"Cold... so cold..."
Suddenly, a weak woman's voice slowly poked out from the darkness at the side.
She wore a thick black outfit resembling a raincoat, with her head lowered beneath a hood-like hat that concealed her face. All that could be seen was that she was not very tall and seemed to be shivering violently.
She held several tiny figures by the hand. They all stood in the shadows beyond the firelight, seemingly her children.
"So cold... please, have mercy... let me and my children come warm ourselves by the fire..." The woman kept her head lowered as she pleaded weakly.
Lin Xin watched her stand in the darkness, holding her children's hands with her hooded head bowed. Her children had their heads lowered as well, their faces impossible to see. Not a single sound came from them. They were quiet... so quiet that they did not seem alive!
He did not know why this thought had suddenly surfaced in his mind, but involuntarily, that was the word he associated them with.
"Please... have mercy..." The woman stood at the edge of the firelight, pleading again and again as though she truly were about to freeze to death.
Lin Xin considered it.
"Where did you come from?"
He intended to draw out some intelligence from the woman.
"Please... have mercy..." Yet it was as if the woman had not heard his question at all. She merely repeated the same sentence over and over.
For some reason, watching her like this, a trace of sympathy and pity involuntarily rose in Lin Xin's heart. He immediately opened his mouth.
"If that is the case, then you may come in—"
Before he could finish, his scalp suddenly tingled. Something was wrong. The woman abruptly raised her head, revealing a deathly pale, bloodless