Her head was spinning, her mind a jumbled mess. Xia Linyin frowned deeply. What should she do? What should she do?
"Sister, you're sweating a lot." Xiao Li wiped Xia Linyin's cheek with her sleeve.
Xia Linyin trembled and avoided Xiao Li's touch. Xiao Li's hand was raised in mid-air, and the sleeve slid down his arm, revealing a strip of cloth stained with blood inside.
Meeting Xiao Li's gaze, Xia Linyin quickly changed the subject, saying, "How did you hurt your wrist? Let me re-bandage it for you."
“Okay, sister.” Xiao Li extended her hand to Xia Linyin, her dark eyes fixed on Xia Linyin’s face.
Xia Linyin untied the strips of cloth wrapped around his arm, revealing a series of new and old wounds on his thin, pale arm. Some had healed, while others were raw and bleeding.
With trembling fingertips, Xia Linyin touched the already healed, hideous scar. Feeling the arm in her hand flinch, she quickly tore off a piece of clean cloth and gently bandaged Xiao Li's wound.
"Sister, it hurts~"
Her seemingly coquettish tone made Xia Linyin's movements even gentler. She blew on Xiao Li's arm and said, "Sister will blow on it and it won't hurt anymore."
"Hmm! Cough cough cough cough—" came the sound of the fat man coughing.
Xia Linyin quickly released Xiao Li's arm. She tilted her head back, blinked to force back her tears, took a deep breath, and turned to look at Xiao Li, only to be met with Xiao Li's smile.
Her pale pink lips curved into a happy smile, revealing a few snow-white teeth. Xia Linyin then realized that Xiao Li also had a particularly cute little tiger tooth.
At that moment, those calm, still eyes seemed to be sprinkled with stars, sparkling and radiant.
The smile, like that of an angel, was incredibly healing, but Xia Linyin's heart ached at the sight of Xiao Li's smile. What an innocent and lovely smile! This child had finally managed to smile again, so why? Why be so cruel!
"I really enjoy seeing your distressed expression, sister," Xiao Li said shyly.
He looked up at Ah Xiang, who was joking with King Wuhou on the dragon throne, and slowly wiped the smile off his face.
“I am not the village chief’s son, and she is not my sister. My father was killed by wild animals while hunting in the mountains when I was very young. My mother became a widow in the village. Later, someone said that my mother seduced another man, and then my mother was drowned in a pig cage.”
"The village chief took me in as his son, sister, do you know why?"
"He said he felt sorry for me and wanted to take me in as his godson, to treat me as his own son..." Xiao Li laughed self-deprecatingly.
“I am a Yin person born in a Yin year, Yin month, and Yin hour. The village chief has cultivated a secret technique that can prolong life, using my blood as a medicinal ingredient. The villagers see that he is young and never gets old, and they all think that he has received a blessing from the King of Wu.”
"Perhaps someone discovered the truth, but no one dared to resist him. Who would be willing to help a useless person who has no parents, is paralyzed on one side, and can only sit in a wheelchair and have their blood cut?"
“My blood is becoming less and less useful to him. This time he obtained five hundred years of power from the thousand-year-old female zombie, and his daughter married the Marquis of Wu as his queen. I, his son, have finally lost my value.”
"Don't say it, don't say it, Xiao Li." Xia Linyin hugged Xiao Li tightly, resting her chin on his head, her eyes red.
"Sister, what was that on your palm just now?" Xiao Li suddenly asked.
Xia Linyin stiffened, seemingly unaware of her stiffness. Xiao Li hugged Xia Linyin tightly and whispered in her ear, "Dear player, although you completed the mission, the damage to the goods caused a deviation in the mission, so you are not a qualified escort. But don't worry, you have another chance. The side quest has been opened."
"Player's Quest - Kill the village chief's son, Xiao Li."
Xia Linyin's eyes widened, she released her arms from Xiao Li and looked at him in disbelief.
"My sister's shocked expression is so cute, I love her so much."
Xiao Li affectionately hugged Xia Linyin and rubbed against her, as if she were hugging her favorite plush toy.
"Sister, do you like listening to stories? Let me tell you a secret."
"Once upon a time, there was a mountain, and at the foot of the mountain was a village called Tomb Keeper Village. One day, a group of bodyguards came to the village. They wanted to take a thousand-year-old female zombie into the tomb to be a concubine of King Wuhou. Unfortunately, the village chief destroyed the female zombie, so they had to use the village chief's daughter in place of the female zombie. The village chief's son was also taken into the tomb by them. When the female ghost in the tomb chased after them, they all ran and ran for their lives, forgetting that there was a child sitting in a wheelchair behind them. Then the child was killed by the female ghost."
"Later, the child discovered that he had come back to life, and time had returned to the day before he died. He thought that God had given him a chance to live again. The next day, just like in his previous life, a group of bodyguards came to the village to take the thousand-year-old female zombie into the tomb of Zhuge Liang. However, apart from the matchmaker, the bodyguards were all replaced."
"This time, the child was bitten to death by a corpse beetle in the tomb, and his body was completely destroyed, but he actually came back to life."
"He was afraid, he was terrified, and he didn't want to be like the previous two lives. So he killed himself, cutting a deep gash in his wrist to drain the blood from his body. Then he woke up again, and time went back to before he killed himself, and everything was as if it had never happened."
"No matter how he kills himself, everything will return to the same moment. He experiences different ways of dying over and over again. Sometimes he survives in the tomb by chance, but he will be killed in various ways by the returning镖师 (bodyguards/escorts)."
"He didn't understand why those bodyguards wanted to kill him. He felt that he must be under a curse, a curse called reincarnation. He asked God again and again what he had done wrong to be burdened with this curse."
"Unable to live or die, trapped in this curse he could not escape. He resigned himself to his fate and gradually became numb. But there was one thing he could never understand: why were the镖师 (bodyguards/escorts) different in each reincarnation?"
"Later, he finally found out! It turned out that these bodyguards were so-called players, they were playing a horror game, and he was just a character in the game, an NPC in the players' eyes!"
"He felt that the truth was more cruel than the curse! It was too ridiculous and too pathetic! Sometimes he didn't know whether he was happier or the village chief who knew nothing. Whether it was the village chief, Ah Xiang, Matchmaker Li, or King Wu, they were all just NPCs."
"He was fortunate to retain his memory, to know the truth, and to bear the pain."
“This is such a sad story, isn’t it, sister…”
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
