Fierce Bandit

Although she had fallen to the ground, the woman still clutched the wailing child in her arms with a death grip.

Lin Qing's pupils constricted, and his heart tightened violently.

These Wild Mountain Bandits moved with such clean, efficient precision that they were clearly no mere common mountain thieves!

These men carried a distinct, lingering Sha Qi about them.

It was more like... they were hardened bandits who had seen blood.

This was trouble!

He instantly extinguished any extraneous thoughts and, without hesitation, lowered his body slightly, intending to use the cover of the bushes to quietly retreat in the opposite direction.

He did not want to be dragged into this senseless slaughter, nor did he wish to expose himself.

There were too many tragedies in this world; he could not manage them all.

If these hardened bandits had backers behind them, he would be pulled into a whirlpool for no reason at all.

However, the very moment he turned to leave, the panicked woman—perhaps driven by a mother's desperate instinct—happened to glance through a gap in the swaying bushes.

She caught a glimpse of Lin Qing's blurred figure and, as if grabbing onto a final straw, used every ounce of her strength to shriek a tearful plea:

"Good man, that good man!"

"I beg you, save my child, save my An'er!!"

This shrill, piercing cry instantly shattered Lin Qing's plan to withdraw.

It also caused the three bandits, who had just killed the man in the Confucian robe and were grinning as they closed in on the woman and child, to snap their fierce gazes toward the spot where Lin Qing was hiding.

The beads of blood on their blades dripped slowly onto the earth, splashing up dust.

Lin Qing's feet were nailed to the spot.

The woman's plea was like an invisible thread, binding his ankles.

The fierce gazes suddenly cast by the three bandits shattered his hope of remaining an outsider.

The cover of the bushes had lost all meaning.

He slowly straightened his back and stepped out from the shadows of the trees, exposing himself to the dappled light of the forest.

Lin Qing remained in his guise as a sallow-faced traveling merchant.

He looked entirely unremarkable, even somewhat frail.

The three bandits were startled to see that there was indeed someone there.

But upon seeing that Lin Qing was alone, not particularly burly, and unarmed, their courage immediately surged.

The leader was a man with a face full of flab and a gleaming bald head. He pointed his blood-dripping steel saber at Lin Qing and barked in a grating voice: "Where did this blind brat come from? I advise you not to stick your nose where it doesn't belong!"

"Do you have any idea how many lives you have to throw away by offending us Wild Mountain Bandits?"

"Wild Mountain Bandits?"

Lin Qing's heart stirred; he seemed to have heard this name mentioned once at the Ge Pao Society.

They were a group of hardened bandits who had recently begun roaming the wild mountains outside Qingping County.

It was said they were ruthless and had many lives on their hands.

Lin Qing immediately plastered a look of panic onto his face, waving his hands hurriedly while his voice trembled with fear: "A misunderstanding, good sirs, a misunderstanding!"

"This Humble One is merely passing through, with no intention of causing offense. I shall leave at once..."

As he spoke, he made a show of retreating, though his eyes swept rapidly over the three men.

The bald man's aura was relatively condensed, and his temples were slightly bulging; he was clearly a martial artist who had entered the path.

However, judging by the fluctuations of his blood energy, he was roughly in the mid-to-late stage of the Skin Refining Realm and had yet to open his tendons.

The other two had erratic auras and unstable stances; though their eyes were fierce, they were just common thugs relying on sheer brutality.

Seeing Lin Qing so sensible, the bald man let out a smug, cruel laugh and spat: "Hmph, you know what's good for you!"

"Get lost, or my blade will be having its third feast of the day!"

The woman, whose faint glimmer of hope had ignited at Lin Qing's appearance, saw it instantly extinguished, her face turning as pale as paper.

The light in her eyes dimmed completely, leaving only boundless, bottomless despair.

Her legs gave way as if her bones had been removed, and she collapsed to the ground, clutching her child.

She only trembled uncontrollably, using her hands and feet to scramble backward, trying to distance herself from the murderous villains, though it was all in vain.

"Heh heh, little lady, where are you running to?"

The bald man ignored Lin Qing, leering as he closed in on the woman.

His gaze swept repeatedly over her chest, which was heaving violently from terror.

"Scream! Didn't you scream quite loudly just a moment ago?"

"Let's see if anyone comes to save you now!"

"In this desolate wilderness, not even the Heavenly King himself could stop me from having my fun!"

Before the bald man's voice had even faded, he impatiently crouched down, a rough, filthy hand reaching straight for the overlapping lapels of the woman's robe, pulling with a violent jerk.

"Rip!"

The sound of tearing fabric rang out with jarring clarity in the silent mountain forest.

It revealed a glimpse of the woman's plain-colored bodice underneath, along with the snow-white skin of her shoulders and neck.

The woman let out a wail of despair, clutching tightly to the child in her arms, who was trembling so violently that not even a whimper could escape its throat.

Just as the bald man's entire focus was centered on the woman, at the very moment his guard was at its lowest, Lin Qing, who had appeared fearful and retreating all this time, moved!

This movement was like that of a long-dormant leopard.

Still as a maiden, swift as a startled hare!

The ground beneath his feet sank slightly as his figure transformed into an arrow loosed from a bow, his speed erupting to the absolute limit.

Lin Qing tapped his toes against the earth, instantly crossing several yards to close in on the bald man's rear flank without a sound.

The two bandits tasked with keeping watch felt a blur before their eyes.

The traveling merchant who had been so timid just a moment ago, had appeared behind their leader like a ghost!

The bald man was, after all, a martial artist who had survived many skirmishes; the moment Lin Qing's aura suddenly erupted and closed in, alarm bells rang wildly in his heart.

A chill of icy dread shot straight from his tailbone to his crown.

Instinctively, he tried to twist his body and swing his blade to parry.

However, it was too late.

Lin Qing raised his right fist, the blood and qi of his Tendon Opening Realm surging thunderously, concentrating into the brass knuckles on his hand!

He did not use the horizontal blade on his back, for that would take time.

At this moment, the battle was won or lost in the blink of an eye!

"Bang!"

A muffled thud of flesh being pierced reached the ears of everyone present with chilling clarity.

The bald man's body stiffened abruptly, his movements frozen, and he looked down in disbelief.

A blood-stained Kirin Spike had protruded right through the base of his neck!

Relying on the explosive power of the Tendon Opening Realm, Lin Qing had killed him in a single strike during the fleeting moment of the ambush!

"You... you..."

The bald man let out a rattling, wheezing sound from his throat, his eyes filled with incredulous shock and confusion.

He could not comprehend how this seemingly ordinary passerby

could possess such ruthless methods.

Lin Qing remained expressionless, his gaze as cold as ice, and leaning close to the man's ear, he uttered a few words in a voice only the two of them could hear.

"My apologies, but justice demands it."

Before the words were finished, he flicked his wrist and violently withdrew the Kirin Spike, spraying a mist of warm blood.

The light in the bald man's eyes faded rapidly, and his sturdy frame collapsed like a falling mountain of gold or a toppling pillar of jade.

He fell straight to the ground, twitched twice, and then fell silent forever.

Everything had happened too quickly.

From Lin Qing's sudden eruption to the bald man's death, no more than a few dozen heartbeats had passed.

The two bandits only snapped out of their stupor once their leader hit the ground.

The smug, ferocious grins on their faces instantly twisted into rage.

"He killed our boss!"

"Avenge the boss! Hack him to pieces!"

Though shocked, they were not panicked—clearly, they were hardened bandits—and they let out a simultaneous roar.

Flanking from left and right, they brandished their steel blades and lunged toward Lin Qing!