To the young man, that boy could not possibly have been a man kept pampered in some secluded courtyard. He had seen men like that before; they often had an indescribably coquettish air about them, along with timid, cowardly expressions.
But that boy had neither.
The young man therefore suspected that the boy's background was anything but ordinary. Although he had fled from a group of soldiers, they had not ordered him captured dead or alive. Instead, once he jumped into the sea, they stopped pursuing him.
In most such cases, it was a wealthy family's young master who had fallen out with his family over something and run away.
The more the young man thought about it, the more excited he became, and he told the people before him what he had witnessed aboard the ship that day.
Xue Qian sent one of the burly men flying with a kick, then planted his boot on the man's back and asked coldly, "Which hand did you touch him with?"
"Tell me, and I'll cut it off for you."
When it came to Lord Shen, Xue Qian had no tolerance whatsoever. He revered and worshipped him; in his eyes, Lord Shen was a deity descended to earth.
To think he had been treated like this on a trip away. How had these people dared?
The burly man was stunned by the kick, but the pain it brought was far worse than the beating he had received a few days earlier. He grimaced in agony and was about to fight back when a sword appeared at his neck.
The burly man went rigid, not daring to make another move. He could not help pleading for mercy. "Sir, we don't even know that boy! Don't listen to this scrawny monkey's wild nonsense. He's