It doesn't matter what the lord is.

I raised my hand to block it.

A cold light flashed, the bowl fell to the ground, the blade cut her skin, and blood splattered on her face.

Xi Luo took a few deep breaths, his dark pupils trembled slightly, and suddenly turned around and ran away.

I took out the gauze I had prepared and bandaged my wrist. Compared to the pain of the wound, Shiloh's last expression caught my attention more. She looked really abnormal, like... a little guilty.

Looking at her leaving back, I couldn't help but smile.

Just now, I actually had a premonition that she would attack, and I could have dodged it.

It's just that I didn't do that.

One of the main characters in The Farmer and the Snake is a snake, but humans can't be as cold-blooded as snakes. A person who has to consider that many people will starve to death before burning food and grass doesn't look like a truly cold-blooded person. As she said herself, she just doesn't know what is right and what is wrong. Then it's very simple, I just need to make her understand.

Some things are so delicious that after eating them once, you want to eat them again. This is desire.

Someone gave me food so that I could eat my fill and not suffer from hunger and cold in the winter. This is satisfaction.

And now, he was going to stab that man. The knife in his hand pierced his skin and blood flowed everywhere.

This is repaying kindness with resentment. The panic and pain caused by this is guilt.

Isn't she an emotionless killer?

Okay, I will teach her what love is.

She looked cold and her heart was cold, so I went to show her what warmth is, with delicious food and warm water...

And, with my blood.

In the past seven days, I don't know how many times I let her win and how many moves I gave her.

If she wants to use the knife, let her do it. Shiloh stabbed my head, throat, heart, and lower abdomen several times, but she changed the direction in the end, only adding another wound to my body. The expression on her face became more and more confused, and more and more heartbreaking. To put it bluntly, she failed to stab me again and again, and she probably didn't know what she was doing.

Then, on a dry morning with a north wind, I went to the street to buy breakfast and met Shiloh hiding in the alley.

She was holding a knife and seemed to be in a daze. She didn't even notice me walking past her not far away.

I thought about it...and decided it was time to take the next step.

46. ​​Have strong self-awareness

I picked a breakfast stall and bought two meat buns with thin skin and large fillings. The boss packed them in a paper bag and handed them to me.

While warming my hands, I took a detour to the back of Shiloh.

She seemed to be completely unaware, still looking at the street in the distance, watching the people coming and going outside, in a daze.

Her tattered clothes could not block the cold wind, and her petite figure did not seem to be able to withstand the wind and waves outside. Although Alaiya was also wandering outside at this age, at least she met me and raised her up. But Xiluo was different. She gave people the feeling of being a very lonely person, burying everything in her heart.

I leaned over to her ear and whispered:

"What are you looking at?"

Shiloh stabbed me with her knife, and I dodged to the side and pierced a bun in my hand onto her knife. After failing to hit the target, Shiloh took back her knife, took the bun off the knife, and held it in her palm, but still looked at the street outside.

I smiled and said:

"Yuxi City is very different from the outside world."

Shiloh nodded and began to eat the meat bun in her hand. The overflowing soup dyed her rosy lips shiny, and Shiloh's cheeks bulged. Although her expression was still indifferent, it was obvious that she was in a good mood. To put it in an analogy, although her face was cold, the background had turned into a sweet pink, and there were circles of flowers blooming behind her.

After finishing the buns, Xiluo raised her little hand, spread out her five fingers, put it to her lips, and licked it gently with the tip of her tongue. She also wiped away the spilled soup, then lowered her hand, raised her head, and glanced at me.

I was eating a bun, and when I saw her, I handed her the half in my hand, but Shiloh shook her head.

I finished my bun and licked my fingers like Shiloh.

Shiloh suddenly asked:

"Why don't you kill me?"

Her voice was emotionless, as if she was saying something that was a matter of course.

I replied:

"Do you wish to die?"

Shiloh shook her head, with a hint of hesitation in her tone, and said softly:

"Now, I'm not sure. As for the past, it doesn't matter."

Hiro put his hands in his pockets, lowered his head, stared at an inconspicuous pebble at his feet, and added:

"Assassination, poisoning, gathering intelligence, and when necessary, exchanging lives for others'. My life is worthless, and being able to die for the organization is something I need to feel honored to do... That's what I was taught."

I didn't look at her. I put my hands in my sleeves to keep warm and asked:

"But you can tell good from evil."

Shiloh replied:

"There is no good or evil, only cold and warm."

I was very surprised that she could say such a thing, but then I thought it made sense. Good and evil are difficult to define. Those who trained her to be such a cold-blooded assassin since she was a child may not have pure malice. They may also hope that Shiloh can become a powerful assassin, and train her devilishly for this purpose. It really has nothing to do with good and evil, it's just cold-blooded.

I didn't answer the call.

Shiloh raised his head and asked again:

"Why don't you kill me?"

I asked back:

"You do not know?"

Shiloh looked away and said:

"I won't say anything."

After thinking for a while, he whispered:

"And I'll try to kill you. It won't help even if you're nice to me."

She seemed very unconfident when she said this.

That makes it kind of cute.

How should I put it? It's like you have a hamster and hold it in your hand. The hamster holds your finger and looks like it's going to bite you, but it won't really bite you. This analogy is not quite appropriate, because Hiro's assassinations were all serious. It's just that each time he was less serious than the last.

Even today, it was done with a hasty pass of the knife, so slow that I didn't even have time to hang a bun on it.

I replied:

"I won't ask you about yourself. Although I think I will know it one day, it certainly won't be from you. As for why I didn't kill you, just think of it as hypocrisy. Hypocrisy and sainthood are probably the only words that can describe this kind of existence... After all, I approached you with a purpose, and I didn't give you kindness without reason."

Shiloh whispered:

"You don't have to say that. Whether you are just being nice to me or you have some other purpose in approaching me, I can tell for myself... with these eyes."

Shiloh looked towards the street and added calmly:

"These eyes can see clearly the warmth and coldness of human nature and the right and wrong of society."

I didn't know what to say for a moment, I just felt that she was a little mature and it made me feel sorry for her.

After thinking about it, I smiled and said:

"Then just treat me as a scumbag."

Shiloh tilted his head, looked up at me, and asked:

"What is a scumbag?"

I explained:

"It's probably... well, how should I put it, it's like this."

I took off my coat and put it on Shiloh. Shiloh grabbed my coat and looked at me puzzledly.

I smiled and said:

"I have a guard named Alaiya. How should I put it? She grew up with me. Although her body is not well developed and her appearance is only above average, I just like her inexplicably and I will spoil her without thinking. But under the premise of Alaiya, I will still show my gentle side to you. Not to mention my various attentiveness to you, now I am hiding it from Alaiya and eating buns with you here early in the morning. This kind of situation is considered promiscuous, and people like me are scumbags."

Xi Luo nodded, indicating that he had memorized the word, and said:

"Then I will call you a scumbag from now on."

I'm a person with a thick skin like a city wall, so I won't care. I said indifferently:

"As you like."

Shiloh called out.

"Scumbag, man."

"Ah."

"Scumbag."

"Ok?"

"Scum... Never mind. What's the usual fate of someone like you?"

I scratched my head and said casually:

"It's hard to say. Some people are simply beheaded with a hatchet, and some die in all kinds of strange murder methods. For someone like me who is still a first-time offender, I shouldn't be killed so quickly. But in the future, I might be tied to a stake and burned while someone shouts 'Go to hell,'"

I wanted to make a joke to make her laugh. Unexpectedly, just as I finished speaking, Shiloh suddenly said loudly:

"no!"

I was startled by her sudden mood swings. When I looked at her again, I found that she had returned to her usual expression, except that her fists were still clenched tightly together. Her petite body was wrapped in my coat, trembling slightly.

After a while, she said in a low and somewhat arrogant voice:

"...No one can kill you except me."

47. There is someone else you should worry about

After parting with Shiloh, I thought for a long time and summoned Changqing again.

Changqing shaved his beard, changed into a neater set of clothes, and looked much younger. But his fierce appearance did not change. Considering the special nature of his identity, I did not go to the City Lord's Mansion to meet him, but made an appointment with him in an inconspicuous alley in the city.

When I saw Changqing, I asked straight to the point:

"Is there any way to check Shiloh's origins?"

Chang Qing held his hands together, and the thumb of his left hand kept stroking the chilblains on the back of his right hand, and whispered:

"It's difficult. We don't have our own pawns in the various territories, so we can't get any information. All the clues come from Xi Luo alone. As long as she doesn't say anything, there will be no way to investigate."

Just as I thought.

Chang Qing sighed, looked at me with a complicated expression, and said slowly:

"However, I have thought about it privately. Only those territories with absolutely top strength can cultivate a person who can reach the seventh level of the Secret Dao at the age of twelve or thirteen. The eldest son of the former Cangzhou lord was also such a young talent. In addition to his own talent and hard work, the treasures spent on him in the past ten years are worth more than 60,000 gold coins."

I was dumbfounded:

"Sixty thousand? Gold coins?! That's really a big deal."

Changqing said:

"You will gradually understand. For those high up in the world, they spend money like crazy every day and never finish it. They eat the best, wear the most expensive clothes, use the most luxurious things, play the most beautiful things, and live a life of debauchery and debauchery. Their money not only does not decrease, but it still increases every day. The world's wealth always gathers in the hands of those upper-class people at an extraordinary speed. People at the bottom can hardly even imagine how luxurious their lives are. When you reach that step, you will know that 60,000 gold coins are really nothing in their eyes. Besides, it is used on their own son, so it is not a big deal."

"and after?"

I asked.

Chang Qing replied with some emotion:

"Later? Alas... the realm bubble collapsed when going from the seventh to the eighth. After the sixth level, don't you have to go through tests at every level? The sixth level is to ask your heart, the seventh level is to ask for the truth, the eighth level is to travel around the world and go through thousands of dangers, the ninth level is to cleanse your marrow and remove your hair, to be reborn, and the tenth level is to be pierced with thousands of blades and fight the heavenly calamity alone. The son of the Lord of Cangzhou had a clear conscience and achieved success in asking for the truth, but because his life was too smooth, he didn't experience any hardships. When going from the seventh to the eighth level, he should have traveled around the world and gone through thousands of dangers, but he took a shortcut, his realm was completely ruined, and he vomited blood and died. I was there that day, and I was really moved. They say that practicing is like climbing a mountain. If you step on empty air, you will be doomed forever. In fact, it is true."

I thought about Alayya and felt that there was no need to worry too much.

My plan for Alayya is that if she wants to become stronger, I have my own way to make her the strongest human being. It may take a long time, but it doesn't matter. If she wants to stop and rest one day, she can stop wherever she wants, and I will never rush her.

Seeing that Changqing seemed to be hesitant to speak, I asked:

"What's wrong? Just say it if you have something to say."

Changqing smiled bitterly and said: