Chapter 50: I Did It

The purple and gold glow of the setting sun gradually swallowed the entire Tubei Mountain.

The ten members of the Su family, young and old alike, brandishing makeshift weapons and wiping away tears, charged out from their loess path home, followed closely by a crowd of Tubei Mountain residents. They moved in a grand, imposing formation, reeking of fierce determination.

Halfway through their journey, a majestic figure appeared at the far end of the loess path.

Walking against the light.

In one hand, he carried a tiny baby, and in the other, he shouldered an unconscious old man, stepping forward steadily.

The Su family froze, rubbing their eyes repeatedly before believing the sight before them.

Their Tianbao was completely fine.

She was hanging quite securely in the man's grasp, contentedly playing with her own fingers. When she spotted them, a soft, sweet smile bloomed across her tiny face. "Aiya."

The kitchen knife gripped in the old Mrs. Su's hand clattered to the ground. She stumbled forward toward the little baby, tears streaming down her face like falling rain. "Tianbao! My little Tianbao!"

The baby was instantly transferred into the old woman's embrace, hugged so tightly she could barely catch her breath.

And that was not all. The adults of the Su family took turns holding her, even the young boys jumping up just to gently pat their little sister's head.

Things only quieted down after every single person had their turn with the little baby.

Only then did the family finally have the leisure to shift their attention elsewhere. When they saw the person draped empty-over-the-shoulder of the man called Dandao, their hostile glares returned, and their wooden clubs and sticks stirred restlessly.

Dandao casually flipped the crazy old man over, exposing his face to everyone's view.

The Su family took one look and thought, "...?"

The old man's face was truly too ghastly to behold.

It was bruised and battered, with blue and purple swelling all over, and lumps and bumps rising all the way up to his temples. His original features were completely unrecognizable.

Su Er gritted his teeth, unable to suppress a bit of gloating schadenfreude. "Who did this? Well done!"

Tianbao, who had returned to her grandma's warm embrace, tried hard to stretch out her little head, parting her small mouth and babbling incoherently.

I did it.

I did it.

Su Er said, "I know! It must have been an expert who stepped in to help our family again! Dad, Mom, once we get home, we must kowtow and pay our respects to the expert!"

Tianbao's bright, smiling face instantly went blank. She lifted her gaze to the sky.

It was going to thunder again soon.

The residents of Tubei Mountain who had followed along to help shrank back timidly when they saw the stranger, not daring to meet anyone's eyes. In their hearts, however, they became even more firmly convinced that the Su family indeed had a powerful expert guarding them from the shadows.

They had backed the right people this time!

***

This harrowing scare finally ended with Dandao's declaration: "I want to eat."

The courtyard gate of the Su family was closed, and smoke rose from the kitchen chimney.

Three young women were bustling efficiently around the stove.

When Su Xiu'er was washing the rice to cook, she initially hesitated about how much to make. The man sitting at the kitchen entrance waiting for food did not even turn his head as he calmly stated, "The rice and flour include your share."

Hearing this, she stopped hesitating and immediately scooped out enough rice for the whole family's portion.

As she carried the cooking pot outside to wash the rice, passing right by the man, she whispered, "Th... thank you."

Thinking back on how she had previously dared to snap at this man and even tell him to get lost, Su Xiu'er could hardly believe she had possessed such immense courage once the dust had settled.

In truth, the man was bound to them by no ties of blood or friendship. In a place of exile like this, where the law of the jungle prevailed and human decency meant nothing, the fact that he hadn't simply cleaved them in two with a single blade was already an act of grace.

Dandao owed the Su family nothing, yet in the end, he had still helped bring Tianbao back. A single word of thanks from her was more than deserved.

The man made no further acknowledgment. He sat directly on the ground under the kitchen eaves, holding his saber with both hands and lightly closing his eyes, giving no sign of whether he had heard her or not.

As time grew late, the last lingering rays of the sunset were fading away.

Amidst the domestic smoke filling the courtyard, three young boys squatted in the center, cupping their cheeks in their hands as they openly discussed the unconscious man lying on the ground.

For safety's sake, the crazy old man had been bound tightly hand and foot by the Su family, lying there completely unresponsive like an old dried shrimp, looking rather comical.

"That master must be truly formidable to beat this old man until he's covered in all these bumps," Su Wu said in absolute awe, filled with boundless admiration for the unseen expert. "When I grow up, I want to be a master just like that, helping good people and beating up bad guys!"

Su Wen added, "Of course masters are amazing! This bad guy can fly, and even with all his skill, he wasn't a match for the master!"

Su And furrowed his small brow, putting on a deeply thoughtful look. "They had a fight. Do you guys think the bad guy ever saw what the master looked like?"

The other two shook their heads. "We don't know. When the bad guy wakes up, we can just ask him! Should we wake him up now?"

"How?"

"I have a way!"

Su Wu's eyes rolled, and he scurried over to the back vegetable garden. When he returned, he was holding a few foxtail grass stalks, handing one to each of his two older brothers. "Tickle him! Whenever I used to sleep in and didn't want to get up, Dad would tickle me like this, and I'd wake right up!"

At the doorway of the main room, Tianbao—held tightly by old Mrs. Su and refusing to be let go—twitching her little mouth at the sight.

Old Mrs. Su hugged her recovered treasure, unwilling to let anyone else take her. "My darling, were you scared? Grandma's soul still hasn't returned from the fright. Thank goodness you're alright. If anything had happened to you, Grandma wouldn't have been able to go on living either."

Old Mr. Su squatted nearby, his eyes glued to his little granddaughter as he scolded, "Why are you babbling such nonsense to a baby so small? Even if our Tianbao was fine, she'd be scared silly by what you're saying."

"How is it nonsense? Who knows what kind of jinx our family offended; every three days there's some kind of trouble. We never have a moment of peace and quiet!"

"It'll get better slowly. You have to look forward when living your life. Just look at how things are now—aren't they much better than when we first arrived? Besides, Dandao already said he'd protect our family in peace for three months!"

Old Mrs. Su frowned, worry still lingering deep in her eyes. "There are two sides to that. A place of exile isn't like Dafu Village; a whole bunch of monsters and demons gather here, each with tricks we can't even imagine. It's probably going to be hard to live in peace."

Even though Dandao possessed martial arts skills, old Mrs. Su did not dare put complete faith in his promise to protect their family.

It wasn't that she didn't trust Dandao; it was that she didn't trust those monsters and demons.

Take the one still lying on the ground, for instance—he could render their entire family unconscious with poison without making a single sound.

She truly couldn't say whether Dandao's blade was sharper or the crazy old man's poison was deadlier.

Sigh.

Tianbao loved listening to her family talk. Whenever they did this, she would remain exceptionally quiet and focused, frustrated only by the fact that she currently possessed a mouth that could only utter single syllables, wrinkling her little face in vexation.

Grandma was right.

At the very least, Tianbao felt that the crazy old man's poison gave her a bigger headache than Dandao's blade.

Because when the old man released his poison, it was completely invisible and intangible... and Tianbao found this subject extremely interesting.

She tilted her head slightly to look at the old man in the center of the courtyard, whose nose was currently being tickled by her older brothers, her large eyes blinking rapidly. Just how could one learn that kind of trick?

On the other side, after whispering to each other in a hushed discussion for quite a while, the brothers Su Da and Su Er nudged each other and crept over to Dandao, squatting down on his left and right.

"Um, Master Dandao? How exactly did you rescue our Tianbao?"

"Who beat that old man up?"

"Did you cross paths with that person?"

"What did they look like?"

The brothers pelted him with questions one after another, secretly probing for intelligence about their benefactor.

Dandao lifted his eyelids slightly, his gaze sweeping past a certain baby not far away. "No."

"No what? You didn't cross paths, or you didn't see anyone?" The brothers immediately pressed on.

Dandao replied, "Neither."

When he arrived, all he saw was the little baby sitting there with her short legs splayed, pounding her own head.

As for how the poison master had managed to knock himself out, he was quite curious himself. The only conclusion he reached after investigating was the large lump swelling on the back of the old man's head.

The old man had been knocked out by someone hitting him.

As for who did the hitting... that remained to be determined.