Legacy World 3.5 Job Well Done

BaiXue caught up to the family in no time then led them to her hideout.

"Thank you for helping us but... Are you sure that it's safe so close to the village?" The father could not help but ask.

"Sometimes the most dangerous place can be the safest place to hide at." BaiXue explained. Besides, she was confident in the spot that she chose. It was close enough to the village to be considered as a part of the village territory but far enough for people to not bother walking through.

"Who are you? Why're you helping us?" The mother asked.

"Someone else wanted to offer their help but could not so here I am." She did not want to reveal the existence of the writing to anyone else but did not want to lie to good-natured people, so she said it in such a way.

"How long do we have to hide here for?" The father asked again.

"Until someone strong arrives." She left it at that and closed her eyes to relax against a tree. Although she looked like she was sleeping, she was actually cultivating. Not wanting to disturb their saviour's rest, they stopped asking and went silent too. The baby had also calmed down by then, since she could sense that her parents were calm again.

Dawn broke.

The couple silently watched the crowd return. Each and every one of them had scowls on their faces, frustrated and angry from a fruitless search. Their heads were lowered in defeat, though. They assumed that the family must have managed to escape somewhere far.

A faint shadow on the floor that gradually grew clearer and larger easily caught everyone's attention. By the time they realised that the silhouette was too big for any normal bird, a strong gust of wind blew through the entire area, causing some of them to stumble in their steps. They looked up in fear. Their eyes all wide and bulging. 

"A black phoenix!!" Someone shouted amongst the shrill screams. 

Everyone took off in different directions. They pushed and shoved each other out of the way. Some changed into their animal forms hoping to escape notice with their smaller size. However, they only managed to take a few steps before the whole area got consumed in a black raging fire.

MengYao continued to fly ahead and circled the village, leaving a trail of fire in his wake. Nothing was spared. Soon, the entire place was set ablaze. MengYao only flew to the hidden group after he was satisfied with his work.

The couple stood up together. The mother instinctively tightened her hold on her baby, which woke the baby up. They were ready to run for their lives. However, the mother noticed how BaiXue remained relaxed with her eyes closed. It was only then did she remember BaiXue's mention of an impending arrival of a strong person. She held onto her husband's hand and signaled to him to wait and see what happens. 

Even if BaiXue seemed to be on their side, the blatant show of power still intimidated them, so they dared not sit back down. Black sparkly aura grew thicker around the approaching black phoenix. Just as it reached the ground, a dashing young man stepped out from within the black aura. The phoenix was no longer anywhere to be seen. 

MengYao looked at the woman hugging a small bundle tightly to her chest. He stopped right before her and studied the baby. "A siren."

The mother turned her baby slightly away from MengYao, while the father stepped between them to shield his wife. Both warily studied MengYao's expressions and movements. They were ready to act if they needed to.

"Good. Stay on your guard. There may be attacks on you again. The common people are not only ignorant, they're stubborn too. For now, this area is clear. Live freely." He glanced at BaiXue who still had her eyes closed, then flew off without either one acknowledging the other. 

FenFang did not mention much about her, if at all. Since BaiXue was new to this, the thought that she had abused the use of the flute for her own benefit had crossed his mind. After all, the last time someone blew his flute more than once, it was out of panic, to save their own hide. He had arrived with some expectation to roast her alive. However, what he saw pleased him instead. Her nonchalance towards him was nice too. If she kept it up, he would consider asking FenFang to leave all the assignments to her. The foxes would just be nuisances in comparison. 

Meanwhile, all BaiXue could think about was exploring and training some more. As soon as she could, she left the couple to their devices and thoroughly combed through the secluded part of the beach that she had been training at. She inspected every nook and cranny. She left no rock unturned, literally. She was determined to smash up the pillars in case there was something to obtain. So, BaoBao offered to help.

She ended her search with two new animal skins that had writings on them. Now that she looked at the writings under bright sunlight, it seemed to be written in blood. The words were horribly faded and they were ancient text. She could only deduce three things.

/Mystical power. Mystical form. Cultivation. What on earth could these mean..?/

Since she could not make sense of the three clues at the moment, she decided to keep searching for more clues elsewhere. Hopefully, it give her more inspiration.

Another six months flew by.

It was already almost a year since BaiXue transmigrated into this world however her body still felt as empty as it was at the start. It was as if she could not keep hold onto the spiritual energy of this world after it hit a certain small limit. Her physical body was much stronger and fitter though.

FenFang had been sending BaiXue on various errands, tasks, and missions that were small and big. She soon became FenFang's most trusted aide as she pleased FenFang a lot with her good performance. The foxes were eventually only left with information gathering tasks. They never needed to use the flute again. 

Through the chit chat of the other three foxes, BaiXue found out that there was only one other birth of a mystical one out of many pregnancies across the land, which BaiXue had been assigned to overlook again.

Since the whistle could only be used for emergencies, she had blown it too late during her first major assignment. She had to intervene while waiting for MengYao's arrival. Not wanting a repetition of that, BaiXue learnt from experience, and judged the limit of the family's tolerance. She also accounted for the time MengYao took to reach. Once she understood the characters and dynamics involved, and predicted the rate of escalation, she blew the whistle to summon MengYao. 

MengYao arrived just as the villagers' antics against the family hit the climax. So, this time, BaiXue could simply sit back and enjoy the show. It also ended up more dramatic because this particular incident was similar to MengYao's experience when he was young and victimised. It triggered him and he lashed out. He did not simply burn the entire place down to ashes and cinders. He made sure that there were no other survivors, besides the family. He took the time and effort to terrorize them thoroughly before ending their lives in any horrible way he could think of.

Just like that, another mystical baby survived under BaiXue's watch, and MengYao's view of her stayed favourable. 

Over the six months, BaiXue noticed a suspicious pattern to the villages that she got assigned to observe. The villages that had no news of mystical ones being born would occasionally experience raids which kept their supplies and power low. The people involved were probably too emotional to notice but the amount stolen and killed was proportional to the delay between each bandit attack. 

There was, however, one village that seemed to be an exception to that pattern. Unconvinced that it was a mere outlier, BaiXue made the call to delve deeper and investigate that village. She spent a few days there just to blend in. Her cover this time was as a traveler looking for a new place to live at because she had lost everything to bandits in her previous village. 

She gradually realised that everybody ignored a man who was constantly drunk and depressed in a quiet diner. He never paid for his booze or food but no one threw him out. Perhaps she could get some information from that odd stranger. 

So, she spent the next two days drinking in the same diner, but at a different table. She sniffed from time to time and appeared to be in a daze for most of the time. She only left her seat on the third day. On her way out, she pretended to lose her balance in her drunken stupor, eventually bumping into her target.

"Pardon me." 

He cast a groggy glance at her, then frowned. "...You're new in this village, aren't you?"

"How do you know?"

"...No one else bothers me. Not this polite either."

"Why not?"

"..."

BaiXue took another swig of the bottle, pushed herself off of him, then proceeded on to walk away with unsteady steps. 

"You."

BaiXue stopped in her tracks and looked back at him. "Talking to me?"

"You've been drinking here for the past 2 days, haven't you?"

"..."

"Why?"

"I lost everything. My house, belongings, everything I owned and loved. My family. Everyone." 

"How?"

"Bandits. Those bloody bandits! They came to my village all the time!"

"..."

"What about you? This village seems peaceful enough. There haven't been any bandits the whole time I was here. What could get you so depressed?" BaiXue said with a slightly mocking tone. 

"You darn newbie better shut your trap when you don't know who's been protecting this goddamn village from the bloody bandits." The man said getting all riled up. 

"What? You connected to that guardian angel of the village?" 

"I am him." He said with squinted eyes. 

"What's so depressing about that then?" BaiXue said with an even stronger mocking tone in her voice.

"Do you think I want to be the protector of this damned village?! This village could go to hell and be raided for all I care!" He slammed the bottle onto the table as he stood up agitatedly. 

"...Sorry. I didn't know." BaiXue's tone softened considerably. "How..?"

He threw a bottle at the wall to his left in his frustration. There were already existing porcelain pieces there, so BaiXue guessed that this was quite the normal behaviour for him.

"My family. They took them hostage when I was still young and weak... How could I possibly win against a whole mob at that age...?! I could do nothing except be restrained... and watched them get taken away..."

BaiXue slowly sat down on the chair beside him. "... So... You're all alone too. Like me..." 

"... For a long while, I was. Then, I wasn't. I grew desperate and despondent when I couldn't find out where they were keeping my family. I can't remember it well anymore. But there was a girl." 

His tone became incredibly soft and he sat back down. "She felt sorry and disagreed with the way I was treated. She stood up for me more than once. Eventually, we fell in love. Things were more tolerable then." 

Suddenly, his breathing got ragged and his eyes turned red. "But when our love got found out, these goddamned villagers... They took her from me too. From right under my nose! She went out to get food... while I was chopping wood... and she never came back..." His face showed guilt, regret, and self-blame. 

"... I don't know what to say..."

"Doesn't matter... Just... go if you've nothing else to say."

"As a fellow person down in the dust... There's no way left but up." BaiXue left him with that sentence.

BaiXue stopped going to the quiet diner and mingled more with the villagers in the more popular diners. She gathered more intel, built connections, and got some hints about the whereabouts of his family through some loose-lipped lechers and braggarts.

With these new information, she reported back to FenFang immediately.