Chapter 1116 — Valentine's Day Special: Xiao Ning's Story, Part 1: Today Is February 14th, the Traditional Western Valentine's Day
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 2
At the border they came upon several pitiful children in rags, looking like refugees. The girl told the people with her to give them some clothes and food. Wei Zhao had objected to this at the time, but the girl said he had no compassion.
Wei Zhao wanted to say something, but in the end did not.
He was merely an escort, while all the others were the girl's own trusted retainers; naturally, in matters of detail, the girl had the final say.
These people could not flatter the girl fast enough — why would they listen to an outsider like Wei Zhao?
So they opened the luggage and rummaged through nearly everything, digging out food and clothing, terrified of displeasing the girl.
Wei Zhao frowned and in the end still said nothing. Wealth should not be displayed — that was the most basic of rules — but these flattering retainers were simply brainless.
The children took the clothes and food and left happily.
But before long, the unexpected happened. A large armed force came surging toward them! The children who had received the girl's charity not only showed no gratitude — they brought the armed force to which their parents belonged, and it began a large-scale plundering of the girl's party.
Though there were capable fighters among the group, before a large band of armed men carrying guns they seemed rather insignificant.
The armed force's ultimate aim was to detain the girl's party and seize the valuables they carried.
Under the armed force's assault, many of the retainers, who had no ability to resist, surrendered outright, and the few skilled hands from the girl's family were no match for guns and cannon either.
But Wei Zhao did not care in the least whether these people lived or died, and he had no obligation to protect the things they had brought with them.
To put it plainly, Wei Zhao had been sent by Feng Tianlong merely as a precaution, and when Wei Zhao came, Feng Tianlong had made it very clear: he was responsible only for the girl's safety.
So if anything happened to the girl, Wei Zhao would have a hard time answering for it; as for the others, if they wanted to die, let them. Wei Zhao had always been that sort.
Still, these armed men were clearly interested only in the valuables the girl's party had brought; they had no wish to kill and silence witnesses. After knocking the retainers unconscious or wounding them, they did no further harm.
Seeing this, Wei Zhao could not help but breathe a sigh of relief — though he still stood in front of the girl, ready to respond to any emergency at any moment.
"Please, could you stop? We can hand over all our valuables to you — please don't hurt our people!" Seeing the situation, the girl felt somewhat to blame and somewhat nervous, and she raised her voice to stop them.
Wei Zhao frowned, wanting to stop the girl, but her words had already drawn the armed men's attention.
"Grab that girl!" When the armed men saw the girl — they had not noticed her during the earlier plundering — she was the only woman in the party, and among armed forces where women were exceedingly rare, seeing a woman was like a starving wolf sighting prey. The leader of the armed men caught sight of the girl's looks and immediately began scheming.
This was exactly why Wei Zhao had wanted to stop the girl! These armed men might not kill, but that did not mean they would not snatch a woman the moment they saw one. Their restraint from large-scale killing was only because they did not want to provoke the local regime into a full-scale war against them; if the local regime truly resolved to fight these armed forces to the death, then their own lives would become very difficult.