The assassin employed a completely suicidal fighting style. This, combined with the fact that Lian Li had first helped Yun Huizhou kill the initial batch of forty bandits and then slaughtered nearly a hundred more near the dunes until only a dozen remained, had taken its toll.
His internal energy was not as profound as Yun Huizhou’s to begin with, so it was inevitable that he had sustained a few wounds by now.
However, the more he fought, the more excited he became, even feeling as though he were incredibly powerful.
As Yun Huizhou killed the last assassin on his side, Lian Li also infused his internal energy into his whip. The tip of the whip instantly stiffened, piercing through the assassin’s heart like a sharp blade.
After killing his final opponent, Lian Li retracted his whip and gave it a flick, shaking off the blood clinging to it.
At that moment, Yun Huizhou arrived at his side. He grabbed Lian Li’s arm, gently pressed twice to stop the bleeding, and then pulled out some medicinal powder for external wounds from his robes.
“Bear with it; this will sting a bit,” Yun Huizhou said softly.
Lian Li didn’t seem to care much. He simply lifted his arm slightly to give Yun Huizhou better access to apply the medicine. “I know. It’s not the first time I’ve used this medicine. Don’t be so nervous every time; you’re making me nervous too.”
As Yun Huizhou sprinkled the powder onto the wound, Lian Li acted as if nothing were wrong, using his other hand to point at Yun Huizhou. “Don’t just focus on me. You have more cuts on you than I do.”
Yun Huizhou looked down at himself and replied, “But all the cuts on my body added together aren’t as deep as this one of yours.”
Lian Li knew Yun Huizhou was telling the truth, but he still found the injuries on Yun Huizhou’s body an eyesore.
Thus, once Yun Huizhou finished applying the powder and was about to put the medicine away, Lian Li snatched the bottle, uncorked it, and began applying it to Yun Huizhou’s wounds.
Yun Huizhou did not stop him, standing there obediently to let him apply the medicine.
Once both of their wounds were treated, Lian Li pointed at the corpses of the tattooed bandits and said, “Let’s go search them quickly and see what kind of treasure they were hiding. To think it attracted so many different factions to hunt them down—it even left both of us wounded.”
Yun Huizhou nodded and said, “Take a pill to recover your internal energy and meditate for a bit. I’ll go look. Your internal energy is nearly depleted; it’ll be trouble if another accident happens later.”
Lian Li couldn’t help but reach out and give Yun Huizhou a shove. “Who says jinxed things like that?”
Despite his words, he obediently took out a pill, swallowed it, and sat down to meditate on the spot.
By the time Yun Huizhou had finished searching all the tattooed bandits’ corpses, Lian Li had mostly recovered.
As soon as he opened his eyes, he saw Yun Huizhou sitting in front of him with his chin resting on his hand, a look of distress on his face.
“Why that expression?” Lian Li’s heart skipped a beat. “Did we judge incorrectly? They weren’t carrying any great treasure? That shouldn’t be right. Setting the bandits aside, didn’t professional assassins come to snatch it too? How could there be nothing?”
Yun Huizhou sighed and said, “I found something unique. It’s quite valuable, but it probably hasn’t reached the level of being worth a fortune.”
As he spoke, he pulled an object the size of a palm from behind him.
The night was deep and the moon was quite bright, so Lian Li had no trouble seeing exactly what Yun Huizhou had produced.
It was a transparent object in the shape of a lotus.
Lian Li: “…”
Granted, the thing looked extremely exquisite. The lotus was lifelike, and every petal shimmered with a crystalline light under the moon, giving it a dreamlike, ethereal quality.
But that didn’t stop Lian Li from feeling disdain.
This kind of transparent, exquisite glass ornament might be regarded as a rare treasure in ancient times, but he had seen far too many of them in the modern world!
He looked at the object with a complicated expression, not knowing what to say.
They had fought so hard from evening until late at night, thinking they would harvest some legendary treasure, only for it to be a trinket like this.
Seeing Lian Li’s disappointed expression and obvious unhappiness, Yun Huizhou thought for a moment and offered some comfort: “Although colored glass is expensive, Drunken Dream Island has quite a bit of it. It’s just that I’ve never seen a transparent piece before. From that perspective, being one-of-a-kind makes it a treasure.”
Yun Huizhou said this, but in his heart, he knew that glass was man-made. Even if the piece they held was unique for now, it was still a human creation.
As long as the person who made it was still alive, a second or third would eventually appear.
After a long time, this transparent glass lotus would sooner or later become just like any other ordinary glass product.
Lian Li naturally heard that Yun Huizhou was trying to comfort him. In truth, he just felt a bit of a letdown; it wasn’t exactly disappointment.
On the contrary, he felt that an ordinary object like this was fine. It was good that it wasn’t some core plot item.
So, he said, “Fine. We’ll find a place to hide it for now. Once we leave the desert, we’ll take it back and let Martial Uncle Xi sell it for a good price.”
After speaking, he reached out to Yun Huizhou, who handed him the transparent lotus.
He toyed with it in his hand for a moment and found that the craftsmanship was indeed exquisite. The entire lotus felt like a natural creation, without a single flaw.
Even in the modern world, it would be considered a rare and beautiful piece of glassware.
Thinking that this thing was fragile, he tore off some cloth and wrapped it in several layers before preparing to head back to the border town with their spoils.
Right, there were also the horses they had tied to the rocks earlier.
The duration of this battle had truly exceeded their expectations. He didn’t know if those horses were still in the same spot after all this time.
After all, there was nothing to eat nearby. If the horses got hungry, they would surely leave.
When the two arrived at the place where they had tied the horses, sure enough, the horses were all gone. Only a few sabers remained, still stuck in the rocks.
However, the sabers they had stuck in the rocks were only a small portion; the majority had been placed on those horses.
Once the horses left, they took all those sabers with them.
Lian Li didn’t know whether to laugh or cry as he pulled those few sabers out of the rocks. He said to Yun Huizhou, “It seems we’ve worked for nothing today. How much can these few sabers even sell for?”
Yun Huizhou was silent for a moment before saying, “Among mass-produced ordinary weapons, these sabers are considered quite good. They should be worth about five taels of silver each.”
Lian Li looked at the remaining quantity and said, “In other words, we’ve been busy all day and ended up with thirty taels of silver.”
Yun Huizhou: “It would appear so.”
He pointed to the small bundle Lian Li was carrying and added, “But if we count this, then we should still have made quite a profit.”
Thinking of that glass lotus, Lian Li asked again, “Then if we were to sell this thing, how much could it fetch?”
He was also inclined to sell the glass lotus. After all, the fact that one could be made meant that more would follow.
