How Many Blades Can You Take?

As she spoke, she picked up the firewood chopper the dark-faced man had dropped and planted it before his face with a clang.

Looking at the terror on his face, she threatened, "When a thousand cuts carve you to pieces, how many can you endure?"

The way Lin Xuan looked at Lin An changed. He had thought she was a gentle, obedient good girl; he had not expected that she merely hid her ruthlessness deep.

Yet he did not find it off-putting. On the contrary, he liked it very much, because it meant she could become his most capable right-hand woman in the future.

Hearing Lin An's words, the dark-faced man trembled all over. How could these two youths, not even adults yet, possess such vicious hearts?

He had truly been blind to take on this job and run into such plague gods!

His voice shook, and his teeth could even be heard chattering. "I really don't know. I only joined recently. I don't know how they operate. The one who knew the most has already been killed by you."

Lin An tried several follow-up questions, but she could no longer pry even a scrap of useful information from the dark-faced man.

Whether the bandit chief knew the authorities, the specific division of labor among those nineteen men, and whether the chief possessed any talent—she learned none of it.

Lin An said helplessly, "Little Brother, kill him. We can't get any useful information from him anymore."

"This man is a bandit. Shouldn't we turn them in for a reward?" Lin Xuan held a different opinion. He was desperately short of silver.

"I don't think we can." Lin An shook her head.

"Why?" Lin Xuan asked, puzzled.

Lin An said, "I heard long ago that Liang City had a bandit problem, yet it has never been resolved.

"No matter how useless that Garrison is, it could not possibly be incapable of wiping out mere bandits. Suppressing bandits earns military merit. Unless they consider that little merit beneath them, and the bandits can pay them off."

Lin Xuan suddenly understood. "You mean... someone is backing these bandits?"

He had originally assumed the bandit scourge persisted because the authorities were raising bandits to bolster their own importance. By never completely eliminating them, they could use bandit suppression as an excuse to squeeze money from local gentry and demand money from the imperial court.

But he had never considered that the authorities themselves might be the bandits' patrons—that officials were bandits, and bandits were officials!

Lin An nodded. "Yes. We've killed them here, and there's no one around. No one knows we did it.

"But if we report it to the authorities, we'll expose ourselves immediately.

"If the authorities and the Garrison truly refuse to suppress bandits, wouldn't that be openly inviting those bandits to come seek revenge on us?

"Besides, if you take him to report the crime, the evidence is insufficient. If the authorities really are colluding with them, they might bite back and accuse you of unlawfully killing a passerby or killing someone in a private fight."

After hearing this, Lin Xuan's thinking opened up. He had only thought of exchanging the bandit for reward money, never expecting so many twists and turns.

Listening to their conversation, the dark-faced man's heart gradually went cold. This is it. I'm going to die.

He tried to make one last struggle, but Lin Xuan had his hands pinned down as though they were locked in iron chains. He could not move in the slightest.

When struggling proved futile, he begged again.

"Don't kill me, don't kill me—I'll talk..."

Lin An frowned. "I'll do it. It'll be a good chance to test the strength I've practiced these past few days!"

Lin Xuan nodded.

Remembering the bandit's vulgar words from earlier, Lin An's anger flared. "Stop screaming. Didn't you want some pleasure? I'll give you some."

Her hands trembled slightly with fear, but when she thought of what the bandits had done, she gritted her teeth and exerted force. Using Lin Xuan's short sword's scabbard against the bandit's throat, she strangled him to death.

This bandit could not be allowed to return. That would only leave trouble for themselves.

After confirming that the man had completely stopped breathing, Lin Xuan searched the two men. Neither had a single coin on him—not even one copper coin.

They did not even have talents. Purely a negative return.

"Two poor bastards. Why come out to rob people without bringing money?" Lin Xuan muttered.

Lin An burst out laughing. "Haha, hearing you say that, why does it sound like you're the bandit robbing people on the road?"

"Then I'm the bandit chief? Let's clean up their corpses first, my bandit chief's wife."

Hearing that form of address, Lin An stammered, "W-what bandit chief's wife... We're not married yet."

"Soon. Once my martial training bears fruit and we have money, we'll get married." Lin Xuan smiled.

"Get on with handling the bodies." Lin An did not answer him directly.

Though Lin An appeared calm on the surface, inwardly she was already grumbling, What are we waiting for? Can't we do it this year?

Neither of them felt any fear facing the two corpses. Lin An had seen far too many dead people while fleeing famine as a child.

Had she lacked ruthlessness and cunning, she would have died long ago on that road of flight.

Lin Xuan was the same. After all, these two men had tried to cut off his path to survival and intended to violate Lin An first.

He did not feel the slightest guilt. By killing these two scourges, who knew how many people would escape their poisonous hands?

"These two bodies are too conspicuous here. Push them into the ditch first." Lin Xuan kicked the bandits' corpses into the drainage ditch, one kick at a time.

The current was not swift enough to carry the bodies away, but it could wash away some of the short man's bloodstains.

The two hurried home. After putting away the grain, they ran back to deal with the bodies.

"Hey! Where are you two going again?" Chen Fang worried about them.

But all she heard from afar was, "Mother, don't worry. We'll be back soon."

After discussing it, the two decided to transport the bodies to Rou Mountain. There were many wild beasts there, and the bandits' corpses would likely be cleaned up by animals soon enough.

Lin An had chosen to strangle the bandit mainly because it left no bloodstains. They would not need to spend extra effort cleaning blood from the road, which saved trouble.

Before long, they finished dealing with the bandits' bodies and threw them onto Rou Mountain.

After finishing everything, the two looked at each other and let out breaths of relief.

By then, the sun was nearly setting. The horizon was awash in orange, and people were becoming hard to see.

Lin An's heart thudded wildly. She edged closer to Lin Xuan. "When we ran into those two this afternoon, I didn't think much of it. But thinking back on it now, I'm still so scared. Is our home still safe?"

Lin Xuan put an arm around her shoulders and said,

"Don't be afraid. I'm here."

Though he comforted her aloud, lingering fear still remained in his heart. Fragments of violent crimes he had seen in his previous life flashed through his mind. What had left the deepest impression was a married couple robbed of wealth and violated, utterly unable to fight back. Just thinking about it was enough to make one despair.

It bore some resemblance to what he had encountered today.

Yet there were major differences. These bandits specifically struck in deserted places along the road. They had calculated that military household settlements were hard targets, while the road between the county town and the village was empty before and behind, making robbery and murder least risky.

If he had not achieved results from his bitter training over the past dozen days, they would likely have fallen to these two men today!

The plan to wipe out the Wolf Cave Mountain Bandit Gang now had to be put on the agenda.

Unless he completely exterminated those bandits, along with their children and grandchildren, he would not sleep peacefully.

At their current pace, he estimated that reaching Bone Binding perfection and assaulting the Breath-Connecting Realm would take at least another six months.

Too slow. He had to speed up!