I Start with a Mysterious Island-Chapter 130: Pathetic Plastic Brotherhood

He bolted.

The bandit, San, had just righteously laid out the stakes and yelled for them all to charge the enemy. But the very moment his three companions rushed forward, he betrayed them, turned tail, and fled.

"San?!!!"

"Fuck, that bastard tricked us..."

"Damn it, he wanted us to be cannon fodder to buy him time to escape!"

When the three bandit underlings looked back and saw San escaping up the mountain slope by the road, their morale completely collapsed.

Zhu Xinru and Guard Chen, who were about to move forward to assist Lin Li, subconsciously slowed their steps when they saw this.

Lin Li, who had just finished forming a giant Cyan Wind Blade in his hand, was also momentarily stunned. Then, he spoke to the three demoralized bandits.

"Tsk, bandits will be bandits. This ’brotherhood’ you speak of is so fragile and pathetic in the face of danger.

If you get a chance to be human in your next life, don’t be bandits again."

After speaking, Lin Li waved his hand forward, and the giant Cyan Wind Blade he had formed shot out at extreme speed.

"San, you despicable bastard! You’d better die a horrible death!" the three demoralized bandits roared furiously at the fleeing San.

"Don’t blame me. You can only blame yourselves for being too naive..." San turned a deaf ear to the curses behind him. The more viciously his three underlings cursed, the faster he ran.

The bandit underling with the strength of a high-stage Tier One Cultivator turned to look back at Lin Li, just as the giant Cyan Wind Blade he had launched appeared right in front of him.

SCHLICK.

"Ah!"

The sharp, giant Cyan Wind Blade sliced the vicious, blood-soaked bandit in two. With a single, wretched cry, the vicious bandit breathed his last.

"Ah..."

Seeing their companion’s gruesome death, the two remaining bandits screamed like madmen and tried to flee in separate directions.

But just then, Zhu Xinru and Guard Chen, who had run over to support Lin Li, arrived and blocked their path.

"Spare me! I surrender."

"Don’t kill me, I surrender."

Seeing no hope of escape, the two bandits immediately dropped their weapons and knelt to beg for mercy.

PFFT, PFFT.

Guard Chen raised the Spiritual Longsword in his hand and stabbed each of the kneeling, begging bandits in the heart, ending their lives.

"Guard Chen, what are you...?" Zhu Xinru asked, bewildered, seeing Guard Chen so decisively kill the two bandits who had surrendered and begged for their lives.

"Miss Zhu, we don’t have the extra manpower to watch them right now.

Besides, these vicious bandits have blood on their hands. Killing them is also avenging those who died by their hands," Guard Chen explained, knowing his young miss was kind-hearted.

After hearing Guard Chen’s explanation, Zhu Xinru nodded and said no more. After all, while she was kind-hearted, she wasn’t unreasonable.

’Tsk, this guard is a ruthless one! He could still strike even after they knelt and surrendered. If it were me, I probably... uh, I might not have been able to do it...’ Lin Li mused as he watched Guard Chen kill the bandits.

Lin Li would naturally show no mercy to an enemy who attacked him. However, if an enemy were to drop their weapons and pitifully kneel in surrender, Lin Li, having received so many years of civilized education, most likely couldn’t bring himself to strike.

"Sir, thank you for your help just now... My name is Zhu Xinru. May I ask your name?"

With the crisis averted, Zhu Xinru had brought Guard Chen over to Lin Li, expressing her gratitude with a smile.

"My name is Lin Li." Seeing this beautiful woman from the Spirit Realm introduce herself, Lin Li politely replied, "You’re welcome. Aiding those in peril is the duty of us Cultivators..."

"’Aiding those in peril is our duty,’ well said! It is truly our good fortune to meet a righteous man like Mr. Lin." At his side, Guard Chen’s eyes lit up when he heard Lin Li’s noble words.

Zhu Xinru looked at the refined, handsome young man before her, so full of righteous conviction. She felt he was somehow different from the other wealthy young masters of her age she had met.

’Ugh, saying such formal, stuffy lines is so embarrassing! Still, acting this way should have earned me a lot of goodwill from these two...’ Lin Li grumbled internally before turning to ask Zhu Xinru a question.

"Miss Zhu, excuse me, do you know how far it is from here to Dongwu City?"

"It shouldn’t be far..." Zhu Xinru wasn’t sure herself, so she turned to look at Guard Chen.

"Once we pass through that forest ahead and walk a bit further, we’ll be at Dongwu City," Guard Chen said, picking up where his miss had left off and pointing to a patch of woods in the distance.

’Phew...’ Hearing Guard Chen’s words, Lin Li breathed a sigh of relief in his mind. ’So I was already this close to Dongwu City. Looks like I can reach my destination before dark.’

CLIP, CLOP, CLIP...

Just then, the sound of urgent hoofbeats came from behind them. Upon hearing it, the expressions on the faces of Zhu Xinru and her party immediately changed.

When they turned to look behind them, their tense expressions immediately relaxed.

"It’s Old Liu and the others... Miss Zhu, they’re all safe and sound," Guard Chen said joyfully to Zhu Xinru beside him, having spotted his companions galloping toward them from the distance.

"That’s wonderful, Guard Liu and the others are all..." Zhu Xinru meant to say ’all safe and sound,’ but as the galloping guards drew closer, she saw that many of them were quite seriously injured.

The more severely wounded had large patches of their clothes stained red, their faces deathly pale with no trace of color.

...

After realizing they had fallen for the despicable bandits’ scheme, Guard Captain Liu Jie had led his companions into a fierce battle with the scar-faced man’s group.

After a round of clashes, the scar-faced man, believing his plan had succeeded, didn’t entangle himself with Liu Jie’s group any further and left with his underlings.

Seeing the bandits retreat, the guards, exhausted from the fierce battle, immediately mounted their steeds and rushed in the direction their young miss had taken to break through.

Liu Jie, his heart filled with despair, galloped onward with his equally disheartened companions.

The party of guards, who had already lost all hope, could hardly believe their eyes when they saw their young miss standing on the road, safe and sound.

"Miss Zhu, you’re all safe! This is wonderful!!!" Liu Jie pulled on his reins, leaped from his horse, and hurried to Zhu Xinru’s side, his voice thick with emotion.

... ...