Chapter 52 - The Wanted Prince
The siblings were completely and utterly shocked speechless. The man in front of them appeared out of nowhere and moved like a cicada, gracefully appearing behind the monster and killing in one strike.
The man bent down and waved his hands and some medicine and gauze appeared.
"Sit up straight," he said casually but his words sounded like hammers crashing down on her psyche and she did as told without a peep.
The little boy was also staring at the man with curious eyes, still with tears in his eyes which he forgot to wipe. The man cleaned up the girl's wound and bandaged it up. It would heal within a few hours because of the medicine.
"You can call me Ninth, what are you guys doing out here? Do you live around here?" Hao Xuan asked the girl who was simply staring at his face.
"Uh- Yes. I-I mean no, we were with a merchant caravan that got attacked. Everyone else was captured, we were lucky enough to escape before the bandits saw us," she stammered, waking up from her delusions with a red face.
"Caravan?" Hao Xuan frowned. It was the same one that he was looking for, what are the chances of running into two people from the very mission he was out to complete.
"How far is it? The caravan I mean," he asked looking back at her.
"Not too far. About an hour or two that way," she pointed towards the direction she came from. Hao Xuan looked where she was pointing and nodded. That was the same direction he was going. But then he suddenly remembered something. The caravan had been missing for almost a week now, how come was it attacked just a few hours ago?
"Um, what's your name?" he asked while scratching his head awkwardly.
"My name is Cui, and this is Wei," she said pointing at the boy who shyly hid behind her.
Hao Xuan frowned once again. Although it was none of his business, why were they trying to hide their surnames? But everyone has their own reasons and it was none of his business so he didn't bother asking.
"Cui, what happened in the last few days? Your caravan has been missing for almost a week but it only got attacked now?" When Cui heard him her eyes suddenly constricted and she hid Wei behind her back protectively.
"H-How do you know about that?" she asked cautiously while slowly backing up.
"Oh, my bad. I should have started with that. I'm a soldier of Mei kingdom and was sent here with several others to find you guys. But because of an incident, I got separated from them. Here, this is my badge," Hao Xuan explained when he saw her actions and took out his Red Legion badge and threw it to her.
She was not expecting it and the badge hit her straight in the chest and bounced off, falling on the ground. Her face became complete red and she slowly bent down and picked it up to examine it and after a few seconds, breathed a sigh of relief.
"I'm sorry for doubting you. We were being followed by some bandits. They chased us for several days, that was the reason we entered this jungle, to lose them here but it was all a trap. There were more of them waiting for us here and they finally captured us not too long ago," she explained and passed the badge back to him. Her face clearly showed how stressful the last few days were but she stayed strong, probably for the little boy that was with her.
Hao Xuan sighed when he listened to her talk. He was really close to completing his mission now and could finally return back to First and others soon.
He looked at the siblings and saw the brave front Cui was putting on for Wei, which made him smile unconsciously. His hand reached out and patted her head, "Must've been hard these last few days," he whispered so only she could hear him.
As soon as she heard what he said something inside her finally broke and tears started streaming down her face.
This was a girl of only 14-15 years of age, who had to take care of a younger sibling while being chased for over a week by bandits, fearing for her and her brother's very life every minute of every day.
"Its fine, let it all out. You're safe now," he said when he saw her vulnerable state. To him, she actually looked like a kid herself and he couldn't imagine the toll it would take on one's mental state.
When Wei saw his older sister cry, he also started wailing like a baby, well, he more or less was still a baby.
Hao Xuan stayed silent and waited on the side without disturbing them. He simply took out some pots, lit a fire and made some soup from the flood dragon's bones for them.
After about 40 minutes they had calmed down and filled their bellies with delicious soup.
"Let's move from here. The scent of the meat will draw in more beasts. The only reason none showed up already is because of this guy's corpse," Hao Xuan said pointing at the centipede-like beast that was laying a few meters away from them.
The siblings nodded and followed him without a word.
Hao Xuan shook his head when he saw that. Just because he fed them and talked to them for a bit they started following him without a word, what if he was a kidnapper? These two wouldn't survive for long in the wild.
It was getting dark as the sun was about to go down so Hao Xuan started looking for a place to camp. It was not a good idea to walk around at night in this jungle, god knows what kind of monsters would be prowling around.
Zhurong finally woke up from his nap, or rather he was taking a small break from napping. He sat on Hao Xuan's head as usual and kept an eye out. Occasionally turning towards the two new party members and making funny faces at them.
"Zhurong, we need to find a place to camp for the night, see if you can find something," Hao Xuan finally said after about 15 minutes of walking around with no results.
*Meow*
Zhurong nodded happily and jumped down from his head and walked off in the jungle.
Ever since Hao Xuan heard Zhurongs voice he knew there was something special about him, maybe some abilities or background that he wasn't aware of, but he decided to be less protective of him and let him roam around more. No normal beast would be able to talk at such a young age.
A minute or two later he heard his cute meowing from a distance and followed after and finally saw him at the entrance of a small cave with an entrance of about 1..2 meters in size.