Before the "tree" on his tongue could take root, the second-in-command's eyes fixed on the woman in red, his breath catching in his throat.
The howling bandits behind him also froze as though struck by a paralysis spell, their eyes glazed and their weapons suspended in midair.
Beautiful.
So damned beautiful!
The woman before them had disheveled black hair and blood at the corner of her mouth, but her face was as white as congealed cream, her features even more exquisite than those of the Nine Heavens Mysterious Goddess their chief had told them about.
Especially that icy bearing and figure—even all the words they had learned from the Great King to describe women could not capture a tenth of her beauty.
"You're courting death!"
The red-skirted woman's gaze turned abruptly frigid.
On any other day, these filthy mortals would not even have been worthy of coming within a hundred miles of her. Yet today, they dared gather around and stare?
"Die!"
She forcibly rallied her energy and turned her pale wrist, barely gathering a faint glimmer of spiritual light in her palm as she prepared to strike forward.
But before the force of her palm could emerge, the energy inside her chest surged.
"Pfft!"
Her old injuries flared, and the breath she had mustered scattered completely. Her vision went black.
At that fatal instant when her old strength was spent and new strength had yet to rise-
Clang!!
An extraordinarily dull metallic crash suddenly erupted beside the stream.
"Holy shit! What a hard skull!"
Behind the woman in red, Chun Xiaobai gripped an arm-thick black iron club with both hands, still holding his mountain-cleaving stance. The club hovered a foot from her skull, and the webbing between his thumbs and forefingers had gone numb from the recoil.
That feeling...
It had not felt like hitting a human head. More like smashing a solid steel ball.
Seeing her head begin to turn, Chun Xiaobai immediately swung the black iron club up, ready to give her another blow.
But the woman in red swayed, her eyes rolled back, and-whether from sheer fury or the severity of her injuries-her body went limp and toppled straight to the ground.
"Just like I said! This Great King was born with divine strength. How could anyone withstand it?"
Thump! Chun Xiaobai kicked the woman in red in the rear, then put away his club.
Then he swept his great hand through the air, his bold spirit soaring into the clouds.
"Boys, tie up this rich woman!"
Chun Xiaobai waited a couple of breaths. When nothing happened, he looked up.
Every last one of those fools had eyes practically falling onto her body, with drool trailing three feet from their mouths.
"You pack of embarrassing disgraceful bastards! Never seen a woman before?"
Fury welled up in Chun Xiaobai, and he charged over with a flying kick.
Bang!
The second-in-command screamed as he flew sideways, knocking down a whole swath of men behind him.
"Ow, Great King!"
The bandit snapped out of his trance and scrambled clumsily to his feet. Looking at the peerless beauty lying unconscious on the ground, then at the pitch-black iron club in his Great King's hand, he could not help sighing.
"Great King! She's an absolutely peerless beauty! How could you actually bring yourself to hit her?"
"Can a peerless beauty fill your belly?"
"No, hold on!" Chun Xiaobai turned and glared. "Is sympathy something we bandits are supposed to have?"
He glanced toward the end of the main road and warned them.
"Get moving! Fat sheep like this usually have powerful backing. Keep dawdling, and when her family brings the authorities after us, you bastards can cover my retreat!"
Even as he urged them on, he could not help rubbing the still-numb webbing of his right hand.
That blow had felt downright bizarre.
It had not felt like a flesh-and-blood head, but a seamless ball of refined steel. The recoil had left even the spaces between his bones aching.
Could this woman have trained in iron head kung fu?
"Great King! Great King!"
But the scar-faced third-in-command had not taken any of that in. He grabbed Chun Xiaobai and pointed excitedly at the woman in red on the ground.
"Look at that figure! A waist you could pinch in one hand, a bottom round as a millstone, and those breasts-enough milk to feed ten sons! Isn't she exactly the perfect bandit chief's wife you're always going on about?!"
Two quick-witted lackeys rolled the "hostage" onto her back.
A breeze brushed past the woman's hair, and Chun Xiaobai's eyes fixed on her.
Gulp!
He could not help swallowing. Without another word, he immediately crouched and reached toward the woman in red with both hands.
With a flick of his fingers, he neatly plucked the emerald-green jade hairpin tucked at an angle into her hair.
"I'm rich...!"
Chun Xiaobai wiped it with his sleeve. Seeing that its quality was good, he happily tucked it into his robe.
His gaze shifted to the woman's fair, slender neck, where a sparkling red gemstone pendant hung.
He reached out and yanked.
Who would have thought the thin cord was unusually tough? It did not snap, and instead tightened around the unconscious woman's neck until her brows knitted.
"Tsk, this little cord's tougher than hemp rope!"
Chun Xiaobai muttered to himself. With no time to undo the clasp, he shifted his gaze to her soft, pale wrist.
A deep-purple jade bracelet encircled it, golden oracle-bone characters like indecipherable scrawls drifting around its surface. One glance told him it was an old ancestral heirloom.
"Hand it over!"
Chun Xiaobai tugged it over her soft, boneless little hand, but... it would not come off.
He tugged again. It still caught at the base of her thumb.
"She must've worn this since she was little. It won't come off at all." Chun Xiaobai frowned, staring at that hand.
"How about chopping the hand off?"
"Uhhh!!!"
The drooling bandits around him... froze.
They truly did not know whether to call his self-control monstrous or say he had lost every scrap of conscience and was wantonly destroying heaven's treasures.
With such a beautiful woman before him, he could leave her untouched-and even wanted to chop off her hand?
Chun Xiaobai ignored the looks from these fools who could not recognize a treasure. He sized up the task with a couple of gestures, then finally shook his head.
Judging by his expression, though, he was not feeling sorry for her. He was annoyed that he lacked a suitably sharp blade and worried he might chip the bracelet.
"Forget it. I'll find a cleaver once we're back at the stronghold."
Chun Xiaobai abandoned the bracelet and looked at the bulge around her waist.
According to this world's manner of dress, that was generally where a sash held banknotes and loose silver.
Such a bulge-could she have stolen money from some great Lineage and fled here to escape an arranged marriage?
Chun Xiaobai focused and activated his Treasure-Seeing Divine Eye. A beam of purple light shot straight into the sky.
"I'm rich!"
"A fortune to rival a nation really is right here!"
He immediately slipped his hand into her sash and began feeling around. Sure enough, he touched something hard.
Just as he was about to pull it out, a sudden pain struck his fingertip, as though something had bitten him.
"Holy shit, did she hide an embroidery needle in there?"
Chun Xiaobai immediately put his finger in his mouth and sucked it, then examined it. It looked as though a nail had punctured his fingertip.
His vision was a little dizzy, too.
He hurriedly shook his head. "Damn it, all these early mornings and late nights have worn my body out."
To avoid getting pricked again, Chun Xiaobai pulled open her outer robe. Suddenly, he noticed a dozen dark heads clustered around him, staring fixedly at his great hand as it roamed around her slender waist.
Gulp.
Some hopeless fool swallowed so loudly it shook heaven and earth.
"Holy shit!" Chun Xiaobai stopped short.
He immediately withdrew his hand and pointed at his subordinates' noses, cursing:
"What the hell are those looks? Have you got any professional ethics?"
"Even us bandits have to follow the rules of the trade! We're after money, not women!"
Chun Xiaobai stood amid a stream of curses and roared.
"Pull back first! Back to the mountain!"
Worried that this woman might wake up, be unable to accept having been exposed to everyone's eyes, and force him to kill the hostage, he would deal with her once he returned to the mountain.
As his words fell-
Chun Xiaobai bent down, seized the belt of the peerless beauty who eclipsed heaven and earth, and hoisted her up onto his shoulder.
All in one fluid motion.
That exquisite face hung limply just behind Chun Xiaobai's buttocks, bobbing with every step as he headed toward Black Wind Stronghold.
Before you continue