Someone was the first to howl: “The Shen Family Girl truly is a fairy descended to earth!”
The dark, dense crowd knelt with a roar, their foreheads pressing into the muddy snow. But a man with slanted, triangular eyes suddenly charged forward, shoved Second Sister-in-law Shen aside, and thrust his wooden basin toward the well opening: “Let me go first… Ah!”
Shen Taotao’s Shadowless Kick was faster than his curses.
“Thump!” The dull sound of bone being kicked cracked through the air. The triangular-eyed man clutched his shin, writhing and howling in the icy water.
Her shoe soles ground into the splashed, wet snow as her frost-iron gaze swept over the crowd: “Line up!”
“Who the hell do you think you are!”
A sinister sneer pierced the cold wind. The crowd automatically parted a path as garrison captain Li Laizi sauntered over slowly, his wolf-skin boots abruptly kicking over the Shen family’s earthen jar.
His black, fat finger nearly poked Shen Taotao’s nose: “Exiled dogs dare set rules?” Spittle mixed with foul breath sprayed onto her face. “This well belongs to me now! As for you…”
His greasy fingertips suddenly reached for her cheek, his murky yellow eyes squirming with lewdness: “Let me see this tender skin—”
“Son of a bitch!”
A thunderous roar accompanied by a fist wind blasted forth!
Shen Dashan’s iron fist, large as a casserole, smashed into Li Laizi’s cheekbone. The sound of cracking bone was eerily crisp.
“Argh!” Li Laizi curled up in pain, blood foam and shattered teeth spraying from the corner of his mouth. “Beat this bastard to death for me!”
Seven or eight iron rods from behind him swung in response. Shen Dashan took two heavy blows to his lower back, his lumbar vertebrae emitting an alarming “crack,” yet he roared and locked his arms around Li Laizi’s neck, slamming him toward the icy ground.
“Big brother…!” Shen Xiaochuan’s piercing scream tore through the air. His scrawny figure lunged at the garrison soldiers’ backs but was struck hard on the forehead by a backward swing of a rod!
His entire body was thrown into a snowdrift like a bird with broken wings, the splattered blood dots scorching the snow red.
“Husband!” Second Sister-in-law Shen pounced like a mad tigress, her teeth sinking fiercely into a soldier’s wrist bone!
“Bitch!” The soldier roared in pain, flinging her toward the snow like a sack. It took her a long moment to struggle back up.
The blood vessels in Shen Taotao’s eyes instantly burst.
The Shen family had formed a wall of flesh and blood to protect her.
Shen Xiaochuan, his forehead split open and bleeding, still stubbornly withstood the punches and kicks of several soldiers; Shen Dashan, his ribs kicked with a sickening thud that made hearts tremble, clung desperately to Li Laizi’s leg; even the usually refined Father Shen waved snow chunks wildly, shouting hoarsely: “Protect Tao’er!”
He Shi and Second Sister-in-law Shen wept and screamed as they clawed and fought, their disheveled hair buns matted with blood and mud.
Meanwhile, the exiled refugees who had knelt and shouted “fairy descended to earth” shrank back into the shadows, trembling like a flock of frozen quail.
Zhang Xun, who had repeatedly shouted, “Stop! The master will decide upon his return!” was also pinned to the ground by soldiers. Li Laizi spat a glob of phlegm onto his face: “Everyone knows your master was driven out of the capital! Who are you trying to fool here? Keep yelling, and we’ll beat you too!”
It was at that moment.
“I’ll fuck your ancestors…”
Shen Taotao’s furious roar sliced through the wind as she swung a half-palm-thick frozen rock at Li Laizi’s face, smashing it squarely against his nose bridge.
Blood and shattered bone exploded. Wang Laizi covered his face, contorting like a maggot, his fingers leaking pig-slaughter-like howls: “Kill this bitch! Chop her to pieces for me!”
Seven or eight soldiers behind him drew gleaming steel blades. The knife edges sliced through the cold wind, heading straight for Shen Taotao’s face—
“Clang!”
The sharp clang of metal meeting metal grated on the teeth.
The Mystic Iron Horsewhip coiled around the blade like a venomous snake, its violent force counter-thrusting and shattering the wrist bone of the knife-wielding soldier.
Amidst the snow mist churned up by horse hooves, Xie Yunjing’s black cloak billowed like an eagle’s wings as he shielded Shen Taotao behind him.
The bloodstained tip of his whip pointed straight at Li Laizi’s throat, radiating killing intent: “Who did you say was driven out just now?”
A foul, pungent stain spread across Li Laizi’s trousers as he trembled and presented the Imperial Concubine Token: “I… I am here guarding the tower under the orders of the Imperial Concubine. You have no right… no right…”
Crack! The token was crushed into the icy mud beneath Xie Yunjing’s boot, and the whip advanced an inch: “Who! Who was driven out!”
But Li Laizi could no longer form a complete sentence. He knelt and prostrated on the ground, kowtowing incessantly. The guards who had been swaggering and bullying moments earlier dropped to their knees with a series of thuds, and the exiled convicts followed, kneeling in a dark, dense mass.
The wind and snow whipped at the hem of Xie Yunjing’s robe, swirling and settling. Melted ice shards swept across the black iron whip, the glinting reflections so sharp they stung the eyes.
Shen Taotao wiped away the blood that had splattered near her lips and met Xie Yunjing’s sweeping gaze. His black armor was split with a crack, his bracer still stained with blood—whether his or someone else’s—yet he extended his left hand toward her.
As his fingertips brushed the scrape on her face, the howling wind and snow seemed to fall silent.
“Does it hurt?” he asked stiffly.
Shen Taotao avoided his hand and shook her head.
Xie Yunjing’s eyes fixed on the bloodstains splattered across her clothes—eight in total.
A cold smirk twisted the corner of his lips. “This debt will be repaid with dog heads!”
Beneath the ice, the well water gurgled and surged, reflecting the sudden, ruthless glint in Xie Yunjing’s eyes.