Xi Qingyue looked at the colorful garments of various styles laid out before her and bought them all, adding up to over a hundred pieces.
Besides the outerwear, she also purchased a large number of undergarments for the two of them, along with over a hundred bolts of fabric, and even bought some quilts.
The middle-aged woman was so delighted she couldn’t stop smiling. A shop assistant beside her couldn’t help but remind her, “Boss, aren’t you celebrating too early? They haven’t paid yet.”
Her smile froze on her face, and she shot the assistant a fierce glare, but worry crept into her heart—what if they couldn’t afford it? Then all her joy would be for nothing.
Xi Qingyue chuckled lightly. “Boss, how much does it come to?”
As she spoke, she pulled out several banknotes and placed them on the counter. These were the ones she had taken from the wealthy moneylender’s estate earlier.
The middle-aged woman’s face lit up at the sight of the banknotes. “Altogether, it’s two hundred and eighty taels,” she said quickly.
She pocketed the notes, confirmed they were genuine, and cheerfully ordered someone to help load the goods onto the cart. She also gave Xi Qingyue the change, smiling as she saw her to the door.
As Xi Qingyue left the shop, she sensed someone following her. A cold smirk crossed her face.
She told Xi Weilan to sit tight inside the cart and drove the cart toward the outskirts of the city.
The tracker, caught off guard by her sudden decision to leave the city, immediately sent someone back to report and hurriedly followed on foot.
Just before leaving the city, Xi Qingyue transferred all the goods from the cart into her spatial storage. When the guards at the gate inspected the cart, they lifted the curtain, glanced inside, and let her pass.
Several constables, upon learning she had bought a large amount of cloth and left the city, were overjoyed and mounted their horses to chase after her.
After exiting the city, Xi Qingyue drove at a leisurely pace. Instead of taking the main road, she headed down a secluded path.
The tracker was puzzled by her actions but still left markers and continued to follow.
A quarter of an hour later, the mule cart slowed to a halt. She lifted the curtain and cautioned Xi Weilan, “When I deal with some bad people later, stay in the cart. Don’t come out, no matter what you hear, understand?”
She didn’t want a three-year-old child to witness something too gory. Killing a few people would only take a moment; if she acted quickly, it would be done.
Upon hearing there were bad people, Xi Weilan’s face flushed with anger. She raised her little fist. “Sister, I’m strong. I can help!”
Xi Qingyue chuckled and ruffled her hair. “There are only a few. I can handle them myself. If there were more, and I got busy, then you could help. Be good—I’ll give you something tasty to drink.”
With that, she handed Xi Weilan a bottle of a dark, murky drink and lowered the curtain.
Xi Weilan looked at the strange beverage with curiosity. She took a sip, her eyes lighting up, and drank it happily.
Xi Qingyue sat outside, listening for sounds behind the cart. When she heard the hoofbeats approaching, a gleaming long blade appeared in her hand.
The next moment, she jumped down from the cart, blade in hand, and walked to the back of the mule cart.
As the square-faced constable and the others rode up, they saw a small child standing in the middle of the path. The girl held a long blade and stared at them with a fierce gaze.
He was stunned for a moment, then burst into laughter. The other constables joined in.
“Ha! Brother Yu, is this kid out of her mind? Does she really think she can take us on? How laughable!”
Xi Qingyue pointed the blade at the lead constable and said coldly, “I’ll ask you once: are you here to rob me?”
The square-faced constable sneered, his tone dripping with disdain. “And what if we are? Do you think a brat like you can stop us?”
“Good. Then I haven’t been waiting for nothing,” Xi Qingyue replied with calm indifference.
The constables laughed even harder, thinking they had encountered a fool.
Then, Xi Qingyue moved.
Blade in hand, she charged at the mounted constables with lightning speed. Just as she reached the horses, she leaped into the air. With one stroke, the square-faced constable’s head flew off, the smile still frozen on his face.
The remaining constables were paralyzed with shock, then boiled with rage. “Vile! A sneak attack!”
Convinced that Xi Qingyue’s sudden strike was the only reason their comrade had fallen, they drew their swords and slashed at her.
With a graceful sidestep, Xi Qingyue struck again, felling another constable and his horse.
Then, with a series of swift blade strokes, she eliminated the rest of the constables and killed all the horses too.
Her spatial storage wasn’t high-level enough to hold horses yet, but she wasn’t about to leave them for others.
After the kill, she searched the bodies, finding only a few dozen taels of silver and several swords.
During the fight, she had only used wind-element speed and hadn’t tapped into her other abilities. It seemed these men were too weak.
She stashed the horse carcasses into her space, planning to process them later for horsemeat.
Looking at the corpses of the constables, she activated her earth-element ability. The ground beneath them instantly loosened, as if hollowed out. The bodies sank deep into the earth, and after the soil churned, everything returned to normal.
When she looked again, not a trace of blood remained, as if there had never been a fight.
“Oh well, you’re welcome. You came to kill me, and I went to the trouble of burying you. Too bad I don’t have fire-element powers.”
She sighed and walked back to the mule cart.
Lifting the curtain and stepping inside, she found Xi Weilan looking at her with worry. “Sister, are you hurt? There’s blood on you.”
“It’s nothing—it’s someone else’s blood. Wait a moment, I’ll change clothes, and then we’ll head back.”
With that, she slipped into her spatial storage and reappeared half an hour later in a fresh set of clothes.
“Sister, you killed constables. Will they come looking for trouble in the village?” Xi Weilan had secretly peeked and noticed the official uniforms on the dead men.
Xi Qingyue smiled reassuringly. “Don’t worry, they don’t know it was me. Even if they trace it back to the village, I’ll just kill them. Or we could find a new place to stay.”
She paused, then lifted the little one onto her lap. “Did you peek at what happened earlier? Aren’t you scared?”
Xi Weilan shook her head. “No. They wanted to steal from us and kill you. What you did was right.”
Xi Qingyue was once again moved by the child’s understanding.
If trouble arose, she wouldn’t want to take Xi Weilan and live in the deep mountains—a child should grow up in a normal place.
She felt it was time to seriously consider leaving the village early. Scholar Han’s guess was probably correct; it was just a matter of time before trouble came. Waiting to flee until after attacks began would be far worse than leaving early.
If she tried to leave with the villagers, many inconveniences would follow, and her spatial storage could easily be exposed.
If she and her sister left alone, they’d likely face more ambushes like today’s, but she could kill as many as she liked—and there’d be far more freedom otherwise.
She needed to plan well.
She turned the cart back onto the main road, heading to Willow Tree Village. Xi Weilan climbed out of the cart and sat down beside her.
“Weilan, how about I take you to the south in a while?”
Xi Weilan’s face was full of confusion. “Elder Sister, will we have a place to stay once we reach the south?”
Xi Qingyue put her arm around her shoulder and smiled gently. “Hmm, by then we’ll find a beautiful city and buy a big mansion—one a hundred times bigger than our thatched cottage. You can play however you like.”
“But Elder Sister, we don’t have that much silver,” Xi Weilan said, her small face full of worry.
Upon hearing this, Xi Qingyue directly pulled out a gold bar as long as a palm and placed it in her hand. “Elder Sister has a lot of these. They’re worth much more than silver. When the time comes, we can shave them into thin gold leaves and spend them.”
Xi Weilan took the gold bar, turned it over in her hands to examine it, then smiled with delight, her eyes crinkling. She cheerfully handed the gold bar back to Xi Qingyue. “Elder Sister, you hide it well.”
Xi Qingyue put the gold bar away and ruffled her hair. “Don’t worry. Besides this, Elder Sister has many more good things. I could sell off a few without ever worrying about running out of silver.”
