The man groaned and rolled several times on the ground before regaining his balance, but even then he dared not get up. He forced himself to speak through the pain, saying, "They can't escape."
"You said the same thing last time." The man in the straw hat sneered, his frustration growing as he recalled the unpleasant months of pursuit.
What was supposed to be an easy manhunt has dragged on for so long and is still not done. In the past, he would have tortured me in various ways long ago, but I don't know why Zhou Donghan hasn't called me back this time.
Based on his understanding of Zhou Donghan, he knew that the other party was definitely not being merciful and giving him more time to arrest people; he must have been preoccupied with something else and had no time to deal with him.
But……
What could possibly hold back Zhou Donghan during her tribulation-crossing period?
The man in the straw hat couldn't understand it, but he knew very well that no matter what happened, if he didn't deal with Liu Yiyi quickly, he would be the one who suffered in the end.
"Search! Dig three feet into the ground! Even turn this place upside down, you must find Liu Yiyi!" The man in the straw hat gave a cold, death order, and the white-clad men searching immediately sped up their movements.
Their movements startled birds roosting in the trees, making them stand out against the azure sky.
Nan Xun also saw the birds that had been startled and taken flight. He slowly retreated back into the cave, but kept his head turned away, saying in an awkward posture, "They'll find this place sooner or later. How are you injured?"
"This is a bit troublesome."
A clear, melodious female voice rang out from a dark corner of the cave. In the dim light, one could barely make out a woman sitting there, her clothes disheveled.
And this woman was none other than Liu Yiyi, the sole survivor of the Liu family massacre that the man in the straw hat was searching for.
Nan Xun took a bottle of healing medicine from her storage bag and tossed it over, never letting her gaze wander even slightly in that direction.
Use this.
Liu Yiyi took the medicine from him, and after opening it, she could clearly sense that the quality of the medicine was extraordinary. Her expression became increasingly complicated, and she finally couldn't help but ask Nan Xun, "Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why did you save me... when... I even lied to you..."
Liu Yiyi clutched the medicine, her smile more like a grimace: "You knew perfectly well that I tricked you into stealing Fen Gong's storage bag, causing you to be hunted down by him. If you hadn't discovered it beforehand, you might have even taken the blame for me and died at Fen Gong's hands... I..."
By the end, Liu Yiyi was sobbing uncontrollably.
His entire clan was wiped out, he experienced the coldness of human nature and fled for his life, only to be saved in the end by the very person he had once deceived. How ironic.
Nan Xun remained silent. He waited until Liu Yiyi's crying subsided before speaking, "You did lie to me about stealing Fen Gong's storage bag. I don't know why I saved you."
Perhaps it was the fact that he learned that Liu Yiyi really did have a cold-hearted father and a vicious stepmother, and that everything except Fen Gong, who was a subordinate of his stepmother and had lied to him, was true. This reminded him of his own past and made him feel a ridiculous sense of sympathy for her. When he saw Liu Yiyi in danger, he subconsciously rescued her.
Liu Yiyi bit her lower lip and said, "I owe you... If I survive after taking my revenge, I will definitely repay you."
"Revenge? After what they did to you, do you still care about them?" Nan Xun stroked the hilt of the sword in his hand, and memories of the past flooded his mind.
A father's indifference, a stepmother's harshness, bullying from peers... these are enough to make a child who has lost his mother hate those so-called "blood relatives".
“I hate them, but they are the only ones. There are many uncles and aunts who are innocent… They tried to help me, but I didn’t want to cause them trouble. In the end, I was the one who killed them.” Liu Yiyi smiled bitterly, tears welling up in her eyes.
She was once naive, until her father and reality knocked her into the abyss. That's why she was bewitched by Fen Gong and wanted to steal the clan's treasure to make her father "heartbroken". After discovering that Fen Gong had ulterior motives, she had the idea of stealing his storage bag to escape from the Liu family. But who would have thought that when she returned, all she would see was ruins.
Those she hated, those she longed for, and those she loved—all turned to bones because of her greed and anger.
After hearing Liu Yiyi's story, Nan Xun felt incredibly saddened.
He once resented them just like Liu Yiyi. After gaining power, he even had the idea of slaughtering the entire Nan family out of anger, but fortunately his master stopped him.
"Master! Why?" Nan Xun looked at the Nan family members in front of him with resentment, not understanding why his master was stopping him from taking revenge.
"Killing them is the real way to let them ruin your life!" Zhu Qingyun said sternly, pointing at the person in front of him who shared the same bloodline as Nan Xun. "Tell me, will you really not regret it at all after you do it?!"
Looking at the trembling Nan family members in front of him, Nan Xun hesitated when faced with Zhu Qingyun's questioning.
Seeing that Nan Xun remained silent for a long time, Zhu Qingyun sighed and said softly, "I don't want you to regret it, Nan Xun. There are many ways to take revenge. There's no need for you to remember today's bloodshed for the rest of your life because of them. You have a long way to go in life. I don't want you to make a mistake from the beginning. I don't oppose killing, but I don't believe that killing can solve everything."
So in the end, Nanxun chose to let them go, and in doing so, she also let herself go.
Although he would still seek revenge for their past humiliation, he would not resort to killing to solve the problem, since sometimes living is more painful than dying.
Nan Xun couldn't even imagine that if he hadn't had his master's persuasion that day, he might have gotten used to solving problems with killing and become a ruthless killer who treated human life like dirt.
Both hatred and love can make people lose their sense of proportion. Because of hatred, Liu Yiyi was bewitched by Fen Gong and agreed to be his inside man. Even though Fen Gong told her that he was stealing his own treasure, did Liu Yiyi really not consider that he had ulterior motives? Perhaps she refused to think about this possibility because she was too eager for revenge.
Although Liu Yiyi eventually realized something was wrong and stopped providing information, she was, in a sense, an accomplice in the death of her entire clan. Even if she were to seek revenge in the future, this pain would follow her for the rest of her life.
A single thought led to drastically different outcomes, and Nanxun increasingly felt that Liu Yiyi was like another version of herself in the world.
"Are the people chasing you outside the real culprits behind the massacre of the Liu family that day?" Nan Xun suddenly asked.
“Yes.” When Liu Yiyi spoke of the people chasing her outside, her eyes were filled with a tangible hatred. “After I returned… I found clues left by my clansmen in a pool of blood before they died. I found out in the Guanlan Sect that they were actually from the Yunqi Tower. After I left the Guanlan Sect, they found me. I fled all the way from the Eastern Continent to here.”
From the Eastern Continent to the Western Continent, the fact that he managed to survive the relentless pursuit of Liu Yiyi until Nan Xun found and rescued her is truly remarkable.
Yunqi Tower...
Nan Xun's eyes darkened.
Master once said that his death was inextricably linked to Yun Qilou. If it weren't for his special cultivation technique that allowed him to exist in the world as a spirit, he wouldn't have lasted long enough for Nan Xun to awaken him.
So after giving his life-saving jade pendant to Qin Moyu's master as an apology that day, Nan Xun came from the Eastern Continent to the Western Continent in an attempt to find out the truth about the matter.
But the most urgent thing now is not to investigate, but to run away. The leader, the man in the straw hat, is ridiculously strong. Even if Zhu Qingyun possesses him, he can't beat him.
"We should go."