Lu Biming let go of her hand, choosing to hold the chain instead, inspecting it. He was surprised by the effect it had on his body. "Where did you even get these from?"
She stayed silent.
"Right, you can't speak, so annoying."
Where was the proud cultivator that had stood on the stage earlier??? Where did his decorum go?
He inspected them for a while, before finally bringing her over to another peak, which was really just another hill, and brought her before the Lord of the 'peak'.
"Get these off of her for me." He spoke to a young man, lord of the craftsman peak, Luo Binggong, and then promptly left. However, Hui had already forgotten Lu Biming, as her eyes quickly narrowed in on the plate of baked goods on the table. She was never one for sweets. But hunger made you a different woman.
Luo Binggong saw her eyes, and immediately offered. "You want some? Please, take as many as you want, this will take a while anyway!"
Hui didn't decline the offer and climbed onto a stool, immediately wolfing down the desserts. Luo Binggong looked at her fondly for a moment, before gently taking her arm in hand that she held out for him and making an assessment of her shackles.
"Tut tut tut. Whoever put these on you is too cruel, to do such a thing to such a small girl, is beyond me." He patted her head sympathetically. "Don't worry, I'll take care of you, these'll be off in no time!"
His gentleness was unprecedented. After meeting so many rough hands, Hui had long since forgotten she looked like a young little girl that you wanted to protect, and her eyes subconsciously teared up a bit at how sweet he was. The sugar rush she was getting wasn't helping. However, Luo Binggong didn't care about the mess of her face currently, but was instead focusing on how thin her wrist was. "Wait!" He suddenly looked up, catching her in the process of stuffing three cookies into her mouth at the same time. "How long has it been since you've had a decent meal???" Hui shrugged, she really couldn't remember. Maybe on the march to the demon fortress? That was 6 months ago, right?
She suddenly felt the cookies knocked from her mouth and thrown into the trash. "No, this won't do!"
How could you take away my food? Don't you know not to take away food from a growing girl??? She bit his hand, but although it drew blood, Luo Binggong paid it no mind, instantly calling for a disciple to bring up some broth from the kitchen.
Hiu hated being unable to talk. As someone who was good with her words and had used them to survive in her past life, it was like a warrior having their hands and feet tied, when her tongue was unable to wag.
She sighed at the loss of a good meal. And sat there, watching Luo Binggong search through his array of tools. Finally finding the things he needed, he slowly began to work the lock on the chains. And by the time the broth had come, and Hui had finished it gratefully, he'd finally succeeded in picking it.
So he continued to do so on the remaining four shackles. Hui watched him with fascination, playing with the one braid in his long hair, as all the rest hung loose around his shoulders. Finally, he finished and placed the manacles onto the table. Hui stretched, and then she jumped, and then she tried to scream in happiness and greeted with only silence, settled on just hugging Luo Binggong in her excitement. Nothing could prepare her for the freedom outside the manacles.
Suddenly, she no longer felt the constant paralyzing pulse, or the streaks of pain when she moved too fast, or the heaviness they weighed down on her. Most of all, she could finally circulate her qi again! She didn't let go of Luo Binggong, even as he protested, even as he stood up to leave for dinner, then sat at dinner, and after finishing, watched the disciples show their skills, still with her wrapped around his waist. She didn't let go until he called for Lu Biming to come and get her, who ripped her mercilessly away and threw her over his shoulder, to fly back to their own hill. Hui left with tears in her eyes. 'Brother Binggong!'
She must find a way to return to this peak (hill)!
Lu Biming threw her onto the ground in front of the woodshed and turned away, before thinking again, and then throwing a manual onto the ground as well. "Learn this, you being unable to talk is annoying." And then flew away.
Hui picked up the manual, only to find out it was sound transmutation art, only, it focuses on producing sounds, rather than sending them across great distances. It was a complex skill and would take years to form any kind of words with the sounds it could produce.
However, the manual gave her direction, and after scanning through her memories, she remembered snippets from other similar arts, after shuffling them all together in her mind, put it away for later. She still didn't have a place to sleep. However, this wasn't her first time having to survive on her own. She was sure she could figure it out! She walked over to grab an ax from the woodshed, when a voice called out from behind her.
"Gonna try to make a house? A little girl like you might as well give up now." She didn't even bother turning around, he had already given her everything she needed to know about him from that one sentence, choosing to grab the ax and turned to head into the woods.
He, of course, followed her. His name was Gu Feng. He was a simple guy with incredible talent. However, although he liked their looks, he'd grown up looking down on women for being weaker, so he couldn't understand why his master had taken one on as his disciple, especially when she didn't even look 6 years old yet. So he had decided to check her out. He didn't know anything about her, except that she'd somehow stopped his master's blade in the middle of the arena with only one hand. Looking at her, he immediately didn't believe it.
As the master's first disciple, he felt it was his duty to sift out the useless rabble in their peak, before they could ruin their image, and he was determined to make her go back down the mountain...It's actually just a hill tho.