“It’s a bit hot,” Xian Chengyue thought as he stood in the direct sunlight, his gaze resting on the young boy’s face. To him, this deformed face looked no different from an ordinary person’s, except that the eyes were somewhat excessively large, resembling the eyes in the colored manga books his classmates used to enjoy reading when he was in school.
It was just that having them grow on the face of a living person made them look extremely grotesque.
Pointing at him, the young boy stomped his feet in frustration when Xian Chengyue refused to come over, grabbing at his own hair to vent his anger.
“Make him come over!! Make him come over!!!”
Liang Shu and Feng Zhong were unable to move, and Brother Zhou remained dazed as he stared at the knife in his hand. At this moment, the only one who could still move and whose mind remained relatively clear was Xie Youmin. Her face was already streaked with tears; she knew she had no business begging Xian Chengyue, as this was their trial and had nothing to do with him whatsoever.
She understood all of that.
Yet she still dragged her feet toward Xian Chengyue’s direction.
She wanted to survive, and they all wanted to survive. For that sole purpose, she was willing to shed her pride and thicker-skinned than anyone else.
“Brother Xian,” Xie Youmin stammered as she stood before Xian Chengyue. She looked as though she had just been hauled out of a body of water, cold sweat soaking through her blouse and hair. Her face was pale as death, her eyes completely devoid of luster; she looked far more like a water ghost than a living person.
Using sheer willpower alone, Xie Youmin forced the words out of her throat: “Brother Xian, please… please help us out…”
She felt as though she had never been so despicable in her entire life, pleading with a completely uninvolved bystander to bear their torment.
Looking at that wretched, tear-stained face, Xian Chengyue asked indifferently, “What’s in it for me?”
Xie Youmin froze. She felt as though she had been cast into a freezing winter wasteland, surrounded only by endless cold and despair. It took her several agonizing seconds to regain control of her tongue: “Mung bean cakes… I’ll give you half…”
That was literally the only thing they had to offer.
With a completely blank expression, Xian Chengyue shifted his gaze away from Xie Youmin’s face and, without a moment’s hesitation, resumed walking forward.
He didn’t possess an excess of benevolence to scatter everywhere. In the real world, he might toss some pocket change to a beggar on the street because that small amount of money meant nothing to him. But here, helping someone else meant plunging himself straight into mortal peril.
If he saved others, who was going to save him?
He simply could not afford to die within the inner world.
“He isn’t a monster,” Xian Chengyue said without looking back. “He’s just a spoiled brat who wants everything. The more you cater to him, the more he’ll demand.”
Su Yan, following closely behind, smiled at Xie Youmin and offered, “Just think of him as your younger brother. Do you satisfy every single demand a younger brother makes?”
Xie Youmin clenched her hands into tight fists, her heart pounding with unease: “But he’s not a younger brother…”
A younger brother might not hold a grudge, but this monster certainly would.
If you ignored a younger brother’s demands, at worst the siblings would throw a brief temper tantrum. But if you ignored a monster’s demands, where were dead people supposed to go to seek justice?
Who knew if they would end up dead the next time the creature changed its mind?
They were only human beings ordinary living people who had grown up in times of peace and absorbed moral education; they simply couldn’t remain as calm and detached as Xian Chengyue.
With an air of great helpfulness, Su Yan suggested, “Then just divert his attention. Children can never keep their focus on one thing for long. Just like monkeys greedy monkeys will drop the watermelon to pick up a sesame seed.”
Xie Youmin stood there in a daze, dumbfounded, watching as Su Yan and the others walked further away.
Only Lin turned her head, casting a look of lingering fear and worry back toward them.
“He’s not coming over!” Suddenly, the young boy leaped onto Xie Youmin’s back, wrapping his arms tightly around her neck. His hands were tiny and scrawny, yet they possessed a strength that easily surpassed that of an adult man.
“What good are you?!?” the young boy shrieked at the top of his lungs. “Go die! Go die!”
Xie Youmin’s face rapidly flushed crimson; she could no longer breathe. Unable to support even the weight of a child, her legs buckled, and she collapsed straight to her knees.
The agonizing sensation of asphyxiation caused her hands to claw frantically at the grass. Was she about to die?
Xie Youmin felt only excruciating pain, her mind entirely blank. The panoramic life-flash that stories claimed appeared before a person’s eyes right before death failed to materialize.
She felt only pain, driven by a single, overriding instinct to struggle! To survive!
Summoning the absolute final reserves of strength left within her body, she lashed out with her hands and grabbed a fistful of the young boy’s hair.
The boy possessed a mane of long, algae-like hair. In this remote village, boys were raised as girls until they reached the age of twelve given girls’ names, dressed in girls’ clothing, and made to grow out girls’ hair, in the superstitious belief that it would help them live longer.
In an era devoid of modern medicine, even if a woman gave birth to eight or nine children throughout her life, considering it good fortune if three managed to survive.
Xie Youmin gripped the boy’s hair with all her might, clinging to it as though it were her final straw of hope.
“Let go!!” the young boy shrieked.
The arms throttling Xie Youmin’s neck slackened considerably, allowing her to gasp frantically for air.
She knew Liang Shu and the others were watching from behind, but none of them dared to intervene.
She needed to keep her wits about her; she had to stay clear-headed!
Capitalizing on the moment while the boy was still screaming and before he could mount another attack, Xie Youmin blurted out, “Little brother! How about I play a game with you instead?”
The boy fell abruptly silent, his voice shifting instantly into an artificial, well-behaved sweetness: “Then I want your thumb.”
Released abruptly by the boy, Xie Youmin tumbled forward onto the ground, tears and mucus smeared all over her face. Yet she didn’t even dare to cough; clutching her sore neck, she stammered, “Th-thumbs aren’t fun! Little brother, how about I catch crickets with you instead?”
The young boy’s voice filled with utter disdain: “There are no crickets here.”
Xie Youmin rushed to substitute: “Grasshoppers! Mantises! Caterpillars! Any of them are fine!”
The boy cheered up: “Catch butterflies!”
He let out a sharp, cackling laugh: “I want to tear off their wings! And you guys have to eat the wings!”
Without missing a beat, Xie Youmin raised her voice: “Okay! Okay! I’ll help you catch them!”
She had to live; she had to survive at all costs!
Standing at the fork in the road, Xian Chengyue glanced back over his shoulder. Blessed with exceptionally sharp eyesight, he could clearly see Xie Youmin and the others engaged in playing a comparatively “normal” game with the young boy.
The sight reminded Xian Chengyue of his very first time entering the inner world, when he had first faced monsters of this caliber.
Back then, he had been terrified as well, though his terror stemmed not from the monsters, but from the prospect of death.
He had known he had to make it out alive no matter the cost, completely indifferent to how many people around him perished.
At that time, he had been truly cold and ruthless. On several occasions when critical danger struck, he had even contemplated shoving the people beside him into the path of harm, just so he could live.
Perhaps because he had cleared so many trials since then, whenever Xian Chengyue found himself with spare capacity, he didn’t mind offering a word of guidance.
Yet he would never risk his own life for the sake of a stranger. If other people died, his life would simply go on; but if he died, everything would be over.
Xian Chengyue let out a cold, derisive huff.
“Brother Xian, do you think Xie Youmin and the others will actually pull through?” Su Yan asked, sounding somewhat hesitant. “Should I go back and check on them?”
Xian Chengyue turned his gaze onto Su Yan.
Su Yan’s pupils were unusually pale, carrying a striking amber hue. Though his demeanor was rebellious and unbridled, he seemed to possess a strange sort of pure, naive sense of justice. Under the weight of that steady gaze, Xian Chengyue finally answered, “Go ahead.”
Su Yan: “…”
Wasn’t he supposed to stop him?!
Xian Chengyue continued to stare at him: “Go. If you die, I’ll make sure to collect your corpse.”
Struggling to keep his expression intact, Su Yan mentally cursed Xian Chengyue for being a blockheaded pragmatist who was equally cold-blooded toward both young maidens and handsome men. If he had known this would happen, he wouldn’t have offered to check in the first place; he should have simply expressed his sorrow and sympathy, declared that Xie Youmin and the others were bound to land on their feet thanks to their own good karma, and calmly walked back to the courtyard.
If he didn’t go back now, it would completely ruin his established persona!
Quietly drawing a deep breath, Su Yan said, “I’ll go take a look then, Brother Xian. Take Lin Min back to the courtyard first. If I don’t return before dark, it means I…”
Without an ounce of sympathy, Xian Chengyue finished the sentence for him: “Are dead.”
Su Yan cast a reluctant, backward-glancing look toward the direction of Xie Youmin and the others, taking steps so tiny they looked as though his feet had been bound.
Seeing this, the corner of Xian Chengyue’s mouth twitched.
“Brother Xian, let’s just forget it,” Lin Min suddenly whispered. “Brother Yan is entering this place for the first time too, and since none of us understand anything yet, he won’t be able to help even if he goes over there.”
Su Yan froze in his tracks.
He wrestled internally with whether he should stubbornly press forward or use Lin Min’s words as an excuse to stay.
What would Chen Wei do in a situation like this?
Su Yan suddenly realized he still had quite a long way to go before catching up to Chen Wei evidently, plotting and scheming required years of cultivation, and Chen Wei probably started practicing while still inside the womb.
Xian Chengyue crossed his arms and watched Su Yan, curious to see what the man would do next.
This man wept and wailed in front of him, chattered incessantly at other times, and spent half his moments airing his inner reflections and expressing excessive sympathy.
Was he genuinely not afraid to die?
Xian Chengyue watched him with an icy stare.
Abruptly letting out a deflated sigh, Su Yan flashed Xian Chengyue a brilliant, sunny smile: “I’ll go check on them after all.”
With that, he turned and broke into a brisk jog toward where Liang Shu and the others were.
His stride was resolute, his back appearing unusually tall and broad, casting a long shadow behind him that swayed continuously in the sunlight.
Lin Min looked up at Xian Chengyue, noticing a rare ripple of change cross his tightly furrowed brow.
Carefully, she offered, “Brother Yan… is a good person.”
Subtly shifting her steps closer to Xian Chengyue, she found that the closer she stood to him, the greater her sense of security became.
Quietly, Xian Chengyue repeated Lin Min’s words: “A good person…”
In the inner world, there were no good people only selfish ordinary individuals desperately trying to cling to life.
Su Yan felt as though his intestines were turning green with regret. If he had known better, he wouldn’t have tried to put on a saintly, pure-hearted act; he should have gone with a frail, delicate dodder-flower persona instead. While he wasn’t afraid of dying, he had zero desire to die alongside Liang Shu and her group.
“Su Yan?!” Liang Shu stared in utter disbelief at the person running toward them.
Standing on the field ridge, Su Yan wore a gentle, tender smile as he looked down at the young boy who was busy tearing apart an ant. He asked softly, “Would you like to come play with me instead?”
Fixing his gaze on Su Yan, the young boy split his mouth into a wide grin, exposing a scarlet tongue while speaking with the sweet, obedient tone of a little girl: “Big brother, what game do you want to play with me?”
“How about you cut off your balls and let me play with them? My older cousin’s friends said a man’s balls are just like eggs.”
Su Yan’s mouth twitched as he instinctively crossed his legs.
It really would be best to slaughter this little bastard and burn him to ashes.