“That doesn’t matter. The only thing that does is that the Quickshade Bird has returned to us.” Bai Yunfei smiled, “And now, you may all leave.”
Bai Yunfei’s words had caused Tai Ping to be taken back for a moment. The light in his eyes flickered for a moment before thinking of something to say. With a disgruntled look, he spoke to Bai Yunfei, “If you wish to capture that Quickshade Bird, then we shall admit our defeat here. But, if you could please leave your names so that we may one day return the favor…..”
“Ha! Do you take us to be idiots? Or do you think we’ll tell you, are you the idiot then?” Jing Mingfeng couldn’t help but chortle. “Beast Taming School, ha! How scary, if I told you my identity, then wouldn’t I die a miserable death then?”
Exaggerating his words, Jing Mingfeng’s face had soon turned to become rather fierce, “Hmph. If I tell you to leave, then you better get lost right fucking now! If I change my mind and kill you all here, you won’t even have the chance to return the favor in the future!”
His words had been effective in its intimidation. The two of them had only gulped as they looked at each other. Without another word, they carefully walked around them to pick up their fallen comrades and soulbeasts and walked away from the left side of the forest in defeat.
Seeing how they had collect their stoic soulbeasts into their space rings, Bai Yunfei had a slightly uncomfortable look on his face. Because of his meeting with Hong Yin, Bai Yunfei did not look too favorably on the Beast Taming School. From his heart, he took them to be disgusting. These soulless soulbeasts were completely different than from the lively and cute Xiao Tang from before. His sympathies for these soulbeasts had furthered increase when he saw them being used like tools. Inversely, his hatred for the Beast Taming School had increased as well to the point where his eyes couldn’t help but leak some killing intent.
It wasn’t as if he didn’t have the idea of taking the soulbeasts. If he did, Bai Yunfei wouldn’t even know where to start on what to do with them afterwards. The beast tamers themselves were already a troublesome group. Admitting defeat and fighting to their death were two separate things. But it had been for the best. If they had been unwilling to give up, Bai Yunfei wasn’t sure if he would be able to really kill them or not….
But the small sliver of killing intent that had leaked from Bai Yunfei had been noticed by Tai Ping and Fang Hao, causing them to shiver. The two bird soulbeasts they controlled flew slightly lower as if afraid of dropping their guard against Bai Yunfei. At the same time, their footsteps picked up so as to take them out of the forest even faster….
Long after they left, Jing Mingfeng let out a sigh and asked Bai Yunfei, “How is it?”
Drawing back his soulsense, Bai Yunfei nodded his head, “Yea, they’re gone.”
“Phew….” Jing Mingfeng let out a long sigh before dropping the stern expression on his face. With a swipe of his hand over his face, his original face had returned. Swinging his hands into the air in excitement, he laughed out loud, “Haha, that was a good fight!! It’s a good thing that they gave up, my soulforce would have run out if they continued to fight….”
Bai Yunfei smiled as well as he let his original appearance appear on his face. There had been a rustling sound from behind as Tianming emerged from the bushes to run out to them.
“Wahaha, brother Bai, brother Jing, you two were amazing!!” Tianming ran up to the two of them with a face filled with adoration. “With just the two of you, you were able to beat the others away! Too cool!”
“Eh? Hehe, do you think I’m cool?” Jing mingfeng’s eyes lit up as he stroked his chin as if drunk on the praise.
“Yea! You’re awesome!” Tianming praised him again. “That wind blade was especially too cool! The fact that you can change your face is super cool! I want to learn that soul technique too, could you teach me, brother Jing?”
“Of course I ca-what? Brat, were you trying to take advantage of this moment to trick me?” Jing Mingfeng had caught onto Tianming’s words and laughed, “You’re only a Soul Personage. It’s far too early for you to learn this soul technique. Wait until you become a Soul Sprite, we’ll talk then!”
Bai Yunfei shook his head when he saw the look of disappointment on Tianming’s face. “Well then, that’s that. We can leave now. Where’s miss Tang and aunty Zhao?”
“Oh, them? After the Quickshade Bird flew off, it took off towards the village behind us. Miss Xinyun and aunty Zhao ran on over to it….” Tianming pointed off in the direction he had mentioned for Bai Yunfei.
“Eh?” Bai Yunfei turned his head to look and spread out his soulsense. Letting out a swear, he spoke, “Something happened, let’s hurry on over!”
Turning the clock back a little bit, the Quickshade Bird had only just been freed from the rope thanks to Bai Yunfei. With a tremendous amount of effort, it was finally able to break free and fly away.
When Tang Xinyun saw that Bai Yunfei and Jing Mingfeng were fighting the others, she hesitated for a moment before turning around to run off in the direction the bird flew in.
“Miss Xinyun, where are you going?” Tianming whispered.
“I’m going to find the Quickshade Bird!” Tang Xinyun replied before quickly chasing after it. Aunty Zhao had hesitated too for a moment to look at Bai Yunfei and Jing Mingfeng fight the group of people there. But when she saw that they were taking care of them without a problem, she spoke a word to Tianming and ran off after Tang Xinyun.
“Oh, that’s fine then. I’ll sit here and wait. You can go….” Tianming nodded his head before turning back to watch the fight.
Running for three hundred meters, Tang Xinyun had finally sensed a weak amount of soulforce. Looking to a nearby tree, she saw the Quickshade Bird hidden on one of the branches.
A steady flow of blood could be seen from the Quickshade Bird’s body. With its beak quivering in pain and its throat letting out a small chirp, the bird was trying its best to look up into the blue skies. Its small eyes had reflected the pain it was feeling as it held its right wing underneath it. Unable to even turn over, its left wing flapped uselessly with blood splattering everywhere as it tried to take off once more to enjoy the freedom it would have in the skies.
It was only when Tang Xinyun had gotten within ten meters of it that the bird had sensed her approach. Turning to her, the bird let out an unwilling chirp as despair overcame it.
“Don’t….don’t you worry. I won’t capture you.” Tang Xinyun slowed her footsteps as she lifted her hands up in sign of bearing no ill will. “I know you can understand what I’m saying, do you remember me? We met three days ago, I won’t hurt you….”
The bird’s eyes seemed to have softened at Tang Xinyun’s words and its movements calmed down by a marginal amount. Letting out two chirps, the vigilant light in its eyes seemed to have disappeared.
Tang Xinyun naturally didn’t know what the bird had said and could only inch closer to it to get to its side. Squatting down, she looked at the quivering injured bird with a pained look. Reaching out a hand, she moved to try and pick it up.
Seeing how Tang Xinyun had extended an arm towards it, the Quickshade Bird had been startled. Almost as if frightened, the bird had instinctively pecked at Tang Xinyun’s right palm with its beak.
“Ah!”
Tang Xinyun had let out a pained sound as she looked at the small wound on her palm. Blood had been spilled out and soon pooled over her delicate hand.
“Young miss!” Aunty Zhao had caught up to her by this point and moved to run to her but was stopped by Tang Xinyun.
“Aunty Zhao, don’t come on over. It’s only afraid….” Tang Xinyun spoke. Looking again at the bird, she spoke warmly, “Don’t be afraid. I won’t hurt you. You’re heavily hurt and need treatment. Let me help you okay? It’ll be like last time….”
This time, the bird had not put up anymore resistance and had instead looked blankly at Tang Xinyun. Because of her eyes, the bird was at a loss for what to do.
Carefully holding the bird into her hands, Tang Xinyun had realized that it was far smaller than before. Its left wing had a terrible wound about three inches long that had split apart from its exertion.
Carefully feeling around the injured area, Tang Xinyun couldn’t help but feel disturbed. The blood on her own hand had dripped down onto the bird’s own wings, but she looked as if she hadn’t felt the pain from it. Carefully pressed the wound, her eyes closed together and allowed her soulforce to flow into the bird.
Feeling the soulforce enter its body, the Quickshade Bird let out a small chirp. Its body began to tremble as the unaware light gradually disappeared from its eyes. There had been a complicated look in its eyes as it stared at Tang Xinyun, but it felt grateful nonetheless.
Walking up to Tang Xinyun, the aunty looked at her back with furrowed eyes. She understood Tang Xinyun’s nature the most and knew that there would be no way for her to convince her younger charge to not save the soulbeast, but….
“This Quickshade Bird is far too injured. You could transfer all of your soulforce into it, but this is a soulbeast of the fifth class, young miss. As a Soul Warrior, you don’t have even enough soulforce to heal it completely….” The woman shook her head. “Finally, it was just fighting for its survival not too long ago, its lifeforce is surely at an end…”
She knew that what Tang Xinyun was useless, but she was reluctant to stop her. With a helpless sigh, the woman turned her head to look off towards the direction where Bai Yunfei and Jing Mingfeng were with her soulsense activated.
“Those two boys aren’t ordinary by any means. Even without using their true skills, they were able to maintain the advantage.” With narrowed eyes, the woman thought to herself even more, “But still….I didn’t think that those men would be from the Beast Taming School. It is a good thing that we didn’t show ourselves. That would have been a troublesome thing if we did. Bai Yunfei and Jing Mingfeng can change their faces, but we should split apart to avoid any more trouble befalling the young miss….”
“Aah!!”
Just at that moment, a cry came out from Tang Xinyun’s mouth. Startled, aunty Zhao looked on over where she too had been stunned to see what was in front of her.
“Tha–that’s….”