Zhan Jinmo was utterly humiliated and mortified. His face shifted from blue to white, and he did not dare glance in Cheng Yao’s direction.
Clenching his back teeth, he said, “If you keep spouting such nonsense, I’ll tear your mouth apart!”
“Go ahead! Tear it apart!” Feng Xianxian lifted her chin and moved closer to him. “If you don’t, you’re no man!”
“You—”
At the end of his patience, Zhan Jinmo slapped her across the face.
“Ah!” The blow sent Feng Xianxian stumbling to the ground.
Zhan Jinmo kicked her in the chest, still unsatisfied, but Second Master Zhan shouted to stop him.
“That’s enough! Have you no shame? Do you want to disgrace us even further?”
Zhan Jinmo’s eyes were bloodshot. “Father, she’s spewing filthy slander and ruining Eldest Sister-in-law’s reputation. If she isn’t taught a lesson, she’ll only grow worse!”
Second Master Zhan was irritated. “That’s simply the kind of person she is. You could beat her to death, and it wouldn’t change a thing.”
A vicious glint flashed through Zhan Jinmo’s eyes. “Then I’ll divorce her.”
“Zhan Jinmo!” Feng Xianxian screamed in disbelief. “You really intend to divorce me? After I devoted myself to you so completely?”
Her eyes burned with fury. The side of her face that had been struck was swollen red, and her hair was in disarray. Throwing caution to the wind, she lunged forward, her nails clawing viciously at the face she had once been obsessed with.
“Is your heart made of stone?”
Zhan Jinmo neither dodged nor retreated. He seized her wrist with such force that it seemed he might crush her bones. With his other hand, he struck her across the face again.
“You madwoman!”
A sharp pain tore across Feng Xianxian’s scalp as Zhan Jinmo grabbed her hair and slammed her to the ground.
Her head struck a stone. The scene before her exploded into countless glittering stars, and warm liquid slid down from the corner of her forehead.
The pain burned away the last trace of confusion in her mind. Taking advantage of the force with which he had yanked her, she hurled herself into his arms and sank her teeth viciously into the flesh of his neck.
Zhan Jinmo grunted. Enraged, he clamped his fingers around her throat like an iron vise.
Her breath was abruptly cut off. Her lungs felt as though they were on fire, and her vision began to blur. Yet she stared stubbornly at his twisted face so close to hers, refusing to close her eyes and refusing to release her bite.
At the brink of death, a jumble of images flashed through her mind. There had once been a shy exchange of glances when he lifted the red bridal veil. There had been the warmth of his fingertips as he drew her eyebrows for her.
Those memories were like needles dipped in poison, stabbing her until she was riddled with wounds.
Zhan Jinmo’s grip around her neck tightened sharply, then suddenly loosened.
Air rushed into her lungs, bringing with it violent coughing. She collapsed onto the ground, limp as a doll torn to pieces.
“Madwoman! Wasn’t it you who brought up divorce?” He slowly wiped the blood from his neck and the mess from his hand with his sleeve, looking at her as though she were a pile of nauseating filth.
“Unreasonable.”
With a flick of his sleeve, he turned and walked away without the slightest hesitation.
Feng Xianxian lay facedown on the cold ground. Blood from her forehead mingled with her tears and trickled down her face. Her hatred grew like weeds spreading wildly through a ruin.
Everyone watched as though they were witnessing a show, their gazes shifting back and forth between the two of them. Even after it ended, they still seemed reluctant to look away.
“All right.” Constable Wang, who had eaten his fill, wiped his greasy mouth and stood up.
“Prepare to move.”
At his command, everyone rose reluctantly. They gathered their pitifully small bundles and followed the procession, trudging through the uneven ground as they veered away from the main road and entered an even more rugged path to the west.
Cheng Yao deliberately fell behind the rest of the group. Once she had confirmed that no one was watching, her figure flickered and vanished into the bushes by the roadside. Enduring the discomfort caused by her still-recovering mental energy, she teleported again, setting her destination as the forest that had become a slaughterhouse.
When she appeared silently at the edge of the battlefield, the heavy stench of blood was almost nauseating. The scene before her made her pupils contract.
The corpses of Zhu Zhixin and Wang Bohai were piled together with those of the black-armored guards and the mysterious “bandits.”
They had all been killed in a single move.
One had had his neck snapped, while another had been stabbed through the heart. Their eyes were wide with terror, and they had died unable to rest in peace.
Who had done this?
Song Ze and the others should not have arrived in time to handle everything so cleanly and efficiently.
Was it the force behind those mysterious “bandits”? Or was there… someone else?
It seemed the forces behind this were even more complicated than she had imagined.
At that moment, she had no time to investigate further. Whoever the killer was, she had to destroy the scene. Otherwise, any investigators who came later would be able to find traces and eventually track them back to her.
She entered her spatial realm and took out two barrels of kerosene. In the apocalypse, fighting for resources was the same as fighting for one’s life. She had collected everything she could, which had left her with a large number of unused supplies in her space.
Moving swiftly, Cheng Yao splashed the kerosene evenly over the mountain of corpses and across the surrounding ground, where bloodstains and traces of combat might have been left behind.
The acrid smell of kerosene mingled with the stench of blood, creating a suffocating odor.
When she had finished, Cheng Yao retreated to a safe distance and took out a fire starter. With a flick, an orange flame sprang to life. Without the slightest hesitation, she tossed it onto the kerosene-soaked pile of bodies.
Boom!
The flames instantly shot into the sky.
Fire devoured everything greedily. Under the intense heat, the corpses crackled and popped, while the stench of charred flesh spread through the air, masking the blood that had come before.
The blazing fire illuminated Cheng Yao’s calm, almost merciless profile. She watched the inferno capable of erasing every trace until she was certain the flames had spread completely and could not easily be put out. Only then did she teleport away in silence.
The black-armored guards, the mysterious force, Zhu Zhixin, Wang Bohai…
Let them all turn to ash in this fire.
All the secrets, all the investigations—let them end here.
…
Under Constable Wang’s urging, the group being exiled fled along the rugged path throughout the night.
Thanks to the bowl of spicy soup Cheng Yao had prepared, mixed with a little spiritual spring water, the group was still in decent condition. However, they could barely see the road in the darkness and stumbled frequently.
The procession forced itself onward for a long time. The sky gradually brightened in the distance, the thin veil of darkness slowly receding as dawn broke little by little.
By then, everyone’s strength had begun to run out. Their breathing was labored, and they could barely move their legs.
They staggered on until the afternoon, hungry, cold, and weak. Some of the elderly, children, and women even fainted.
Crying, groaning, and the impatient shouts of the guards mingled together, creating an oppressive atmosphere.
If they did not eat or rest soon, even someone made of iron would not be able to endure it.
Zhan Haoting leaned against a wheelbarrow, which Zhan Haochen was struggling to push. His face looked increasingly pale beneath the sunlight, but his eyes remained calm.
He turned his head slightly and made an unusual gesture almost too subtle to notice. He pressed his index and middle fingers together and tapped three times against the side of the cart, the rhythm strange and deliberate.
Walking behind them, Cheng Yao immediately understood. She focused her attention and listened carefully.
Amid the howling night wind and the chaotic sounds of the procession, a faint, extremely low “woo-woo” reached her ears. It was like the sound of some kind of bone instrument, carrying a strange rhythm. Had she not listened closely, she would hardly have noticed it.
About half an hour later, as the procession stumbled around a mountain pass, two figures appeared ahead.
