The girl did not hesitate for a single moment. She immediately crawled out from the pile of straw and prepared to run outside with the boy.
Just as they ran out of the shed, they saw several people running toward them from a distance. Judging by their attire, they were bandits.
They held sabers in their hands and were running at a high speed. The boy and the girl could not see their expressions clearly, but the fear of bandits was engraved in their very bones.
Terror overflowed from the girl’s eyes, and her entire body collapsed as if she could no longer stand steady.
The boy was also terrified to the extreme, but he knew he couldn’t just wait here. He had seen with his own eyes that the Chief and several other managers were already dead; this nest of bandits was no longer a cohesive force.
As long as there was enough time, those two Great Heroes would be able to kill all the bandits, and they would be saved.
Even though he was deathly afraid of the bandits charging toward them with sabers, he knew he had to run now, and he had to shout for everyone else to run as well.
The only person in the fortress who knew martial arts, the Chief, was already dead. Although the other bandits were strong men, they were still just ordinary people.
As long as the captives started running, the bandits wouldn’t be able to catch them for a while.
If they could just stall for time until the Great Heroes finished clearing the area, they would be saved.
Thus, he grabbed the girl beside him and said, “San Ya! Run! Run as fast as you can! Find a place where no one is and hide. Once dawn breaks, we’ll be saved.”
As he spoke, he pulled the girl to hide behind a haystack, then pushed her toward a darker, more secluded path, letting her run while staying hidden.
He himself reappeared from behind the haystack and ran in a different direction, shouting to the people in the shed: “The bandits are coming with sabers! Everyone, run! I saw the Chief get killed! As long as we run, they won’t be able to catch us or kill us!”
After he finished shouting and made sure the people in the shed had heard him, he ran away without looking back.
He had already done his absolute best. If the others didn’t believe him, there was nothing more he could do.
In truth, he could have just run away directly, but he couldn’t stop worrying about the people in the shed and wanted to call them to run together.
If he hadn’t come back, he probably would have been out of the fortress by now.
He felt that from the moment he shouted those words, the attention of those few bandits had shifted to him. He didn’t dare look back; he only dared to run forward.
They were all ordinary people. Even if those bandits were stronger than him, it was impossible for them to catch him instantly. Every step he took was another sliver of hope for survival.
Perhaps he ran for a long time, or perhaps it was only for a moment.
He only heard the sound of footsteps behind him getting closer and closer. He was terrified, but he dared not stop.
Suddenly, he heard a miserable scream from behind. He didn’t have time to discern whose scream it was and only instinctively glanced back.
He saw the green-clad young hero who brandished the whip appear, less than five meters behind him.
Meanwhile, a bandit was only two meters away from him, his arm raised high, holding a saber.
However, that saber could no longer be swung down.
The green-clad young hero’s whip coiled around the bandit’s saber. With a forceful tug, the saber was flung away by the green-clad young hero. Having lost his weapon, the bandit could no longer harm him.
After the saber was flung away, the bandit still tried to rush toward the boy, intending to seize him to threaten the green-clad young hero.
The green-clad young hero gave the bandit no such chance. With another flick of the whip, it coiled around the bandit’s neck and threw him aside.
The bandit hit the ground heavily, blood spraying from his mouth. A bloody gash marked his neck, and he soon stopped breathing.
The green-clad young hero glanced at the boy, then turned to leave, leaving behind only one sentence: “Find a place to hide well. There are only a few bandits left alive; I will have them all killed soon.”
Before the boy could say a single word, the green-clad young hero vanished into the night.
The boy didn’t know if they would ever meet again, but he would forever remember the appearance of this green-clad young hero in his heart.
It was this young hero who had broken through the door and killed the Chief when he was captured in the Chief’s room, and just now, killed the bandit who was about to hack him to death, saving his life.
By the time Lian Li and Yun Huizhou had finished clearing out all the bandits in the fortress, the sky was already bright.
Many of the villagers in the bandit fortress had already left as soon as dawn broke.
Some people wanted to find the two of them to express their gratitude, but the duo had been searching for bandits, flying back and forth across the fortress at such high speeds that the villagers had no chance to speak with them.
And they had no time to stop and listen to the villagers’ thanks; they had to find every bandit hiding in the nooks and crannies and kill them.
The further they went, the harder it became to find them. The bandits were far more familiar with the fortress than they were, and some had even fled outside the walls.
After the two of them carefully searched the fortress once more and confirmed that no bandits were hiding, they could finally catch their breath.
Lian Li walked over to Yun Huizhou’s side and reached out to feel around Yun Huizhou’s chest. Yun Huizhou instinctively raised his hand to block him.
Then, he felt that his blocking posture was a bit strange, like a woman being teased and taken advantage of by a bully, so he lowered his hand again.
He asked Lian Li, “What are you doing? What are you doing? Taking advantage of me, are you?”
Lian Li ignored him, his hand nimbly reaching into the front of Yun Huizhou’s robes.
This time, Yun Huizhou was truly shocked. This kid?!
Before he could react, he felt Lian Li pull something out from his breast.
He looked—oh, it was the leftover meat pies from before.
This kid was hungry and wanted to eat; he wasn’t trying to take advantage of him.
Yun Huizhou touched his chest and suddenly remembered the time Lian Li had pinched him back in Jianggao City.
Although he had pinched him back in the end, thinking about it now, he felt that pinching him just that once wasn’t enough to vent his frustration; he should have pinched him a few more times.
The meat pies were already cold. Lian Li pulled Yun Huizhou to the kitchen, and after heating the pies, he gave one to Yun Huizhou.
After filling his stomach, Lian Li asked Yun Huizhou, “What should we do next?”
Yun Huizhou drank some water and asked back, “What do you think we should do?”
Thinking about what Yun Huizhou had told him before regarding bandit suppression, Lian Li said slowly, “How about we go and take the bandits’ treasure first?”
The work was done, the people from the Martial Arts Alliance hadn’t arrived yet, and those villagers looked like they were having a hard time; they were too embarrassed to ask them for a reward.
In that case, shouldn’t they just scavenge from these bandits?
Yun Huizhou said, “Go ahead.”
The two of them returned to the Chief’s courtyard. Most of the bandits had died here. Lian Li looked at the corpses of the bandits strewn across the ground and hesitated slightly.
Seeing this, Yun Huizhou said, “Take the things, and later we’ll just burn this place down. The Martial Arts Alliance should arrive by tomorrow at the latest; we can also leave it for them to handle.”
