The agonizing pain he had expected never came. Xiao Yan stared blankly, and before he could think further, a familiar, sweet fragrance flooded his nostrils as he gasped deeply in relief at having survived.
He collapsed limply onto the ground, digging both hands into the soil to suppress the spasms brought on by his terror of death.
"Ruoruo."
Xiao Yan practically moaned the name.
Hun Ruoruo glanced over the boy's bedraggled state without responding. Instead, she raised her head to look at the Great Chieftain and the bandits ahead, her eyes filled with a purple glow similar to Xiao Yan's.
Though similar, it was far deeper, as if an eternal sea of stars brewed within it.
"This little lady was ordered to bring the Young Master home. Gentlemen, could you perhaps make things convenient for us?"
The burly man looked dazed. His one remaining eye stared blankly at the breathtaking girl who had appeared like a ghost, and he trembled too hard to speak. The surrounding bandits were scared out of their wits, a chill shooting straight to the crowns of their heads.
An Eight-star Dou Practitioner's full-force strike had actually been caught with two fingers.
Together with that unfathomable movement technique.
A Dou Shi? A Da Dou Shi?
Or perhaps...
A thought that made everyone's hearts and livers tremble gradually surfaced in their minds—
Could this woman be a Dou Ling expert?
The Great Chieftain forced out a smile uglier than crying and rasped, "This lowly one was blind and failed to recognize that the Young Master was here training. We absolutely had no intention of offending you. If you wish to take the Young Master away, we certainly will not stop you."
"No intention of offending me? Do you believe that yourself? If that earlier strike had landed,