Xue Lian grabbed the dice up from the ground, shaking it and then rolled it to the old woman's side. It landed on six. "You have two minutes to say six idioms that relate to this situation."
The old woman gasped as the hour glass began to count and she turned around watching me as I say in despair. About to talk, she couldn't feel her tongue! Her words were stuck in her throat.
"Xue Lian? What did you do?" My face coldened realizing that Xue Lian had just tongue tied the woman as soon as she rolled the dice.
That was cheating! Xue Lian was playing dirty!
"Will you allow me to enjoy the fun?" She shrugged the questions off her shoulders. She twirled the dagger in her fingers like it was a toy, not a murder weapon, and walked a slow circle around us.
Five
Four
Three
Two
One
"Time is Up!" Xue Lian's voice was loud and clear. She stood up from the ground, walking towards the coward and shaking woman at the corner. "You lost woman. Your life now..."
Before Xue Lian could sent the dagger straight into her head, she cried out, rushing over to the girl. "Take her! Take her away! I can't afford to die. I still have a life waiting for me."
I was stunned to see the old lady giving off her daughter just because of death. The little girl was already shivering with tears crawling down her face.
"Xue Lian, it's enough. It's enough...." I whispered, crawling to her side to stop her but on getting closer enough, Xue Lian had already passed the dagger through the small little girl's head.
Her body fell coldly to the ground causing a loud crash.
"I think this is goodbye as well." She smiled, picking up the dagger mercilessly from the girl's head and passing it through the old woman's chest. Her body fell to the ground with a large thud accompanied by the spew of blood.
"Let's go, Lin Xi. I'm bored." Xue Lian yawned, packing up the gold on the ground and then taking the little supplies they had stored up in the shed outside the little hut.
I still didn't believe how ruthless Xue Lian was and for a brief moment, my body felt extremely cold to core. I was wrong, there was really something wrong about Xue Lian!
Like she hadn't just murdered a child.
"Don't fall behind, Lin Xi," she called lightly, not even glancing back. "We still have a long way to go before dawn."
Her tone was too casual, too light—it twisted something in my stomach. I clenched my fists at my sides. "You didn't have to kill the girl," I said, my voice barely above a whisper.
She stopped.
The wind sighed through the trees. Slowly, she turned to face me, her black eyes glinting under the faint moonlight.
"No?" she murmured. "And who, pray tell, should I have killed instead? The liar? The coward who offered her own daughter like a sack of rice?"
"She was scared!" I shouted. "Terrified—anyone would have—"
"She made a choice," Xue Lian snapped. "And choices have consequences."I looked back at the hut. The faint glow of the lantern inside flickered once, then died. It felt like a grave now—like the forest had just swallowed two more souls.
And we were walking away.
Like it meant nothing.
'What are we even doing?' I thought bitterly.
Was this journey really about survival anymore… or was I just trailing behind a monster?
Xue Lian paused in her footsteps, turning backwards to face me. "You should understand that this is not your timeline. 2.5 inches from where they set up that fire, I saw an inscription. They had long gone been dead in their souls before I killed them. Not every smiling person is good, Lin Xi."
"I...."
Okay, no matter how much she tried to explain it to me, that is just evil and not surviving!
"I… I can't justify that, Xue Lian," I said, my voice trembling. "That wasn't survival. That was cruelty."
She looked at me, long and hard. Not angry. Not offended. Just… silent. Then her lips curved—not into a smirk, not quite a smile either. Something in between, something unsettling.
"You're still new to this place," she said. "You still think there's a line between good and evil. That's sweet, really." Her voice was soft, almost kind. And that made it worse.
*********
The sun has set and we found out way back into my chamber. I pulled off the hood from my body, hung it above the door and fell into bed. As for Xue Lian, she went back to the table, scribbling something down. "Take your rest, the Shen Family will be asked to be present at Feigyin Pavilion."
"What next?"
"To discuss the next movement of what to do during the famine. The ministers will be there too especially Zhou Chang, present this to the emperor before he comes out. Tell him the betrayal Zhou Chang had set up."
"What are you up to, Xue Lian?" I voiced our, getting chills from what Xue Lian had said. This person wasn't just so simple to be tagged as a system guardian.
Xue Lian didn't answer me immediately. Her brush moved swiftly across the parchment.
"I'm up to what must be done, Lin Xi."
My hands curled into fists again. "That's not an answer."
"No," she murmured, setting the brush down, "it's the only answer you'll get for now."
I stared at her, the dull glow of the lantern casting half of her face in shadow. For someone who had just killed a child without a second thought, she looked strangely at peace—like someone who believed she was doing the right thing. That frightened me more than anything.
She stood and walked over, placing the rolled scroll into my hands.
"Deliver it before dawn. Make sure no one else sees it."
"How do you expect me to deliver something to the emperor when I have more enemies after my life?"
"Jia Lin, you are going to disguise as her. And for the real one, I will keep her busy so she doesn't interrupt my plan this time around. I can't have pest running around."
I gnashed my teeth and stumbled back into bed while Xue Lian packed some stuff into a paper bag and tossed it over to me. "You breakfast for the day."
"Hm..." I scoffed, opening it up to find a fresh roasted chunk of meat. I took a bite out of it and when something came up, I stopped. "Don't tell me it's that old lady and girl's flesh this is?"
"Oh please, I might be ruthless but I ain't a cannibal. I found a cattle tied up in a farmers shed and hunted it down. If you want both of us to be at good odds, start thinking well of me!"