Li Bo cut through the last of the assaillants and shouted towards the darkness.

''Zishen! Junior brother! Stay!''

He heard a faint okay and saw the duo at the edge of his vision. In the few seconds between their arrival he surveyed the area and checked his swelling wrist.

''Poison...that might prove troublesome.''

Raising his head, he noticed Zhang Cai's peculiar look. No, that was no look. It was a desperate gaze.

Li Bo had a faint understanding of Zhang Cai's character from the brothel that lasted until this moment, at which he found it broken in some ways. Someone so free to wreck their own body was so insecure about killing? Of course, bravery and decisiveness came in a basket most of the time. But it seemed this junior brother of his was an exception.

Looking at his sister, and she did look back at him with a shrug of her shoulders, he found himself comparing the two of them. Then he let go of that image and approached the shaken Zhang Cai.

''That seven, did you take care of them?''

The boy brooded over his words, a little taken aback still, but at last opened his mouth.

''I...don't know...I don't fucking know.''

For a moment he wanted to berate him. Then after that moment he realized a cruel truth about them.

They were, though companions for the moment, neither friends nor kins. There was a distance between two of them and if he were to make the choice to berate Zhang cai in his insecure state, if he were to assert his truth onto the boy's, that little path between them would shut down.

So he chose to be silent. He kept a gaze on him and thought for a few seconds how to bridge that gap. After all, he did not take this boy with him just out of pity.

''I will check up on them. You two stay here for a moment.''

Without waiting for their answers Li Bo leaped down and started following the trail back their path. He was neither slow nor carefree, yet he saw no one in his sight. Had they escaped?

Then he saw splatters of blood at his feet, and he took a few steps back.

This peculiar tree painted scarlet was of course not a mutation. He saw a pair of bodies stuck on its branches, pierced by the boughs through the limbs and the organs. Two more laid at its foundation, skulls smashed in a bloody pulp, and three more he saw trying to crawl away in agony. Their state was no better than the others, with legs shattered and arms barely hanging onto the torso.

He went forward and stabbed the three to end their agony. When the feeling of soft flesh left his blade, he cast a look up and sighed.

''Now what do I say to him?''