Lin Xiao had just emerged from the cave, carrying Xiao Luoyi in his arms, when he was momentarily blinded by the glare of various dazzling magic artifacts.
Outside the cave, a sea of people had gathered.
Almost half of the Outer Sect had shown up.
Directly ahead, over a dozen gray-robed disciples from the Disciplinary Hall stood with stern expressions, each holding a different magic artifact.
Then, among the crowd, he spotted familiar faces.
Zhao Dayong, Qian Erge, and Sun Sanjin were all there.
Lu Renjia was also clustered together with Zhou Min and Wu Min.
Further out, twenty or thirty Outer Sect disciples who had been gathered by the stewards to help search stood scattered about, whispering to one another.
The moment Lin Xiao appeared, every single pair of eyes snapped toward him.
Lin Xiao stood still, holding the unconscious Xiao Luoyi in his arms.
She was covered in blood, a bandage wrapped around her stomach.
Her face and arms were marked with scrapes and bruises.
But her breathing was relatively steady.
Her brows were slightly furrowed, and one hand subconsciously clutched at the front of Lin Xiao’s robe.
Lin Xiao himself wasn’t in much better shape.
His face was streaked with dirt and dried, clotted blood.
The two of them stood there, under everyone’s watchful gaze, their posture both intimate and disheveled.
Someone sucked in a sharp breath.
Then, a wave of murmuring rushed forth like a tide.
“Is that Lin Xiao?”
“And the one he’s holding… Xiao Luoyi?!”
“My god, what happened to them?”
Zhao Dayong’s eyes went wide. He nudged Qian Erge beside him.
“Qian Erge, look! It’s Junior Brother Lin! The one in his arms is… holy crap!”
Qian Erge rubbed his eyes, confirming he wasn’t seeing things, then lowered his voice to Sun Sanjin.
“Sun Sanjin, didn’t you say before that Junior Brother Lin and Junior Sister Xiao weren’t close? Look at them now, he’s carrying her!”
Sun Sanjin was also stunned.
“I, I don’t know either! They… Were they always in this kind of relationship?”
He hadn’t managed to keep his voice down.
Several disciples nearby heard him, and their gazes instantly turned ambiguous, sweeping back and forth between the unconscious Xiao Luoyi and Lin Xiao.
The corner of Lin Xiao’s mouth twitched.
He had no energy and no desire to explain right now.
Holding Xiao Luoyi, he swept his gaze across the crowd, finally settling on Steward Wang, the main organizer of this trial.
“Steward Wang.”
Lin Xiao spoke.
“Junior Sister Xiao is seriously injured and needs immediate medical attention.”
Steward Wang frowned deeply, his gaze assessing both Lin Xiao and Xiao Luoyi before shifting to the cave behind them.
“What’s the situation inside? Lu Renjia reported that a mutated beast was chasing Xiao Luoyi, and Zhao Dayong said you came looking for her first.”
“It’s dead.”
Lin Xiao’s tone was calm.
“A Mutant Iron-Spine Boar. It should have been a large beast from deep within the Misty Hidden Forest, but it appeared on the outskirts for some reason. Junior Sister Xiao’s teammates abandoned her and fled. She killed it alone.”
The crowd erupted again.
“Xiao Luoyi killed it alone? No way?”
“How long has she even been a disciple?”
Steward Wang gave a solemn order.
“Go in and check!”
A Disciplinary Hall disciple immediately took a magic artifact and entered the cave.
Moments later, he rushed out, his face pale.
“R-reporting, Steward Wang! Inside… there really is the corpse of an Iron-Spine Boar!”
“It’s even bigger than the recorded adult specimens! The eye sockets and throat were blown through… And the lair is covered in signs of a fight, impact marks on the rock walls, trails of blood on the ground…”
All eyes once again turned to Xiao Luoyi in Lin Xiao’s arms.
This time, people truly noticed the massive boar’s spine spike Lin Xiao was holding, as if proving his words were not false.
Steward Wang took a deep breath and looked at Lu Renjia.
“Lin Xiao says you abandoned your teammate and ran away. Is that true?”
“He… he’s talking nonsense!”
Lu Renjia’s voice trembled as she retorted.
“We were really in danger at the time… But that was a large beast… How could we possibly fight it? We went to get help first. That, that can’t be blamed on us!”
Zhou Min and Wu Min quickly came to their senses, chiming in agreement.
“Right, right… Senior Sister Lu is right.”
“We went to get reinforcements.”
“That monster appeared too suddenly…”
Lin Xiao’s gaze turned cold.
Holding Xiao Luoyi, he walked step by step toward Lu Renjia.
The force of his presence made the surrounding disciples instinctively back away.
Lu Renjia felt a chill under his stare and subconsciously took half a step back, but she still forced herself to hold her ground, lifting her chin to maintain the last shred of her dignity.
“What?”
“Lu Renjia.”
Lin Xiao cut her off, his voice eerily calm.
“You sprinkled Demon-Attracting Incense on Junior Sister Xiao’s shoulder, deliberately lured her to a place with Bristle Boar cubs, and carefully calculated the time for the cubs to wake up so they would attract the Mother Beast. Isn’t that right?”
“You originally just wanted to teach her a lesson, to have her chased by an adult Bristle Boar Mother Beast, to embarrass her and get her slightly injured. Isn’t that right?”
Lu Renjia’s pupils constricted sharply.
“What you didn’t expect,” Lin Xiao’s voice suddenly turned harsh, “was that the little cub had left its territory.
But you still didn’t want to stop your malicious scheme.
More than that, you never expected to encounter an Iron-Spine Boar you were completely powerless against.”
“When it appeared, you got scared. You regretted it. But the first thought that came to your mind wasn’t to save her. It was to run.”
All of Lu Renjia’s thoughts had been laid bare.
Her face instantly turned ashen.
Her lips trembled, and tears suddenly gushed out.
They were tears of fear, and tears of a breakdown after being exposed.
“I, I didn’t…”
She tried to argue back.
“I just… wanted to teach her a lesson… I didn’t mean to kill her. I didn’t know there would be that kind of monster…”
The surrounding disciples looked at her with complex expressions.
Lu Renjia’s malice was a mediocre, mundane kind of evil.
She had the nerve to bully someone, but she didn’t have the nerve to kill.
She was detestable, and she was also stupid.
And it was that very stupidity that nearly got a fellow disciple killed.
Steward Wang’s face darkened completely.
He stared at Lu Renjia.
“Is what Lin Xiao said true?”
“I…”
Lu Renjia tried to argue further, but seeing the icy look in Steward Wang’s eyes, she finally collapsed, crumpling to the ground.
“I didn’t mean to… I really didn’t mean to…”
Zhou Min and Wu Min also looked ashen.
They fell to their knees with a thud.
With Lu Renjia confessing, they, as accomplices, had no hope of escaping punishment.
Steward Wang’s gaze was like a knife as he turned to Zhou Min and Wu Min.
“Do either of you have anything to say?”
Zhou Min and Wu Min exchanged a look.
They both saw despair in the other’s eyes.
“Spare us, Steward!” Zhou Min’s voice was choked with tears.
“It was all Senior Sister Lu who forced us! She said Xiao Luoyi had been ignoring her lately and was getting arrogant, and that she needed to be taught a lesson…”
Wu Min quickly followed, letting everything spill out like bamboo shoots.
“Right, right! Senior Sister Lu said that during the training session, she would lure Xiao Luoyi over. When the adult Bristle Boar chased her, she’d be scared out of her wits. Then we’d appear at just the right time to save her. It would both embarrass her and make her owe us a favor… We, we really didn’t mean to get anyone killed!”
Lu Renjia’s head snapped up, staring in disbelief at her two tagalongs.
All she could do was repeat, “You… you…”
“Enough!”
Steward Wang bellowed, cutting her off.
“Before we came here, I said no infighting, no framing fellow disciples. You should all know the consequences.”
Just then.
“Squeal! Squeal!”
A flash of pink and white shot out from the cave.
It was the little cub.
It rushed over to Lu Renjia, baring its teeth and making a “huff, huff” sound of intimidation.
“It says,” came a voice from inside Lin Xiao’s arms.
Xiao Luoyi’s eyes had opened at some point.
Her voice was weak, but it carried clearly to everyone’s ears.
“The one who hurt its front leg was this woman.”
Everyone was stunned.
Lu Renjia’s eyes widened in terror.
“You, you’re talking nonsense! I, I didn’t…”
“ROAR!!!”
A deafening roar suddenly exploded!
From deep within the cave, a pair of crimson eyes lit up once more.
The massive body of the Mother Beast slowly emerged from the darkness, its gaze locked solidly onto the collapsed Lu Renjia on the ground.
“H-help! S-save me!”
Lu Renjia was terrified out of her wits, scrambling backward on all fours.
“Steward! Steward Wang! Save me! This beast wants to kill me!”
Steward Wang’s face changed drastically, and he shouted a command, “Formation! Hold it back!”
Several Disciplinary Hall disciples immediately stepped forward.
The light of their magic artifacts flared up, forming a spiritual power barrier.
But the Mother Beast didn’t even spare them a glance.
It let out a low growl, slammed its front hooves against the ground, its hind leg muscles coiling, and then it charged violently toward Lu Renjia!
“Get out of the way!”
Steward Wang roared.
The Disciplinary Hall disciples strained to maintain the barrier, but it was useless against the beast’s charge.
Several disciples maintaining the barrier were even sent flying backward from the impact.
The Mother Beast’s momentum didn’t slow.
Its crimson eyes saw only the human who had injured its child.
“No!!!”
Under the horrified gazes of everyone present, the Mother Beast’s rock-hard forehead slammed heavily into Lu Renjia’s back!
Lu Renjia’s entire body was sent flying, tracing a desperate arc through the air.
CRASH!
With a heavy impact, she smashed into the steep cliff face over a dozen meters away.
She then tumbled down the rock wall, bumping and scraping against the stones, before finally crashing into the bushes at the base of the cliff.
Silence fell over the entire scene.
Everyone stood there dumbfounded, staring at the bushes that had swallowed Lu Renjia, then looking back at the Bristleback Boar King standing in place, breathing heavily.
A mountain wind blew past, carrying the faint sound of agonized moaning from the bottom of the cliff.