Villain Path

Chapter 5. Let the villain recover!

Shen woke up on the same glade. The dawn sun gently touched his face. After blinking several times, he sat up and looked around.  Everything immediately began to float before the eyes, but after a few agonizingly long moments his eyes were focused.

Not far from him, with his hands wrapped around his thin knees, sat Al Luar, covered in blood-stained clothes.

- Teacher! - He exclaimed as soon as Shen regained consciousness.

Shen was still vaguely aware of why he had passed out. Has he expended too much spiritual strength? An unpleasant situation, he rightly expected that the main villain is much stronger!

He, of course, had no idea how much energy he had actually expended yesterday, and that other cultivators would have had their hair on end if they knew about such waste!

With Al, there was a noticeable but incomprehensible transformation to Shen.  Instead of looking at the teacher with his usual fear and hidden contempt, there was concern and joy in those eyes. Or does Shen just want to see it? On the other hand, of course he is glad that the teacher woke up and no longer have to hang around on this glade! After all, it is quite obvious that without Shen he will not get out from the Tiger Trail. 

Al actually looked at him with different eyes, but for a completely different reason. When the teacher passed out last night in exhaustion, the boy finally realized that he was a living person, and not the evil deity of chaos and destruction, which teacher Shen had become in his eyes over the years. He looked at the pale, bloody face of the teacher who gave so much of his vitality for him! Why? The boy sincerely did not understand why Shen suddenly did it, perhaps even simply because of his changeable mood, but he was sincerely grateful for his salvation.  For some reason, he did not remember that salvation and such a waste of spiritual forces would not have been required at all if this same man had not driven him onto the Tiger Trail days earlier.

But now the teacher was lying on the cold moss and looked so defenseless that Al's heart sank. He suddenly felt that he wanted to protect him. The man who just saved his worthless life. A magnificent deity who had every right to trample him with the toes of his exquisite shoes for his entire short, worthless life. But instead, he found him when Al ran away in tears. Found him and gave so much of his sacred spiritual powers for his salvation!

Al had no idea that, having been frightened then by this energy and sharply rejecting it, he, unwillingly, hit the teacher so hard, which seriously damaged him.

And Shen was now trying to understand why the usually flowing force inside him within the stream became like a drying up stagnant lake.  Deciding that now was not the time to indulge in questions that no one would answer him, Shen stood up abruptly and only swayed slightly.

 - Okay! - He said enthusiastically, balancing himself.  - We need to get out of here.

Looking back at the mountain in front of them, Shen could not contain a soft sigh.

- It seems like yesterday we unknowingly covered most of the Tiger Trail. It makes no sense to go back, it will be faster to finish it.

The boy in front of him nodded emphatically.

«Wow!  - thought Shen.  - And yet, it seems, he was imbued with my yesterday's concern!»

- Can the teacher go? – Al made up his mind to clarify. – This disciple can help him.

Shen’s eyes flashed. «Damn it! Passing out yesterday is still not worth it! – he thought as if the last really depended on him. – Now he will be delighted at my weakness and cease to respect! Though… It’s better he now recognizes me as weak and non-threatening...» Thinking it over, Shen still decided that weakness boasting of their authority is even more disgusting than strong bragging of their power. So this tactic is not very promising anyway.