Help of Extremely Limited Ability

"Hey!"

"Little ghost, did you see anyone just now?!"

After kicking open the ramshackle temple's broken door, the man stood at the entrance and carefully surveyed the interior. All he saw was a pile of duck bones, a faintly glowing campfire that looked ready to go out, and a little beggar lying there like a corpse, apparently asleep.

Thinking that it would be better to ask anyway,

he called out somewhat absentmindedly:

"If you saw them, I'll give you a huge sum of money right now!"

In response to his question, Ling Wuyuan merely propped up his upper body from the ground with a face full of confusion.

"Huh?"

"What?"

There was only a trace of bewilderment on his face.

He looked like someone who had just fallen asleep, only to be woken up and fail to understand a single word of the question.

Though he did not answer directly,

his face was plainly written with the words: [I don't know anything.]

It was truly a case of silence speaking louder than words.

Seeing this,

the man, who had not wanted to talk to a beggar in the first place, immediately revealed a look of disgust and impatience.

He understood that relying on Ling Wuyuan was clearly unreliable.

He promptly turned and left without looking back.

He had no intention of paying Ling Wuyuan any further attention.

And so, with his superb acting, Ling Wuyuan successfully muddled through the ordeal.

About an hour later,

there was no longer any movement outside. Only the firelight in the distance remained bright.

Ling Wuyuan knew that the Pei Family was most likely finished.

After closing the temple's battered old door,

the little girl crawled out of the dried-up well in a rather sorry state.

Seeing her crouching beside the campfire with a somewhat vacant gaze, he did not know what to say.

Tell her to look on the bright side?

Uh... wasn't that just pure nonsense...

Who could get over something like that so quickly after it had just happened?

Easy for him to say when it wasn't his back that hurt, right?

Still, after thinking it over,

he felt that the important matter came first.

With a grave expression, he told her:

"You should find a way to escape the city as soon as possible."

"Although this city is large enough that hiding one or two people would not be difficult, your family has ultimately fallen from power. Continuing to hide in this city is truly the worst possible choice. The longer you drag things out, the more dangerous it will be for you."

After a second of silence,

the little girl suppressed the grief in her heart and replied:

"I know."

"I'll leave in a little while."

She understood that Ling Wuyuan's willingness to help her once already meant he had done all he could.

After all,

getting caught meant death.

Besides,

she knew that Ling Wuyuan himself was living in such miserable straits. Even if he wanted to help her, his heart might be willing, but his strength was lacking.

He simply did not have that kind of ability.

Hearing that,

Ling Wuyuan slowly nodded, then asked, "Do you have a plan for escaping the city?"

"...Yes. Before Patriarch had me withdraw, he told me the location of a secret passage in the city. I can escape directly from the city through that passage."

Though she initially did not want to answer in too much detail,

considering that Ling Wuyuan could at least be considered an ally, the little girl briefly explained her plan.

Hearing that there was a hidden passage in the city that led directly outside, Ling Wuyuan was somewhat surprised, though not overly so. He merely sighed inwardly that the Pei Family truly deserved to be a great local clan that had stood firm for hundreds of years, or perhaps even longer—the real overlords of Black Stone City. They truly had every sort of backup plan.

Presumably, the Pei Family's ancestors had foreseen such a situation long ago.

For a moment, Ling Wuyuan thought of even more things.

For example, the Pei Family members scattered throughout other regions.

Although the mastermind behind this operation might have wiped out most of the Pei Family's main forces, for a family with tens of thousands of direct descendants and clansmen spread across different areas, their current situation could at most be called severe damage to their foundations. It could not yet be called extermination.

Perhaps, after the little girl escaped the city, she would still have a way to join up with the other surviving members of her family...

After pondering it carefully for a while, Ling Wuyuan turned and went to a spot in the back courtyard.

Under the little girl's puzzled gaze, he dug at the earth and soon unearthed a small box.

There was not much inside the box, only a pitifully small amount of money and a few daily necessities.

From within, Ling Wuyuan took out a set of clothes and a somewhat old dagger.

How should he put it? That set of clothes... could only be called utterly ordinary.

They were extremely ordinary even for normal people.

But for Ling Wuyuan, they were still rather precious.

He normally could not bear to wear them.

Besides, a beggar dressing too well was truly disrespectful to professional ethics. It was easy to stack negative buffs on oneself and end up with fewer gains.

Therefore, ever since picking them up, Ling Wuyuan had never worn them.

As for that dagger, Ling Wuyuan had picked it up at the site of some knife-fighting competition. It was basic equipment that had belonged to some little thug who had long since kicked the bucket.

Yet now, these two things had their use...

After placing the clothes before the little girl, Ling Wuyuan spoke bluntly beneath her puzzled gaze:

"Although I don't know the specifics of your plan, you should change clothes first. What you're wearing right now is more or less too conspicuous."

At the end, he thoughtfully added, "These clothes might not look like much, but they're definitely clean. I haven't even worn them myself."

Hearing this,

the little girl looked at the clothes on herself, then at the clothes he had handed her, and understood what he meant.

She knew that the clothes she was currently wearing truly were unsuitable at this moment.

Then, she turned to look around at their surroundings.

Mm...

In this broken temple that leaked wind from all four sides, there was nowhere suitable to change clothes at all.

Still, after lightly biting her silver teeth as her face reddened slightly, she decisively accepted the clothes.

Then she walked deeper into the ruined temple.

Seeing this,

Ling Wuyuan took several steps forward.

He stood at the very front of the temple and silently gazed up at the bright moon in the sky.

Only after the rustling sounds of changing clothes behind him had completely stopped, and her footsteps gradually drew closer, did he ask:

"Are you changed?"

"...I'm changed."

Her voice was cool and aloof, yet tinged with shyness.

Clearly,

changing out of her clothes near an unfamiliar boy in such an environment was truly rather difficult for the little girl to speak of.

Even with the situation being so urgent.

Turning around, Ling Wuyuan carefully looked her up and down beneath her somewhat evasive gaze and flushed cheeks. Then he took out the dagger from before and pointed toward a spot beside the campfire.

"Sit down first. Next, I'll help you cut your hair shorter, and I'll put some makeup on you too. We'll change your appearance a little."

"Okay..."