THE VILLAIN's APPRENTICE ✔

21 🗡 New and Broken Friendship

According to the stories told by many, during one of the attacks of the barbarians in the border near the West Plains, a man who was as tall and as huge as a bear carrying a double-headed battle axe was said to be passing by. At that time, the troops of Chun Empire were forced back due to the enormous number of barbarians. The Chun soldiers were losing hope, and when they saw the huge man, they thought he was a farmer from a nearby village. Hence, they instructed him to warn the nearby villages to evacuate since the general already issued an order to retreat. But an odd thing happened. The huge man approached the general of the Chun troops and discussed something. After a heated discussion, the man strangled the general and crushed his throat, killing him with his bare hands.

The Chun troops were enraged. Before the soldiers could capture him, however, the huge man stole a horse and charged toward the desert at the camp of the barbarians. The soldiers chased him, and the barbarians immediately retaliated thinking that the Chun troops were staging a surprise attack.

To everyone's surprise, the huge man leaped forward and landed on the barbarians' catapult, smashing it to half. He smashed all the catapults that were used by the barbarians to throw huge stones which were one of the reasons why the Chun troops were forced to retreat. Then, the man attacked the barbarians, undeterred by the overwhelming number of enemies. His extraordinary strength stunned those who witnessed his rampage. With renewed hope, the Chun soldiers fought back and claimed victory. However, the man as tall and as huge as a bear had disappeared.

A year after that, the South River country was in a state of great disturbance due to corrupt local officials in various cities who used their position to gain wealth and to boast their authority. Many people suffered from the oppression of the said government officials, but they had no power to resist. They tried to send a message to the capital to ask for help, but the messengers were killed.

The dark days of the South River citizens continued until news spread of a certain man who killed the corrupt local official in Yellow Dirt City. Soon, the despicable officials from other cities were taken down as well. But there was a strange rumor that the man just attacked those government heads to rob them of their precious wines because in all of the crime scenes, there were jars of empty wine and the other wine jars were missing as well. Some witnesses even said that they saw the thief drinking wine while sitting on top of the corpse of the local official, which terrified the citizens. Nevertheless, they were grateful to have gained peace once again after the corrupt people of power were eliminated.

Stories were told about the two. But just like the stories told multiple times, attractive details were embellished until people began to doubt the truth behind it. Some people debated that they should be celebrated as heroes, but others argued that the Bear and the Wine Thief were just a couple of criminals who got away due to the good deed they'd done.

"Because of those incidents, Old Brother Xia Bo was called 'The Bear', and Older Brother Fu Jian was called 'Wine Thief'," Yong Jie said.

Those details were something that Da Xia had already read in the ancient book, but she had to pretend it was her first time to know about it when the warrior recounted the events while sitting on the bed as she bandaged his wounds. Fortunately, she learned first aid back in college; hence, she did a decent job in tending to his injuries. But seeing the cuts and bruises in the guy's body made her heart ache.

Just like what Meili said, there were two middle state awakened ones among the enemies. Even though the warrior would still be able to defeat the assassins without the help of his senior sect brothers, the ancient book indicated that only a sliver of his life was left after the opponents fled. He would be gravely injured if his sect brothers didn't interfere. Da Xia was extremely grateful that the two Southern Guardians senior disciples were in the vicinity and heeded her call. Because of them, the warrior's injuries were not life-threatening.