Right at that moment, the sound of footsteps rang out nearby once again.
Li Chenghuan and Jiang Jinyue exchanged glances and looked over with vigilant gazes.
“Yo, brothers, come quick.”
“Didn’t the beauty say the wilderness is dangerous and women should stay behind to guard the camp?”
“Could it be that since the masters are all gone, the women got scared and came out to look for us.”
“Hahaha.”
The four bailiffs walked over, chuckling and chatting. The oldest bailiff with a mustache casually patted the head of Lu Chongxin, the third young master of the Lu family, while his gaze landed entirely on Xie Yuwan. “The three of you brothers are fast enough.”
Lu Chongxin lowered his head and didn’t dare to make a sound, while Lu Chongzhi, the second young master of the Lu family, stammered, “We just happened to run into our sister-in-law.”
Xie Yuwan abruptly looked toward Lu Chongli. “Husband…” It was completely obvious that the three Lu brothers had been together with these four bailiffs just now, and had even been discussing pushing her out.
Lu Chongli’s expression looked somewhat unnatural; his mouth opened and closed, and he silently turned his head away.
Xie Yuwan’s heart instantly plummeted to the absolute bottom. Was he really in that much of a hurry? She clearly hadn’t agreed yet, and she would rather die than consent.
The mustache bailiff shifted his gaze, looking at Li Chenghuan and Jiang Jinyue, and said with an ambiguous tone, “There’s no time like the present. The brothers are going to celebrate a happy event tonight, do the two beauties want to share a bit of the joy?”
Li Chenghuan clenched Jiang Jinyue’s hand tightly, her heart itching with burning anger. These scum wearing human skin—she desperately wanted to pull out her gun and rat-a-tat-tat them all away.
“I wonder what happy event these officers are planning to celebrate?” Jiang Jinyue’s gaze was ice-cold. It was hateful that she had never studied martial arts, otherwise she would definitely make these several degenerates lose their heads right now.
Hearing this, the bailiffs laughed. Before they could speak, they saw Xie Yuwan forcefully甩开 (shook off) Lu Chongli’s hand. “This matter has nothing to do with them, let them go, otherwise I will die before I yield.”
The bailiffs exchanged glances with one another, but ignored Xie Yuwan, instead looking toward the three Lu brothers. To them, these three women were simply fish on a cutting board, to be dealt with however they pleased.
On the other hand, if the three Lu brothers didn’t know what was good for them, it would be a bit troublesome.
The oldest mustache bailiff abruptly drew the saber hanging at his waist, staring aggressively at Lu Chongli. “Eldest Young Master Lu, what do you brothers say?”
“Husband, they won’t do anything to you.” Xie Yuwan stared fixedly at Lu Chongli, her eyes full of pleading. “Jinyue and Li Family Younger Sister are innocent, take them away, okay? I’m begging you.”
Lu Chongli lowered his head in silence, not daring to meet her eyes. Would these bailiffs truly not do anything to them? He didn’t dare to gamble.
Seeing this, the mustache bailiff cast a signal to the other three. The three understood and also drew their sabers.
“Officers, please don’t take offense, we’ll leave right now, right now.” Lu Chongzhi, the second Lu brother, reacted the fastest, grabbing his third brother Lu Chongxin’s arm and running. As he ran, he shouted, “Eldest Brother, hurry and leave! Father, Mother, and Little Sister are still waiting!”
Lu Chongli didn’t raise his head, but his feet moved.
“Husband, a scholar should have integrity, a gentleman should be open and magnanimous, you…” Xie Yuwan grew anxious. But no matter what she said, Lu Chongli didn’t stop his steps at all, instead walking faster and faster until in the end he broke into a run as well.
Her voice trailed off in a daze, a sheet of absolute despair filling the depths of her eyes. What upright gentleman, what scholarly backbone—this man was simply a coward who feared death and acted like a despicable petty villain.
Seeing that the three Lu brothers had run out of sight, the mustache bailiff looked around, lifted his chin toward the direction of the wild forest, and the other three caught the meaning, neatly sheathing their sabers.
“Beauties, come with us brothers.”
Li Chenghuan squeezed Jiang Jinyue’s hand, feeling the thin layer of sweat in the other’s palm, and her heart softened inexplicably. “Sister-in-law, get behind me.” With those words, she pried open Jiang Jinyue’s hand, stared intently at the four bailiffs, and readied herself to draw her gun and open fire.
At this very moment, she found that her previous worries had all been redundant. When anger rushed straight to the head, the question of whether she dared or not simply ceased to exist. Her heart was now completely filled with the intent to kill, and she had long forgotten how to be afraid.
The trickier part was that the positioning of these four people was somewhat scattered. She had only ever practiced shooting before and had never moved against real targets. In case her aim was off and she accidentally implicated Xie Yuwan, it would be bad.
Jiang Jinyue’s heart leaped high into her throat, tightening her expression just enough to suppress the uneasiness in her chest.
She didn’t know what Li Chenghuan’s self-preservation method was, but matters having reached this point, besides trusting Li Chenghuan, she had no other choice.
Forcing herself to calm down, Jiang Jinyue looked at Xie Yuwan. “Yuwan, come over to my side.”
Xie Yuwan didn’t move, speaking in a hoarse voice: “I’m sorry, it’s because of me that you two got dragged into this, I’m sorry…” It would be one thing if she died alone, but to drag others down with her—she hated herself so much, hated her own incompetence, hated these beasts, hated Lu Chongli, and hated the injustice of this world.
“Yuwan, come to my side.” Jiang Jinyue reined in her gaze and raised her volume.
With trusting Li Chenghuan as the premise, the only thing she could think of right now was to cooperate as much as possible.
The four bailiffs sized them up with lewd smiles, not worried in the slightest that any accidents could happen. The fish were already on the cutting board, how much could they possibly thrash about?
Yet they also didn’t want to delay too long, lest they run into someone, or if the sky grew dark and someone came looking for them, it would become troublesome.
The mustache bailiff licked his lips and urged, “Hurry up and move. If the brothers get tired of waiting, you’ll get a taste of it.”
“Yuwan, come over, let’s go together.” Jiang Jinyue spoke once more, her gaze dark and deep.
Catching her gloomy, deep gaze, Xie Yuwan froze in expression and numbly took a step forward.
As both of them stood behind Li Chenghuan, the four bailiffs also clustered together as they walked toward them, their eyes brimming with disgusting excitement.
“Hurry up and walk, you didn’t expect the masters to carry you, did you?” The mustache bailiff excitedly rubbed his hands together. Carrying them was out of the question; their own stomachs had been hungry for half a day, and they were also very thirsty. But they wouldn’t be thirsty much longer—beauties of this caliber, hehe…
Right as the four of them stood neatly in a row, Li Chenghuan suddenly smiled. “Alright, I’ll send you off.” With those words, the submachine gun materialized in her hand, the trigger was pulled, and she fired in a direct spray.
Puff, puff, puff—the sounds of bullets piercing flesh.
Before the bailiffs could even react, they felt an excruciating pain. “Ah!”
Li Chenghuan almost forgot to breathe. Seeing that they hadn’t fallen yet, she raised the muzzle of her gun and planted a bullet right between each of their brows.
The four of them collapsed with wide-open eyes, losing their breath in an instant.
Li Chenghuan put away the gun, feeling somewhat regretful in her heart. She hadn’t kept her hand steady when she first started shooting; dealing with these four pieces of trash had actually consumed ten bullets, which was way too wasteful.
However, the feeling of getting a fresh quadra kill was truly exhilarating! If her ammunition wasn’t limited, she would have wanted to claim the mountains and make herself king right then and there. I mean, who else could compare!
Behind her, Jiang Jinyue and Xie Yuwan stood completely frozen in shock, only snapping out of it when Li Chenghuan reached out and waved her hand in front of their eyes.
“They’re all dead?” Xie Yuwan murmured as if in a dream, a surreal sense of unreality washing over her.
Jiang Jinyue, on the other hand, stared deeply at Li Chenghuan. The young maiden had a smile hanging at the corner of her lips, proud, unconstrained, and extraordinarily dazzling.
This person’s self-preservation method was actually so mind-bogglingly unimaginable, leaving one both shocked and deeply comforted. In this current situation, if they were back in the capital, it would call for draining a massive bowl of wine—how utterly exhilarating that would be.
[Female lead’s darkening value decreases by three, rewarded with one case of green plum wine]
Li Chenghuan was stunned at first, but then a sense of understanding bloomed in her heart. Her cold-beauty sister-in-law was thanking her for the protection, right? But… why was the reward green plum wine? Wasn’t this not what they needed the most right now? Could it be that the golden finger wanted them to celebrate?
“Jinyue, are they really all dead?” Xie Yuwan still dared not believe it, tightly grasping Jiang Jinyue’s hand while lifting her other hand to her mouth and biting down hard. Hiss!
It hurt so much—it wasn’t a dream, these beasts were truly dead!
They were safe!
Jiang Jinyue nodded gently, her voice low and slow: “They are all dead, we are safe!”
Even though she was answering Xie Yuwan’s words, her gaze remained fixed on Li Chenghuan all along. This person genuinely possessed the ability to protect herself, and had indeed protected her.
Calming down a little, Xie Yuwan followed her line of sight to look at Li Chenghuan. “Li Family Younger Sister… you are amazing!”
The question that had been right on the tip of her tongue forcefully transformed into a word of praise, yet it was also entirely sincere.
Xie Yuwan was a smart person after all, naturally understanding what questions should be asked and what shouldn’t. If Li Chenghuan wasn’t going to explain, she only needed to remember one thing: Li Chenghuan had saved her, bearing a debt of life-saving grace toward her. That was enough.
Li Chenghuan smiled. “Just call me Chenghuan. Yuwan, I’m very glad to meet you.”
She hadn’t known Xie Yuwan before, nor had she intended to mingle with her, but just based on the fact that Xie Yuwan was willing to stay behind herself and desperately beg the three Lu brothers to let her and Jiang Jinyue come along, this friend was worth making.
Xie Yuwan nodded with reddened eye sockets. “Right, Chenghuan, I’m very glad to meet you too.”
Jiang Jinyue silently curved her lips. “Let’s leave this place quickly.”
“Should we handle the bodies?” Li Chenghuan asked, looking at the corpses on the ground.
Jiang Jinyue parted her red lips: “No need.”
Li Chenghuan: If I don’t strike, fine, but a single strike brings a quadra kill! Hurry up and praise me!