Arrival at County City

Inside the tile-roofed house.

Ye Tong held a Silver Crystal, absorbing and refining it to restore the vital energy he had expended. He deeply regretted not refining a few Blood Generating Pills before setting out. The two large half-bowls of blood had left him extremely weak, draining even the color from his face.

"Yan'er..."

On the bed against the wall, the middle-aged woman had yet to wake, yet she had called her daughter's name no fewer than twenty times. The pain between her brows had not lessened in the slightest.

The Medicine Slave leaned beside the bed, drowsing. Whenever he occasionally opened his cloudy eyes and glanced at the little girl's cold corpse, he would ask himself whether saving the middle-aged woman had been right or wrong.

Living was worse than death.

The Medicine Slave had experienced that feeling physically, but he had never been crushed by it in spirit.

"Rooar..."

The Dragon Lion Eagle's clear cry shattered the camp's oppressive atmosphere. As one Dragon Lion Eagle descended from the sky, the doors of the tile-roofed houses were pushed open one after another. Including Ye Tong and the Medicine Slave, everyone came outside.

"What happened?" A sturdy man was the first to leap down from the Dragon Lion Eagle. Seeing the bloodstains on the damp ground and the dozen-plus battered people, he strode swiftly toward Meng Jia.

"I don't know what exactly happened either!" Meng Jia said with a bitter smile. "We encountered the impact of a Small Beast Tide twice in succession. Especially the second time—if not for a young brother using poisoned blood to poison vast numbers of Black Lions, this camp would likely no longer exist."

"What? Two beast tides occurred?!"

Upon hearing Meng Jia's words, the sturdy man's face revealed utter shock. He knew Black Lions were pack-dwelling fierce beasts, and even the weakest among them were Level Two Fierce Beasts. When they appeared, there were often dozens, over a hundred, or perhaps even several hundred at once.

This camp... had suffered a Small Beast Tide? And a Small Beast Tide containing a massive number of Black Lions at that?

Though the sturdy man had not witnessed the battle here himself, merely imagining it made him shudder. With a face full of relief, he said, "You were truly fortunate to survive."

Meng Jia shook his head and sighed. "Yes! Very fortunate. We nearly lost our lives."

Thinking of his desperate notion of treating a dead horse as though it were alive at the critical moment, and the correct choice he had made by sheer chance when there had been no other option, Meng Jia truly felt fortunate.

After some discussion, Ye Tong, Jin Qiusheng, and the others who had participated in the battle could leave first aboard the Dragon Lion Eagle. The group that had just arrived, aside from a few people, would wait for the later Dragon Lion Eagles. However, Ye Tong and the others still had to wait until dawn the next day before departing.

"Camp Officer Meng Jia."

A surviving Baishun Merchant Guild guard came before Meng Jia and reported, "The gains from the second Small Beast Tide have been counted. According to the old rules, half will be used as pensions for the brothers who died in battle. The remaining half has been divided into sixteen shares, and every participant in the battle receives one share."

Meng Jia said, "Pay all of it in blue silver at market value."

"Yes!"

Inside the tile-roofed house.

Ye Tong was awakened by a Baishun Merchant Guild guard. Looking at the stack of banknotes the man handed him, he accepted them after learning the details. Though he and the Medicine Slave had contributed greatly, they still received the average of sixteen shares: blue silver notes with a total face value of 325,400 taels.

Ye Tong had not expected that after a round of slaughter, he would gain such a huge reward. Even less had he expected the Baishun merchant caravan to be so generous and fair. Originally, Ye Tong had thought they would only give him a modest compensation.

"Ye Tong, these are the banknotes the mother and daughter should receive, totaling 284,000 taels. I hope that after she wakes, you can give them to her." The guard gave the unconscious middle-aged woman a complicated look. Even he was tempted by such a sum, but he did not dare conceal any of it.

"Alright." Ye Tong gestured for the Medicine Slave to accept them.

After the guard left, Ye Tong tucked the banknotes into his clothes and said, "Baishun Merchant Guild. Not bad."

"Mhm. With such credibility, it is no wonder they could grow."

The Medicine Slave nodded and said, "The Baishun Merchant Guild has always had an excellent reputation. That is one reason their guild has continuously expanded. Today, the Baishun Merchant Guild has become one of the top three merchant guilds in the Sky Net Empire, with abundant wealth and experts as numerous as clouds."

As the two spoke, the unconscious middle-aged woman's fingers suddenly twitched lightly. Then her eyes slowly opened.

Ye Tong calmly said, "You're awake?"

The middle-aged woman slowly sat up. There was not a trace of color in her face, and tears fell in great drops like pearls from a snapped string. She climbed down from the bed, went to the other side, and knelt beside it. Her trembling hands gently cradled her daughter's cold cheeks.

There was a kind of wound called heart-rending.

There was a kind of pain called living worse than death.

Scenes from the past rose one after another in her mind. She spat out a mouthful of blood, and the sensation of fainting swept over her once more.

Ye Tong reacted swiftly, supporting her shoulder as he said bitterly, "The dead cannot return to life. Please restrain your grief and accept fate."

The middle-aged woman raised an arm and wiped the blood from her lips. Only after the dizzy spell passed did she slowly turn her head. She remembered this youth: a bowl of hot tea, two savory flatbreads. At the juncture of life and death, while he and his family's old servant fought fierce beasts, they had still protected her daughter as much as possible.

"You are a good child."

The middle-aged woman's voice was somewhat hoarse. After struggling to stand, she stopped Ye Tong from reaching out again. Then she dropped straight to her knees and kowtowed three times. Looking up at Ye Tong, she said, "We met only by chance, yet I shall never forget your grace in protecting us. This humble woman begs one final matter of you. I hope you can agree."

Ye Tong calmly asked, "Are you going to say that once I accomplish it, I will receive a generous reward?"

"Yes!"

The middle-aged woman nodded heavily.

Ye Tong shook his head. "I will not keep two corpses by my side for days, much less bring two corpses to the gates of the county city. I understand. You feel too ashamed to face your husband, and you want to follow your daughter into death, ending it all once and for all. But I am telling you, that idea is terribly wrong."

"Am I wrong?"

The middle-aged woman's tears flowed even faster.

Ye Tong said, "If you had died before this, what would you have wished for most?"

The middle-aged woman said, "I would pray for my daughter to live well."

Ye Tong asked, "Wasn't your daughter's final smile meant to comfort you? How could she not have wanted you to live well too? That smile, that comfort, that prayer she never had time to speak aloud—those were her last wishes. Could it be that you cannot even fulfill her final wish for her?"

"I..." The middle-aged woman was rendered speechless.

Ye Tong continued, "Your daughter has died. I know your heart is in pain, but I believe someone else is suffering just as you are. That person should be your husband. He has lost a daughter, and if he loses his wife as well, would he not be even more pitiful? Do you want him to follow the two of you into death too? Or spend the rest of his life in unbearable misery?"

The middle-aged woman fell silent.

The couple had shared a wonderful relationship. Had they not suddenly encountered calamity several years ago, and had her husband not been leading troops at the border to fight an enemy empire, she and her daughter would not have appeared here, nor would her daughter have met such a tragic death.

Ye Tong took out the Dark Dagger and tossed it directly before the middle-aged woman. Then he said, "Living itself is accepting trials in purgatory. The hundred flavors of life—sour, sweet, bitter, and spicy—must all be tasted, so that when one grows old, one will have no regrets and will have done justice to this life! If you insist on killing yourself, the blade is before you. We will not stop you again. But before you kill yourself, I hope you will think of that pitiful man who has already lost his daughter and is about to lose his wife as well."

The middle-aged woman's white teeth bit through her purpling lips. Blood trickled down, yet she seemed unaware of it.

Time passed. She did not pick up the Dark Dagger. Like a puppet, she sank into silence.

A long while later.

Ye Tong took the banknotes handed over by the Medicine Slave, seized the middle-aged woman's hand, and placed them in it. "There is a saying in my hometown: it is better to live badly than to die well. As long as one is alive, even if some things are lost, more can still be gained. The meaning of living lies in having attachments and hope still left in one's life. These banknotes are the pension given by the Baishun Merchant Guild, along with the gains after the battle. The child is gone, but you are still young. In the future, you can still have children and grandchildren filling your home, with a loving mother and filial children."

"Is that so?" The middle-aged woman's eyes were filled with pain and confusion.

At dawn, sunlight shone across the land, dispersing the night's chill.

With the Dragon Lion Eagle's clear cry, a transparent shield enveloped the people on its back as it flew toward Zifu County's county city. The middle-aged woman was still alive, and she had insisted on bringing her daughter's corpse with her, even though she paid a thousand taels of blue silver for it.

"Alas!"

Ye Tong sat cross-legged. Earlier, he had firmly refused the middle-aged woman's wish to give him all her banknotes.

On the final day of the third lunar month, the Dragon Lion Eagle landed at the edge of a forest ten li from the county city's South Gate. This was a small market, separated from the county city's main city by four li of open ground.

At the south city gate.

A hundred gate guards in armor exuded a grim, murderous air. Inside a crude wooden shelter, Fu Tianlong sat upright in a chair, his gaze blazing as he swept his eyes toward the market. Upon closer inspection, one could see a hint of expectation flowing through his eyes. He was Zifu County's brave and battle-hardened War Dragon General, and also the foremost fierce general under the Zifu County King.

Five days ago, Fu Tianlong had led twenty thousand elite troops to defeat the wolf soldiers of the Luoyan Empire along the border, returning in triumph. At that time, firecrackers rang in unison and gongs and drums shook the heavens. He had been a hero returning victorious.

Yet early the next morning, he had changed into the armor of a city gate commander and appeared at this southern city gate. No one could understand why the dignified War Dragon General, Zifu County's foremost fierce general, had become a mere gatekeeper.

Crack...

The tea bowl Fu Tianlong had just raised fell to the ground and shattered. His burly body abruptly rose, and an inconceivable light burst from his eyes.

Within his sight, that middle-aged woman covered in blood was his wife, while the one held in her arms was his daughter.

"Junlan..." A low roar came from Fu Tianlong's mouth. Gripping his sword hilt, he transformed into an arrow loosed from the bow. Just as the hundred elite gate guards drew their blades in unison, he charged toward his wife and daughter several hundred meters away.

"Alas!"

A faint sigh came from the Medicine Slave.

Ye Tong stood dozens of meters behind the middle-aged woman, quietly watching the reunion of husband and wife before him. His heart faintly ached. He started walking again, passing several people amid Fu Tianlong's roar and entering the county city's southern gate with the crowd.

Faintly.

The cries of that iron-blooded man and the woman's weeping still lingered by his ears.

Ye Tong took a deep breath, driving the stray thoughts from his heart. Gazing at the magnificent city, he muttered to himself, "So this is the county city?"