The girl's words were easily heard by everyone in the area, though it did not seem like she cared or even took that into consideration. Two of the armored men, on the other hand, looked in our direction and instantly started sweating, with traces of fear appearing on their faces. I could roughly guess the reason as to why, seeing as how they wore armor and every cultivator I met so far seemed to have a distaste for them. That, combined with the clearly different robes that May and Lou Xia were wearing, must have given away that we were cultivators and they were normal people. And from what I heard from Mom’s history lessons, that was enough to make them afraid.
The girl, however, appeared to not care about that at all, seeing as how she got a clear look at both May and Lou Xia and still said what she did to what I am guessing is her guards. That was something that even I, someone who has not been in this world for very long, knew not to do. Though that might have also been because of all the xianxia books I have read. However, that does not give this girl an excuse as she is a native of this world, and that should have been common knowledge.
It is definitely not like I have made mistakes of an even greater caliber than this one.
Haa, I am an idiot.
Putting aside that small fact, I pull myself out of my thoughts and focus back on the situation at hand. It was just in time, too, as I managed to hear one of the guards quietly saying to the girl, “Young Miss, those two who messed with the shrine over there are cultivators.”
Just from those words, I had a feeling I knew where this conversation was going, and the girls' not-so-quiet reply all but confirmed it. “What does that have to do with anything? My dad does business with them all the time, and none of them are like everyone thinks they are!” She even said this with such a confident compining tone that I was now wondering if the girl was actually 5 or 6 years old and not 14 to 15.
Regardless of my thoughts on the matter, the guards chose to look absolutely mortified while the distant sound of wooden wheels cttered down the road behind our visitors. From the sound of the wheels, they were speeding up but were still too far away from us for our visitors to hear. At least, that was what I thought until I realized that the sound of the wheels had already grown to such a level that the others could hear them and was still growing every second. At this point, it is clear that they would be here at any time. One of the guards had also conveniently chosen this time to ask the girl, “Young Miss, could you please refrain from saying anything else until your father gets here? He will be here in a moment.”
The girl opened her mouth after hearing this before closing it again with an annoyed huff. I also took this chance to update my assumptions about her to an angry teen. That did not st long, though, as the sound got close enough for me to see the head of a fast-moving wagon caravan.
The first part that I saw was a group of guards wearing the same armor as the ones standing near the girl, followed by what appeared to be a covered transport wagon holding trade goods. That was until I noticed some odd pcement of rivets and metal brackets, which looked more like reinforcements than anything. I was making sure to bel that one as a priority target for potential spells, once I thought of some. Maybe I could use a ball of super-heated air that was just barely over the fsh point to cause an explosion on contact with a surface. Though I will have to surround the ball with a sphere of cold air so that I could prevent the heated ball of air from rising. However, now that I am thinking about it, I would also need to make the cold air dense enough to prevent the hot air from rising through it. I would also need to separate the two groups of air to prevent them from causing friction and generating electricity, but I could also circumvent this by just making the heated air denser instead.
My thoughts would have continued down this path if an unfamiliar man's voice had not come from outside, taking away my attention. “I am sorry, dear Immortals, for the interruption,” said an average looking slightly heavier-set man who was now standing next to a new carriage I was not paying attention to, “but would you mind letting me speak in pce of my daughter? She doesn’t understand certain things very well.”
“But Dad! You never-” The girl instantly tried arguing with her father, only to quickly go quiet when he silently stared her down with a special look only fathers could give. She even lowered her head and looked into the forest, away from everyone else. At least, it was a good thing that they encountered us and not other cultivators, or things might not have gotten this far. It was then that Lou Xia responded to the man's question, saying, “I’m guessing that she ran over here because of the shrine being repaired, so you don’t have to worry about anything.”
After hearing that, something exploded within me, and I rushed out of the door, nearly yelling, “Well, the shrine would not have been repaired in the first pce if my companions cared to at least tell me what it was.” It was only after saying that and seeing everyone stare at me that I realized what I just did.
This is embarrassing.
