Chapter 46: Just a Young Girl Fresh from the Nest

The carriage galloped along the imperial highway, its wheels crushing the dry loess and kicking up billowing clouds of dust.

Ji Ci leaned back inside the carriage, closing her eyes to rest as her fingers unconsciously stroked the jade pendant at her waist—the very same jade pendant she had casually taken from Dongfang Jibai right before her departure.

Dwelling on someone at the sight of an object? She had never even considered such a thing.

She simply felt that when traveling far from home, lacking a token of identification left one feeling utterly insecure.

However, her worries were entirely redundant!

The people who happened to cross paths with her were undoubtedly the ones who lacked any sense of security whatsoever.

Suddenly, a sharp, piercing sound ripped through the tranquility of the night.

"Watch out!" Ji Ci snapped her eyes open and flickered aside in a flash. An arrow had already pierced the carriage wall, embedding itself deeply right where she had been leaning a moment before.

Immediately following came a second and a third arrow. The rain of arrows poured down like locusts, turning the carriage into a pincushion.

The young boys cried out in terror.

"Protect our master!"

Tian shouted as he drew his sword, while several teenagers scrambled clumsily to pick up their daggers.

The youngest of them, little Yang, turned pale as a sheet, yet his hands gripped his dagger with agonizing tightness.

Ji Ci lifted the carriage curtain to find over twenty figures dressed in black forming a semicircle to surround the carriage.

They were clad in night-garb and wielded uniform curved sabers, the blades gleaming with a sinister blue light in the dusk—they had been dipped in poison.

The leader among them wore a bronze mask, his exposed eyes as sharp as a falcon's.

"So you are the ones distributing grain within the prefecture?"

The leader of the men in black spoke in a hoarse voice. His gaze swept over Ji Ci, instantly turning filled with contempt.

And here he had thought it was some formidable personage, given that their master had ordered twenty-five of them to come and carry out an abduction.

To his surprise, it was nothing more than a delicate young girl, accompanied by a pack of snot-nosed brats whose hair had barely grown in.

A mob of rabble was hardly worth his personal intervention.

Ji Ci let out a cold laugh and leaped down from the carriage.

Today she wore plain martial arts attire, her waist bound with a silver-threaded belt. Though she looked as fragile as a reed, her landing kicked up a ring of dust.

"Tian, take them and go first," she commanded without looking back, simultaneously tearing off her cloak and tossing it onto the carriage.

"Master, I want to stay and help you."

Tian handed the reins to Xuan. Over the past few days, under Tian's guidance, Xuan had learned how to drive a carriage.

"Your subordinates swear to—"

"This is an order!" Ji Ci's tone abruptly turned freezing.

Aqing's canine head poked out from inside the carriage, and the little dog leaped down to stand right before Ji Ci.

*Woof, woof, woof, woof.*

"Aqing, stay here. You lot, hurry up and leave."

Tian gritted his teeth, snatched the reins, and fiercely whipped the horses into a gallop.

The carriage surged forward like an arrow released from a bow, charging straight into the encirclement of the men in black and instantly throwing their formation into chaos.

Taking advantage of the opening, Ji Ci flickered toward the leader like a ghost. Her right hand formed into a claw, aiming straight for his throat, buying precious time for Tian and the others to escape.

The speeding carriage jolted Xue Jing awake. His hand brushed against little Yang's small hand nearby. "What happened?"

"Master told us to leave first. Go back to sleep."

With that, little Yang tucked the blanket around Xue Jing.

Children from impoverished families possessed innocent hearts, always believing the world to be filled with good people, their souls as pure as the moon in the sky.

Xue Jing's gaze darkened. He could not sense Ji Ci's presence anywhere in the carriage.

Worse still, he could sense the presence of numerous martial arts masters lingering about.

He had no way of knowing whether those people had come after Ji Ci, or after him.

The carriage raced onward, quickly vanishing from the sight of the assassins.

The men in black tightly surrounded Ji Ci. Her small figure stood right in the center, arms crossed, her eyes brimming with utter disdain.

"Aqing, stay a bit further back so you don't get splattered with blood in a moment."

Aqing trotted away on its short little legs, scampering toward the side.

One of the men in black lashed out, kicking Aqing flying with a single blow.

The dog slammed heavily into a massive tree nearby, hitting the ground and stirring up a cloud of dust.

Aqing scrambled back to its feet and barked furiously at the assassin.

If you want to beat a dog, you must first look at its master!

Hitting her dog was equivalent to looking down on her!

With a light tap of her toes, Ji Ci soared forward. She kicked one of the assassins in the leg, and in the next blink, her figure blurred as she delivered a kick to every single one of them.

"Courting death!" the leader roared furiously, sweeping his curved saber horizontally.

Instead of dodging, Ji Ci suddenly changed her movements, tapping her fingertips lightly against the back of the blade to use the momentum and vault behind him.

A crisp "crack" echoed through the air as the leader's neck twisted into an unnatural angle.

The remaining assassins were horrified at the sight and quickly formed up.

"Attack! Kill her!"

The order was given, and all the assassins instantly locked into formation.

Attacks surged toward her like a tidal wave.

Ji Ci was beaten back step by step, and a sword pierced straight into her shoulder.

Just as she prepared to counterattack, a violent, agonizing cramp seized her heart. She stumbled back a few paces, cold sweat instantly soaking through her clothes.

"Attack now! The little girl is wounded!"

With her hands stained red with blood, Ji Ci stood frozen in place as countless strikes rained down upon her. Her body was soon riddled with holes pierced by sharp blades.

The sword thrust deep into her heart made Ji Ci knit her brows in displeasure.

*Master, fight back!*

Ji Ci raised a hand to press against her chest, tumbling heavily to the ground. She had just felt her heartbeat behave in an utterly abnormal manner.

What on earth was wrong with this body?

Far away, Dongfang Jibai clutched his chest and crashed heavily to the ground, coughing up a mouthful of dark blood.

"Little fox..."

Dongfang Jibai stretched a hand toward the doorway, crawling forward inch by inch.

He could sense it—something had gone terribly wrong with his little fox.

Back at the scene, Ji Ci's body was tossed about and trampled like a tattered puppet, yet she never once loosened her grip on the jade pendant clutched in her hand.

Aqing barked frantically, suddenly charging at the nearest assassin, only to be kicked flying once more.

"And here I thought she was some formidable character. Turns out she's just a fledgling brat wet behind the ears."

"Fall back and report."

Ji Ci fixed her gaze on the crescent moon hanging in the sky, through which she seemed to see Dongfang Jibai's face.

"Xiao Bai," she muttered, blood spilling past her lips.

This was the heaviest injury she had ever sustained in her entire life. Back when she fought the Zombie King, she had been killed by a single strike.

Never had she been subjected to such humiliation.

The supernatural energy within her body frantically rushed to repair her battered form. Propping herself up with one hand on the ground, a wicked smile curved the corners of Ji Ci's lips.

The bones throughout her entire body emitted a teeth-gritting crunch.

"My turn!"

Seeing Ji Ci rise back to her feet, Aqing instantly grew bold on the coattails of its master, barking viciously at the assassins.

Ji Ci swept her hand upward, summoning Dongfang Jibai's long spear from her spatial storage into her grip.

She twirled the spear. Despite her clothes being utterly shredded, an overwhelming, terrifying aura erupted from her.

Stepping heavily onto the spearhead, she lunged straight toward the men in black like a javelin.

The spear pierced directly through an assassin's heart, causing the man's eyes to bulge wide in terror.

"What kind of monster is this?! Kill her! Hurry up and kill her!"

The assassins launched a frantic assault. Ji Ci brandished the long spear, moving like a roaring dragon. Every single strike she delivered whipped up a tempest of blood and gore.

Moments later, the majority of the assassins lay dead on the ground. Ji Ci drove the spear into the earth, extended a hand, and declared, "Hand over all your money, and I'll leave your corpses intact."

"Vixen!" Realizing they stood no chance, the remaining assassins turned and bolted.

Ji Ci flicked the spear upward with her foot, sending it hurtling through the air to pierce the back of a fleeing assassin, killing him instantly on the spot.

The rest of the assassins scattered in all directions.

Treating it like a game of cat and mouse, Ji Ci hunted them down one by one, snapping their necks on the spot with methods so horrifying that it threatened to shatter the very dao-hearts the assassins had spent years cultivating.

Not a single soul was left alive.