, and she herself had been abducted up the mountain and nearly violated.

But so what?

If these people had come sooner, or wiped out the mountain bandits earlier, her family could never have suffered such a calamity.

So it was all their fault. They were too incompetent, too useless.

The woman's unreasonable, ungrateful words made everyone's faces flush with anger. But when they remembered that her second uncle was supposedly none other than the prefect of Dingzhou, a figure of such enormous stature, their anger instantly turned to dismay.

Indeed, her second uncle was the honorable prefect. He would not even need to act personally; he only had to open his mouth, and they would all be in serious trouble.

At best, they might merely be stripped of their uniforms. At worst, they might really be sentenced and imprisoned, just as the woman had said.

For the dignified head of a prefecture to deal with lowly nobodies like them could not have been easier.

They lowered their heads in silence, their faces full of grievance, their eyes filled with bitterness and sorrow.

The woman was still roaring, seemingly trying to turn her own wrongdoing into anger and hatred and shift all the blame onto the constables and yamen runners.

Perhaps only then could she conceal the regret and self-reproach hidden deep in her heart.

But suddenly,

Her unbearable roaring stopped.

A brilliant streak of white light had swept gently across her neck, elegant, smooth, and captivatingly beautiful.

Her twisted, savage, venomous expression froze. Her head rolled to the ground and came to rest beside the bandit chief's.

"What a racket."

Gao Yunyi frowned. For the first time, a look of disgust appeared on his normally calm, indifferent face.

It was as though he had seen a green-headed fly that kept buzzing incessantly in his ear.

It was both disgusting and irritating, and he could not bear it for a moment longer.

It was true that he had set a bottom line for himself, but that woman was clearly not within it.

Now all was well. The whole world was quiet.