He felt certain that his Master must have seen him nearly step forward to help earlier, and thus deliberately left him behind to look after the children.
When Lian Li finished dealing with those two and returned, he saw Yun Huizhou sitting on the ground with a look of utter soul-crushed despair. Five children were either sitting or lying around him; three were wailing at the top of their lungs, one looked on the verge of tears, and one was surprisingly emotionally stable, attempting to comfort the three who were bawling.
Lian Li looked down at the two cloth bundles he was carrying and decided it was best not to go over just yet.
It would be bad if he accidentally made the only one not crying start weeping as well.
He turned, intending to leave, but was called back by Yun Huizhou: “Lian Li… help me…”
Lian Li paused for a moment, checking his conscience—it did prick him a little.
He hesitantly set down the items in his hands and walked toward Yun Huizhou.
As he reached the children’s side, the crying did not get any louder.
After a moment’s thought, he crouched in front of one of the children and said hesitantly, “Stop crying. We’ll take you home in a little while.”
At the mention of home, all five children looked toward him simultaneously. Even the three who were wailing saw their cries diminish significantly.
One little girl even crawled a bit closer to where Lian Li was.
Seeing this, Yun Huizhou added, “Yes, the bad guys are dead.”
As he spoke, he pointed toward the portly man whom Lian Li had dealt with first.
The children instinctively looked in the direction he pointed, only to see a pool of blood and a person lying motionless.
At this, the two children who hadn’t been crying started wailing as well.
Lian Li looked weakly at Yun Huizhou. “This is all your fault.”
Yun Huizhou wore a look of profound grief. “It’s all my fault.”
After a long while, Lian Li spoke again. “They haven’t eaten anything; they’re probably hungry. Go catch some wild game. Oh, and remember to dress it before bringing it back. Don’t slaughter it in front of them.”
Yun Huizhou was more than happy for Lian Li to let him leave. He stood up immediately, but after taking two steps past the children, he stopped.
He turned back to Lian Li and asked hesitantly, “You’re going to watch them here by yourself?”
Lian Li reached into his robes and pulled out a small oil-paper packet. Taking out some dried meat bits, he said, “I still have some snacks. They should be enough to coax these few. Go quickly, before you say something else to scare the children into crying again.”
Seeing that the children’s crying gradually subsided once Lian Li brought out the snacks, Yun Huizhou realized his presence was indeed useless. He ducked into the woods to hunt for game.
With the snacks as a bribe, the five children finally stopped crying. One by one, they huddled close to Lian Li, clutching his sleeves while eating the meat bits.
Yun Huizhou returned quickly. The moment he appeared, the five children turned their heads in unison to look at him.
Yun Huizhou instinctively halted his steps, fearing that his approach would make the children—whom Lian Li had managed to soothe with great difficulty—start crying again.
Fortunately, their emotions had stabilized quite a bit by now. Having eaten the snacks Lian Li gave them, they also understood that Yun Huizhou, being with Lian Li, was not a bad person.
Yun Huizhou did not come closer. He casually snapped a branch, stuck it in the ground, started a fire, and began roasting the pheasant he had already prepared.
Soon, the aroma of cooked food wafted out, and Lian Li’s stomach gave a low growl.
Not just him—the stomachs of the children around him also began to rumble.
Once the pheasant was roasted, Yun Huizhou used a dagger to cut it into small pieces, placed them on washed leaves, and brought them over to distribute among Lian Li and the five children.
At this time, Island Master Nan also arrived, staring straight at Yun Huizhou.
Without him saying a word, Yun Huizhou knew he was also there for the roasted pheasant.
One pheasant was naturally not enough for eight people. Fortunately, Yun Huizhou had also brought back a dressed rabbit.
After the pheasant was finished and distributed, he returned to the fire to start roasting the rabbit.
Having received food from Yun Huizhou, the children grew much bolder. They walked over to his side to watch him roast the rabbit.
Taking advantage of the children’s attention being entirely drawn away by Yun Huizhou, Lian Li turned and disposed of the portly man’s corpse.
He piled the three cloth bundles in a corner and wrapped them even more securely with a large piece of cloth he had cut away.
It was two days later by the time they returned to the town.
Not long after they entered the town, someone recognized the five children.
Instantly, the news that the missing children had been found spread throughout the entire town.
Before they even reached the inn, the parents of two of the children had already rushed over.
They hugged their children, weeping as they prepared to kneel before the three men.
“Thank you, Great Heroes! Thank you! If anything had really happened to my Little Bao, I don’t know how I would have gone on living.”
Lian Li waved his hand, using a gust of palm wind to support them, preventing them from kneeling.
After returning the children whose parents had arrived, they continued toward the inn.
The parents of the remaining three children were not slow to arrive either. Just as they reached the inn, all five children had been taken home by their parents.
Having finally rid themselves of the five children, Lian Li and Yun Huizhou both let out a simultaneous sigh of relief. After requesting three premium rooms, Yun Huizhou did not go to his own room but followed Lian Li into his.
As soon as Lian Li entered the room, he collapsed straight onto the bed. Hearing Yun Huizhou enter, he merely glanced over and didn’t move.
Yun Huizhou walked over and collapsed straight beside him. “That was too hard.”
Rarely hearing Yun Huizhou complain, Lian Li turned his head to look at him and asked, “What was too hard?”
Yun Huizhou replied, “Those five children. My head feels like it’s going to explode.”
Lian Li didn’t mock Yun Huizhou, nor did he feel sorry for him, because he felt exactly the same way.
He felt that taking care of these five children was even more difficult than killing the Poison Scorpion Woman and the Child-Eating Demon.
Especially since these children had been in the Child-Eating Demon’s hands for over a day and were extremely weak.
On the second day after their rescue, two of the children had fallen ill. If not for Island Master Nan’s skills, the medicine Lian Li carried, and the fact that they could take turns infusing internal energy into the children, they didn’t think they could have brought all five back safe and sound.
Lian Li rolled over and closed his eyes, saying, “Fortunately, the two of us won’t have children in the future.”
Yun Huizhou remarked, “But we will have disciples. Generally, we take in children under the age of six, sometimes even infants in swaddling clothes. Someone like you, who apprenticed at such an older age, is quite rare.”
Yun Huizhou’s words startled the drowsy Lian Li wide awake. He sat up abruptly and said, “Taking disciples? Isn’t it a bit early for us?”
Yun Huizhou turned to look at him. “It’s early for you, but not for me. Besides, one can take a disciple whenever one wishes. In the martial world, once you reach the level of a first-class expert, as long as you publicly announce your intent to take a disciple, a crowd of people will line up to join. Not to mention me—if I were to announce a public selection for a disciple right now, Drunken Dream Island would be swarming with people by tomorrow.”
