Lu Yuan hated one thing more than anything: trouble.
"Trouble."
Lu Yuan murmured the two words, his voice quiet, but unusually clear in the dead silence of the clearing.
He stared at Su Wan'er's tear-streaked, pitiful face. Rather than feel the slightest bit of compassion, he felt his brow twitching.
Those tears were like a fuse, with an endless string of foreseeable headaches waiting on the other end.
Save someone, and you had to feed them. Feed them, and you had to shelter them.
Shelter them, and you had to keep them safe in the future.
Their enemies were the City Lord's Mansion and some Blood Soul Sect. To keep them safe, he would have to wipe out both groups.
How much time would that whole process waste?
How many words would he have to waste?
He wanted to find somewhere quiet and properly study this world's cultivation system, not play nursemaid and hired muscle for a pair of people with a tragic backstory.
But to Su Wan'er and Su Ming, his silence seemed like the profound deliberation of an expert—a calm before the storm.
Su Wan'er's sobs caught in her throat. She was afraid that even the slightest sound might displease this unpredictable senior and make him toss the siblings aside like trash.
She clutched her little brother's cold hand so tightly her nails dug into his flesh.
"Done crying?"
Lu Yuan finally spoke again, his tone as casual as if he were asking about the weather. "If you're done, think about what comes next. Are you planning to keep vigil for your parents here until the next group of pursuers arrives, so your whole family can be reunited on the road to the underworld? Or should you find a taller crooked tree and see what it feels like