Li Miao looked at Mei Qinghe and said calmly, "I've brought the person."
"But I won't kill him directly and give him to you as a favor."
"You two, tell me about the animosity between you, and let me listen."
Mei Qinghe looked at the begging Zhao Dehua at this moment, and her thoughts were completely cut off.
The animosity between Mei Qinghe and Zhao Dehua was actually an old story.
When Mei Qinghe was young, her family was a merchant household, not extremely wealthy, but comfortably well-off.
Fifteen years ago, when Mei Qinghe was five years old, her mother wanted to take her back to her hometown to visit relatives.
As mentioned earlier, traveling long distances in ancient times was not as convenient as it is now, especially for Mei Qinghe's mother, a frail woman, with a five or six-year-old child.
So Mei Qinghe's father found the local Tiger Might Escort Agency, and Zhao Dehua, who was then unknown in the Tiger Might Escort Agency, took on the escort mission to protect Mei Qinghe and her mother on their journey back home.
This was originally a simple task. Mei Qinghe's mother didn't carry much wealth, and they weren't traveling through any dangerous territory. Logically, no accidents should have occurred.
However, fortune and misfortune are unpredictable.
At that time, a notorious Jianghu bandit, pursued by the Jinyiwei (Imperial Guards) in the capital, fled to the Qi-Lu Region and coincidentally encountered Zhao Dehua's group.
He took a liking to Mei Qinghe's mother and demanded that Zhao Dehua hand her over.
Zhao Dehua was still a young man then. Although his martial arts were not good, he was full of youthful passion.
Knowing he was outmatched, he still drew his sword to protect Mei Qinghe and her mother, intending to delay the bandit for a while so they could escape first.
However, he overestimated himself.
Almost instantly, Zhao Dehua's sword was knocked away, and his face was trampled underfoot, his mouth and nose filled with dirt.
The bandit toyed with him, carefully cutting small incisions on his body with a sword, dislocating and resetting his limbs and joints, and pressing his acupoints with acupoint-tapping techniques.
He poured insects into his ears, making him hear the crawling sounds on his eardrums.
The young Zhao Dehua finally understood that so-called Jianghu righteousness could not make him strong. In the bandit's eyes, he was just a fool with some half-baked martial arts who didn't know his place.
The chivalrous spirit he believed he possessed was destroyed by the bandit in less than half a day.
He was scared.
He began to beg for mercy.
He started cursing Mei Qinghe's mother, asking why she had sought his escort, why she resisted, and why she couldn't just obey the bandit.
He even began to hate Mei Qinghe's mother, wondering why she couldn't sacrifice herself and had to drag him into suffering.
He hated more and more.
The bandit told him to hold down Mei Qinghe's mother, and he did.
The bandit told him to join in the abuse of Mei Qinghe's mother, and he did.
He began to vent this inexplicable hatred on Mei Qinghe's mother.
Until Mei Qinghe's mother died.
When everything was over, the bandit, satisfied, tossed Zhao Dehua a claw technique manual and turned to leave.
Everything that happened then was witnessed by the five-year-old Mei Qinghe.
Zhao Dehua wanted to kill Mei Qinghe to silence her, to cover up everything that had happened there.
But he still had a trace of conscience remaining then and couldn't bring himself to do it. He thought that a five-year-old child wouldn't survive in this wilderness, so he took all the dry food and left Mei Qinghe alone in the mountains, returning to the Tiger Might Escort Agency.
Mei Qinghe's father reported it to the authorities, but the Tiger Might Escort Agency used their connections to suppress the case. He then spent all his family's wealth searching for Mei Qinghe, but gradually lost news of her, likely having died on the road.
The bandit was later caught and killed by the Jinyiwei (Imperial Guards).
From then on, Zhao Dehua no longer practiced swordsmanship. Relying on the claw technique manual the bandit gave him, he gradually became the backbone of the Tiger Might Escort Agency.
Zhao Dehua was friendly to others, polite to all Jianghu people, and fair in his dealings. The Tiger Might Escort Agency also flourished under his leadership, gradually growing stronger.
Zhao Dehua thought everything was in the past. His daughter had excellent aptitude and had already achieved some mastery. In a few more years, she would take over from him, and he could then enjoy his retirement at home, playing with his grandchildren, and the petty squabbles of the Jianghu would no longer concern him.
He thought the events of fifteen years ago were over. He thought he had forgotten Mei Qinghe's mother.
Until this very moment, he clearly saw Mei Qinghe's face.
Mei Qinghe looked very much like her mother, and he recognized that face at a glance.
Cold sweat profusely broke out on Zhao Dehua's face, his hands trembled uncontrollably, and his ears buzzed, as if insects were crawling on his eardrums, making rustling friction sounds.
That face, which had appeared countless times in his dreams with the young Zhao Dehua, questioning him, mocking him, insulting him, finally reappeared before him.
That beautiful face was now under the moonlight, looking at him with immense hatred.
And the Zhao Dehua of fifteen years ago seemed to have returned to him as well.
With a thud, Zhao Dehua fell to his knees, kowtowing repeatedly towards Mei Qinghe.
"Madam Mei, Madam Mei, I was wrong, I was wrong!"
"Rest in peace, rest in peace, I beg you, rest in peace!"
"My martial arts were not good, I couldn't defeat him, I just didn't want to die, I had no choice!"
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Mei Qinghe looked at Zhao Dehua and slowly walked towards him.
Zhao Dehua watched Mei Qinghe approach, suddenly stumbled backward, and crawled away on all fours.
"No! Don't come closer!"
"Madam Mei, don't come for me, go find him, he forced me!"
"I wanted to protect you too, I told you to go, it's just that you walked too slowly! It's not my fault!"
"I didn't want to do those things to you, but he forced me!"
Zhao Dehua crawled to the wall, with nowhere left to retreat. He began to shed tears uncontrollably.
"He tortured me, it hurt so much! He cut me all over, covered in blood, he's not human, it's his fault!"
"He put insects in my ears, those insects were crawling in my ears!"
He suddenly slammed his head on the ground, constantly digging into his ears with his fingers.
"Get out! Get out!" As if there were still insects in his ears now.
Mei Qinghe saw that Zhao Dehua seemed to have suddenly gone mad and turned to look at Li Miao, who was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed.
Li Miao, having heard Mei Qinghe's story and Zhao Dehua's words, had generally understood the origin of their animosity.
He smiled, pulled a packet of powder from his Pregnant and threw it on the ground.
"I told you, you can't outplay him."
"Your martial arts are indeed better than his. He's second-rate, you're barely first-rate. If you used a sword, he wouldn't last thirty moves against you."
"But if you had gone to find him tonight, this thing he prepared would have been used on you."
In Jianghu duels, besides arena fights, martial arts are often not the ultimate deciding factor.
Traps, smoke screens, poisons, and hidden arrows, each can take the life of a master.
Zhao Dehua was ambushed by Mei Qinghe just last night, so how could he be unprepared tonight? He had already set up mechanisms in the room, just waiting for Mei Qinghe to walk into his trap.
He had also prepared a mind-confusing poison, intending to use it on Mei Qinghe to make her reveal her background and the reason for her enmity with him, so he could prepare countermeasures later.
Instead, Li Miao conveniently used it on him.
Li Miao said calmly, "I'm not some chivalrous hero, but at least I hope the people under me have some bottom line."
"You are loyal to the Mount Hua Sect, which is good. But if it's just loyalty, I'm not too interested either."
"It just so happened that he prepared this thing, so let him speak the truth, and I'll listen to what's right and wrong."
"Now I pretty much understand."
"How you want to take your revenge, you decide."
