Pay for My Family's Lives

Kexi fled for a full day and night.

He crossed two mountains, forded three rivers, passed through four towns, ate five meals, and slept six times.

None of those times lasted more than an hour.

It wasn't that he didn't want a proper sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, he dreamed of a pink-haired girl covered in leaves dropping from the sky and strangling him with both hands, shouting, "I'll kill you!" Then he would wake in fright, his head drenched in cold sweat and his pants still wet.

Not wet with pee, but soaked in cold sweat.

At least, that was what he told himself.

"Was that really necessary? It was just a bit of pee, wasn't it?" He crouched beside a stream and splashed the icy water onto his face, trying to wake himself up a little.

As drops of water ran down his chin, he saw his face reflected in the stream, filled with exhaustion and grievance.

"I already apologized. What more does she want? Besides, she was the one hiding in the lake. How was I supposed to know someone was down there? Can she really blame me for that?"

His conscience piped up faintly from the bottom of his heart:

You peed in the lake where she was bathing, and you peed all over her head. That really wasn't very appropriate.

Kexi chose to ignore the voice.

He stood up, stretched, and gazed at the mountain path ahead.

According to the map Changli had given him, Ragunna City shouldn't be far ahead. Once he crossed this mountain, he would be able to see its walls.

Yangyang had said that "his" home was there.

Though he felt nothing for that so-called "home."

After all, it was part of the script, not real.

But he couldn't help feeling that Christopher wouldn't have given him that background for no reason.

Perhaps Cioccolata and the others were in Ragunna City. Perhaps it held a clue to leaving this script. Perhaps Christopher himself was lurking in a corner, waiting to watch the show.

In any case, he would go take a look first.

He flew unsteadily over the last stretch of mountain road on his flying sword, and at last, the outline of Ragunna City emerged in the twilight.

It was a city of middling size, with a sparse trickle of merchants and pedestrians passing through its gates. It looked no different from the other cities in this scripted world.

Kexi put away his flying sword outside the city and walked in.

He decided to find somewhere to stay first.

If he didn't catch up on sleep soon, he was afraid he would collapse right there in the street.

He found a small, reasonably clean-looking inn in the west of the city. The innkeeper was a plump middle-aged woman who greeted him warmly as soon as he entered. "Looking for a room, sir? Three copper coins for a room, and an extra coin for hot water-"

"I'll take it. No hot water." Kexi slapped three copper coins on the counter, took the key, and went upstairs.

The currency used in this world wasn't Shell Credits. It wasn't as big or heavy, which made it much more convenient to carry.

The room was tiny, with only a bed, a table, and an oil lamp.

He tossed his pack onto the table, leaned his flying sword against the head of the bed, and fell face-first onto the mattress without even taking off his clothes.

Three breaths later, he was asleep.

This time, he didn't dream of the pink-haired girl.

He slept until nightfall.

One, two, three.

Extremely faint footsteps, deliberately muffled, stopped outside his door.

A slender shadow slipped silently past the gap beneath the door.

A golden eye pressed up to the crack in the door and blinked.

The corridor outside was unlit, but the moonlight was bright enough to reveal the outline of the figure.

Her long pink hair gleamed with a faint, cold light under the moon, and her golden eyes shone in the dark like two ghostly flames.

Her leather clothes were covered in dust and bits of grass, and a shallow scrape marked her left cheek, where a branch had scratched her in the woods while she was chasing Kexi.

But she didn't care at all.

All her attention was fixed on the door before her, on the sound of the person breathing behind it.

Chasing him had left her hungry for another day.

That day by the lake, she had taken her whole family-

No, the power to avenge her whole family-

And eaten it.

Kneeling beside the fire, tears in her eyes, her heart filled with grief, indignation, and the resolve for revenge, she had swallowed the fragrant, charred snow leopard meat piece by piece.

Every bite had been like devouring her own strength, and every bite had made the fire of her vengeance burn brighter.

After eating, she had carved seventeen marks into the mud by the lake.

Each one represented a murdered family member.

Then she had sworn a solemn oath before those seventeen marks:

I swear I won't rest until I've killed Kexi.

Then she had started following the scent he left behind.

She had chased him for a day and a night.

Her stamina had long since run out, and little of her strength remained during the period of weakness after her transformation. The only thing that had kept her going was the unquenchable fire of vengeance in her heart.

And now, the murderer who had killed her whole family, the bastard who had stood on the surface of the lake and peed on her, the enemy she had chased for a day and a night without sleep or rest before finally catching up-was sleeping right behind this door.

She could hear him breathing.

Slow and steady, with a sense of ease that made her teeth itch. He was sleeping soundly.

After killing her whole family and humiliating her, he could actually sleep so soundly.

Aemeath slowly clenched her fingers at her sides, her nails digging a row of red crescents into her palms.

The light in her golden eyes changed-from exhaustion and hunger to icy killing intent.

She would slip through the door, silently approach his bed, and use what little strength she had left to strangle him until he stopped breathing.

She placed a hand on the door and pushed very slowly.

The door wasn't even locked.

Kexi was sleeping soundly.

He dreamed of Qiuyuan.

Not the Qiuyuan who was cold on the outside and cloyingly sweet on the inside, but the normal Qiuyuan who had slapped him.

But he couldn't see her face clearly in the dream. He could only make out her blurred silhouette and the towering mountain gate of the Mystic Sect behind her.

Yangyang, Suisui, Chisa, Jinhsi, and Changli stood in a row in front of the gate, waving to him. But no matter how he walked, he couldn't reach them. The farther he went, the longer the road beneath his feet became, and the smaller the mountain gate grew.

"Junior brother-take care-" Yangyang's voice drifted over, scattered by the wind.

"Brother Xi-remember to eat-" Jinhsi's voice followed, only to be cut off halfway by a sudden gust of cold wind.

Kexi shuddered violently. The Mystic Sect's mountain gate shattered in his dream, turning into a pitch-black void.

He felt a pair of icy hands suddenly close around his neck. They weren't squeezing hard, but they were tightening bit by bit.

His eyes snapped open.

And he saw a pair of golden eyes.

They stared at him intently, icy killing intent roiling in their depths.

"-!!!"

"Pay for my family's lives!"