Chapter 22: Blame Him, Blame You
Xue Wei felt his heartbeat quicken, and he escorted the three girls to a crowded area where Li Jian definitely would not disturb them. Not to mention Li Jian would be busy dealing with his two friends that had their muscles severed by Xue Wei.
Since he was confident that the three girls would be fine, Xue Wei did not hesitate and once more started searching for Wang Xiaoyun.
Having seen her leave in rage as she had before, Xue Wei was worried sick and wanted to explain the situation to her, but if he could not find her, he would have no luck.
It was not before an hour had passed that Xue Wei finally located Wang Xiaoyun. She was with her friends at a dumpling stall buying dumplings, but while the other friends were giggling and having fun, Wang Xiaoyun's face was still overcast with anger.
"This woman seems to hold a grudge," Xue Wei thought while his heart trembled. Although he was new to these emotions, he knew that he would feel uncomfortable if she continued looking this troubled, and he wanted to talk with her.
Xue Wei walked towards the dumpling stall, and when the girls noticed him, they whispered in hushed voices and suddenly stood up. With loud shouts, they declared the weirdest things, "I forgot to water the Fierce Beasts, I better go back."
"I forgot to buy some rice cakes for old granny; I have to go back too." Excuse after excuse was said almost in unison before they scrambled to rush away one faster than the other, the only one who was remaining was Wang Xiaoyun, and from the glare, she sent Xue Wei, it was clear that he was anything but welcome.
"Sorry that I am annoying you again," Xue Wei said with a slight smile on his face when he sat down, "I did not mean to intrude, but it seems to me that you misunderstood the situation from earlier."
"I don't know what you mean," Wang Xiaoyun said with a cold, dismissive voice and turned to look away while she ate a dumpling and chewed on it aggressively as if she imagined that the dumpling was Xue Wei.
"I am sure you know what I mean," Xue Wei said with a sigh, "I am very interested in you. You seem like the most interesting woman I have ever met, why don't we get to know each other a bit better?"
"Hey loverboy," Wang Xiaoyun said while finally facing Xue Wei, her face looking slightly confused, "you talk about wanting to get to know me when all you do is running around breaking hearts. My mother has taught me that I should be careful who I give my heart to, you are not ready for mine yet."
"So there might be a possibility in the future?" Xue Wei grinned, and Wang Xiaoyun realized that her words had implied this. "Maybe we will meet again in the future and time will tell," she said as she pursed her lips, but her eyes were much kinder now and her voice a lot more cheerful.
"Don't let it be too long into the future," Xue Wei grinned and ordered a plate of dumplings which he started eating together with Wang Xiaoyun.
The two were talking about everything and nothing. Wang Xiaoyun had long since heard the story about him being incapable of cultivating and then suddenly breaking through the bottleneck and soaring through a few layers in a few months.
"Your situation reminds me of myself," Wang Xiaoyun said as she stole a dumpling on Xue Wei's plate as she had no more of her own. "I am able to cultivate a bit, but until I activate my bloodline, it will be much slower than others."
"It might not seem like a lousy cultivation base right now, but it has taken blood sweat and tears to reach this layer, and I am very proud. In a year when I am able to activate my bloodline, I will become a much stronger cultivator; I will even be able to jump straight to the Earth Warrior rank."
"You were completely incapable of cultivating, but you broke through at the same as I would have my bloodline activated, and suddenly your cultivation base has rapidly increased. Looking at you it even seems as if it is a very stable and solid foundation."
The two talked about their past, Xue Wei could not speak too much about it as he did not remember much, but what he did remember amazed Wang Xiaoyun.
Wang Xiaoyun was used to life on the road. She had traveled far and wide, seen many things that others had not seen and experienced things that the young people from the city of Tiankong could only dream about.
At the same time, Xue Wei was amazed by everything that Wang Xiaoyun told him about. The rest of the continent was filled with experts, the real geniuses of the middle of the continent were fifteen but already at the ninth layer of the Earth Warrior rank. A few of the supreme geniuses had reached the Sky Warrior rank already.
"In this kingdom, the Heavenly Warrior rank is the highest rank possible, but in the vast continent, geniuses exceed this rank and reach an even higher realm!" Wang Xiaoyun said with shining eyes. "I will become one of them too when my bloodline is activated."
Xue Wei's eyes shone. He had heard about the higher realms before, but only vaguely, when he asked Wang Xiaoyun about it, the woman just shrugged her shoulders, "Sorry, no one will tell me about it yet either. They say I am not ranked high enough."
"I have been in the Northern Taiga before," Wang Xiaoyun said. "The northern Taiga is a part of the northern kingdom of Heping, but it spreads outside of the kingdom's borders, the taiga is truly massive."
"The taiga is very dangerous. The lair of some of the most dangerous Primordial Beasts lies within its innermost regions, and no hunter who has ventured too deep into the forest has ever emerged alive."
"Not even a group of Wayfarers or Diviners?" Xue Wei asked with big eyes filled with surprise. He knew that the Northern Taiga was dangerous, and he knew it was tremendous, but he had never known that no hunter had ever survived venturing into the innermost regions of the place.
"No one," Wang Xiaoyun shook her head. "It is a complete danger zone; you should not enter unless you have a death wish."
Xue Wei and Wang Xiaoyun chatted until the day came to an end, and the sky turned dark. Stars came out, yet neither felt that they had spoken enough with one another just yet.
It was not until the friends from the Wayfarer group returned to fetch Wang Xiaoyun that their conversation ended, and although Xue Wei had lost a whole day of cultivation he was feeling warm in his heart and happy. He did not feel as if he had lost anything but slightly gained something instead, and he was sure that he would come looking for Wang Xiaoyun the following day.
Xue Wei was in a great mood on the way back to the mansion, yet just before he reached the estate, he caught some chatter amongst the commoners.
"I heard that Xue Wei is too brazen recently. He crippled the sons of the He and Jia families."
"I heard that they were going after some innocent girls and Xue Wei was protecting the girls, attacking them in the passing. What extraordinary power to be able to cripple two experts of higher strength when fleeing."
"Although they were so many more people than him, he still managed to cripple two of them, that is quite an achievement."
Hearing this, Xue Wei could listen to that the He and Jia young masters had indeed been crippled after his Azure Light Finger attacks. Xue Wei did not even for a moment regret his actions, but he was not going to meet the older generation alone.
Instead, he activated the Forbidden Rush technique and elegantly jumped over the wall into his mansion. After preparing himself, did he head back towards the gate where all the mansion's guards and Manager Su was present together with a large group of experts that seemed to be waiting for him.
Xue Wei looked completely casual as he walked towards the outside of the mansion. He did not fear these other families as all the guards and Manager Su was at least Earth Warriors, Manager Su was even a ninth layered Sky Warrior.
"You bastard!" He Tong sneered as he saw Xue Wei move towards them with such a casual and carefree expression on his face. "How dare you cripple my son?! He had a glorious future ahead of him, now he will not even be able to partake in the military and will be looked down on by man and woman alike! You have destroyed his life!"
Xue Wei looked at him and snorted, "what is the punishment for forcing themselves on women here in our Kingdom of Heping?" he answered the question with another question, and the face of He Tong stiffened slightly.
"You will be castrated," Shen Mu's voice suddenly sounded throughout the place, "If you force a woman, you will be punished with castration. I am here as the delegation from the City Lord's mansion."
"It turns out that three women were being held against their will by young master Li and his friends. It turns out that your son, young master He and young master Jia both participated in this act."
"We have spoken with the women in question. As things stand now they will not press charges, however, should the He and the Jia family press charges against their savior, then they too will go the way of the court, causing twenty-three young experts of the younger generation to be castrated."
The faces of the He and Jia family members instantly turned pale. This was a threat towards them. If they truly wished to blame Xue Wei then they had to drag the Li family and all their friends and comrades into hell by having their children castrated, but could they allow for Xue Wei to go unpunished?
The He and Jia family had brought members of every single family that supported the Li family to join their entourage to seek justice against Xue Wei, but now they were unsure of what to do. Everyone who had come to find justice for the two disabled boys was now glaring at the He and Jia families, telling them with their eyes to drop the matter.
Although they had hoped for a way to punish Xue Wei and get rid of him, they would never risk their own offspring in the process.
These experts were all old cunning foxes. They knew that the Shen family had found witnesses and that they were protecting anyone who was important in the case. It would be impossible to get rid of them without alerting the Shen family, and if they were informed, then they could quickly dispose of their families for doing something against the laws of Heping Kingdom.
No one wished for this to happen and as a result, they all stayed quiet. One could hear a needle fall to the floor.
"You should have been killed by Young Master Li when you were still useless," He Tong sneered at Xue Wei. "Although they bullied you and beat you up they never crippled you for real. They never actually tried to kill you! But now that you are getting stronger, you are trying to cripple them!"
"I am warning you all! One day he will kill or cripple all of them because he holds a grudge against them!"
The facial expressions of many people present turned sour when they heard this but no one dared to comment, and Xue Wei just stood casually leaning against the gate of the mansion and his arms crossed across his chest.
"Are you done?" He asked, and straightened himself before he stretched. "I don't care about your descendants, but if they continue to break the law, and to trouble me, don't blame me for giving back of the same kind. It is not my fault that they could not even handle one attack of mine each, I mean they were both stronger than me by at least a layer."