59 We can’t!

Ignoring his doubts, Wang Shu finally replied to An Bing Qing's question, "Back to your team", his tone had been as though it was a given. That wasn't something to be taken aback; the reason behind him wandering in the lake's surroundings was because of her, after all.

Since the new test and change of rules had been announced, he had felt something was not quite right; no matter how much he had thought, all about it was strange. It made no sense that the so coveted places to enter the inner part of the Ghost Forest looked so easy to get but were, in fact, difficult to obtain. Well, for him, who could walk on this Forbidden Bamboo Forest without being hindered by the formations, it was indeed easy.

Therefore, after being accompanying his team for the three first days and not having reached the point of finding the blue token cards with their group's power and speed, he felt it weirder. It was good for the elders of the Ancient Inn to have expectations but he didn't believe they would be that delusional as to have them that high; he also didn't think they will be stingy as to not give away the token cards that had more places. He, to discard his many hypotheses, spread his soul sense to survey the area which in addition would help him to guess how much time will take them to reach the following token cards.

His soul sense, like his body, could pass through the formations as if they were air. Hence, he soon came to spot the men in blood-red robes, they weren't participants as many of their body frames denoted they were over thirty years which was the limit upper age to participate in this competition; moreover, their movements didn't look like they were staff members mean to supervise this assessment. Most of them were posted where the high-level token cards were; they seemed to be waiting for the right one to catch the bait, though there were also some of them who were going from place to place.

Such movements made him frown as he had recognized from their body frames that one to five people belonged to the Ancient Inn. 'What are they playing at?' he pondered.

With all that, he had chosen to not involve himself because it was problematic and tricky. Besides, he believed that no other participant aside from someone like him could go there and pick those guarded token cards before the week ended even if they had the aid of a powerful team.

But as he gave it a second thought, he remembered the maiden he had met on the lake shore. Even though that place wasn't that deep, it was within the area those men were at; he didn't know how she had come to that lake but she had looked as if she were there for enjoyment and as though she had been there before.

'She wouldn't be that naive as to jump into something so suspicious, right?' he thought. Even if it was so, it had nothing to do with him; thus, he had gone to oversee his team that was dealing with a formation.

However, while he was retrieving his soul sense to focus on them, the image of his past encounters with her and her inexplicable actions appeared in his mind, making him waver, 'A bunch of grown-up men picking on a little girl, hmmh... on that little girl'. When he thought about it being that little girl, it didn't take long for him to change his steps and leave his group. Though he behaved like a gentleman, he wasn't fond of saving damsels in distress; it was too much trouble and they tended to make assumptions about that kind of circumstances, it was a pain to shake them off later.

He wasn't sure if she would be that mindless and try to harvest some "easy" token cards but given her past reactions the possibility of that was high so after having pondered on where she could go, the area of the lake where he had met her seemed to him a good place to start. He went there and wandered around looking at his surroundings while hiding from the suspicious men but days passed and he didn't see her, making him think that his action had been unnecessary.

But he had talked earlier, on the sixth day, just after having that thought, he had spread his soul sense for the last time to watch over the place and to his surprise, he spotted her and not only that; the little girl was more capable than he had thought, she was able to use soul sense. Even so, she had been discovered and for her relaxed way of going on, she shouldn't have perceived it.

His mouth had involuntary twitched at the given scene but he didn't lose his time and went to her rescue. That it later develop in the actual situation that he took as being obvious –He had to return her safe and sound back to her team if he had taken all that trouble, right?

"Oh", An Bing Qing heard his answer an unconsciously gave a nod.

His reply still resounded in her head, making her repeat it silently as she processed the information.

She was nodding for a second time but she stopped her motion half-way; the charming face of her eldest brother had slowly popped into her mind when she had thought about her team.

And not long after that, she paled from the horror and snapped awake; her pitch black eyes widened and she exclaimed, "No, we can't!"