Chapter 47 Getting to Know Rongnuan for the First Time

The stars were amazing.

It was said that each star had a wish inside, which had different colors for different names. The countless wishes were carefully hidden in the bright stars high up in the sky.

All the people knew how their stars looked like, except her. It was funny that she even did not know where it was.

The others could not see those stars and the complex emotions during the daytime, but Ronghua could. She could see each one clearly since she was a kid, and she could even control them if she wished.

After leaving the farmyard, Ronghua followed the way that Lingxi had gone passed. It was not the direction towards the Realm of Demons or the Realm of Monsters, but close to the Realm of Gods. What was the place this child wanted to visit?

Inferring from the fluctuation of spiritual power, Lingxi should be fine now, but Ronghua was in a jam. The mountain right ahead of her was big trouble to her.

The shortest route to catch up Lingxi was to cross this hill. However, someone at the foot of it told her, “It was cursed by the ancestor of the mountain. All the volitant stuff or skills are useless here, and the only way to get across is on foot. It will be better if you have a contractual monster.” Did she look like the one had a contractual monster to ride?

She was also told, “There are quite a lot of things to hunt in this mountain, and it was the shortcut to Qianjiang City. The only drawback is the forbiddance of flying. You can get over within one day with flying but more than three days for walking.”

Ronghua was speechless for the rule. She had to spend three or four days, just walking. She even wanted to wake the one who made this curse to ask for the damn reason. Why did you forbid others to fly just because you could not? Had you thought about the feeling of others?

Ronghua still began to climb step by step as she complained. It would not be very urgent since Lingxi was not in trouble. Also, it was not a wise choice to detour because it might take a longer time, like a week or more. It would be unlikelier for her to get to the place halfway if Lingxi were in danger, so she had no other choice.

Perhaps the curse had discouraged many people from practicing or collecting herbs at this place. Passengers like Ronghua were hard to be seen. She only met a few villagers who lived at the foot of the mountain.

It was hard to meet someone rude to bother her under such circumstances, but she still met one.

She did not mean to interfere in this sort of business, but that man was so disgusting.

She was hiking among this mountain range and walked past a group of people who were beating and scolding someone. According to their humiliating words, the beaten one should be a drug slave.

People loved to raise drug slaves in these years, who were used to test the drugs. Ordinary people could not be a drug slave because they do not have a unique corporeity. The alchemists cherished drug slaves a lot for their abilities. They could not only test the drug effect but also collect the herbs. Besides, they did not have cultivation, which meant it was easy to control them. In conclusion, they were cheap and useful.

Therefore, this hard-beaten drug slave might have been abandoned by his master. After all, a drug slave had a service life due to their abilities.

Drug slaves were bound to have no cultivation all over his life, so they did not have the force to protect themselves. The outcome of an abandoned drug slave was clear to see.

“Beggar, hand it over! Otherwise, I will beat you to death!” A rough-looking male scolded and pounded and kicked him, full of scorn on his face. A drug slave was as weak as a normal human without any spiritual power, and that man did not seem to reduce any force on his fist. The fist of a cultivated man could be as massive as clashing on the iron, even not using any spiritual power.

Sieged by three cultivated people, the drug slave who huddled on the ground was out of a human shape. Blood was all over his body, and Ronghua could see chains around his hands and feet indistinctly. It seemed that his master did not even spare any time to unlock the chains before throwing him away like garbage.

A slave who was fettered was too clumsy to run. He was so pitiful.

“Give it to me, or you will suffer more.” Another one kicked him. The drug slave moved once for pain and then was motionless again.

Was he dying?

“Don’t pretend to be the dead. Give us the drug. Quickly.”

They continued their violence as getting no response. No one paid attention to the slave’s bad condition, and their attacks showed no mercy.

After a while, one of the bullies was tired. He wept the sweat on his head away and spat at the drug slave, “Fuck. This bastard was so stubborn. He didn’t loosen his hand, no matter how hard we beat him.”

The man with a blade in hand lost his patience, “I would have killed him with this blade if my spiritual power were not restrained here.”

“Bro, how about cut his hand and take it?”

The man with the blade stroke him, “Stupid! He must be someone’s drug slave and be left here. If they came back for him and found we killed him, we would lose our lives!”

The man with a hook kneaded the place where he was stricken and echoed immediately, “Yes, yes, yes. You are right.”

“What’s more…” The man with a blade fumbled his jaw with hand, “His skin looked white and tender. It should be fun to conquer him.”

Then the other two men showed a look like the hungry wolf saw the meat. They might have imagined many postures in mind.

This might go beyond Ronghua’s tolerance. Were they going to rape that boy?

Suddenly, she saw the head of that drug slave moved a little. Then she saw his eyes and the emotions behind due to her squat.

There were unwillingness, despair, and pain, but no desire for survival.

Were you very disinclined to be trodden?

Somehow, Ronghua found he was looking at her now.

She felt a bit embarrassed because she watched what he had experienced and did not help. It was not her fault to stand by, but somehow, she felt guilty under his gaze. She intended to move backward and leave.

The man with a blade raised the drug slaver’s head by dragging his hair, “Not dead yet. You have a strong life. That’s good. I don’t like to play on a dead body.”

Then he turned the slave over to let him face the ground, but the drug slave just kept staring at Ronghua, making her hard to move. She was so hesitant.

Those three men smirked and tore the drug slave’s clothes apart rudely. The white body was exposed to the air. His skin was delicate, owing to the nourishment of various medicines since he was a child.

Three men looked at his body and had saliva in their mouths.

“People like you are born to be sold to the brothel, and let thousands of men ride on you.”

“Look at his face. Let’s sell him to the brothel when we finished. He should worth some coins.” they laughed.

“It’s a good idea, bro.”

Ronghua was disgusted by their words. They were even worse than the beasts. The drug slave was still looking at her, pleading. She was moved.

She could ignore all this and go away, but what they said sounded quite uncomfortable.

“Stop it!” Ronghua walked out, flicking away the leaves. She behaved naturally, not like someone hiding for a long time.

They stopped to look back, and then their eyes could not move away from Ronghua for her beauty. Compared with this slave, they preferred to rape Ronghua.

They suddenly had a tactic agreement and looked at Ronghua with the desire to take off all her clothes.

“Little beauty, are you lost in this wild countryside? I can help you!”

Then they approached Ronghua with an ill-disposed grin. Ronghua was not panicked and replied with a mild smile, “What did my drug slave do to you made you three treat him like that?”

She said that was her drug slave!

Those three men stopped approaching and was stunned for a moment. Her drug slave? Did he belong to her?

The man with a blade was an experienced person, who was not easy to cheat, and he asked fiercely, “Do you have any proof? I can also say he’s my drug slave.”

Hearing that, the other two men finally understood. She suddenly appeared and said the boy was hers. Would she even say that the whole mountain belonged to her as well?

“Oh, you don’t believe me.” Ronghua snapped her fingers, and the fire of nothingness lit in her hand at once.

The temperature of the fire of nothingness was extremely high, and they could even feel the heat at a distance. It was not for joking.

She had a spiritual fire. Was she an alchemist? The man with a blade swallowed and felt their good life might end.

Ronghua stepped closer, with the fire burning fiercely in her hand, “I just asked him to wait here and then left to search for something. Why did you bully him like this during this period?”

They retreated as Ronghua approaching.

It was apparent that they began to believe her words. They were so stupid to neglect the point. The one who could raise a drug slave must be rich! Regardless of wealth, only an alchemist had the ability to train the slave. Besides, people would seldom come to climb this mountain due to its peculiarity, and the one dare to come must have high cultivation. Their spiritual power was suppressed here, but it did not mean that the power of an alchemist was gone as well. How simple it was to make a power-liberation pill for an alchemist!

“Miss… miss, we…”

They felt challenging to organize their sentence and find a reasonable excuse.

Ronghua had no patience for them.

“Ma… madam, we did not recognize your Honor. Please blame us. It’s all our fault. We should not treat your drug slave in that wicked way. We… we….”

Ronghua looked down at them and then walked past directly. She looked at the drug slave who was still lying on the earth. His clothes were all in red and tattered. Ronghua sighed and took out a big fur coat from her storage space to cover his body. Then she took an elixir to heal him.

The men felt more worried and scared when they saw her mild and kind attitudes towards that boy.

They looked at each other and conveyed a message in their eyes, “Run!”

Quicker than words can tell, they started to run. However, Ronghua sneered and picked a few leaves to shoot at them, without looking back.

Then their screams came.

“My hands…”

“My legs…”

“Hand…ah! My, my hands.”

They did not know whether it was a coincidence or not. The places they were hit were the hands or the legs they used to beat the boy.

“This is a lesson for you. Remember that not anyone is bound to be abused by you.”

Then she helped the drug slave to stand. The boy looked at her calmly, with blood on his face, but his eyes were shining like stars.

Ronghua scanned his face and felt a bit familiar, but she could not recall where she had seen a similar look.

The boy took an herb, which was almost wilted, out of his clothes. It was the Imperial Bloodweed.

“Are you giving it to me?”

He nodded, while Ronghua rejected with a smile, “You reserved it with your life, so keep it for yourself!”

He shook his head, “It’s useless to me.” Ronghua thought he had a pretty voice.

“It will be useful later.”

He was still unwilling to keep the herb, “I use this to exchange for staying beside you.”

Ronghua was astonished for a moment and then asked for uncertain, “You… you want to follow me?”

They had just met for the first time. Was he too enthusiastic to me?

But he answered firmly, “You can protect me.”

Ronghua was a little wordless. She could not even defend herself well. How could she protect him?

“No!” Ronghua strongly disagreed. How could he ask to stay with her just with a herb? She had dozens of it in her space.

He had a lower mood, “… I have nowhere to go.” Then he looked at those men, which showed a strong hint. If he were abandoned and met such kind of person again, he would die definitely.

Ronghua sighed, “There will be nothing good for you to follow me, and you may face more dangers than now. Are you sure?”

He seemed to see the hope and nodded again immediately, “I’m sure!”

Ronghua could understand his emotions. He had been disappointed for such a long time that he would not let any hopeful chance go when he met one. However, she was not a kind person as he imagined!

“What’s your name?”

He looked up at her and forced his lips to a line, and Ronghua found his expression looked nice unexpectedly, “I have no name.”

“No name?”

He nodded. Some masters would feel troublesome to name a drug slave.

“Then… I’ll give you one!… Well, a voice like a song for the spring, and a face makes people feel the warmth of the spring. You will take my surname Rong, and your name is Rongnuan. Nuan means I want you will never suffer the apathy from this world anymore and could feel warm for the rest of your life.”

He echoed, “Rongnuan. My…my name.”

Looking at Ronghua’s smile, he finally had a grin on his face, which had gone missing for a long time.

Ronghua was amazed by his beautiful face and was stunned again.