"Perhaps we don't have to do this," Pei Ye said.
He had indeed recognized him.
-the exhausted, tense boy who had suddenly appeared in the deserted mountain woods, the quick-witted, troublesome figure in black in the dim, clamorous gambling den, the calm, crazed killer sitting against the wall beneath the restaurant with his arms around his knees.
These were three entirely different people, and also silhouettes left behind as a boy grew at a furious pace over little more than ten days.
From the changes in his attitude toward him, Pei Ye could also glimpse how the boy was gradually being driven into a dead end.
-if what you carried was bloody and heavy enough, and your circumstances cramped and urgent enough, you had no time to spare for useless kindness.
This was, of course, pulling up seedlings to help them grow. The strings of the boy's heart were being furiously tempered, growing ever tougher, but also stretched ever tighter. If the former outpaced the latter, this would be a swift maturation; if the latter outpaced the former, it would be a collapse.
Judging by the boy's state today, the dangerous consequences of the latter had already begun to show.
Pressure bore down from above, below, and every direction. Walking on thin ice, he no longer had the time to consider much else. To achieve the goal he had to achieve today, killing an innocent person no longer counted as a burden.
"You can also choose to keep trying to kill me. Then I'll have no choice but to kill you," Pei Ye said seriously.
The Green-Clad Servant tilted his head. "You, kill me?"
"I can show you I'm capable of it, but then you won't have a chance to regret it."
"You haven't seen my saber yet."
"And you