I Start with a Mysterious Island-Chapter 132: Reversing Black and White
"Mr. Lin, please mount up." Seeing his young miss invite the man to travel with them, Liu Jie, who was standing to the side, immediately offered up his own mount.
’Dude, are you trying to make things difficult for me? I’ve ridden a bicycle, an electric scooter, and a motorcycle, but I’ve never ridden a horse...’
Lin Li watched as Liu Jie led his mount over to him, a troubled expression appearing on his face.
When Liu Jie saw the troubled look on Lin Li’s face, he assumed that this Mr. Lin was disgusted by the bloodstains on the saddle and thought it was too dirty.
So, he immediately used his sleeve to wipe the bloodstains, only to find he was making it even dirtier. He then spoke apologetically to Lin Li.
"Mr. Lin, please wait a moment. I’ll get you a clean saddle."
"No, it’s not the saddle," Lin Li said, shaking his head when he realized the misunderstanding.
"Then...?" Liu Jie looked at Lin Li, confused.
"I don’t know how to ride a horse," Lin Li said frankly.
"Huh?" Everyone present was stunned to hear Lin Li say he couldn’t ride a horse. Among them, even Zhu Xinru and her maid, Chunxiang, knew how to ride.
Horses were an important mode of transportation in this world. Except for the poorest commoners, anyone with some family wealth would buy a horse for themselves. It was not only convenient for travel but also a matter of face when visiting friends.
In their eyes, this extraordinarily gifted young talent, who had awakened two Superpowers, naturally belonged to the class of people who could afford a horse.
But now, he was actually saying he didn’t know how to ride one. It was like a Blue Star Person saying they didn’t know how to ride a bike. How could everyone not be surprised?
Seeing them all staring at him in surprise, Lin Li didn’t bother to explain further.
"Mr. Lin, if you don’t mind, you can ride in the carriage with me," Zhu Xinru said to Lin Li after a moment of thought.
The guards were shocked. They never expected their young miss to invite this stranger to share her carriage.
Propriety dictated that men and women should keep their distance. If word got out that the young miss of the Zhu Family was sharing a carriage with a man she had only just met, it would surely start rumors and damage her reputation.
They were just about to speak up and dissuade her, but then they remembered that this Mr. Lin had just saved their young miss’s life.
The man couldn’t ride a horse; they couldn’t just let him follow the group on foot, could they?
For their young miss to now invite her savior to ride in the carriage seemed perfectly reasonable and appropriate.
The guards, who had been on the verge of dissuading Zhu Xinru, all closed their mouths again.
"Thank you." Lin Li, who was not on the same wavelength as these Spirit Realm Indigenous People, didn’t have so many reservations.
He thanked Zhu Xinru for the invitation and, at her gesture, boarded the carriage first, ducking inside.
’This carriage is pretty spacious! It could fit six or seven people, no problem. And it smells nice...’ As soon as he was inside, Lin Li immediately noticed a faint, pleasant scent wafting through the compartment.
The interior of the carriage was simple. There was a low couch, with two long benches built into the walls on either side.
The low couch, naturally, was for the two young women. After getting inside, Lin Li sat down on the bench to the left.
A moment later, Zhu Xinru and her maid, Chunxiang, also entered the carriage. The two of them sat on the low couch at the far end.
"Move out."
"Yah!"
After moving the giant boulder blocking the road, Guard Captain Liu Jie gave the command to set off, and the convoy once again proceeded in an orderly fashion toward Dongwu City.
...
WHOOSH...
RUSTLE RUSTLE RUSTLE...
A gust of wind swept past the creek, and the lush vegetation on both banks rustled as the sudden gust blew through.
GULP, GULP...
A group of bandits, having tended to their wounds, were now lying by the creek, drinking water.
"Big Brother, now that we’ve kidnapped the Zhu Family’s young miss, we’ll be rich once we get the ransom..."
The bald man, his arm wrapped in gauze, grinned at the scar-faced man sitting on a large rock by the creek.
"That’s right! Once we get the ransom, we’ll leave the Dongwu City area immediately and go live it up somewhere else."
The moment the scar-faced man thought about the huge ransom he was about to receive, the new wound on his face, inflicted by Guard Captain Liu Jie, suddenly stopped hurting.
"Boss, I hear that Zhu Family young miss is quite a beauty. When the time comes, how about we... heh heh... have a little fun..." a bandit who had drunk his fill by the creek said to the scar-faced man with a wicked grin.
"Of course. But we’ll do that after we get the ransom," the scar-faced man laughed heartily.
Hearing the scar-faced man’s words, all the bandits began to snicker wickedly.
RUSTLE RUSTLE RUSTLE...
The grass in the distance suddenly began to shake violently. The bandits, who had been fantasizing about money and women, heard the noise and immediately grabbed their weapons, staring warily at the rustling bushes.
There was no wind, yet the grass was shaking violently. A situation like this meant one of two things: either the Zhu Family’s guards had caught up to them, or it was a fierce, wandering Mutant Beast.
Compared to the latter, the bandits would much rather it be the former. However, this area was already very close to Dongwu City, and there weren’t any powerful Mutant Beasts around.
If a Mutant Beast did emerge from the violently shaking grass, they should be able to handle it easily with their combined strength.
"Big Brother!" A figure burst out of the shaking grass. Seeing the group of bandits, he cried out in pleasant surprise.
"It’s San."
"The Third Boss is back."
Seeing that it was one of their own who had emerged from the grass, the bandits all breathed a sigh of relief. But then, puzzled expressions appeared on their faces.
"San... where’s the person?" the bald man asked, confused. The "person" he was referring to was, of course, the young miss of the Zhu Family—the one who could be exchanged for a large pile of Spirit Stones.
The bandit, San, who had initially looked pleasantly surprised, suddenly changed his expression upon hearing the bald man’s question. Choking up, he stammered, "Second Brother, I..."
"San, what happened? Why are you the only one back?" As the leader, the scar-faced man felt a sense of foreboding and questioned San with a grave expression.
Only then did the other bandits belatedly realize that the four brothers who had gone out with San hadn’t returned with him.
At the scar-faced man’s question, tears and snot streamed down San’s face. He wailed in a miserable tone.
"SOB... Little Laizi... Little Laizi and the others, they all died covering my escape."
...
