Dominion's End

Volume 2, Chapter 9: Jiang Xiaorong

Translator: Elkin (proofread by Arcedemius & EvlNabiki; C/E edited by lucathia)

I exited the house and dumped the pile of supplies on the motorcycle. When I looked back I saw the little face, which had been stuck in a gloomy expression for the better half of the day, watching me with a grim expression.

“Shuyu, you’re lying to me, aren’t you?” Without waiting for me to respond, he analyzed what I had said, “Even with a healing ability, I wouldn’t be someone under protection. If you say this is the fourth month into the apocalypse, guns are still useful, and even without guns, I’d be able to fight with a knife.”

I grinned and chuckled, “Of course. Dàgē, you really believed me? Don’t worry, even when Dàgē’s ability is healing, it’s still awesome. There were quite a few times when I wondered whether or not your ability truly is healing.”

He kept his eyes fixed on me, a faint smile crossing his face, and he remarked, “I’d forgotten you were this kind of person. I only remembered you were very protective of family.”

My smile froze. Are you suspecting me or just reminiscing? Make it clear, Dàgē, I’m really nervous now!

But even if I was nervous, it wasn’t to the same extent as earlier on when I’d rather be strangled to death. I want to live together with Dàgē, Xiaomèi, Uncle, and Auntie in the apocalypse. I am Jiang Shuyu!

“Is Shujun all right? Has she gotten used to the apocalypse?”

I nodded, replying, “Everyone’s holding up quite well. If not for that little accident, we’d probably still be at home, with a basement full of supplies, shooting aberrants with guns, eating crystals, and training our special abilities.”

Jiang Xiaotian started lecturing me in earnest, “There’s nothing wrong with leaving, Shuyu. You must remember to never live too comfortably, because that will make you become weak. Since my other self’s ability is healing, then you must be responsible for protecting the family.”

This struck me as a bit strange. Although I agreed that I needed to become stronger, it felt wrong hearing Dàgē wanting me to take responsibility for protecting our family. You had to know, even if Dàgē’s ability was healing, he had still taken on the mantle of protecting our family, and had even insisted that I get a love life!

And the personage in front of me was the Ice Emperor, okay? With him here, I’d be lucky if I wasn’t relegated to the role of being a useless boy toy, but now he wanted me to be responsible for protecting our entire family? It didn’t sound like what Dàgē would say… unless he was no longer capable of protecting me.

“Dàgē, can you still turn back into an adult?”

Jiang Xiaotian nodded, saying, “If I have enough crystals.”

I fell silent. If I was reading between the lines correctly, that meant he had no way of transforming back without enough crystals. And given that the apocalypse had just started, it was impossible for there to be enough crystals to heal the Ice Emperor! He had been injured so badly that he had even reverted into a child, so just what tier of crystals was needed?

“What tier crystals do you need?”

Jiang Xiaotian shook his head, not responding. It was expected, since there was nothing either of us could do about it, so there wasn’t much point pursuing this matter. I had better become strong as soon as possible; otherwise, how would I be able to hunt aberrants to rescue the Ice Emperor? Just the thought of me actually being able to save the Ice Emperor made my blood boil in excitement!

This feeling of being able to save my idol was simply too incredible. I said enthusiastically, “Dàgē, you must be hungry, right? Once we’ve left this town, I’ll go hunt down some crystals for you.”

But Jiang Xiaotian shook his head as he said, “No, low tiered crystals don’t have any effect on me. You eat them. What’s important is that you need to become stronger.”

I hesitated a moment before nodding. Although tierless crystals were useless for me too, the mercenaries would still benefit from them, so I might as well save it for them instead.

“You mentioned needing to leave the town before hunting for crystals. Why? Have you cleared out this town already?”

As if! If I could, I’d be starting my world conquest already! Why would I even want to go sightseeing in this town?

“Not me. I think that tree ate up all the aberrants.”

I pointed at the giant tree standing between the tall buildings in the distance.

Jiang Xiaotian looked over, and his eyes suddenly lit up. “That tree’s going to die soon. It probably evolved down the wrong path and won’t be able to survive much longer.”

Really? I looked at Jiang Xiaotian in incomprehension.

“Plants run into these situations very easily. They would evolve in a certain direction but don’t know how to moderate themselves. Then, they’ll die because they evolved too much in a certain way. That tree was probably blocked from the sunlight by the shadows of the tall buildings in the past, and so it had never been able to grow properly. And after the black fog came, it started trying to grow as tall as possible.”

Jiang Xiaotian seemed very interested in that tree, keeping his gaze away from me in a rare show of interest as he appraised the tree.

“Let’s go over for a look. Maybe we’ll find something handy.”

I didn’t object. The Ice Emperor knew much more about the apocalyptic world than I did, so I couldn’t go wrong by listening to him.

I climbed on board the motorcycle and slowly rode there. There wasn’t a problem with the motorcycle, but rather, the closer we got to the town center, the more abandoned cars there were. The pavement was also filled with all kinds of obstacles, so it was impossible to ride quickly.

Suddenly, I caught sight of something, and I stopped the motorcycle.

“What is it?” Jiang Xiaotian’s words were lined with caution.

“There’s a bookstore here. I need to get a map. Dàgē said they were going toward Luo’an City, but I don’t know how to get there.”

“Luo’an City? I’ve never heard of it.” Jiang Xiaotian said with uncertainty, “Is it a small city?”

“No clue.” Frankly, as an outsider from another world, I really wasn’t too familiar with the names of places here.

Jiang Xiaotian nodded. “Okay, you go. I’ll watch the supplies here.”

Hearing that, I headed into the bookstore myself. This place was quite tidy, probably because no one wanted to search a bookstore, and I quickly got my hands on a map. I also took some pens and a notebook.

First, I had a quick flip through the map book. Luo’an City wasn’t a small city; it was comparable to Zhongguan City in size, making it a mid-sized city. The three largest cities in Meisia were quite similar to those of my previous world, except that their locations were slightly off, though you could say that they were in the north, middle, and southern parts of the continent just like the other world.

Based on my knowledge from my past life, these three cities weren’t human territories. They were the largest adventuring areas where it was easy to strike gold and even easier to never make it out alive.

But that didn’t matter to me at the moment. What was important was Luo’an City being around four hundred kilometers from here. It was neither close nor far, and probably also the reason why Dàgē had picked that city to rest in.

I tucked away the map and headed back to Jiang Xiaotian.

“Is Luo’an City far?” Having a little person sitting on top of a motorcycle painted a somewhat odd picture, but at the same time, it was an incredible cute sight! I really wanted to kiss him on his cheeks and rub his head, but unfortunately, Xiaotian had regained his memories, so I didn’t dare to do so.

“About four hundred kilometers.”

Jiang Xiaotian nodded and said, “Let’s hurry there after checking out the tree. I can’t relax until I see Shujun.”

“And Uncle, Auntie, and your mercenary troop,” I reminded him. This Dàgē was too obsessed with me and Shujun. He’d forgotten the existence of everyone else.

“Uncle and Auntie?” His eyes lit up and he asked quickly, “Who from the troop are there?”

I climbed aboard the motorcycle and once again advanced toward the tree. As we rode on, I counted them out. “Zheng Xing, Yunqian, Xiao Sha, Lily…”

Two streets later, we could see the roots of the tree. The closer we got, the more shocking the sight. It also proved Jiang Xiaotian’s words to be true. The tree didn’t have many branches or leaves, and there were patches of bark that had dried up. It really was going to die soon.

“Lily?” came the low murmur of a child from behind me.

“What about Lily?” I’ve gone through so many names, so why did he focus on Lily?

There was a long moment of silence before another sentence came from behind, “She was the person who stayed with me to the very end.”

Damn, why’s it sound like I can dig up so much juicy gossip from this one liner? Don’t tell me Lily’s now my sister-in-law? I chortled and asked, “Don’t tell me I’ve got to call Lily sister-in-law?”

Jiang Xiaotian froze, then said, “No. Back then, I had only wanted to rush home to find you and Shujun, and I couldn’t think about anything else. At the time, there were a lot of the troops who followed me, quite a lot more than the ones you just mentioned, but on the way…”

He lapsed into silence once more.

I finally understood what he had meant by “stayed to the very end.” Perhaps they had left or they had died, but if they had just gone, Jiang Xiaotian probably wouldn’t react this way. I knew that my Dàgē would always respect his mercenaries’ choices, and wouldn’t hold a grudge against them. So most of them had probably died?

I didn’t dare to continue my line of questioning. It was obvious that there had been a lot of tragedies, so I’d step onto a landmine no matter what question I asked. I was better off changing the subject.

“Dàgē, we’re at the tree.”

I parked the motorcycle. Jiang Shutian hopped off the motorcycle himself and made a beeline for the tree.

The tree was gigantic, its trunk wide enough that you needed at least ten people holding hands to circle around it. The sight when looking up from its roots was even more stunning.

Jiang Xiaotian hopped onto a tree root and made his way up along it. Then, he started touching various parts of the tree.

I asked curiously, “Dàgē, what are you doing?”

“Plants have a unique characteristic where sometimes, they don’t die completely. Shuyu, take me up.” Jiang Xiaotian pointed in one direction with a finger. “Climb up that way.”

“Can I use my ice powers?” I inspected the tree. It didn’t have many branches, and they were all very far apart from each other, so there was nowhere I could step.

“Yes.”

Then that was fine. I took off my shoes and socks, scooped up Xiaotian, and formed a thin film of ice on the soles of my feet. Then, I hopped and leapt up the tree. Although I could also do it with my shoes on, just like how I could craft ice knives in mid-air without direct contact, generally speaking, it was much faster and easier creating ice directly from skin contact.

“Stop here.”

I did as he said. We were halfway up the tree, but this spot didn’t look any different from any of the other branches. Just when I was about to ask, I saw Jiang Xiaotian staring at my feet.

“Don’t wear shoes or sneakers anymore. They’ll only get in the way. If you are ambushed by aberrants, do you think you have the luxury of taking off your shoes and socks?”

Ugh. Right now, I still don’t dare to skate in combat, so this problem hadn’t occurred to me.

“Dàgē, you don’t normally wear shoes?”

Don’t tell me the mighty Ice Emperor and General fought bare-footed? The image doesn’t look right!

Probably because my expression was too strange, Jiang Xiaotian said grumpily, “I do, but right now, you mustn’t wear any. You need to get used to using your ice ability when walking.”

“I can only skate?” This was a tall order. Not only were certain things impossible to do if I could only skate-walk, it was also very energy intensive.

“Skating, freezing pieces of ice to step on, using a thin layer of ice to reduce the speed of falling and so on. Once your power becomes stronger, you can jump off a tall building without getting hurt, and by then, there won’t be anywhere in the world you can’t reach.”

I gave a worshipful look to Jiang Xiaotian. It felt good switching from stealing techniques to becoming a proper student. I no longer had to rack my brains while trying to figure out how else I could use my ice powers.

“Shuyu, you have a lot to learn.” Jiang Xiaotian looked at me very seriously, and continued, “I’ll be extremely strict, so you need to be prepared. No matter how tough it is or how tired you get, I won’t let you give up.”

I immediately swore a solemn oath to Dàgē, “Dàgē, don’t worry. No matter how tough or tiring it gets, I’ll never give up!”

“I believe you,” Jiang Xiaotian nodded as he spoke. “It’s obvious from your degree of training just four months into the apocalypse that you’ve put in no small amount of effort. But this isn’t enough. If you want to become one of the elite powerhouses, it’s nowhere near enough.”

I stared at Jiang Xiaotian. I wasn’t patting myself on my back, but I’d only reached tier one after quite a number of close brushes with death. So how much did Dàgē go through back then in order to become the Ice Emperor? And could I pull off the same?

Jiang Xiaotian seemed to sense my hesitation. He frowned, and proclaimed in a majestic tone of voice that one wouldn’t expect from a child, “Jiang Shuyu, you will become the new Ice Emperor!”

My heart throbbed, and I immediately responded, “Yes, sir!”

After the brothers’ declaration of their ambitious goals, Jiang Xiaotian reached out with his little hands and said, “Carry me.”

I ignored how messed up the whole situation was, while Jiang Xiaotian was probably ignoring any sense of shame, and the younger brother picked up his little Dàgē. Jiang Xiaotian pointed at a particular branch, and only then did I discover that there was a little sprout there. It was extremely delicate and cute, with two pale green, tender leaves and a narrow stem that was only a finger long.

Jiang Xiaotian stared at the sprout, thinking about something.

And I wasn’t sure if it was just me, but I felt like the sprout seemed to tremble under the weight of Jiang Xiaotian’s gaze. Oh, it wasn’t just me, it even curled up its two leaves. Oi, are you a mimosa? Xiaotian already said you’re a banyan tree, so don’t pretend to be a weed!

“As expected of Dàgē, even the tree knows it should be scared of you.”

Jiang Xiaotian gave me an odd look. “He’s not afraid of me, but you.”

Afraid of me? I was bamboozled by the idea that I could make a giant tree so scared that it would start trembling.

“You’ve got a pretty good level of energy for this point in time, so you can probably rule a town, no problem. If this tree hadn’t wasted its energy, it wouldn’t lose to you, but it picked the wrong evolution route and wasted all the evolution crystals it had eaten. Right now, it’s not much stronger than a new born aberrant, so it’s only natural that it’s scared of you.”

I see. So this little tree is so young that it hasn’t yet discovered how mighty my demon king of a Dàgē is. It can only sense the depths of power of a little boss like me, so it’s scared of me but not Dàgē. He looks but he doesn’t see… Er, wait, he doesn’t have eyes to see.

“Shuyu, get a pot so we can cultivate him. Although the tree was stupid enough to use all its energy in growing tall, it’s not easy to get this big in these times, so there might be something special about it. Think of it as cultivating potential. Just feed him some excess crystals you have and he’ll be good.”

As expected of my Dàgē, his way of thinking is identical to mine when I saw Chen Qianru.

While extracting the little tree, he clung desperately to his old branch, refusing to let go. If he had a mouth, he’d probably scream the skies down, and I was struck with the sudden feeling that I was an evil tyrant kidnapping a peasant woman.

With the mischievous feeling of “hehe, it’s useless to struggle,” I planted the little tree into the pot and said triumphantly, “From now onwards, I’m your master. You’ll be called… called Jiang Xiaorong, the rong from banyan tree! If Xiaorong is obedient, then you’ll get water, sunlight, and crystals. If you’re bad, I’ll shower you with acid! Do you hear me?”

“Probably not.” Jiang Xiaotian abruptly killed my passion for raising pets, “Plants right now still can’t communicate with us.”

I know, but isn’t the point of raising a pet in order to enjoy talking to yourself?

Equipped with Xiaotian and Xiaorong, I once again continued on my journey to find my family. Since Jiang Xiaotian said that I didn’t need to hunt for crystals, I just gunned it in the direction of Dàgē and Xiaomèi.

As expected, riding the motorcycle made the journey much smoother, and I had a lot of fun zipping through obstacles. But having Xiaotian around made my journey much more difficult.

When I saw a road that was jam-packed with a bunch of cars, just as I was thinking of taking a detour around to the other side, over the grass—

“Use your ice energy to push aside the cars in our way.”

When I saw a ton of aberrants milling around a town that we were passing by, just as I was thinking to twist hard on the throttle and rush through—

“Get off and deal with those aberrants. Hand over your knife and gun. You can only use your ice powers.”

When I was planning on picking a house randomly to stay the night—

“Use ice to create an Eskimo igloo and sleep. You need to last the night without it melting.”

Although I was tempted to suggest that we should be hurrying to catch up with Dàgē and the others, I saw the look of seriousness on Jiang Xiaotian’s face that didn’t match his child-like appearance and thought that the mighty Ice Emperor had to know what was more important.

Even if we reached Luo’an City, there was no guarantee that we’d be able to find them. It had already been ten-odd days, and if Dàgē and co. wanted to find me, who had been snatched away by the bird, they would never stay in one place. So how reasonable was it to abandon all training until later and chase after them, in hopes that we’d be able to catch up?

Of course, we had to find them, but we couldn’t just ignore training. Jiang Xiaotian had said I should be able to take over a small town, but was that really such an amazing thing? A mere tree had been able to take over a small town. As a human with the added advantage of being reincarnated, I still couldn’t do any better. How humiliating was that?!

I did everything that Jiang Xiaotian suggested, and not a single objection crossed my lips. But when I heard that I had to maintain the igloo for the entire night, my expression still darkened. I had spent the whole day on the motorcycle, and I had even beat up a bunch of aberrants, so the only thing I wanted to do was sleep. But now that I had to maintain the igloo and stop it from melting, how could I get any sleep?

Jiang Xiaotian rested his head against the backpack, hugging Jiang Xiaorong, and he spoke as he lay there comfortably, “Once you’re used to it, you can maintain ice energy even when asleep.”

The problem was that I wasn’t the slightest bit used to it, and with my current energy levels, I probably wouldn’t be able to keep it up until morning.

“Energy is like cleavage. If you squeeze hard enough, there will always be more.”

I really wanted to retort that I was fated to never have cleavage in this life, he was too late, when Jiang Xiaotian spelled out the reason in a matter-of-fact tone of voice, “Only by continually surpassing your own limits will you be able to become one of the elite.”

And so, I had nothing more to say and crafted the igloo. I maintained it as I tried my best to fall asleep, but every time my consciousness was about to slip into slumber, I was kicked awake by Jiang Xiaotian.

“The igloo’s melting.”

I had no choice but to continue staying awake to hold up the igloo, slowly falling asleep and getting kicked awake again. The cycle of sleeping and waking continued through to morning, and when I got out of bed, I felt like I hadn’t slept at all.

This continued for a full three days, and by the third evening, my eyelids felt like lead while my energy stores remained firmly in the empty state. I felt terrible.

“Shuyu…” Jiang Xiaotian gazed at me, keeping silent although something was clearly on his mind.

“Hm?” As I made the igloo, I looked over at him. Some new training again?

Jiang Xiaotian just watched me. He was still hugging onto Jiang Xiaorong. The tree had originally tried escaping at every possible opportunity. Our attention just had to slip for a second, then we’d be guaranteed to hear the sound of pa as my potted plant jumped off the bike once again.

But on the first evening, while I was struggling between sleeping and maintaining the igloo, Jiang Xiaotian must have done something, because the next day, Jiang Xiaorong didn’t dare to jump off the bike anymore. He just remained motionless in Jiang Xiaotian’s arms, like he was an ordinary potted plant that didn’t jump off bikes and wouldn’t twist his roots like worms in order to get away.

Jiang Xiaotian said hesitantly, “Shuyu, you must be very tired? Why don’t you take a break tonight? Perhaps rushing things will have the opposite effect. Getting enough rest is necessary, too.”

He was speaking in a very roundabout fashion, and it was clear that although he didn’t agree with it, he wanted to let me rest.

I couldn’t help but burst out laughing. Dàgē really was Dàgē. Even though he had experienced ten years of the apocalypse and knew all too well that the world worked on a no pain, no gain principle, he still couldn’t stand letting his younger siblings suffer.

“Shuyu, how old are you now?” Jiang Xiaotian said with a frown, “I remember you’re still eighteen, right? You’re still young, so really…”

I interrupted him. “Eighteen means I’m an adult, Dàgē.”

I still remembered the times I had spent fleeing from trouble in the apocalypse. Things had been much worse back then, as I’d spend the daytime squirreling around without any plan in mind, only knowing that I had to find food or starve, while at night, I’d curl up into a tight ball and sleep a light sleep, jumping awake at every little sound and motion.

Those days were spent not only physically exhausted, but mentally in despair as I didn’t know what the point of living was.

At the time, I hadn’t eaten any crystals, and I was far weaker than I was now. I had managed back then, so there was no excuse for me to not manage now. These past four months really had been too good to me. If I had gone into Zhongguan City earlier, the area I could lay claim to probably wouldn’t just be a small town, but a small city.

You really couldn’t afford to slack off in the apocalyptic world.

I ate one crystal and finished off the igloo, then patted the backpack, saying, “Come sleep, Dàgē.” Then, after a moment’s thought, I grinned and corrected myself, “No, wait. You can’t sleep, you need to kick me awake.”

Fortunately, Jiang Xiaotian could sleep while I was riding the motorcycle during the day. Otherwise, his condition might even get worse?

Jiang Xiaotian looked at me, nodded, and crawled over to sleep.

I, too, lay down and almost fell asleep there and then. I almost didn’t dare to close my eyes. I’d pass out the moment I shut them, but I couldn’t just keep going like this. Even if I ate evolution crystals for meals, there was bound to be a limit on that, so I had to quickly learn how to keep my special abilities active while sleeping…

I jolted awake abruptly, and I immediately focused my eyes above me. A sea of white greeted me. The igloo was still standing, but I seemed to have really fallen asleep. Did I drop off for only a moment?

I stuck my head out of the igloo to see the bright sky. It had been around ten at night when I last lay down, and I had fallen asleep soon after.

I stared at the igloo, stunned. Had I really managed to keep the igloo from melting even while sleeping?

I was overcome with excitement and wanted to tell Jiang Xiaotian, but he wasn’t around. Fortunately, I spotted the small figure sitting on the motorcycle after a quick glance around, but for some reason, there was something off with that little silhouette. My excitement died in an instant, and I called out tentatively, “Dàgē?”

The small body flinched and quickly hid whatever it was holding and stuffed it back into the backpack. But I already knew what it was—the map.

So he found out it’s a parallel universe? But I had to pretend to be ignorant, because I’d only told Jiang Xiaotian about prophetic dreams, so I had no way of explaining how I knew about parallel universes.

What a headache. One lie really does make many. I didn’t actually intend to keep lying to Jiang Xiaotian my entire life, but I just wanted to avoid unnecessary complications. I’d thought that my confession could wait until after we’d found Dàgē and Shujun.

What should I do now?

As I struggled with the question, Jiang Xiaotian just cut through my thoughts, saying calmly, “Get some water so we can brush our teeth and wash our faces. You slept quite well last night, so we can head out earlier today.”

When I saw that, I breathed a sigh of relief. As expected of the Ice Emperor, his ability to accept things and move on was on a completely different level to peasants like me.

After washing up, I checked on my energy levels, then made a face as I said, “Dàgē, my energy levels have bottomed out. I can only recover a little even if I eat crystals. If we run into too many aberrants, things might get dangerous.”

As Jiang Xiaotian brushed his teeth with a child’s toothbrush, he darted a look at me. That’s definitely a look of disdain, definitely!

He spat out the mouthwash, then asked, “So you can’t fight if you don’t have any energy?”

I looked at the gun and knife. I had no hopes that Jiang Xiaotian would let me use the gun, so I compromised, “Can I use the knife?”

“It depends.”

In other words, it was possible that I had to duke it out with aberrants with just my hands and no special abilities. Fine, I did need to train my close quarters combat. Although I did have Guan Weijun’s experience as a foundation, and it didn’t lose out to the mercenaries, when comparing it to the Ice Emperor, however, I was not much different than a three year old.

I climbed onto the motorcycle and listened to “Jiang Xiaotian’s Combat Classroom” as we rode.

“Your skills can be said to be acceptable, but it’s obvious that you don’t have a good foundation.” Here, Jiang Xiaotian asked in confusion, “Shuyu, did you learn all this in these four months? I remember that you were very sporty, but you had never learned techniques like these.”

To begin with, I didn’t have any foundation to speak of. What kind of office lady would have basic combat skills? All my fighting skills had been honed by living in the apocalyptic world.

“Dàgē, in my prophetic dreams, I wasn’t Jiang Shuyu but someone else. So I learned a lot while watching her fight, and I’ve been training these four months.”

Jiang Xiaotian sunk into deep thought at my response, then suddenly asked, “Who were you in your dreams?”

“I was an ordinary woman called Guan Weijun. She’s the woman of a small colony leader and she survived quite long in the apocalyptic world, close to ten years.”

“Ten years? So that’s why you don’t know…” Jiang Xiaotian’s voice became softer and softer until it trailed off.

“Don’t know what?” I asked, curious.

“Nothing. It’s enough to know ten years of the apocalypse. I wasn’t around over here in the first few years, so I don’t know what will happen. Since the me now can’t become the Ice Emperor, the deviation of events in the later years will only grow bigger and bigger, so what I know isn’t reliable. So it’s not a big deal if I don’t tell you.”

That was true. I’d originally thought that the Ice Emperor should know a lot, but that thinking was too idealistic and reality was always much more brutal. I needed to train up properly. Being reincarnated only put me a few steps ahead of everyone else. I only needed to laze around a little and my advantage would vanish into thin air.

“So you might as well focus your time on training your skills and abilities. As long as you are strong enough, nothing else really matters… What is it, Shuyu?”

I pulled the motorcycle around in a big arc and stopped at the side of the road. Then, I said softly, “Dàgē, there’s a group of cars approaching from the road on the left.”

Jiang Xiaotian was sitting behind me, so at this he stood up on the seat and peered over my shoulder.

There were a total of six cars. Four of them were RVs, and the remaining two were minibuses, which meant that there were probably more than twenty or thirty people in the group. I frowned. Just as I was thinking of avoiding them, the light, clear voice of a child came from behind.

“Shuyu, have you ever killed a person before?”