"If he's smart enough, he won't come after us."
"Besides, you can't go back anymore. Why worry about all that?"
Li Chen knew what the boy was worried about. People like that often used cruel methods to establish their authority and maintain their rule. Though Li Chen had done the killing, the boy who had become entangled in its consequences would certainly fare no better. He might well be slaughtered as a harbinger of disaster the moment he returned.
The boy's agitated, terrified expression collapsed at once. Only now did he remember that the person he should fear was not the Fifth Master, but the man before him.
"Senior, I was wrong! Please, spare me! I have an eighty-year-old mother to support, and below me..."
"Stop! What is all this nonsense?" Just hearing this mouthful of underworld patter gave Li Chen a headache.
In fact, Li Chen had once come into contact with the lowest ranks of the Earthly Sha Sect himself. If Artisan Zhao of White Rock Ward had not looked after him, he might have been lured into joining them and become a pickpocket or a thug.
The Eastern Victory Continent had no government or anything of the sort to administer civilian affairs. Even with a mature mind, a commoner orphan would have found it difficult to hold on to the inheritance his father had left him.
The neighbors' care alone could not keep hungry wolves and ravenous tigers at bay. They might have stripped him bare within a few months. But with a Master Artisan's banner draped over him like a tiger's hide, no one dared covet what was his.
At that thought, his expression softened, and he said mildly, "Keep your mouth shut. Keep it shut, and I won't kill you."
The boy's eyes widened, and