Robbery?

"Old friend, where are we heading?"

Su Li patted the horse's neck, talking to himself.

The horse snorted and ignored him.

Su Li didn't mind.

He glanced back. Wading Village had long since vanished, and even the silhouette of the mountain behind it had melted into the clouds on the horizon.

The feeling in his chest, as if it were stuffed with cotton, finally dissipated a little.

Leaving the village territory really felt different.

The most obvious change was the activity inside his body.

The spiritual energy, which had always moved as slowly as an old ox pulling a broken cart, suddenly became active, like a cat that had caught the scent of fish.

The energy particles drifting in the surrounding air were still pitifully thin, but compared to that broken village which felt like it had been sealed off, this place was practically an oxygen-rich zone.

Su Li took a deep breath.

His lungs felt cool and refreshed.

That bottleneck which had held him back for forty years, that barrier which felt like a rusted iron lock, actually showed signs of loosening amidst the sound of the horse's hooves.

"Tsk."

Su Li smacked his lips. "If I had come out twenty years earlier, I might have been able to fly on a sword by now."

But he had no regrets.

Cultivation was a matter of fate. Those decades spent with Saina were a different kind of cultivation. Now that the fate had run its course and the worldly ties were severed, his body felt light.

Besides, he could only feel his physical strength improving; the idea of actual immortal cultivation was just wishful thinking.

The scenery on both sides of the road began to grow desolate.

The neat wheat fields were gone, replaced by vast stretches of wild grassland.

The occasional village he passed was nothing but broken walls and ruins; the roofs had been torn off, and the dark, hollow windows looked like mouths screaming for justice.

The world had fallen into chaos.

The Orenda Kingdom and the Baris Empire had been fighting for so many years that they had ravaged this land.

The able-bodied men were conscripted, the grain was looted, and all that remained were the old, the weak, the sick, and endless swarms of bandits and marauders.

Su Li looked at a skeleton by the side of the road, his face expressionless.

In his many lifetimes, what hadn't he seen?

It was just a dead person.

Just then, a few people suddenly jumped out from the intersection ahead.

They were dressed like typical marauders.

They wore tattered leather armor stripped from who knows where, and held rusted iron blades or sharpened wooden sticks. They were all sallow and emaciated, but their eyes glowed with a greedy, greenish light.

There were five of them in total.

The leader was a one-eyed man carrying a notched mountain axe. A fresh wound ran across his face, the flesh turned outward, looking quite hideous.

"Whoa—"

Su Li pulled the reins, and the black horse stopped reluctantly.

He sat on the horse, looking down at these pieces of work.

"Robbery?"

Su Li asked, his tone as flat as if he were asking for directions.

The one-eyed man was stunned.

This wasn't how the script was supposed to go. Usually, when people saw this setup, if they weren't scared out of their wits, they would at least be trembling, right? Why was this pretty boy looking at them as if they were just a few stray dogs?

"Cut... cut the crap!"

The one-eyed man slammed his axe onto the ground, likely trying to intimidate him, but the ground was too hard, and the impact made his hand go numb. He winced and bared his teeth before he could recover. "I opened this road, I planted this tree... bah! Leave the horse! Leave the money! Take off your clothes and leave them too!"

Su Li tilted his head, his eyes narrowing beneath his bamboo hat.

"Take off my clothes, too?"

Su Li looked at the fine linen robe he had just put on. "This is the last piece of clothing my wife sewed for me. Wouldn't it be inappropriate to take it off?"

"Enough with the nonsense!"

A monkey-like lackey to the side grew impatient, lunging forward with a boning knife. "Boss, why waste words with him? This soft-skinned brat looks like some young master fleeing from a disaster; let's just slaughter him!"

The boning knife went straight for the horse's leg.

Although this bunch was trash, their eyes were sharp. They knew that if they crippled the horse first, the man wouldn't be able to run.

Su Li sighed.

"Young people these days really have no manners at all."

He did not draw his sword.

The blade on his back remained wrapped in tattered cloth. He simply pulled his foot from the stirrup and kicked out at the scrawny man charging toward him.

The kick was absurdly fast.

The scrawny man felt a blur before his eyes; before he could even make out the pattern on the sole of the boot, his chest felt as if it had been struck by a heavy iron hammer.

"Bang!"

A dull thud echoed.

The scrawny man flew backward, tracing a graceful arc through the air before hanging directly from a crooked tree by the side of the road. He did not even have time to let out a scream before his head lolled to the side and he passed out cold.

The scene fell silent.

The remaining four bandits gaped, their jaws nearly hitting their feet.

The one-eyed man rubbed his only good eye, seemingly unable to believe what had just happened.

The scrawny man might have been thin, but he still weighed over a hundred pounds.

And he had just been kicked flying by that pretty boy who hadn't even moved from his horse?

The one-eyed man reacted quickly, stepping back twice and gripping his axe tightly. "Brothers, attack! This kid just has a bit of extra strength!"

After saying this, the one-eyed man took another step back, pushing his brothers in front of him.

He had realized that this kid was likely a legendary knight, and he was already planning his escape.

The remaining three were afraid, but the thought of the days they had spent without food brought back their desperate, cutthroat ferocity.

"Kill!"

The men charged forward, howling.

Su Li shook his head.

No one saw how he moved.

They only felt a gust of wind sweep past, accompanied by a few crisp sounds of bones breaking.

"Snap."

"Ouch!"

"My hand!"

In the blink of an eye, the three lackeys were all lying on the ground. Some clutched their arms, others their legs, rolling into a heap and screaming more miserably than slaughtered pigs.

Only the one-eyed man remained standing.

Su Li stood before him, half a head taller.

"Empty your pockets."

Su Li held out his hand, palm upward. "Don't make me do it myself. I have a bad habit; when I do it myself, I can't control my strength well, and it's easy to kill people."

The one-eyed man froze.

The plot had twisted too quickly; his brain couldn't keep up.

Wait... wasn't this pretty boy supposed to be the one getting robbed? How had he become the one being robbed?

"Didn't you hear me?"

Su Li's fingers twitched slightly.

"I'll empty them! I'm emptying them!"

The one-eyed man jumped in fright, hurriedly fumbling through his robes in a panic.

After a long while, he pulled out a filthy cloth bag and tremblingly handed it to Su Li.

Su Li took it and weighed it in his hand.

It was light as a feather.

He opened it to find only a dozen copper coins and half a piece of moldy dry ration inside.

"Tsk."

Su Li tossed the bag back in disgust. "Poor wretch."

He turned and walked over to the lackeys who were still wailing, kicking each of them once. "Stop screaming. Keep it up, and I'll cut out your tongues."

The ground fell silent instantly.

Su Li searched the men for a while.

The harvest was even more pathetic.