Protecting His Mistress in Desperation, Denouncing the Ruthless Bandits

Yet her toes had barely moved half a step forward when a broad, powerful hand, searing hot as a branding iron, suddenly reached out from beside her, clamped around her slender, fair wrist, and yanked her behind him without a word!

Thud!

Chen Xuan stepped forward. His blue-robed figure did not look particularly burly, yet now it stood as tall and straight as a towering mountain, planted firmly between Xiao Ling'er and the fifty or sixty hardened bandits, completely blocking every greedy, lecherous, savage gaze!

"Chen Xuan?! What are you doing? Get out of my way!"

Xiao Ling'er froze for a moment. Looking up at the broad back right before her, she snapped in a low voice, startled and anxious:

"Have you gone mad?! That Liu Bazi was only at the ordinary middle stage of Ming Jin. You only managed that lucky sneak attack because of the clever force-deflecting tricks you learned carrying water! But this Lei Hu is genuinely at the peak of the middle stage of Ming Jin, and that refined-steel spiked mace in his hands weighs a full hundred jin. He even smashed the master of the martial arts school in the south of the city into pulp! You only broke through to early-stage Bright Force yesterday. Going up against him is throwing your life away! Get back behind me. We'll ride Treading Snow together and charge west!"

Listening to the girl's anxious, trembling urgings behind him, Chen Xuan did not retreat a single step. He merely turned his face halfway back.

The autumn sunlight fell slantwise across his sharply defined face. He looked into Xiao Ling'er's almond-shaped eyes, filled with worry and panic, his gaze so deep and gentle that one could almost drown in it. His voice was steady and resonant, carrying a domineering assurance that soothed her to her very bones:

"Third Young Miss, you are a precious daughter of noble birth, an immortal descended from the Nine Heavens. Do not look at such filthy, foul things before us any longer, lest they soil your eyes."

"Chen Xuan... you..."

"Just stand behind me and rest, Miss. Before leaving the estate, I swore a solemn oath at the Listening to Rain Pavilion. As long as a warm breath remains in my chest today, even the King of Heaven himself can forget about getting past me to touch a single hair on your head!"

Boom!

Those calmly spoken words, each weighing a thousand jun, struck deep into Xiao Ling'er's heart like a thunderbolt!

She bit her lip hard and looked up at this young guard, a head taller than herself. A scalding red mist rapidly rose in her eyes, beyond her control.

Ever since she could remember, her awkward status as a concubine-born daughter had meant that, within the main branch, her mother favored her legitimate-born elder brother Xiao Yuxuan and her two legitimate-born elder sisters, while the servants treated people according to their standing. Faced with today's utterly hopeless predicament, surrounded by fifty or sixty gleaming steel blades, any Attendant, instructor, or veteran guard from the marquis's household would have abandoned her and fled for their own lives long ago!

Only Chen Xuan! Only this little guard she had casually plucked from the stables, despite knowing the enormous disparity in strength and that stepping forward meant being smashed to pieces, had not entertained the slightest thought of fleeing. Instead, all he could think about was, "Don't let these filthy things soil her eyes"!

"Chen Xuan, you absolute fool..."

Her little hand clutched the blue cloth at his back and shook violently. An unmistakable sob had already crept into her voice:

"This is my order! I won't let you go out there alone and risk your life! If he smashes you to death, who will massage my legs and lead my horse at the Listening to Rain Pavilion? Come back here!"

"As long as I can keep you safe today, Third Young Miss, even if I am smashed to pieces on the spot and reduced to a handful of yellow earth beside the road, I will have died a worthy death and can smile even beneath the Nine Springs!"

Chen Xuan gave her a brilliant, resolute smile, then slowly turned back to face Lei Hu, the iron-tower-like giant ten paces away.

The instant he turned his head, every trace of gentleness and humility vanished from his face, replaced by a bone-deep chill like that of an asura from the Nine Netherworlds, along with the cool calculations deep in his heart that belonged to the king of the 996 grind from his previous life:

Tsk, this desperate stand to protect my mistress delivered emotional value straight to the max. This little chili pepper probably won't escape the palm of my hand for the rest of her life! As for this black-haired wild boar at the peak of the middle stage of Ming Jin... you'll be perfect for testing the true caliber of my major accomplishment realm Boulder Art stacked with my minor accomplishment realm Eight Desolations Prison-Suppressing Yang Gang!

"Well, well! What a heart-rending performance of devotion between master and servant. You're almost bringing tears to my eyes!"

With his hundred-jin spiked mace over his shoulder, Lei Hu tilted his head and sized up Chen Xuan standing in his way, sneering as though looking at a mantis trying to stop a chariot:

"Boy, you're the horse-feeding house slave who crippled Liu Bazi with one punch just now? On my way here, I was wondering how Liu Bazi, who'd at least trained his way to the middle stage of Ming Jin, could be knocked flat in one move by a skinny-armed, skinny-legged pretty boy like you! Now that I've heard you two putting your heads together, I finally get it-you only just reached the threshold of early-stage Bright Force yesterday. That was nothing but dogshit luck earlier! Liu Bazi wore his legs out on some unlicensed whore's belly last night, and you took advantage to score yourself a bargain!"

"Hahahaha! Second Boss nailed it! So he's just a weakling who's only been ranked for a day, putting on airs like some big bad wolf!"

"Pretty boy, hurry up and scram! With that little body, you wouldn't even fill the gaps between our second boss's teeth with one swing!"

Once the dozens of Black Tiger Gang thugs around them learned that Chen Xuan was merely a novice who had just broken through to early-stage Bright Force, the little apprehension Liu Bazi's crushing defeat had inspired instantly vanished like smoke and clouds. Every last one laughed wildly, jeering and cursing.

Lei Hu pressed another two great strides forward, his heavy spiked mace dragging a dazzling trail of sparks across the ground. Towering over Chen Xuan, he pointed at his nose and barked:

"Horse-feeding brat, I'm in a good mood today, so I'll show you a way to live! Get down in the muddy water right now, give me a hundred proper, resounding kowtows, then smash your own right hand and crawl over to the foot of the wall to watch the show! In a moment, I'll give that pampered, precious third young miss of yours a thorough working-over right before your eyes, and let you see what a real man's virility looks like! If you dare utter so much as half a word of refusal, I'll smash you, bones and all, into meat paste with one swing right now and toss you into the mass graves west of the city to feed the wild dogs!"

Facing Lei Hu's overwhelming, vicious pressure, Chen Xuan stood where he was without even raising his eyelids. He looked at him as though looking at a corpse already beginning to rot and stink.

"Do all you dogs from the Black Tiger Gang spout this much nonsense when death is staring you in the face?"

Chen Xuan clasped his hands behind his back. His voice was not particularly loud, yet every word clearly drowned out all the jeering laughter, exploding against every thug's eardrums:

"That one-eyed, mangy dog lying on the ground was like this, and now out pops a black-skinned wild boar like you that hasn't even shed all its hair! With that stinking mug of yours, looking like you've just rolled around in a pigsty, you dare lust after our third young miss in broad daylight? Not only are you ugly beyond the heavens, but you certainly dream pretty dreams in the daytime!"