Chapter 30

Chapter 30

In an instant, Qiao Ying became the focus of every eye in the crowd. She stiffly tugged out a smile. “I mean no harm. Everyone, there’s no need to be nervous.”

That was what she said, but appearing so conspicuously at a time like this made it impossible for the others not to care.

When Old Madam saw Qiao Ying, she turned her head again and spotted the young man standing at the edge of the crowd, smiling as if none of this had anything to do with him. The crease between her brows deepened.

Previously, she had tried to tempt this man and woman with benefits, but they had both refused to help her. They had even mocked her between the lines. Yet now they had appeared here. Could they have come to cause trouble?

Old Madam glanced at Old Steward.

Old Steward hurriedly stepped forward and said, “Qiao Ying, even if you’re in a hurry to collect your wages, you don’t need to come out at a time like this. Go back for now. When the time comes, I’ll have someone send your wages to you.”

Qiao Ying said, “The Zhao family is wealthy and influential. Of course I’m not worried that I won’t get my wages. I stepped forward because I feel that accusing Miss Mu of being a demon without any solid evidence is far too rash.”

Mu Yunshu had never imagined that, even at a time like this, someone would still speak up for her. She looked at Qiao Ying, curiosity in her eyes, along with a trace of interest.

“You are merely a hired worker in our Zhao Manor. Don’t tell me you understand demons?” Old Madam seemed to have reached the end of her patience. She took two steps forward and said, “I’ve heard that when you were at Zhao Manor before, you had dealings with this evildoer as well. I do not know what sort of deep connection you have with her, but as an ordinary person, you may have been bewitched by a demon without even realizing it. I advise you to leave at once. Today’s matter is not something an ordinary person like you can meddle in.”

Who could deny that Old Madam was a good person?

Even at a moment like this, she was still kindly advising an innocent victim who had been deceived.

Qiao Ying smiled. “What Old Madam says truly makes sense. However, as far as I know, although Old Madam was born into a Demon-Hunting Clan, she had no talent for it. You are no more than an ordinary mortal with ordinary eyes, just like me. In that case, how can Old Madam be certain that your granddaughter-in-law is a Yaoguai? If this turns out to be a false conviction, what then?”

Old Madam’s expression shifted slightly.

Her implication had been that Qiao Ying was only an ordinary person, so she had no right to comment on matters involving demons and monsters. Qiao Ying had simply returned those words to her. Old Madam was also only an ordinary person. What right did she have to judge whether the person before her was human or Yaoguai?

Shen Qingyu lowered his head and said with a soft laugh to the person beside him who was watching the show, “She speaks in such an interesting way, doesn’t she?”

The little boy’s hand, which had been just about to reach toward Shen Qingyu and steal back the peanuts, froze. Stiffly, he lifted his head. When he saw Shen Qingyu’s gentle smile, he shuddered all over, then hurriedly spun around and ran off like a wisp of smoke.

The little boy hid behind a tree, poking his head out to secretly look at Shen Qingyu, his scalp tingling.

Wasn’t he unable to see?

Then how had this eerie man figured out that he was about to launch a sneak attack on him!?

Old Madam also realized she should not keep entangling herself in this. She needed to end things quickly. She said to Old Steward, “Don’t listen to her nonsense. Continue.”

Old Steward nodded and raised a hand, waving it.

Someone came over to drag Qiao Ying away.

Watching the two large men approach her, Qiao Ying retreated step by step and said, “I advise you not to touch me. I’m telling you, there isn’t no one behind me. If you dare lay a hand on me, you’ll end up miserable!”

The two men exchanged a glance and both laughed in disdain.

Qiao Ying was pretty. On her very first day working at Zhao Manor, she had drawn plenty of attention. Everyone in Zhao Manor knew her family was poor, which was why she had come out to work. And she even had a burdensome “elder brother” dragging her down, an absolute encumbrance.

They called him her “elder brother,” but who couldn’t guess that the two of them were really a pair of lovebirds who had run away from home?

No one knew what was so good about that strange-looking blind man. Qiao Ying simply refused to abandon him, as if she were the one who was blind.

Qiao Ying’s back suddenly bumped into a “wall.” She had nowhere left to retreat. At the same time, laughter drifted down from above her head, light and gentle, making even the air around them seem to come alive.
She lifted her head and saw a familiar face.

At some point, the young man who had pushed her out in front of everyone, as if turning her into their common enemy, had appeared soundlessly behind her. It was as though he had been waiting for her to stumble back in humiliation, only to retreat straight into his arms.

One of the young man’s hands rested on her shoulder. He was smiling, gentle and beautiful. “I advise you all to listen to her.”

When the two men saw that he was blind, they exchanged a look, contempt showing in both their eyes.

“A blind man should be leaning on his Blind Staff and staying quietly in some corner.”

“And yet he wants to play the hero and save the beauty? How laughable.”

Old Madam had seen what Shen Qingyu was capable of. If it had only been Qiao Ying stepping forward, that would have been one thing. But now that Shen Qingyu had come out as well, she sensed that something was wrong. Just as she was about to stop the two men from provoking Shen Qingyu, she felt a wave of killing intent sweep over them.

Clang-

The sharp, piercing sound of weapons colliding rang out.

The two men stared at the Blind Staff that had come within a hair’s breadth of gouging out their eyes. Though the Blind Staff had been stopped by a longsword, its chilling edge still rushed over them. Their eyes throbbed with pain, and both men collapsed to the ground in terror, unable to utter a single word.

The Qingshuang Sword in Xue Heting’s hand was a famed blade known throughout the world, a treasured sword that could cut through iron like mud and was unstoppable in its sharpness. Yet now, he had drawn it only to block an utterly ordinary ebony blind cane.

And that perfectly ordinary Blind Staff showed not the slightest sign of damage. In the young man’s hand, this most commonplace object had instead become the deadliest weapon in the world.

Xue Heting said, “Though they were disrespectful, their crimes do not warrant death. Young Master Shen, spare these two this once.”

Shen Qingyu slowly walked to stand in front of Qiao Ying. The corners of his lips lifted, and the smile he revealed was like the morning sun in April, warm and gentle.

“I don’t want to spare them. What are you going to do about it?”

The Qingshuang Sword began to tremble. It had sensed an unprecedented killing intent, one that stirred up the vicious resentment of the demons and monsters the Qingshuang Sword had accumulated over decades of slaying evil.

That resentment, in turn, affected the sword’s master. Xue Heting’s expression grew taut, blood vessels surfacing in his eyes. A murderous urge he could not suppress pounded wildly through him. For a moment, he felt an impulse-an impulse to fight the powerful enemy before him, no matter how rivers of blood might flow around them.

The smile at the corners of Shen Qingyu’s lips grew even more delighted and expectant. There was nothing more interesting than watching someone who prided himself on being righteous fall into becoming a murderous devil.

The cold wind howled. The air seemed to freeze into shards of ice. Everyone found it hard to breathe, pinned in place by that overwhelming pressure.

The Blind Staff in Shen Qingyu’s hand turned. Just as he was about to thrust it out again, someone suddenly sprang up and hugged his arm.

Almost all of Qiao Ying’s weight was hanging off him. She forced the corners of her mouth up unnaturally and flashed him a huge smile. “Shen Qingyu, actually, it’s a good thing for people to be cheerful and smile a lot. But sometimes, if you smile too much, you’ll get more wrinkles on your face.”

Shen Qingyu tilted his head slightly. “Wrinkles?”

Qiao Ying nodded solemnly. “That’s right. If you get too many wrinkles, you won’t look good anymore!”

Shen Qingyu fell silent.

Xue Heting was still on full alert when he suddenly saw the formidable enemy before him withdraw his hand. The killing intent that had blanketed everything around them vanished without a trace. The frozen air returned to normal, and the ordinary people finally managed to breathe again.

They saw the young man in green with white hair lightly touch his own cheek with his fingers, as if smoothing away wrinkles that did not exist on his skin. In a bewildered murmur, he said to himself,

“If this skin stops looking good, where should I go to find a nice new skin to replace it?”

He sank into distress. Before long, though, he seemed to remember something pleasant. He turned toward Qiao Ying, and those fingers fell on her face again.

“Qiao Ying, your skin is so soft. When the day comes that you dislike me for not looking good, I’ll peel it off, all right?”

Qiao Ying’s body stiffened. Silently, she let go of his arm and retreated several steps in a row.

“Not all right!”