Halfway there, Yan Nujiao seemed to realize something. She stepped aside and waited up ahead for Hu Xiaotian to catch up, her emerald-green eyes glaring at him with hostility.
Hu Xiaotian smiled without a trace of guilt. "Your eyes are a different color from your brother's! You two don't have the same mother, do you?" He was merely making conversation for the sake of it.
Yan Nujiao gave a cold laugh and ignored him.
Hu Xiaotian shook his head with a smile and stepped onto the platform of the stilt house. Two men stood outside the door. One was Hu Jinniu's sworn Third Brother, the middle-aged scholar who had tricked him into treating Yan Boguang the night before.
The middle-aged scholar stared at Hu Xiaotian with venomous hatred. Two of his brothers had been killed by Hu Xiaotian's side last night, and the fifth of their sworn brothers was still missing. Had they not needed Hu Xiaotian to treat Yan Boguang, the scholar would have rushed forward and killed him with a single stroke of his blade.
"Brother, we meet again," Hu Xiaotian said. "We really must be fated."
The middle-aged scholar snorted coldly and turned his face away.
Hu Xiaotian cursed inwardly. A bunch of thieves-what the hell are you acting so high and mighty for? I'm a government official, and even I haven't been giving you dirty looks. Yet every one of you struts around like you own the whole world. Having already reached the door, he turned to leave. Yan Nujiao froze for a moment, then hurried forward to block his path. "Where are you going?"
"Leaving!" Hu Xiaotian said. "Nobody here seems to welcome me. What I can't figure out is whether you invited me here to treat someone, or whether I shamelessly begged you to