Run!

Wu Youren rolled his eyes, his expression turning stern as he spoke again. "Get lost!" This time, however, he did not raise his voice. The two locked in combat were the main attraction; as a mere spectator, he could hardly steal their spotlight. "I know who you are, Wu Youren, grandson of a lord!" The middle-aged man grinned once more. "All right, you can silence me now." "Get the hell away from me!" Wu Youren glared at him. "Did you really forget Hong Da's warning?" There was no need to silence him. The Liang government already possessed every bit of that information; reacting too strongly would only make him look guilty. More importantly, he had killed a knight once before and received zero experience points for it. Looking back now, he still didn't regret the choice he had made then. Even if the man was a genuine Jin intelligence operative, anyone doing such shoddy work had it coming! Their line of work was far too delicate. If an agent slipped up, getting themselves killed was bad enough, but they could easily drag down countless others with them. Still, even without regrets, that incident remained a lingering weight on his chest. Step by arduous step, he had clawed his way to this point, and his circumstances were vastly better than they had been back then. At the very least, he now possessed the leeway to ignore certain things. So he would simply treat this man as a lunatic. If not for the shadow cast by that past incident, he really might have contemplated killing him. In Liang, murder wasn't necessarily a capital crime, provided one had a somewhat privileged status and a justifiable reason. His companions could all testify that Hong Da had previously warned this man, and officers from the City Guard Bureau had even treated them to lunch earlier today. For now, he was willing to give the fellow a chance to scram! If the man persisted in harassing him, however, he couldn't blame Wu Youren for getting rough. Beyond the operative's sloppy tradecraft, his remark about "winter rations" severely crossed the line. Yet the man gave him no opportunity to lash out. Turning on his heel, he walked off in another direction. "Can you come out alone in the future?" The boy's face remained blank, as though he hadn't heard a word. The fight didn't last long, wrapping up in two or three minutes. The discipline inspector kicked his opponent to the ground, delivered a merciless thrashing, and then glanced at Manna. "Let's go!" The three of them broke into a run, vanishing into the veil of rain in the blink of an eye. The cooked-meat stall had been smashed to splinters, leaving a chaotic mess across the ground. The burly proprietor rolled on the street, clutching his thigh and howling in agony. His legs had suffered at least three fractures. When a Martial Academy discipline inspector struck, gentle was the last thing he would be. Then again, it was only natural—wasn't this how a fierce folk culture was supposed to look? A few bystanders took a couple of steps as if to give chase, but after just two strides, seeing no one else join in, they gave up. The three ran flat out for over a kilometer before rounding a corner and coming to a halt. "That felt good!" Ranxue let out a chuckle and exhaled deeply. "What kind of trash dares bare his teeth at me?" "He was definitely selling fake meat." Manna's train of thought was truly peculiar; of all things, that was what she cared about. "Acting so arrogant while selling fake goods—he got off light!" Then she noticed the boy's wooden expression and couldn't help asking, "What's wrong with you?" "Nothing," Wu Youren said, shaking his head. "Let's head back by another route." Getting beaten up over selling fake meat... fine, he didn't care about that. His thoughts were still fixed on the one-eyed middle-aged man. Could a Jin spy really have fallen into such dire straits? What rankled him even more was the man's comment from yesterday. Intelligence operatives might use any means necessary, but there were lines that shouldn't be crossed... He genuinely abhorred associating with someone like that. In any case, he had witnessed Liang's standard of public order today. As long as you ran off after a brawl, even smashing half a storefront seemed to carry zero consequences. And this was right within Great Liang's capital region. One could hardly imagine the chaos in the provinces below. After returning to Red Pine's quarters, the City Guard Bureau never came looking for them, so the matter was evidently swept under the rug. Ranxue, true to his word, secured a wisp of Guizu-luring agent from Hong Da, sprinkled it over strips of meat, and fed Xiao Ha. By the next day, the chick's eyelids were half open, and faint tail feathers had begun to sprout—a gratifying pace of growth. The sky had cleared, but Wu Youren had no intention of going out. With the man's identity still unverified, he wouldn't proactively seek contact. If it turned out to be a trap, he would be in massive trouble. Over the next three days, Xiao Ha continued to develop rapidly. The chick's bare "aviator sunglasses" appearance faded completely, and it grew even fonder of clinging to him. Wu Youren tried heading out twice, but to his frustration, someone always insisted on tagging along. Though no one said it outright, he sensed that aside from keeping an eye on their future reward, they were probably afraid someone might snatch him. The chick was growing remarkably fast; even the female archer who had previously talked about eating it once it grew larger now came over from time to time to tease it. That evening, halfway through dinner, Wu Youren suddenly shoveled down several mouthfuls of food, stood up, and excused himself. "Heading to the privy." "This guy..." Rossi shook his head in exasperation. "People are still eating." Wu Youren had only used it as an excuse, because experience points had abruptly begun flooding into him. At first, he hadn't reacted strongly; after absorbing so much providence, his tolerance was quite high. This stream of experience points wasn't particularly intense, yet it proved utterly relentless! After enduring it for several minutes, he couldn't hold out any longer and made his escape. By now, he considered his cultivation to have broken through to mid-stage qi refining, and it was still steadily climbing. However, this wave was lasting far too long. He needed to steady himself and absorb it as quickly as possible. Making a quick detour by the privy, he returned to his room, reclined against the bed, and quietly circulated his cultivation technique. Ordinarily, meditation required a strict posture, without which one could easily suffer qi deviation. But where would he find the luxury of proper conditions? Over these past days, he had cobbled together an unorthodox method of cultivating while resting. Needless to say, the process of figuring it out had brought frequent bouts of acute pain and misaligned qi. When he had previously claimed that a stitch of misaligned qi delayed him from leaving the Guizu domain, it hadn't been a baseless excuse; he had genuinely lived through it. All the bitterness behind it boiled down to seven words: *who told him to be a hostage?* Reclining against the bed was already a decent enough posture. He only hoped Rossi would take his time coming back. Moving carelessly while circulating qi could lead to severe consequences, especially with this wave of experience points streaming in endlessly, as if drawn from a bottomless well. After finishing his meal, Rossi spent another ten minutes chatting with the others before heading upstairs. Seeing the boy reclining there with lowered eyelids, Rossi parted his lips, hesitated a moment, and turned away. The general consensus now was to avoid disturbing Wu Youren without good reason—after all, they all had a stake in him. The knights who remained in the dark would occasionally urge the boy: *Focus on your cultivation and break through to knight as early as you can.* Rossi, however, was in the know and could vaguely deduce that the boy might not want to advance so soon. A sixteen-year-old knight from Jin... Great Liang's reaction to that hardly required any imagination. Since Wu Youren was dozing, Rossi thought it best not to disturb him. As he stepped out of the room, he ran right into Daiqisi, who appeared to be looking for the boy as well. "Shh," he gestured with a quiet hiss, then whispered, "He's asleep." "Eating and sleeping right away," the female instructor muttered with mild annoyance, though she kept her voice low. Inside the room, the boy felt secretly relieved. *Thank goodness, or I'd have suffered quite a bit.* More importantly, this wasn't Red Pine's secluded cabin. If anything seemed amiss, plenty of eyes would witness it. These people were knights at the very least... expecting to pull the wool over their eyes was a pipe dream! At this moment, "every second drags like a year" was the truest description of his state of mind. A rapid surge in cultivation was undoubtedly a blessing, but dammit, it couldn't have come at a worse time! This was the second time he had found himself tormented by a sudden windfall of experience points. Amidst this agony, he couldn't help wondering: *What on earth happened?* Could the tax exemption proposal he put forward have already been submitted to the Liang court by someone? *That shouldn't be... A proposal concerning the very foundation of the state should be handled with extreme caution, shouldn't it?* Besides, Ailin's earlier ambush demonstrated the opposition's strength and resolve. With a tragedy already on the books, wouldn't anyone submitting such advice have to weigh the risks carefully? When immense vested interests were involved, heavy casualties were par for the course, let alone severe injuries. As he circulated his qi, his thoughts drifted, and he failed to notice that a portion of the experience points was unobtrusively flowing toward Xiao Ha on his shoulder. The snow harrier chick's tiny body trembled slightly, its head bobbing every now and then as if nodding off. The amount of experience points heading its way was small, yet for a palm-sized chick, it was certainly enough to "stuff it to bursting"! Even so, the chick absorbed it all without showing the slightest adverse reaction. Before he realized it, more than an hour had passed. Just as Wu Youren felt he was truly reaching his limit, the influx of experience points finally began to taper off. Two or three minutes later, it ceased completely. "Phew." He exhaled a long breath and waited another three or four minutes to confirm there was no follow-up wave before slowly opening his eyes. Stuffed—he was truly stuffed this time. His body was still awash with a surging torrent of heat. Fortunately, these experience points could be contained within his frame, falling into the category of energy that could be slowly digested. Having cultivated for so long, it would be pathetic if his body lacked even the basic capacity of a vessel. Even so, while it could be digested gradually, he had to make the most of his time; otherwise, the experience points would dissipate before long. Besides, who knew when the next fright—or rather, pleasant surprise—might fall from the sky? Collecting himself, he glanced at Xiao Ha on his shoulder. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, he got up, pushed open the door, and walked out. Down in the courtyard, a group was playing *keshi*, a common gambling game in Liang. Great Liang did not ban gambling, and many martial artists were avid gamblers, though martial academies generally prohibited it—or strictly speaking, forbade high stakes. When Wu Youren looked down from the second floor, the game was already breaking up because rain had begun to fall from the sky. This place served as Red Pine's local post, so the participants were merely gambling for amusement, putting up modest stakes to pass the time.