Chapter 31: Another hero saves the beauty
That was a girl’s scream, shrill to the extreme, twisting Liang Lai’s heart into knots.
She turned toward the source of the sound and spotted a rundown courtyard.
Liang Lai’s fingertips dug deep into her palm.
That scream was like a dull knife, scraping at her eardrums with every pass.
She rose on tiptoe and peered through a gap in the crumbling courtyard wall—
In the moss-encrusted yard, three men in church green robes were pinning down a skeletal-thin girl.
The fabric on the girl’s left shoulder lay torn open, exposing a glowing holy seal in the midst of rotting away.
Her right arm bent at an unnatural angle, shattered pottery shards and half a moldy black loaf scattered across the ground.
Liang Lai suddenly made out the girl’s face clearly.
The girl’s face was small, her skin pale to the point of near-transparency, faint blue veins visible just beneath.
Her nose bridge ran straight, the tip slightly upturned, her lips drained of color from the pain and pressed into a thin line.
Most striking of all were those eyes—silver irises like molten moonlight, blazing with an uncanny brightness even amid agony.
A few sweat-soaked strands of golden hair clung to her forehead, the tips spattered with mud from the shattered jar.
At the corner of her left eye sat a tiny tear mole, quivering with her lashes.
The rotting holy seal stretched from collarbone to shoulder blade, etching radial fissures into her skin—those luminous lines now flickering in time with her ragged breaths.
“Even a lowly commoner dares steal holy ointment?”
The fattest of the priests ground down on the girl’s fingers with his boot heel, viscous blood浆 seeping from the cracks between the stone slabs.
“This is meant for the lords!”
Liang Lai’s brow furrowed; she was on the verge of shoving the gate open when it hit her—she wasn’t in her saintess robes right now, which meant no intimidating these green-robed priests.
To truly cow them, it’d take force, and she was a civilized sort; she didn’t want to keep hurting people.
As Liang Lai scanned around for a spot to throw on her saintess robe, another round of vile curses reached her ears.
“Kneel before the priests, you wretch!”
She glanced back and saw a hunched old woman viciously lashing the poor girl with a whip.
“Why steal from good folk?!”
The girl let out a choked whimper of pain, then cried out her explanation at the top of her lungs.
“It’s you who won’t feed me…! You who starve me…!”
It had the air of someone who’d shattered their last illusions, gone all-in on defiance.
Liang Lai figured it was like cornering an honest soul until they snapped; the poor girl didn’t strike her as the tantrum-throwing type, so this outburst must mean she’d given up on life—no hope left, certain to be beaten to death, and thus mouthing off in desperate rebellion.
Her heart clenched in sudden agony, her mind flashing to news stories from her old world—divorce aftermath, where a father snatched the child from the mother, only for a stepmother to abuse the kid to death while the father turned a blind eye.
Countless children perished in those suffocating homes, whether from outright beatings, cold neglect, or scorching tempers.
Liang Lai clutched her chest tight and darted to a nearby hidden nook, heedless of the clothes already piled inside as she yanked on her saintess robes.
She didn’t mind the swelter, just bolted straight back to the courtyard in a rush.
By now, the girl’s whimpers from inside had dwindled to near silence.
Liang Lai peered in anxiously and saw the child curled fetal on the ground, scarcely breathing—crimson and dark brown blood pooling everywhere.
Even if the blows didn’t finish her, she’d bleed out dry in moments.
“Stop this!”
Liang Lai bellowed.
She felt every bit the greenwood bandit hero straight out of a tale; with a single kick, she burst the courtyard gate wide, propriety be damned for a saintess.
She raced to the girl’s side, threw up a barring hand between her and the green-robed priests, then seized the old woman’s wrist and flung her sprawling to the dirt.
“Ow, ow!”
The old woman wailed in agony.
“What in the world do you think you’re doing—beating a poor, innocent child without cause? Is this the church’s lesson in righteousness?”
She spoke with stern conviction, chin thrust high.
The lead fatty had words bubbling up, but the instant his eyes hit the saintess emblem on Liang Lai’s robes, they all twisted inward and choked back down his throat.
“Th-Third Saintess!”
The three green-robed priests yelped in unison.
Liang Lai let out a quiet breath of relief inside; her saintess rank pulled real weight, after all—enough to blanch their faces in terror.
Fair enough; they were the church’s bottom-rung grunts, and she their direct superior—fear and reverence came standard.
“Tell me why you’re tormenting a child like this.”
Her brows knotted in displeasure as she dropped to a crouch, drawing the girl gently into her arms.
The child was skin and bones, so frail that even this light embrace let Liang Lai feel every jutting rib jabbing at her chest and palms.
Liang Lai lifted her with exquisite care, terrified a firmer grip might snap those brittle limbs to pieces.
“It’s all right now, all right… no need to fear…”
She wiped the tears tenderly from the girl’s cheeks, her heart aching.
Those silver eyes locked onto her, but lids drooping as if they could hold out no longer.
The girl knew this woman for a savior, a good soul; her emaciated hand shot out, clamping Liang Lai’s hem in a death grip, and through clenched teeth she forced out three words:
“I’m scared…”
With that, she went limp, fully unconscious.
One look at the child’s ashen face, and Liang Lai knew the stakes—this was blood loss beyond bearing; linger here, and she’d expire right in her hold.
She’d come this far to save her; no half-measures now.
Liang Lai paid the others no mind and pivoted to carry her from the yard.
“Third Saintess!”
The fatty’s voice piped up from behind, all wrong for the moment.
Liang Lai didn’t break stride, marching onward without a glance.
“Third Saintess!”
Three voices rang out this time, the priests materializing like a barricade in her path.
Their faces twisted in raw dread and awe they couldn’t shake, yet they held their ground, refusing to budge.
“What is this?”
Liang Lai seethed with urgency and fury, clutching the girl closer.
“Step aside now, or this child dies!”
She couldn’t fathom it—the holy ointment overflowed for them, unused and endless, while this girl had only stolen from starvation and torment.
Why harry her so?
The priests’ expressions turned to pained conflict.
“She’s breached Article Twelve, Chapter Seven of the Holy Codex,” the fatty priest gulped, throat bobbing.
“Dustfolk caught thieving holy ointment face the branding penalty—three full days.”
He jabbed a finger at the glowing rot on her shoulder.
“And this… this is only the first…”