I made the entire cultivation world cry

Chapter 711 [Side Story: Sworn Sisters (Part Two)]

Luo Danqing, with her big yellow dog, unknowingly chased after them for quite a distance. Turning around a corner piled with miscellaneous items, she indeed saw the two shifty-looking men blocking the thin and small Ayu at the end of a dead-end alley filled with firewood.

One of the men grinned maliciously and shook out a dirty burlap sack, clearly intending to put Ayu inside it.

Ayu leaned against the cold earthen wall, still clutching the packets of medicine. Her small face, purple from the cold, was completely bloodless, but her eyes were like ice-cold knives, staring intently at the two villains. There was no pleading, only a chilling ferocity.

"What are you doing!"

Luo Danqing didn't know where she got the courage, but she shouted at the two men and threw the bronze hand warmer in her hand at the man with the sack with all her might!
The two men turned around at the sound. The man holding the sack was hit in the face by the hand warmer. The hot coals that flew out of the warmer burned him instantly, and he screamed and staggered back, clutching his face.

This sudden turn of events also stunned the other man.

In a flash, a cold glint flashed in Ayu's eyes. She pounced forward, her right hand, which had been hidden in her sleeve, lashed out with lightning speed, plunging the small knife she used for self-defense deep into the thigh of the man closest to her.

"Uh-"

The second man also let out a piercing cry of pain.

After landing a successful blow, Ayu immediately ducked and slipped through the gap between the two wounded men who were crying out in pain, pounced on Luo Danqing's side like a nimble rabbit.

"Run!"

Ayu grabbed the still somewhat dazed Luo Danqing and turned to run away.

"Wang! Wang Wang Wang!"

The big yellow dog, which had been baring its teeth and growling, bit the leg of the man's trousers, which had been stabbed in the thigh, and frantically tore and dragged it to protect Luo Danqing.

"You brats! Seize them!"

The two men, in pain and rage, roared furiously, kicked the big yellow dog away, and tried to chase after it despite the excruciating pain.

Two little girls ran wildly through the heavy snow, followed by a man's furious shouts and a big yellow dog's frantic barking. Luo Danqing was breathing heavily, her heart almost leaping out of her chest, but Ayu remained calm, not at all like a child her age.

Just as they rushed out of the alley and were about to run onto the slightly wider main street, a clap of thunder suddenly rang out.

Boom——

The sound was deep and deafening, shaking the entire town of Shiqiao. Then, the sky suddenly turned pitch black, as if it had been splashed with thick ink, and even the last bit of gray light was instantly swallowed up.

The snowflakes, which were originally fluttering down, were tinged with a dazzling scarlet color the moment they fell.

The blood-red snowflakes, like the foul blood flowing from a wound cut open in the sky, drifted down with a nauseating stench.

"Aaaahhhh!!!"

The two men who had been cursing and chasing behind them let out a scream a hundred times more shrill than before, and Ayu and Luo Danqing immediately turned around to look.

The two men who had just been so fierce were now melting away like candles amidst the falling crimson snowflakes.

Their skin festered and dissolved at a visible rate, emitting hissing black smoke, and scalding pus and blood flowed down their bodies, dripping onto the snow and corroding small pits into it.

They convulsed and wailed in vain, their voices quickly becoming hoarse and weak.

Wisps of dark red mist rose from the ground. This was already the edge of Shiqiao Town, and there weren't many houses around, only abandoned thatched huts, so no one was disturbed.

This hellish scene terrified eight-year-old Luo Danqing, causing her legs to buckle and almost collapse to the ground, but she was held tightly by Ayu.

Luo Danqing then noticed that when the blood-red snowflakes fell, Ayu was surrounded by a very faint white halo, which separated all the snow and prevented them from being harmed.

Ayu herself was stunned, but she quickly came to her senses and pulled hard on Luo Danqing, who was almost paralyzed with fear.

"Stop looking, let's hide in the next room!"

Ayu's icy little hands gave Luo Danqing a bit of strength, but she refused to go with Ayu and cried out, "I want to go back to my parents! I want to go back!"

"There are definitely evil cultivators causing trouble around here. Anyone who gets their hands on this blood snow will die. Going out now is just suicide!"

Ayu's voice carried a sternness beyond her years as she pointed to the two figures outside rapidly dissolving in the blood.

"Look at them!"

Luo Danqing's crying stopped abruptly due to Ayu's sharp words and stern expression.

Ayu quickly pulled the red thread off her neck, at the end of which hung a yellow talisman folded into a triangle.

"This is a protective talisman given to me by the Master. It won't last long. Once the light goes out, we will both turn into blood like them. The only way to save our lives is to quickly hide under the eaves!"

As if to confirm Ayu's words, the big yellow dog under the eaves of a house on the street corner in the distance was not affected by the dirty snow. It just whimpered at Luo Danqing and dared not come closer.

"Hurry up!" Before the talisman light completely went out, Ayu used all her strength to drag the stiff Luo Danqing towards a thatched hut that looked like it had been abandoned for a long time.

"Big Yellow, stay hidden and don't come out!"

Ayu pulled Luo Danqing to the dog hole under the roof, "Crawl in!"

Ayu shoved the trembling Luo Danqing into the dog hole, then crawled in herself, kicking up the weeds at the entrance and erasing her footprints in the snow as much as possible.

The room was dimly lit and filled with the smell of dust and rotting wood.

But once inside, the light from the yellow talisman in Ayu's hand was depleted more slowly, blocking out most of the falling blood and snow. The thin halo barely enveloped the two small figures, blocking the dark red mist that seeped in through the cracks and holes in the doors and windows.

A deathly silence, a sense of relief after the catastrophe, permeated the air. Only the soft rustling of blood-stained snow falling outside and the faint, mournful screams echoing from afar made the stillness inside the dilapidated house all the more suffocating.

Luo Danqing collapsed to the ground, curled up, and sobbed uncontrollably.

Ayu leaned wearily against the wall, her small face tense, listening warily to the sounds outside. One hand tightly gripped the increasingly hot and dimming talisman, while the other hand held tightly to the packets of medicine meant to save the village's patients.

She looked at Luo Danqing beside her, who was crying so hard she was almost unconscious, pursed her dry lips, hesitated for a moment, and then reached out to gently pat Luo Danqing's violently trembling back.

"Don't...don't cry." Ayu's voice was a little hoarse. "With such a commotion, if there are cultivators nearby, they will definitely come over when they see this celestial phenomenon. As long as we hide well and hold out until the cultivators arrive, we will be fine."

Upon hearing this, Luo Danqing cried even harder, "But what about my parents?"

Ayu's eyes dimmed as she looked through the window toward the village, her fists clenching slowly.

　We'll continue tomorrow!
(End of this chapter)