Chapter 2

Pain, that's all Yuo Ling could feel. Again, more pain. This time it felt like it was her waist. Then the pain was on her back, next the back of her arms, then the back of her neck.

Yuo Ling groaned out in pain. What was happening to her?

'I thought I was already dead so how can I feel this excruciating pain?' Yuo Ling thought to herself.

She tried opening her eyes but her vision was blurry.

Yuo Ling soon realized that she was crouched down on a dirty and muddy floor with something small underneath her body.

Yuo Ling groaned again as she felt lashes rain down on her body in every direction. Yuo Ling decided to clear her mind all the while ignoring the pain in order to determine what was going. She felt the small thing underneath her move slowly and slightly.

Then she slowly understood that it was also crying silently. Yuo Ling turned her head downward to identify what this thing was.

It was a child, about five or six years old but with how small it was, it could easily be mistaken for a three year old. Yuo Ling couldn't exactly tell whether it was a boy or a girl.

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The child's face was caked in mud and filth. It looked like the child hadn't showered or touched in weeks, no months.

"Whatever happens I have to protect this child." Yuo Ling muttered under her breath.

And with that resolve, Yuo Ling got up weakly off the floor to meet the attacker. It was a round and plump woman with what looked to be a long bamboo stick in her right hand and a string of coins in her left hand.

The large woman was dressed in ancient clothes with a jade hairpin in her hair. Her clothes looked better than what Yuo Ling and the child were wearing.

The moment Yuo Ling got up from the ground the round woman huffed liked a swelled up balloon and her face got increasingly red.

"How dare you rebel?" The woman shouted as she struck the bamboo stick across Yuo Ling's face.

This time, Yuo Ling fell down and did not get back up.

"Mother!!," the child shouted instantly rushing forward towards Yuo Ling.

Meanwhile, Yuo Ling was cursing her body for being so weak that it couldn't even withstand a single strike from a sun-dried bamboo stick.

She was a top mercenary for crying out loud!!! How could she be defeated by one hit.

"Pathetic," That's what her grandfather would have said if he saw her in this current situation.

Blood spurted out from Yuo Ling's lips as she slowly started losing consciousness.

"The child. I have to protect the child." Yuo Ling stated weakly. From the corner of her blurry eyes she could see the child leaning over her and crying out, "Mother, Mother!!"

While the large woman walked spat on the muddy floor that was stained with blood and walked out of the dilapidated room saying,

"That jinx had better die this time. Maybe then I can make some silver by selling her corpse to that Taoist priest for his rituals."