Looking at Qinghe's tempting appearance, many of the hooligans immediately started fantasizing about pinning him down and having their way with him. None of them had ever seen such an elegant, top-class beauty. When would they ever have another chance?
At the top of the nearby rock face stood a figure swathed in black. Seeing their lascivious expressions, his eyes narrowed and his lips curved up in a chilling smile.
This was the Sentinel who had been following Qinghe before, Wei Xiang. After finishing his paperwork within the day, he had rushed over to spy again on Qinghe. He had witnessed the incident from the beginning, but chose to wait and watch until Qinghe would be unable hold on.
By the cliff, Qinghe was standing in place, clueless to all the people eyeing him.
"Well, well," the bald leader said, his voice turned hoarse with desire. "What do we have here? I didn't think you'd be such a beauty. I can see why you had to hide your appearance. Why don't you return with us and we big brothers will take reeeally good care of you."
Qinghe was confused. What was this idiot going on about? He had already refused clearly, hadn't he? And what did he mean about his appearance? Was it really that abnormal? And hadn't the leader been short-tempered and decisive all this time? Why was he acting so weirdly now?
His head buzzed with questions but his face remained impassive. "I have already refused. Did you not understand it the first time?" He was honestly worried about their comprehension abilities, but the other side thought he was mocking them.
Furious, the leader ordered, "Xiao Si, bind him."
The short man swung his chain a bit and coated it with his spiritual energy before sending it flying towards Qinghe. Qinghe tried to dodge, but his body was as stiff and heavy as stone, it took him all he had to just maintain his balance, so dodging was out of the question.
The chain wrapped around Qinghe, pinning his arms tightly to his body before the end shot down and dug into the ground. With the thorns of the spearhead locked into the hard earth, Qinghe knew it wouldn't budge no matter how much he pulled or struggled, not to mention that his body was on the verge of complete collapse. Where would he even find the energy in his condition?
Seeing him not even flinch despite being trussed, the leader's lust and anger only grew. With his sickles out, he slowly started walking towards Qinghe.
With the short man firmly holding the chain from one end and the other end fixed into the ground, Qinghe couldn't even budge.
"You've got guts boy, but I'll see how you can defy me now. I'll teach you to obey me. If I pin you to the ground right here with my blades through your shoulders and use your body till the pain makes you want to scream, how long do you think it'll take for your cold face to crack? Will you scream? Beg and plead for mercy? I'll teach you to be obedient," the leader growled.
Hearing his words, though Qinghe looked the same on the outside, his insides were churning with repulsive memories.
'I wonder how he'll look after we're done with him. Will his cold face crack?'
'I'll teach you respect boy, I'll make you scream and beg for mercy!'
Though he pushed back those whispers from the past, Qinghe was nearing his limit. He had wanted to preserve his cultivation core just in case he managed to survive his fall to the valley lest he might need to battle whatever monsters resided in there.
But suddenly he didn't care anymore.
He just wanted to summon his spiritual weapon, to hell with maintaining his core, and slice up these filthy heaps of garbage till they knew who they were dealing with! How dare they bring up these unwanted memories that he'd gone through so much trouble to bury!
As the bald leader steadily made his way towards him, Qinghe had already decided to make him pay. But before he could take action, a black shadow suddenly descended between Qinghe and the others.
Wei Xiang hadn't wanted to interfere at first. He wanted to sit and enjoy the show. Then he noticed the lethargy in Qinghe's movements and surmised that he was under the effects of a strong and fast acting poison. Wei Xiang still wanted to wait and see how far Qinghe could get.
As time went on, his respect for Qinghe only grew. His indifferent expression was somehow so pure, free from worldly emotions like despair, anger, or hate. Like a star in the sky, distant and cold, looking down from his lofty height with apathetic eyes.
Then the man had spouted those dirty words and though Qinghe looked unaffected, Wei Xiang could see that something in him had stirred. A deep-seated pain that had dulled with time had been brought to the surface again. Wei Xiang couldn't stand someone marring that beautiful picture, daring to soil the brilliance of that aloof person by bringing out his indignity and grief.
So Wei Xiang had acted. He jumped down to block the bald man's path and took pleasure in seeing his face twist with fury, then pale when he recognized his uniform.
"…S-Sentinel…"
The group who had just been enthusiastically leering at Qinghe also paled and showed uneasy expressions. Which among them didn't know the might of the Sentinels? And which among them didn't know about the one Sentinel they absolutely couldn't afford to offend?
Since the person who had suddenly appeared was close enough to him, Qinghe could mostly make out his details despite his failing eyesight. His features looked sharp and carved, extremely beautiful but undeniably masculine. His long hair, held at the top by a golden crown, was thick and straight as it fell down his back. One corner of his lips was curved up sardonically while his eyes emitted killing intent.
His clothes were noticeably of high quality and covered his long and tightly muscled body. Made of black-colored cloth, the robe had intricate designs stitched into it with threads of beaten gold. He wore heavy gold shoulder guards and vambraces on his arms. His posture was regal and leisurely. Qinghe could imagine this person relaxing on a throne and decadently swirling a wineglass while surveying his scurrying subjects.
He looked utterly at ease despite facing a horde of armed hooligans, some of them with a decent amount of cultivation. Forget being afraid, the Sentinel looked like he didn't even put them in his eye.
And of course, Qinghe recognized him as his strange stalker.
It seemed there was no need for him to take desperate measures after all.
"You're late," Qinghe couldn't help grumbling.
Wei Xiang was a little surprised. Feng Qinghe was able to recognize him? Just how much had he observed during the time he was being shadowed?
"I humbly ask for your pardon then," Wei Xiang turned back his head and said amusedly, his voice smooth and pleasing.
Noticing that he was being made fun of, Qinghe muttered, "Hmph, still rude."
Wei Xiang threw back his head and laughed. It was a wild and unrestrained sound brimming with joy and delight. So he really did recognize him! And he even remembered that time in his backyard. For some reason, this thought greatly pleased him.
Qinghe tilted his head. What did he do to make this person so happy? It was completely baffling.
When the sound of laughter receded, the bald leader of the thugs stammered out, "Y-Your Excellency, w-we h-have a good reason for this. P-Please let us explain."
"Hm?" Wei Xiang looked interested. He wanted to see just how shamelessly these monkeys would dance. "Continue then, I'm waiting."
Encouraged that he was given a chance to wiggle out of this, the leader nervously began, "Don't be fooled by this man's looks, my lord, he's actually a vicious thief! He stole a beast core from us that we all hunted together. And now when we were politely asking him to return it, he tried to seduce us and run away with it. We really had no choice!"
Qinghe shook his head. Just how deep of a hole did this leader want to dig for himself before he was made to jump into it?
"Oh? Is that so? He is a thief who tried to seduce you?" Wei Xiang sounded gleeful.
"Yes! Yes, Your Excellency! Isn't that right?" the bald leader nodded vigorously without a shred of dignity and turned to his companions. Taking their leader's cue, the goons also nodded nervously.
Wei Xiang turned to Qinghe and spoke casually, "So they say. How do you explain yourself?"
What was there to explain? Wasn't this guy just having fun at all of their expense?
Seeing his sullen expression, Wei Xiang teased, "If you can't explain yourself, then will you submit to your punishment?"
"If you're done enjoying yourself, I'd like to be released before I die from the poisoning, thank you very much," Qinghe's voice was as cold as a blizzard.
Sighing, Wei Xiang turned to the motley group and extended his hand. A thin string immediately shot out from his wrist guard and wrapped around the short man's hand that was holding the chain. Stupefied, the short man looked at the shining lines of metal wrapped around his wrist. Wei Xiang yanked the string lightly and the hand was sliced off cleanly.
The short man's scream rang out and rolled over the area as his severed hand hit the ground with a thump, the chain in its grasp clanking as it fell. Thick red rivulets were still spurting out of the stump of his wrist as he clutched it frantically, trying to staunch the bleeding.
With one end of the chain released, the bindings around Qinghe naturally loosened and dropped down. Shaking them off, Qinghe rushed to search for certain pills in his storage space. After finding them, he quickly took two of them out and swallowed them.
His expression finally relaxed.
"What did you just take?" Wei Xiang asked curiously.
"A poison halting pill and a healing pill," he explained.
On the other side, the hooligans were all trying to escape after seeing that their fabricated story didn't work and that the Sentinel was even casually chatting with their former prey. They finally understood that him giving them time to explain had only been an act, he had already known the truth all along.
Damn! So this was why it was said that Sentinel Wei Xiang was the one they must avoid the most. It was because his personality was the most despicable!
With a seemingly careless wave of his hand, the hair-thin metal strings shot out again from Wei Xiang's wrist and towards the fleeing figures, completely wrapping them up so that they could only lie on the ground like giant dumplings and bemoan their bad luck.
"One pull from my hand and you'll be in oh-so-many pieces," Wei Xiang said conversationally, a hint of malice dripping into his voice. "Want to try it? It'll be fun."
The dumplings all shook their heads in terror. Mommy, they wanted to go home! This person was too scary!
At the side, Qinghe was vaguely aware of everything that was happening as the sudden relief of being rescued crashed into him. Having been running on adrenaline all this time, now that he was safe and had someone dependable nearby, he lost the strength to stand and almost collapsed.
Wei Xiang was at his side in an instant, supporting him. Due to his sudden movement, the strings cut into the bound dumplings and they yelped in pain with tears in their eyes. You promised you wouldn't hurt us if we didn't move! But you were the one who moved and you still hurt us!
The Sentinel neither knew nor cared about these worthless scum's grievances.
Settling the weakly slumped figure in his arms against a rock, Wei Xiang instructed, "I'll come back soon, so stay here, alright?"
Qinghe nodded obediently, unable to think through the haze brought on by the poison.
Seeing the once mature and clever person childishly nod his head, Wei Xiang's heart felt like it was tickled by a soft, soft feather. But he still forced himself to walk away.
While repositioning the dumplings so that they couldn't run away or be found by someone passing by, Wei Xiang telepathically notified the Order that there was a need for pickup of a group of criminals. After describing the location, Wei Xiang walked back to the resting figure who seemed to be dozing.
"I've returned. Let's take you back to your sect and get you treated then, shall we?"
Qinghe dazedly nodded, not really sure what was being said. He just felt a sense of familiarity with this person, since he had been accompanied by him for a while, albeit sneakily.
It seemed he had completely forgotten his resistance to being touched.
Chuckling, Wei Xiang lifted Qinghe into his arms and plunged them into the shadows.