Zhan Ri Fei couldn’t help but sigh. “But don’t you love it when others owe you a favor?”
Huo Xiao Di’s nose seemed to gleam with pride. He tacitly admitted it.
Zhan Ri Fei sighed again. “The way your Ling Long Manor calculates favors is certainly unique. It seems I have no choice but to owe you this time.”
He didn’t say what was on his mind, but it was: “How are you so much like him?”
The rain continued to gently and densely soak the earth. The air was filled with the fresh yet damp scent of wet soil.
Huo Xiao Di’s yellow robe, with one sleeve noticeably shorter, fluttered lightly in the breeze beneath the dark clouds.
He was waiting.
In the darkness of the night, he silently watched Zhan Ri Fei.
His expression was resolute.
He was still waiting.
From the distant valley, a deep rumble suddenly echoed, as if the clouds themselves were pressing down to release the sound.
“Dong—Dong—”
“Dong—Dong—”
No, that wasn’t thunder—it was the sound of drums!
Each beat struck like a hammer, carrying an anguished intensity. The slow, heavy drumbeats reverberated through the valley, lingering for a long time.
The sound was distant, yet remarkably clear.
—Whose drums were these?
—Or could it be the drums of pursuers closing in?
At the edge of the forest, the expressions of the three people all changed.
Zhan Ri Fei glanced at the boy, hesitated for a moment, then finally smiled and said the words Huo Xiao Di had been waiting to hear:
“Could I trouble you to help me one more time?”
* * *
Night had deepened.
The wind and rain had gradually ceased.
In a small, decrepit temple a few miles away, a modest campfire had been lit.
The flames burned dimly and weakly. There was little dry material in the run-down hall to sustain it.
Outside the temple, in the forest, night birds startled by the rain occasionally let out a soft “coo, coo.”
The eerie drumbeats from earlier could no longer be heard.
Zhan Ri Fei gently draped a now-dry outer robe over the boy and gazed at his sleeping face.
The faint and flickering flames illuminated the boy’s thin, delicate features. Even in his dreams, his face remained tense, full of wariness and fear, as though he was being tormented even in his slumber.
This child was small and frail, disabled, and untrained in martial arts. Despite Huo Xiao Di rescuing him multiple times, why did he remain so guarded? Had he already, at such a young age, suffered so much bullying and mistreatment that he no longer trusted anyone?
—What made him so different?
—Would taking him along ultimately bring fortune or disaster?
Huo Xiao Di sighed as well. He realized he had been frowning and sighing much more frequently lately.
“Before stepping into the martial world, it seems vast and boundless. But once you’re in it, you discover it’s nothing but endless conflict.”
—The troubles he had encountered recently, the grievances he had endured, were simply too many. For no reason, he had first been dragged into the feud between Xing Yun Manor and the Tang Clan. Now he was forced to share a temple with this mysterious man in black. Unable to return to Ling Long Manor, he had lost San’er, the companion who had been by his side for years. And now, even this child had brought trouble upon him.
They say that when fortune comes, it’s unstoppable. It seems that when trouble arrives, even bolting the door won’t keep it out.
“This child is so pitiful! At such a young age, he’s been slashed so many times and hunted down relentlessly because of the secrets of the Tang Clan and Xing Yun Manor. Everyone seems to want a piece of him.”
Looking at the child, Huo Xiao Di first pitied his own grievances, then gazed into the distance as if something had come to mind.
Zhan Ri Fei said, “Don’t you want to know his secret too?”
Huo Xiao Di glared at him, as if sulking. “Does someone from Ling Long Manor care about his secrets?”
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