Chapter 139 Kill Her
"Misunderstanding! It's all a misunderstanding!" Seeing that things were not going well, the bearded man with his neck being held down knelt down with a "plop" and begged for mercy with a mournful face.
"I was just joking! How could I really eat people? These children were picked up from the refugee camps; nobody wanted them. We just wanted to find them a good home, not kidnap them!"
The other burly men quickly echoed, sheathing their knives and putting on pitiful expressions.
"Yes! These are all children abandoned by their parents. We mean well and want to find them a way to survive!"
"We are also disaster victims. Our crops failed completely, and we had no other choice but to take this road!"
"Heroine, please spare us! We'll never do it again! We'll release the children right now and never do such a thing again!"
Chen Yanqing didn't believe a single word they said.
Just when he thought Li Yuanzhao would kill the man on the spot, she slowly moved the knife away from the bearded man's neck.
The bearded man was taken aback at first, then his eyes suddenly lit up with wild joy, thinking that the other party was ultimately wary of their numbers and had chosen to back down.
He lunged forward a few steps, creating distance, his fear instantly replaced by a ferocious rage. He roared at his accomplices, "What are you all standing there for? Get her! Kill her!"
However, before he could finish speaking, a cold light shot out from behind him!
All that was heard was a muffled "thud" as the broadsword that Li Yuanzhao had just taken pierced straight through his heart from behind.
The sharp blade pierced through the chest, scalding blood splattering onto the ground, spreading a blinding red across the dust.
The burly man's roar abruptly ceased. He looked down in disbelief, watching blood gush out from the cold blade, soaking his coarse cloth clothes.
He opened his mouth, as if to say something more, but in the end his eyes widened, his body fell heavily backward, and he crashed to the ground with a thud, completely lifeless.
Upon seeing this, the other burly men turned pale with fright, and the weapons in their hands began to tremble slightly.
They were indeed disaster victims, but they usually relied on their numbers to rob and commit crimes. At most, they would only kill women, children, the elderly, the weak, and the disabled. They had never seen such a clean and efficient way of killing people.
"What are you afraid of!" The man named Ah Hu tried to appear calm, gripping his knife tightly, and shouted to his companions, "There are only two of them, and there are six of us! If we all attack together, surely we can kill them?!"
But after he shouted, no one dared to step forward. All eyes were on Li Yuanzhao.
Li Yuanzhao remained seated steadily on the broken-legged stool, not even glancing at them. He simply took out a plain handkerchief from his robes and slowly wiped his fingers, which had been gripping the knife.
After wiping her fingertips clean, she looked up at Chen Yanqing and said, "Take care of the rest."
Chen Yanqing could no longer contain his anger. When he saw the dying children in the bag, he wished he could tear these scumbags to pieces.
Upon receiving the order, his eyes sharpened, he gripped the short knife in his hand, and charged forward.
Those bandits were already terrified, how could they be a match for Chen Yanqing, who had practiced martial arts for many years?
In a short while, several short screams rang out in the dilapidated temple, then silence returned, with only the crackling of the flames in the hearth reflecting the gradually congealing bloodstains and the haphazardly laid corpses on the ground.
He walked to Li Yuanzhao's side and whispered, "Your Highness, it's all taken care of."
Li Yuanzhao ignored the corpses on the ground and instead focused his gaze on the group of children huddled together in the corner.
Chen Yanqing then realized that the flashing blades and blood during the attack must have terrified the children.
He quickly sheathed his dagger and was about to step forward to comfort the children.
But the little girls, who had been biting their lips and looking terrified just moments before, slowly lost their fear as they gazed at the robber's corpse on the ground, and their eyes were replaced by an almost shimmering light.
The little girl who was rescued first, with bruises still on her face, tremblingly raised her little hand and clapped twice.
"They...they are bad people..." the little girl, who looked to be no more than ten years old, said timidly, "They were the ones who took me away from my mother yesterday..."
Another child, also crying, added: "They hit me and said they were going to sell me to the masters who eat meat..."
Chen Yanqing then realized that the children were not frightened at all; they had clearly recognized these robbers as evil people and were happy to see them eliminated.
His heart softened, and he squatted down, saying, "Don't be afraid, no one will bully you anymore."
He then got up and searched the bodies of the robbers, and sure enough, he found a lot of dry food in the cloth bags at their waists.
He quickly broke the dry food into small pieces, and carefully fed it to the young children with water.
While the children were eating, Chen Yanqing carefully counted the number of people.
The two children had stopped breathing; their faces were pale and stiff. They must have been frightened during the abduction and, lacking water and food, had not survived.
Four survived.
The oldest girl was about ten years old, the next oldest was an eight-year-old girl, and the other two were toddlers under five years old, timidly huddled next to the older children.
They were all robbed from nearby villages; their parents had been killed by this group.
Seeing this, Chen Yanqing turned to Li Yuanzhao and whispered, "Your Highness, these children have lost their families. What should we do next?"
Li Yuanzhao remained silent.
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