V2C160

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“Stop there!” Soon another guard next to him noticed his identity and immediately said, “This is a shark! Where is his master, why did he let his slave out to wander? Arrest him now!”

“Sister… sister!” The child resisted desperately, but was knocked to the ground.

As if hearing voices from outside, the carriage stopped and a slender hand reached out, lifting the hanging curtain slightly upwards by a third. Beneath the curtain a pair of familiar eyes appeared, bright and beautiful, like dancing flames – it was truly Zhu Yan the Princess of the Red Clan.

Her eyes fell on the child who had been knocked to the ground and halted.

“Sister?” Surprised to see that she finally noticed him, Sumo stretched out his tiny arms and exclaimed frantically, “Sister! I’m here!”

However, Zhu Yan’s eyebrows raised slightly and she suddenly said in a low voice, ” Why is it you again?” She cast a sullen face and her hand suddenly retracted, the curtain snapped back down, blocking her face from being seen any longer.

The child’s body suddenly stiffened and began to shake violently.

What did… the sister just say? “It’s you again?”

Sumo looked at the hanging curtain, but was unable to move his fingers – he had gone through a lot of hardship on this journey, crossing the Mirror Lake to get here, and now the person he was looking for was close at hand, yet it was as if he had lost all his strength.

Another person’s voice came from inside the carriage, sounding like Grandma Sheng who once took care of him. That old woman had a gentler tone and seemed to be trying to arouse Zhu Yan’s sympathy as she said, “Alas, listen Princess, that little one keeps calling you sister. It’s quite pitiful.”

Zhu Yan’s tone was nevertheless ice-cold, “I am an only daughter, where did I get a younger brother?”

It was just a short sentence that nailed the child in place. As a short but sharp knife, stabbed into his heart, leaving no more room for survival.

Grandma Sheng still wanted to plead for him: “Those guards, they will only beat him to death.”

“He deserves to be killed!” However, Zhu Yan was unmoved, her voice full of disgust and impatience, “Didn’t I already order people to give him money and send him away? How come this little brat is still so insensitive that not only he didn’t leave, but also had to force his way here?”

“Sister!” Sumo jolted, unable to believe that these words were coming from the mouth of the familiar person, and in that moment, unsure of where he got the strength, he suddenly rolled over, reached out, pulled down that one curtain, and asked in a broken voice, “You… you really don’t want me anymore?”

“Little rascal!” Zhu Yan in the carriage was instantly exposed to the light of the day and turned her head, with a face full of anger, “Why don’t you quickly pull him away? What if people saw a little shark slave calling me sister, where would our Red Clan’s face stand?”

Hearing the princess’s order, the guards immediately rushed up and grabbed the child’s tiny arms.

“You’re lying!” Yet Sumo struggled against them, out of breath, and his voice trembled, “You… clearly said you wouldn’t throw me away! Look… here is the paper crane you sent!”

The child raised his hand, lifting his thin arm as hard as he could – within his unfurled palm was cupped a ragged paper crane: stained with blood and soaked in water, it had long since lost its shape, squeezed to death in the child’s palm and almost crumpled into a ball.

Zhu Yan, seated in the carriage, caught a glimpse of it and her expression suddenly changed drastically!

“This is your paper crane!” Sumo looked at her expression with a last glimmer of hope in his eyes, “I… know you’ve been looking for me to return! You wouldn’t leave me behind, would you? Sister!”

Zhu Yan also appeared to be stunned for a moment, and fell abruptly silent, not knowing how to respond.

Her face turned pale and dull, like a puppet.

In that moment, uncertain whether it was an illusion or not, it was as if the time had stopped. Through the cape, Sumo could perceive that the expressions in her eyes was frozen, her fingers were curdled, and even the wind that was blowing and the waves that were rushing by at the moment, together with the magnificent cape that was flying on her body, all seemed to stand still for an instant, as if they were mirror images frozen in place, which was so bizarre.

“What’s going on?” A familiar voice resounded in his ears, vaguely from an extremely distant place, with an uncontrollable shock, “Where did this paper crane come from?”

“It seems to have been carried in by the boy who kept squeezing it in his palm…”

“Damn, we neglected to check on him properly.”

“What? That thing was actually being carried by him into the illusion? This is bad!”

Who? Whose voices are these? That sounded so familiar… It sounded like those elders from the Restoration Army? How could they be here? Did they know that he had secretly escaped and were already coming after him?

For a moment, Sumo shuddered and a hint of fear passed through his veins. He even subconsciously attempted to pull his feet up and run away, to hide far from the crowd, back in the water beneath Mirror Lake.

However, all the scenes around him paused for just a brief moment, and then abruptly started again, returning to normal.

“Little bugger! Are you dreaming? What kind of broken paper is this?” Zhu Yan turned pale and frowned, speaking impatiently as a dark figure approached him, “Why don’t you get lost?”

With a swish, a whip lashed over and smashed the paper crane in his hand! Sumo could not retract his hand in time, and a crimson bloodstain was instantly etched on his hand.

“Sister!” The child looked at her in shock and shuddered, “Were you… lying to me about what you said before?”

“So what if I lied to you? Little kids, their brains haven’t grown up, but they take everything they were told as serious.” Zhu Yan in the carriage sneered and raised the whip again, muttering in disgust, “Even if you were driven away, you still won’t leave, how despicable… why don’t you quickly scram?”

“Liar!” Sumo suddenly rushed towards the carriage, snapping, “You liar!”

“Pull him away! Don’t let him touch the Princess!” Seeing that he was about to lunge at the Princess’ side, the guards rushed in response, grabbed the boy and dragged him back roughly.

The child was surprisingly stubborn, allowing the guards to punch and kick him, but he refused to cry a single breath of pain. The expression on his face was full of disgust and disdain, just like looking at a rotten dog.

The child froze for a moment, and the breath in his chest suddenly released, not struggling any longer.

“Little brat!” The head guard grabbed him in the end and picked him up, shouting angrily to his underlings, “Send him to the Western Market!”

What? The boy was taken aback and screamed as he started to struggle again – were these Kongsang people going to send him to the Western Market and sell him as a slave?

In that moment, he could no longer resist turning his head and staring at her in a desperate plea for help.

Just one word from the noble lady in the carriage, who was so well dressed, would have reversed his fate of being sold into slavery – but Zhu Yan did not even glance at him from the corner of her eyes, as if she had completely forgotten the existence of this little shark slave.

Seeing the expression on her face, Sumo’s heart suddenly turned cold and he stopped struggling.

“Sister.” He called out softly one last time, so softly that only he could hear it.

The child suddenly stopped resisting and remained motionless as if he were dead. The guards who swarmed over him held him down and dragged him up from the ground, punches and kicks raining on his body. His forehead was broken, blood trickled from his eyes, and the entire world turned a scarlet shade of blood in the child’s eyes – yet this time, no matter how excruciating the pain was, he never opened his mouth to cry out or beg her again.

The last memory of her leaving him was so painful and bone chilling that it was hard to forget.

As the tiny fingers lost their strength, the ragged paper crane fell out of his palm, unfurling its broken wings and twisting and turning on the ground like a tattered doll.

So ridiculous, so childish.

Just like the child’s hope for warmth he once had inside.

“Stop!” Elder Quan immediately withdrew his stance and shouted sternly at the other two elders, “Hurry up and stop!”

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