Make amends

Endless Forest.

Lu Chuan and Bai Yimo stood together at the spot where those few people had just disappeared.

"Why is there no reaction?"

Looking at Bai Yimo's naive gray eyes, Lu Chuan said without a hint of emotion in his voice, "Reach out your hand."

Before Bai Yimo could even react, a thin line of blood bloomed on his skinny palm.

Perhaps due to long-term malnutrition, very little blood seeped from Bai Yimo's hand.

Watching the sporadic bloodstains dripping onto the ground.

Bai Yimo recalled the tragic state of the young girl named Lu Qingyu, and his face instantly turned deathly pale.

Will I die here?

Bai Yimo squeezed his eyes shut, but after a long while, he still hadn't waited for the arrival of the Grim Reaper.

"Open your eyes."

Hearing Lu Chuan's voice, Bai Yimo carefully opened one eye and realized that the surrounding scenery had long since changed:

Gloomy and vast.

It was as if it were a palace from ancient times.

"This is..."

"This is beneath the Stone Array. We were sent in by that white light."

There was only one exit ahead, and Lu Chuan and Bai Yimo walked forward one after the other.

The surroundings were very quiet; only the sound of Bai Yimo's footsteps, breathing, and heartbeat could be heard.

Yes, only Bai Yimo's.

As he walked, Bai Yimo quietly observed Lu Chuan's back.

Is this man a ghost?

There wasn't a sound when he walked.

Lu Chuan was accommodating Bai Yimo's speed.

Even though it was much slower than when he traveled alone, Lu Chuan still had no intention of carrying the child forward.

After walking for an unknown amount of time, three forks appeared before them.

Above each fork was a pattern:

A sun, a moon, and a large bird.

"This is..." Bai Yimo's eyes lit up with surprise, "It's the symbol mentioned on the map!"

Finally seeing a familiar pattern, Bai Yimo instantly felt at ease.

"Go left!"

Bai Yimo took the lead and walked toward the path with the large bird pattern, while Lu Chuan followed slowly behind.

"Help... save us..."

At first, the voice wasn't very clear.

As they walked further, Bai Yimo became more certain:

It was those two Fifth-Tier Transcendent they had encountered not long ago!

"Benefactor..."

Bai Yimo looked at Lu Chuan in a slight panic.

"What?" Lu Chuan stared into Bai Yimo's eyes, tilting his head slightly, "Are you afraid?"

"Of course I'm not!"

Bai Yimo strode toward the source of the sound.

The scene before him made the naive boy involuntarily take a step back:

The woman named Owl Bird was pinned to the ground by several black rods that looked like steel bars, with one of them piercing through her neck.

Yet for some reason, the woman wasn't dead; she just kept opening her mouth, making a "he-he" sound, like a broken bellows.

Rain Ink's condition was obviously better than Owl Bird's, having been pierced by the rods through his shoulder, abdomen, and legs, but if left unattended, he would likely die from excessive blood loss soon.

Only when he saw two figures appear before him did Rain Ink finally confirm that the footsteps he had just heard were not a hallucination before death.

"Save... save us."

Lu Chuan remained unmoved, "A Fifth-Tier Transcendent... can't break free from a few iron rods?"

"Besides, how can we be sure that we won't end up in the same state as you after approaching?"

Hearing Lu Chuan's words, Bai Yimo's step, which he was about to take, instantly halted, and cold sweat streamed down his back.

As expected, was he still too naive?

"No... it won't happen," Rain Ink said, enduring the dizziness from excessive blood loss, "The mechanism here has already been accidentally triggered by us."

"These black rods have the effect of blocking the circulation of dark energy in the body; you just need to help us pull them out."

This...

Bai Yimo hesitated for a moment.

He didn't know whether he should trust the other party.

Although this Rain Ink looked like a shy, somewhat effeminate boy, how could someone who followed the direct-line young lady in a Transcendent family not be a shrewd person?

He saw at a glance that Bai Yimo was an overly soft-hearted guy, so he looked at him earnestly and said:

"Help us, little brother. We are still carrying the young lady's corpse. We are now intent on returning to the Lu family to await death; we absolutely will not return kindness with ingratitude."

"Await death?" Bai Yimo's eyes widened, "Why?"

Rain Ink smiled bitterly, "Owl Bird and I were bodyguards personally selected by the family head for the young lady; we are death servants."

"Now that the young lady has left home without permission under our escort and died inexplicably right under our noses, we are obviously on a dead-end path."

Bai Yimo didn't understand, "If that's the case, why don't you run away?"

Returning to the Lu family meant certain death, but running away offered a glimmer of hope.

"We are not orphans; our families are also Transcendents loyal to the Lu family."

"If we flee, our families will definitely be implicated."

"If we risk our lives to bring back the young lady's corpse and voluntarily await death, the family head might spare our families in light of us doing our best."

Hearing this, Bai Yimo's eyes were filled with emotion.

"Benefactor..." Bai Yimo looked at Lu Chuan for help, "Do you think what he is saying is true?"

Lu Chuan did not give a definitive answer, "You can make your own judgment."

Bai Yimo struggled for a moment, and his gaze gradually became firm.

"Okay! I'll help you."

Bai Yimo approached step by step amidst Rain Ink's pleasantly surprised gaze.

Whoosh!

A black dagger pierced the air, brushing past Bai Yimo, its cold edge slicing off a few of Bai Yimo's hairs.

"You..."

Rain Ink's head jerked back from the inertia of the dagger, and Lu Chuan finally saw his eyes clearly:

Unwillingness, resentment, disbelief...

Only when this already riddled-with-holes corpse was sucked into a dried husk did Bai Yimo react, his voice trembling with confusion, "Benefactor?"

"He-he!"

Not far away, Owl Bird's venomous gaze wished it could solidify and hack Lu Chuan into a thousand pieces.

Fortunately, her movements were restricted.

Otherwise, wouldn't she have skinned Lu Chuan, pulled out his bones, chewed his flesh, and drank his blood?

Lu Chuan stepped forward and pulled out the taotie's fang embedded in Rain Ink's skull.

Having drunk its fill of the Fifth-Tier Transcendent's blood, the eye-shaped Red Crystal at the hilt of the taotie's fang was restless, refusing to "close its eye."

Lu Chuan's thumb gently swept across the Red Crystal, which felt like magma, as if it would scorch everything.

[Devour]!

The dark energy from the Fifth-Tier Transcendent's blood was converted into stable dark energy reserves, into physical strength, and into potential!

The Red Crystal, drained by [Devour], gradually turned cold and dim, finally fading into the black metal.

Lu Chuan put away the taotie's fang and placed a hand on Bai Yimo's head.

"You really want to know why I did this, right?"

Lu Chuan, whose strength had just slightly increased, still carried a residual aura of slaughter, as if possessed by a fierce beast.

Bai Yimo trembled instinctively, but quickly dispelled this instinctive fear.

He relied on Lu Chuan.

He relied on this powerful, calm Benefactor.

"Think carefully, if you were this guy, what would you do?"

What would I do...

Bai Yimo suddenly remembered the Blond-haired Man who had wanted to kill him.

The reason he was so desperate to get the treasure map from him was because he had said he wanted to...

"Atone for one's crimes?"