Seeing the room full of noble young ladies looking to her as their pillar of strength, Jiang Pengji set aside her playful demeanor.
Her expression grew serious, her tone firm.
“Everyone, please be patient and wait a little longer.
When the time is right, we can leave.
Those bandits will be fighting among themselves soon enough…”
She toyed with the hairpin Shangguan Wan had lent her, her dissatisfaction growing.
It wasn’t a gold or silver pin, but one carved from a single piece of bright, translucent jade.
Even without being an expert, she knew it was incredibly valuable.
In her hand, the jade felt warm and smooth.
Its design was lively and cute, a testament to the giver’s thoughtfulness.
Though precious, the jade hairpin was far less practical than a gold one—at the very least, it wasn’t sharp enough.
Shangguan Wan sat down beside her, resting her chin in her hands.
“Brother Lanting, do you not like the hairpin?”
“I don’t,” Jiang Pengji replied, glancing at the young girl.
“It’s not sharp enough to kill anyone.”
Shangguan Wan’s face paled.
The bloody image of the bandit leader beheading a man flashed through her mind.
She simply couldn’t imagine the elegant and refined Liu Lanting becoming such a savage killer.
“Then don’t let me see Brother Lanting when he’s beheading people,” Shangguan Wan said, her voice muffled.
Jiang Pengji didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Her eyes darted around as a mischievous grin spread across her face.
“How could your hairpin possibly behead anyone?
At most, it could only pierce a throat…”
As she spoke, she made a sudden, feinting gesture.
Shangguan Wan jumped like a startled rabbit, immediately scrambling away to hide behind Wei Jingxian.
Aside from the two women who were close to Liu Lanting, the other noble ladies had temporarily escaped the tiger’s jaws.
They sat down one by one, keeping a considerable distance.
Some secretly smoothed their disheveled hair and straightened their robes, but none approached to speak.
They had little interaction with Liu Lanting, and some didn’t even know her, making it awkward to mingle.
“Here, take this.
How could Wan’er’s hairpin possibly hurt anyone…”
Wei Jingxian’s feelings toward Jiang Pengji were complicated, but after this ordeal, the two of them had faced life and death together, forging a bond of revolutionary kinship.
She handed over a palm-sized, ornate dagger, its scabbard encrusted with gold, silver, and precious stones.
Jiang Pengji accepted it and murmured her thanks, not asking why Wei Jingxian was carrying a dagger on her person.
But that wasn’t the main point.
The main point was that she knew Wei Jingxian had originally planned to use this dagger to end her own life.
How could a noble lady of Hejian endure such humiliation?
Tsk, ancient women were just like this, ready to seek death over their reputation at the drop of a hat.
Jiang Pengji looked at the small, exquisite dagger, feeling an indescribable sense of frustration.
However, seeing that the dagger was still quite sharp, her mood improved slightly.
“Calculating the time, it should be just about right.
You and Wan’er go wait in the back hall, I’ll go deal with the bastards outside.
The scene will be a bit bloody, I’m afraid you won’t be able to take it…”
The blade seeped with a faint, cold light, reflecting the candlelight, and there was a slight sweet smell in the air…
It was coated in poison!
Wei Jingxian pursed her lips, her voice taking on a softer tone, “You…
you be careful.”
It was very dark outside, and she could vaguely guess how dangerous the thing Jiang Pengji was about to do would be.
At this moment, the bandits outside were just as Jiang Pengji had predicted, bursting out of their nest one by one.
The situation was this: the bandit leader had finally been able to avenge his lover, which could be considered as resolving a matter of the heart.
But now that his great revenge was finally complete, his heart felt strangely empty.
He needed time to be alone.
Yet his men were utterly clueless, refusing to give him any space.
They kept making a racket, their incessant chatter louder than five hundred ducks.
Second Brother and Old Fourth were glaring at each other like two fighting roosters.
The rest of the men chimed in, their voices a chaotic chorus all singing the same tune: they couldn’t let those beautiful women get away.
They were bandits, after all.
What need did they have for honor?
But the consequence of letting things spiral out of control was that the Second-in-Command, consumed by fury, brutally murdered two of his own men from the same village, whom he deemed to be acting suspiciously.
“You’ve gone mad, Second Brother!”
No one expected the initial argument to escalate this far.
“I’m not the one who’s mad!
They ate my son!
They’re paying with their lives!”
At first, he hadn’t believed it.
But after he pressed them repeatedly, they’d faltered, their stammers and hesitations fueling his growing suspicion.
In the heat of the argument, his rage had exploded, and he’d struck them dead.
The Fourth Boss stepped forward to stop him, only to be shoved violently aside.
Driven by fury, the Second-in-Command spat, “Old Fourth, you’re still defending them?
No wonder your wife cuckolded you so many times!
You deserve to be a cuckold, a green-hatted bastard!
Both of them slept with your wife, you understand?!”
The words fell like a bombshell, plunging the crowd into a suffocating silence.
No one dared to even glance at the Fourth Boss.
The Second-in-Command’s eyes swept over the men, his expression a mask of barely contained rage.
He began pointing, his finger trembling as he singled them out one by one.
“Him…
him…
and him!
All these men have slept with your wife!
Aren’t you furious?
You’re a man—how can you stand this?” He spat the words, his voice cracking.
“These two beasts…
they’re the reason my own bloodline was cut short!
What’s wrong with me slaughtering them?
My poor son…
he died such a miserable death…”
The men he had pointed at recoiled, their faces draining of all color.
With such a reaction, what was there left to understand?
Their guilt was written plain for all to see.
The Fourth Boss’s face turned a livid shade of green.
Elsewhere, Jiang Pengji clamped one hand over a bandit’s mouth and slashed his throat with a dagger in a single, fluid motion.
Blood sprayed.
The man collapsed without a single muffled sound, his life extinguished instantly.
In the darkness, she moved like a wisp of wind weaving through the night, leaving no trace of her passage.
Melding into the shadows, she employed a breath-control technique to erase her presence, her breathing so faint it was nearly nonexistent.
She was grateful this body didn’t wear makeup; otherwise, the mere scent of it would have betrayed her presence.
In truth, the System thought Jiang Pengji was overthinking things.
These bandits were nothing more than desperate men with brute strength and reckless courage.
If they had any real skill, they would have found other paths long ago.
Why else would they have turned to banditry, venturing out to rob and pillage just to keep themselves fed?
The System had no emotions, so it felt nothing about Jiang Pengji’s killing spree.
At most, it muttered that this Host’s vibe was all wrong—her methods were too brutal.
But!
We can’t ignore the viewer watching the livestream!
What kind of genre jump was this?
From a typical ancient romance to a horror movie?
As Jiang Pengji coldly assassinated the bandits one by one, her movements were not only swift but professional to a terrifying degree!
She always slit their throats with a single stroke, killing them instantly.
The victims had no time to even react.
Basically, the moment they realized someone was behind them, Jiang Pengji had already efficiently claimed their lives.
Unlucky Stowaway’s teeth chattered uncontrollably.
His eyes were glued to the livestream screen, feeling as if his entire body were submerged in ice water.
Every hair on his skin stood on end, and cold sweat poured down his back.
It felt as if someone would reach out from behind him at any second, touch his neck, and harvest his head.
QAQ Oh my god, how is this kind of restricted, super-inappropriate livestream content even allowed to be broadcast?
He was going to call the police!