The carriage was speeding along at a moderate pace – as fast as three horses could get you going, anyways. Both Su Yanran and Su Qingcheng were asleep, and if anyone were around to see it, it would actually be considered something of an adorable sight. As Su Yanran fell asleep first, the bored girl ended up deciding to catch up on some rest before entering Bailing City. Unfortunately, of all the days for something to happen, it had to be today when these two girls were on their trip. The carriage eventually started shaking furiously, which woke up both Su Yanran and Su Qingcheng. The former took a lot longer to wake up than Su Qingcheng did, who immediately bolted up awake.

“What’s going on?”

Su Qingcheng peeped out of the window and immediately frowned. The people manning the horses had already been either killed or incapacitated except for one of them who seemed to be somehow strong enough to hold his own. He was either not simple or was just as abnormal as she was. However, Su Qingcheng casually hopped out of the cabin and noticed that they had been besieged upon by a handful of roadside bandits. Clearly they knew the routes to Bailing City and knew travelers would increase by a notch due to the White Spirit Competition.

Upon Su Qingcheng’s entrance, the bandits all looked at the cabin and then looked towards her. As Su Qingcheng was very young, her youthful looks seemed to instill them with some kind of hungry feeling. However, this was quickly put aside when Su Qingcheng glared at them as if trying to drill daggers into their hearts. She then went over to the lone carriage guy still breathing properly. “What happened?”

“They think we were carrying cargo in the back.”

Su Qingcheng looked to face the bandits. “We have nothing for you to take. Leave us alone or don’t blame me if things get out of hand.”

One of the bandits spat on the ground and then looked at the fourteen year old girl as if she were an idiot. “Hahahaha. You aren’t in a room to make any demands, lass. Besides, what do you think can stop us from taking you and whatever’s in the back to have some fun, huh? I’m sure you’ll have a lot of fun, too!”

Su Qingcheng grimaced. “Disgusting. You may as well do the deed with a corpse instead,” she scowled. Su Yanran soon followed Su Qingcheng out from behind her, causing the bandits to almost faint from what they just saw. Compared to Su Qingcheng who was just a pretty kid, Su Yanran was much more mature and developed than she was. Obviously, this group of sickos were more into Su Yanran than Su Qingcheng. Noticing the exaggerated reaction when Su Qingcheng turned to face Su Yanran, the former didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Quickly she regained her composure and quickly took note of the situation. There were about five bandits present but she didn’t know if anybody was concealing their presence or not.

Incidentally, Yao Meiyue was either asleep or deliberately said nothing, as if wanting Su Qingcheng to figure this out on her own. There was no time to communicate either as Su Yanran stood next to Su Qingcheng and protectively hold her. She finally opened her mouth to speak. “Idiots. My heart is already taken by this cute brat right here,” Su Yanran laughed, causing Su Qingcheng’s lips to twitch a little. What? You’re joking, right? I know you’re my sister, but isn’t this taking it a bit too far? This is just a joke, right?

“We really don’t have anything to give you,” Su Yanran added. “If you insist on holding us up, we can only resolve this the hard way.” She cracked her knuckles as she stood a distance from Su Qingcheng who was in a daze. By the time Su Qingcheng calmed herself down, Su Yanran had already let her tianqi emit ferociously in the area. Su Qingcheng could immediately tell it was an intense mixture of earth and metal tianqi. She could also hear the soft humming of a dragon even though there was no actual dragon, meaning that Su Yanran’s tianqi originated from a kind of dragon earth divination method.

Su Qingcheng was inwardly impressed. Though her talent was monstrous, her own power level couldn’t actually compare to Su Yanran who was older than her and by far more experienced. Su Qingcheng felt she couldn’t be undone, so she stood next to Su Yanran also and prepared herself, letting the Nightflower Tianqi roil up in her veins. Looking imposingly at the bandits, she smiled faintly. “Let us go or you will really regret it.”

The bandits couldn’t stand being threatened by a pair of girls anymore. He issued the command and at once the group of five charged forth at the Su sisters. The carriage driver who was still awake took this opportunity to move the unconscious riders to the cabin. Su Qingcheng stood her ground getting into her Black Hole Stance and inviting the bandits to strike her while Su Yanran already made her move, deftly maneuvering through the straightforward strikes of the bandits, all of whom were wielding a bladed implement like a dagger or sword. Su Qingcheng dared not to be distracted by her sister’s movements, which flowed like water and easily evaded the basic and elementary slashes and strikes of the roadside bandits. Instead, Su Qingcheng focused on two who were interested in cutting her up. One of the bandits in the back roared out. “Don’t kill them! If you have to, cut, but no killing! We can take them and sell them as slaves! Haha!!!”

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Su Qingcheng’s eyes narrowed as she soon felt a presence behind her about to cut her in the back. Whoosh, Su Qingcheng suddenly reacted before the blade could touch her back as she twisted in a nearly unnatural fashion, clasping the blade in front of her with her two palms, driving it deliberately past her own body and threatening the bandit in front of her who was delighted that Su Qingcheng seemingly exposed her front side. Unfortunately it was too late and Su Qingcheng had already made the sneak attacker injure his own buddy. While both men were in shock, Su Qingcheng shifted her weight backwards, causing the momentum of the sneak attacker to leak forward and make him fall flat on his face. Then, Su Qingcheng immediately swung her legs forward and switched to Night Lily Stance, enveloping her fist with Nightflower Tianqi and driving it into the stomach of the other attacker. “Hah! Take this!” Su Qingcheng roared out as the force of her punch was enough to knock the guy a fair ways back.

While Su Qingcheng was dealing with two of the bandits, Su Yanran was running circles around the other three, who struggled to do anything with their swords, so they kept them and attempted to catch her instead. With one of them attempting to restrain her, it wouldn’t be difficult for the other two to pummel her in submission. However, how would Su Yanran just stand around and let them do as they pleased? Soon, her tianqi boiled up and focusing inwards, she stomped on the ground suddenly and emitted a dragon’s roar from her throat, causing her assailants to be momentarily stunned. “Dragoneer’s Fist!! Gold Strike!!” Su Yanran leapt forward and drove her now golden fist into one of the attacker’s face, driving him head-first into the ground and causing a small impact crater to emerge. By the time the other two guys who surrounded her saw what happened, they had already involuntarily stepped back.

“We’re the Ghost Bandits, if you kill us, we’ll chase you down!” one of the so-called Ghost Bandits resorted to threatening Su Yanran with words instead once they realized that Su Yanran had immediately subdued one of them with a simple punch to the face. Su Qingcheng herself took a bit longer, but by expertly switching between her two stances, she was able to throw them off and enervate them to the extent that they fainted.

“Humph, you attacked us, killed some of our own men, and now you want to leave?” Su Qingcheng spoke scathingly towards the bandits. “Do you think that’s so simple?”

“ENOUGH!”

A roaring voice emerged. Su Qingcheng heard it from above, so she turned her head up and saw an imposing man stand on top of a tree with perfect balance. He immediately jumped off it and landed in front of the bandit group, staring at Su Qingcheng and Su Yanran.

“Stand down, men.” The man sighed. “You guys are useless. Can’t even kidnap a bunch of young girls…”

The bandits who were still conscious felt embarrassed.

“Master Shi, our apologies. We underestimated them.”

Upon further inspection, the look on the so-called Master Shi’s face warped into one of pleasant surprise. “I see. It’s because we happened upon the pair of daughters from Tang Gu City’s Su clan. If I’m not mistaken, you two must be Su Yanran and Su Qingcheng… right?”

Su Yanran opened her mouth to speak, but Su Qingcheng stopped her. Su Yanran didn’t mind being stopped, as inwardly she felt Su Qingcheng could speak better under pressure than she could.

“Are you the leader of this ragtag Ghost Bandits?” Su Qingcheng asked, wary about why such a powerful guy would show up. She estimated that at minimum, this Master Shi’s power would be at the highest rank of Tianqi Prince, but he was most likely stronger than this. This was just an initial estimate. Su Qingcheng felt that with Su Yanran’s help they could take him down, but if he had some aces up his sleeve…

“I guess you could say that. I had instructed this bunch of wastes to attack some guys on the road to Bailing City but they took way too long to come back so I wanted to check on them. Luckily for me, I met you two lovely women. Imagine if I can take you back. I know a bunch of lovely women who would love you two to bits!” Master Shi grinned.

Su Qingcheng’s mouth twitched. Evidently, this Master Shi figure had lots of connections otherwise how would he know that Su Qingcheng didn’t really like men as much as she liked women? Unlike his subordinates, Master Shi seemed to know a lot more about the world. Actually, if Master Shi wasn’t such a guy who would lead a bunch of bandits, Su Qingcheng wouldn’t have minded to get to know him better. However, this was the reality.

“Shut up,” Su Qingcheng roared back, causing the bandits to glare at her ruthlessly. Master Shi stopped them though and he looked calm despite the fact in his life a girl never spoke back to him in this way, let alone a fourteen year old girl. Su Yanran shuddered as she felt something was very, very wrong. “What’s your end-game here?!”

Master Shi simply laughed. He swung his right arm forward, exposing a green ring on one of his right fingers. Vines immediately lashed out from them and constricted Su Qingcheng in place. Then, without doing anything, he slowly walked towards Su Yanran. Su Qingcheng grunted as she tried to squirm out of the vines, but she was inwardly alarmed to discover that the vines restricted her flow of Tianqi. Not good. Yao Meiyue’s voice finally emerged into her head. These are Darkwood Vines. As you discovered, they will restrict movement and tianqi flow in your body. No matter how strong Nightflower Tianqi is, it won’t work if you can’t circulate it! Su Yanran is in danger!

“Sis Yanran!!” Su Qingcheng cried out as Su Yanran got into a defensive posture. “Noooo!!” she screamed out as the bandits laughed watching this pathetic situation. Haha, stupid girls. You’ve pissed off Master Shi. Now you’re going to get it.

At that moment, however, a hissing sound entered the area.

“Who dares to mistreat my lovely gem?!”