After leaving the Eternal Silence Swamp, the three of them set up camp in front of an abandoned hunter’s cabin.
“Master, try this.”
Jin handed over a rough clay bowl.
Xue Yin took the bowl and looked down.
It was a thick, hearty stew of mushrooms and meat.
The meat was tender, mixed with fresh mushrooms gathered from the swamp’s edge.
Steam rose from it, carrying a rich, savory aroma that went straight to her nose.
She held the bowl, her fingertips feeling the warmth from the clay, and a long-lost sense of solidity welled up in her heart.
Even though her heart had long been stirred, her expression remained unchanged as she scooped up a spoonful, gently blew on it, and took a bite.
“It’s passable,” Xue Yin said after swallowing the delicious soup, raising an eyebrow with feigned composure.
“At least it’s much better than dry rations.”
Jin, seeing her forced calm, had a hint of a smile in his eyes.
He didn’t speak, just watched her quietly.
Feeling somewhat uncomfortable under his gaze, Xue Yin lowered her eyes, forcibly turned her head away, the tips of her ears tinged with a barely noticeable blush.
“Do you really need me to praise you?”
She paused, her voice dropping lower.
“Should I say, ‘As expected of someone who earned a master chef qualification’? I admit that right now, I don’t want to eat anything except the food you make. Is that good enough?”
A gentle, soft smile finally flashed in Jin’s eyes.
“If Master likes it, I can make it every day.”
Ailia sat to the side, also holding a bowl and taking small sips.
Hearing this, she smiled and nodded, her cheeks flushed red from the firelight.
“Yes, Jin’s cooking is still this good. After drinking this soup, I feel like the fatigue from the journey has mostly faded away.”
A few days later, the three entered the border town of Duskwood Town in the Demon Realm’s Sixth Ring.
At the town entrance, guards stopped them.
Xue Yin expressionlessly handed over the document Ryan had slipped her before their departure.
The guard unfolded it.
It bore the bright red seal of the Marces family crest.
The handwriting was messy but carried an undeniable air of authority:
Affiliation: Former resident of Amber Corridor, Marces Territory.
Note: Displaced due to war.
Granted free passage through all Rings.
Exempt from slave status review.
Seeing the family crest, the guard’s attitude immediately became more respectful.
However, he didn’t let them pass directly.
Instead, he extended a palm and rubbed it gently against the bottom of the document, his eyes holding a greedy hint.
Jin, observing from the side, immediately understood this silent demand for a “toll.”
He subtly stepped forward half a step and, using his sleeve as cover, deftly slipped the guard a few copper coins.
Xue Yin caught this in her peripheral vision.
Her brow furrowed slightly, but she said nothing.
The guard weighed the coins in his hand, nodded in satisfaction, and waved them through.
“Go on in. Don’t cause trouble.”
Stepping into the town, a wave of noise hit them.
It was a mixed bag, with various races living together.
The air was thick with the smell of spices and dust, and, of course, the shouts of slave traders Xue Yin detested most.
Deeper into the town, the streets narrowed.
Suddenly, noise erupted ahead.
A skinny goblin boy was staggering down the middle of the road, holding a stack of cargo boxes taller than himself.
The cargo blocked most of his view.
He carefully shuffled his feet, trying to move to the side to make way, but he was a beat too slow.
“Blind fool!”
A heavy kick landed on the boy’s lower back.
The cargo boxes clattered to the ground.
The boy fell forward, his forehead hitting the cobblestone pavement.
Blood immediately seeped out.
The one who kicked him was a black-scaled Lizardman, dressed in ornate robes embroidered with silver thread, a gem-encrusted short staff at his waist—clearly a local noble.
Behind him stood two expressionless guards with swords at their sides.
“Didn’t you see this lord passing?”
The Lizardman noble used his toe to lift the boy’s chin.
“Lowly scum, don’t you even know the rules?”
The goblin boy trembled all over, curled up on the ground, not even daring to voice a plea for mercy.
His ears were pressed flat against his head like a trapped prey animal.
“Lowly commoners must turn their backs to nobles when they pass. That’s the rule in the Demon Realm.”
The Lizardman noble sneered, grinding the sole of his boot against the boy’s splayed fingers.
“Next time you make this mistake, I’ll chop off these claws of yours.”
Ailia had already taken a step forward, but Xue Yin grabbed her wrist.
“Don’t be impulsive, Ailia,” Xue Yin said in a low voice, her gaze coldly sweeping over the noble.
“This isn’t the Amber Corridor. Don’t start conflicts with local Demon Realm nobility. We’ll go help after he’s gone.”
The Lizardman noble spat and swaggered off with his guards.
The passersby scattered quickly, acting as if nothing had happened.
No one even spared the boy a second glance.
Only his blood remained on the cobblestones, slowly congealing.
Then, Ailia stepped forward, knelt down, and gently helped the goblin boy up.
The boy had a gash on his forehead, blood smeared over half his face, and his fingers were bruised purple from being stepped on.
“Don’t be afraid,” Ailia said softly.
A soft, holy light glowed in her palm as she covered the boy’s forehead.
The wound healed at a visible rate.
The boy stared at her blankly, his eyes welling up with tears.
Jin crouched down, picked up the scattered cargo boxes one by one, restacked them, retied them tightly with rope, and handed them to the boy.
“Can you walk?” he asked.
The boy took the boxes, his lips trembling.
Finally, he managed to squeeze out a word.
“Thank you.”
“Go on,” Xue Yin said, standing to the side, her voice flat.
“Be more careful next time.”
The boy nodded repeatedly, hugged the cargo boxes, and staggered away into the distance.
Ailia stood up, brushed the dust from her skirt, and said quietly, “It shouldn’t be like this between living beings.”
Xue Yin stopped walking, glanced back at the boy’s retreating figure, and said in a low voice, “I know. But here, survival is harder than justice. At least just now, we helped him.”
Ailia listened and made a silent resolve in her heart: ‘That’s why we need to walk the world.
If the gods won’t save people, I’ll do it with my own hands.’
Jin, who had somehow gotten close to Xue Yin’s ear, lowered his voice.
“Master secretly slipped a few silver coins to that child just now? Yet at the town gate, you wanted to save on the toll.”
Xue Yin shot him a helpless glance.
“See through it, don’t say it. I didn’t want to waste money on a greedy guard. You used to just understand silently and never say anything.”
“I used to only listen to Master’s words,” Jin took half a step back and winked at her.
“Now, I want to understand Master’s heart better.”
Hearing this, Xue Yin didn’t reply.
She turned and walked forward, but her step faltered noticeably for a moment.
Jin watched her back, thinking to himself:
‘No matter how cold Master’s words are, her heart is softer than anyone’s.’
As dusk fell, the three arrived in front of an inn at the town’s center.
A bard draped in a faded, gold-threaded cloak sat on a stone platform, strumming a seven-stringed lute.
He began to sing, his voice clear and resonant as a bell, cutting through the noisy crowd:
“Hear me sing! Crimson Flame Night, Blood Moon Rise!
The Witch took the stage, burned the Divine Court to ash!
The Human Realm’s elite turned to flying dust, the Amber Corridor forged a heroic name!”
The previously noisy crowd below instantly fell silent, then erupted into heated discussion.
A centaur elder excitedly waved his tankard.
“I heard the Human Realm sent several thousand elite troops this time, wiped out overnight!”
“My son is a soldier at the front. He wrote back saying that day, flames lit up the sky! The Human Realm army had at least ten thousand men, and an Archbishop!” a Snakewoman said, her eyes gleaming with fervor.
“And the result? The Amber Corridor held them off!”
“And that Fallen Angel!” a burly Beastman shouted.
“I heard he didn’t kill civilians, only burned the enemy! Completely different from the rumors of a bloodthirsty, cold-hearted monster!”
The crowd gradually quieted again, leaving only the lute’s melody flowing in the twilight.
The bard smiled slightly.
His playing shifted to a solemn, stirring tune as he plucked the strings and continued his chant:
“Not for deification, not for a crown,
Only to protect the peace behind them.”
The crowd erupted in low cheers.
“That’s the truth!” a human woman said, wiping her tears.
“My sister was hiding in the tunnels then. If they hadn’t fought desperately, she would have been done for!”
Xue Yin and the other two stood at the edge of the crowd, hoods pulled low, breathing steady.
But only they knew that some things become more and more exaggerated among the people.
“They’re singing praises of us,” Ailia whispered, her tone complex.
“But people only see the result,” Xue Yin paused, her gaze sweeping over the excited crowd.
“They don’t see the ones who never came back.”
The bard finished the last verse, put away his lute, and stood up.
People stepped forward—some offering water, some tossing coins, children standing on tiptoe trying to touch his lute strings.
Xue Yin walked up and placed a silver coin in his hand.
Far above the going rate.
The bard looked up.
A flicker of surprise passed through his light gray pupils, then turned to understanding.
“Why add that line at the end?” she asked, her voice so low only the two of them could hear.
The bard was silent for a moment, then lowered his voice.
“Because that day, I saw it with my own eyes at the tunnel entrance—silver hair like the moon, black wings like the night, holy light like the day.”
Xue Yin’s pupils contracted slightly.
She hadn’t expected to meet an eyewitness here.
‘The world is truly small.’
“That moment, I knew,” the bard slung his seven-stringed lute over his back and took a step back.
“You are not legends. You are living beings.”
He gave a slight bow of respect.
The gold thread on his cloak flashed once in the twilight.
“Witnesses live to bear witness. My heroes, may your journey be smooth.”
That night, a new entry appeared in Xue Yin’s ledger:
Duskwood Town, Bard spreading the Crimson Flame Ballad.
Folk Version: Praising heroes, singing of victory.
True Version: Perhaps the heroes’ original intent wasn’t that grand.
Note: Rumors run faster than truth.
But as long as someone remembers and never lets go, the fire will not go out.
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