Otherworld Advance Team
Chapter 858 - 851: The Revenge for Killing Father

Chapter 858: Chapter 851: The Revenge for Killing Father

Cheng Ziang rode his horse on the damp pebble road, with a fine mist drifting from the sky. The air was moist and cold, and whenever the horse breathed, a large amount of white vapor was visible.

However, for him, such a temperature wasn’t considered too cold. Although the damp environment made the perceived temperature feel a few degrees lower than the actual temperature, it didn’t matter to him at all.

By contrast, Xilia, riding not far away, had her face turned deathly pale from the cold, her teeth chattering nonstop. She was dressed much more warmly than Cheng Ziang, but she was still unable to fend off the cold, moist air.

Cheng Ziang watched her quietly, suddenly remembering that Luo’er had mentioned her before, which made him curious about her. He urged his horse closer to her.

"Cold, aren’t you?" Cheng Ziang approached Xilia and asked casually, looking ahead.

Hearing his voice, Xilia frowned and glared at him, then took a deep breath to stop her teeth from chattering and said defiantly, "I’m fine, you don’t need to worry about me."

"You seem quite hostile towards us. I’m curious, why is that?" Cheng Ziang smiled, turned to look at her, and asked.

"I’m not hostile toward you," Xilia answered shortly.

"So that means you treat everyone the same way?" Cheng Ziang asked.

"What’s it to you?" Xilia retorted with a furrowed brow, her voice obviously raised.

"Calm down, calm down. I just want to chat with you. Look at this long journey ahead, it’s not good to always be so gloomy," Cheng Ziang said, spreading his hands in a soothing manner.

"I have nothing to say to you. If you have any complaints against me, you can talk to your Captain or the Princess," Xilia replied coldly.

"You should know the relationship between our Captain and the Princess. If he speaks ill of you in front of her, I reckon you wouldn’t fare well," Cheng Ziang said with a smile.

Hearing this, Xilia’s face showed a mixture of shock and anger. She turned and glared fiercely at him, biting her teeth in silence.

"Don’t be like that, it’s just my personal opinion," Cheng Ziang said with a smile and a dismissive wave of his hand. "You should know, our Captain is a paragon of virtue; he wouldn’t talk about you behind your back."

"So you’re saying you’re making fun of me? If that’s the case, are you satisfied now?" Xilia asked coldly, still biting her teeth.

"You’re getting it wrong. I’m just a bit concerned about you. Look at you; since you’re so afraid of the cold, why don’t you sit in the carriage instead of insisting on riding the horse?" Cheng Ziang said.

Unexpectedly touched by Cheng Ziang’s concern, Xilia was stunned for a moment, then looked down, biting her lip, and muttered resentfully, "What’s it to you?"

The conversation came to an abrupt end, and the two fell silent once more. It might have been psychological, but Xilia felt the temperature drop even further after they stopped talking, causing her to shiver uncontrollably again.

"You’re not Marsyan, are you?" Cheng Ziang asked, staring at her.

"What about it?" Xilia replied.

"I’m quite curious why Princess Melia would recruit you into her service," Cheng Ziang asked.

"What, Aud people aren’t qualified to serve in the military, only you Northern Aud people are?" Xilia asked coldly, clearly misunderstanding Cheng Ziang’s meaning.

However, from her conversation, Cheng Ziang also sensed a certain flavor. That is, the divide between the Aud people and the Northern Aud people had become quite severe, and the two groups no longer considered themselves to be part of the same whole.

Xilia’s appearance was very typical of an Aud person, but it also had a hint of Marsyan flavor. After having spent a lot of time in the Otherworld, the Advance Team could easily distinguish a person’s faction from their appearance.

With a look like Xilia’s, she definitely wasn’t Marsyan, but she still had that hint of flavor. Therefore, he could roughly guess that Xilia must be from the southwest of Odelanqi, close to the Roen River.

The western and northern parts of Odelanqi were dominated by Northern Aud people, the east was sparsely populated, while the southeast bordered two countries and was also the main settlement area for orthodox Aud people. Of course, whether the Northern Aud people were orthodox or the Aud people were orthodox was a matter of ongoing debate, with no satisfactory answer reached to this day.

"I didn’t mean that, don’t get me wrong," Cheng Ziang said with an apologetic smile and then cleared his throat before continuing seriously, "We met Princess Melia much earlier than you did, so we know that Princess Melia is a cautious and conservative person. Even if she were to hire someone, she would prioritize the Marsyan people. So I’m very curious, how did you earn the Princess’s trust?"

Facing Cheng Ziang’s sincere gaze, Xilia seemed somewhat at a loss. She opened her mouth to speak several times and then closed it again; after what seemed like a long hesitation, she finally made up her mind and chose to speak.

"A few years ago, my father was killed in his own manor. The attackers cleverly bypassed all the manor’s defenses and directly found my father’s room, where they cruelly tortured him before killing him," Xilia said quietly, her gaze becoming misty.

"At the time, I was studying swordsmanship elsewhere. When I heard the bad news, I rushed to the manor and saw something that I still can’t forget today." As Xilia spoke, she couldn’t help but close her eyes, showing a pained expression.

"My father was lying in a pool of blood, and a large stain on the carpet had already coagulated. There were four people in the room; my father, the housekeeper, and the guards all dead, with only a maid knocked unconscious..."

For some reason, upon hearing this, Cheng Ziang’s mind was inexplicably struck by a familiar sensation, as if he had seen this scene somewhere before.

Xilia gritted her teeth and continued quietly, "We interrogated the surviving maid, using torture, even going as far as to sever her legs, but she did not clarify who exactly had killed my father."

"The attackers used weapons from the Otherworld, including the bullets that killed the housekeeper and guards, and the explosives that destroyed the wall. We suspected that it had something to do with people from Earth, and so we followed that lead, but to no avail. At that time, the export of Otherworld weapons was very chaotic; it was impossible to trace the origin of these weapons."

Cheng Ziang nodded. If his guess was correct, the time of Xilia’s father’s death should have been before the arms smuggling case was solved. Before that, Blaiqi smugglers and Earth arms dealers colluded in disorderly conduct, flagrantly violating the principle of weapon export and exporting a large number of restricted weapons to the Otherworld.

"After my father’s death, this house no longer held any meaning for me. I left home and became an assassin, solely to find the murderer of my father. After several years of investigation, I deduced that the murderer was very likely from the Marsyan rebels because only they could have had the chance to get their hands on so many Otherworld weapons," Xilia stated.

"So you came to the Princess’s territory?" Cheng Ziang asked.

Xilia gave him a look, then took a deep breath and said, "I was tracking a group of Marsyan rebels, hoping to find some clues from them, but unexpectedly they noticed and pursued me. In the nick of time, Princess’s troops arrived, defeated all the rebels, and captured me."

"After I made the facts clear, the Princess hoped I could join her army. As a bargaining chip, she would help me find my father’s murderer and provide the necessary assistance for my revenge. So, I joined under the Princess’s command," Xilia said.

"Did you find the murderer of your father?" Cheng Ziang asked.

"No," Xilia shook her head slightly with regret but quickly rallied her spirits, "The Princess promised me that once I find the murderer of my father, she will let me leave and help me kill the murderer, to avenge my father."

"With so many rebels, it will take a long time to find, and even if you search all the rebels, you might still not find the murderer," Cheng Ziang shook his head as he spoke.

"What do you mean?" Xilia frowned and asked him.

"Have you ever considered the possibility," Cheng Ziang gestured as he spoke, "that the murderer who killed your father may not be from this world, but from another?"

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