Playing Genshin in Genshin! [6]

---

Lu Shiyuan carried his sister on his back, running desperately forward. Unfortunately, his eight-year-old body was no match for the stamina of an adult. He was already gasping for breath, his lungs burning painfully.

Perhaps sensing the gravity of their situation, Lu Qianzhi gradually quieted down, sobbing softly on her brother's back.

As they fled, Lu Shiyuan vaguely heard grunts and the sound of someone collapsing behind him. It seemed their mother, in her efforts to protect them, had most likely met a tragic fate. This realization filled him with deeper despair.

But no matter how hopeless things seemed, he had to give everything he had to try to escape. He couldn’t let go of the chance his parents had sacrificed their lives for. Even if they were eventually caught and killed, at the very least, he wanted to die protecting his sister. After all, that was the promise he made to their mother.

Lu Shiyuan continued running, but just as he was nearing exhaustion, he realized something—they weren’t being chased! This surprised him. He turned to look and saw that the treasure hoarders were standing on higher ground, looking down at them.

Suddenly, Lu Shiyuan’s sense of danger surged, and he heard the unmistakable sound of something cutting through the air.

Whoosh—

A crossbow bolt shot toward him. Although he had tried his best to dodge, it still grazed his left calf.

The injury made his leg give out, and he nearly fell.

“Damn it! Are they treating this like a game?” Lu Shiyuan gritted his teeth, enduring the pain in his calf while cursing in his mind.

But he didn’t give up. He quickly spotted a large rock nearby and stumbled over, using it as temporary cover.

"Brother, you're... you're bleeding," Lu Qianzhi said, her voice trembling as she stared at the blood seeping from her brother’s leg.

“Don’t worry, it’s just a scratch,” Lu Shiyuan forced a smile, patting his sister’s head to reassure her. “Everything’s going to be alright.”

At the same time, his mind raced, analyzing the situation. “They’re using crossbows to toy with me, but that’s exactly my chance! Crossbow bolts can be dodged. If I run far enough before they catch up, I might be able to hide or escape.”

But before he could make a move, he knew he had to leave cover and make himself visible to the treasure hoarders. Otherwise, they’d lose patience and start pursuing him directly.

Taking a deep breath, Lu Shiyuan lifted his sister in a princess carry and staggered out from behind the rock, exposing his back to the treasure hoarders.

As expected, the hoarders found renewed interest in toying with him, taking turns aiming their crossbows at him.

The first shooter quickly took aim at the boy’s back.

“Hey, aim off a bit. Don’t kill him with one shot. That wouldn’t be any fun.”

“Yeah, yeah. We all want a piece of this game.”

Hearing their mocking voices behind him, Lu Shiyuan was on high alert, straining to catch the sound of the arrows slicing through the air.

Whoosh—

He heard it. In that instant, he dodged to the side.

Still, the arrow ripped through his clothing, leaving a long gash across his waist.

“So painful!” The boy winced in pain, but he gritted his teeth and kept running.

“Brother, put me down! I can run on my own,” Lu Qianzhi said, her heart aching at the sight of her brother’s injuries.

“Don’t be silly. What if they use you for target practice too?” Lu Shiyuan scolded her. “Don’t worry. You’re light. I can carry you just fine.”

Just as he finished speaking, another familiar sound reached his ears. He dodged again, gaining another shallow wound.

But this time, it was less severe than the first two.

He was beginning to adapt to the sound of the arrows. In this life-and-death struggle, he was quickly learning how to hear the bolts in time to react.

The third arrow came. The fourth, the fifth...

In the subsequent shots, Lu Shiyuan only sustained minor scratches.

This was partly due to the treasure hoarders toying with him, partly because he was running farther away, and partly because he was becoming more attuned to the sound of the arrows and dodging earlier.

It was these three factors that had allowed the siblings to survive thus far.

“Alright, enough playing around. Time to wrap this up,” one of the treasure hoarders said. They put down their crossbows and, with amused smiles, watched the siblings continue running farther away.

Still, they made no move to pursue them!

“They’ve stopped shooting!” Lu Shiyuan noticed this. Looking back, he saw the treasure hoarders still standing on the high ground.

“Why aren’t they chasing us? Aren’t they afraid we’ll really escape?” Lu Shiyuan began to sense that something wasn’t right.

But regardless, the only thing he could do now was keep running.

Thud—

Lost in thought, Lu Shiyuan suddenly crashed into something soft, causing him to fall to the ground. Fortunately, he shielded his sister from hitting the ground with him.

When he looked up, he saw two treasure hoarders standing before him, arms crossed and sneering.

In that instant, Lu Shiyuan understood.

The treasure hoarders hadn’t chased him because they had already stationed other members along the path to Liyue! Even if he had somehow survived the crossbow bolts, he was only running toward more despair.

From the very beginning, this had all been a game to the treasure hoarders, and he was merely a pawn with no way off the board.

“Did you really think you could escape, little brat?” One of them mocked, laughing cruelly. “Isn’t it worse to have hope and then have it crushed, rather than facing pure despair?”

Lu Shiyuan stood, pulling his sister behind him, glaring at the two men with cold hatred in his eyes.

“What’s with that look?” one of the treasure hoarders asked irritably, stepping forward and grabbing Lu Shiyuan by the throat, lifting him off the ground.

“Let go of me, you bastard!” The boy clawed desperately at the man’s arm, but it was futile. His face turned red from lack of air as he struggled to breathe.

“Brother! Ah—” Lu Shiyuan suddenly heard his sister’s terrified cry. He managed to turn his head just enough to see that the other man had grabbed her by the hair, yanking her back and forth.

Fear and pain engulfed Lu Qianzhi as she cried helplessly.

“Oh, so you’re her brother?” The treasure hoarder holding Lu Shiyuan sneered. “How does it feel to watch your precious sister suffer while you’re completely powerless to help?”

Lu Shiyuan’s eyes grew cold. He looked at the man and whispered something, his lips trembling.

“What? What did you say?” The treasure hoarder was curious and leaned in closer, wanting to hear what Lu Shiyuan was muttering. As he got closer and their faces were nearly touching, he finally understood.

“Closer… closer…”

That was what Lu Shiyuan had been repeating. But the treasure hoarder didn’t understand the meaning behind it and continued listening.

“If you don’t get closer, how can I kill you?”

The second part of Lu Shiyuan’s sentence finally became clear.

The treasure hoarder’s expression changed dramatically, but it was too late. A flash of silver light crossed his vision.

With a soft sound, he felt a cold sensation at his throat. His strength drained from his body as everything spun. He collapsed to the ground, his vision fading, filled with shock.

Cough, cough. Lu Shiyuan, now free from the man’s iron grip, coughed violently, clutching the small fruit knife he had taken from the carriage earlier. The blade tip was now stained with blood!

“I did it!” Lu Shiyuan gasped for air, quickly getting up and pointing the fruit knife at the remaining treasure hoarder.

“What?!” The other man, finally realizing what had happened, stared in disbelief at his fallen comrade, killed by an eight-year-old boy.

“Let go of my sister!” Lu Shiyuan demanded, his voice hoarse.

The treasure hoarder hesitated for a moment, then sneered. “You got lucky killing my comrade. But now, I’m going to kill both of you and avenge him!”

Without replying, Lu Shiyuan charged at the man, fruit knife in hand.

“What a fool! Do you really think your small, weak body can take on an adult?” The treasure hoarder found it laughable, though cautious after seeing his fallen companion. He grabbed Lu Qianzhi with one hand and drew a hand axe from his belt with the other.

“I’ll just chop off the hand holding that knife when he gets close,” he thought to himself.

The distance between them was short. In two breaths, they were about to collide. The treasure hoarder kept his eyes on the fruit knife, preparing to strike.

But just then, something unexpected appeared in Lu Shiyuan’s left hand—a black rectangular object that hadn’t been there before.

As the treasure hoarder prepared to attack, Lu Shiyuan suddenly flung the phone directly at the man’s face!

“What the—!” Instinctively, the man raised his arms to block the unexpected projectile, his focus momentarily shattered.

Seizing the opportunity, Lu Shiyuan's eyes flashed. Without hesitation, he threw the fruit knife, aiming precisely at the treasure hoarder's arm.

"Ah!" The man screamed in pain as the knife embedded itself in his arm, causing him to lose grip on the axe, which fell to the ground.

At that exact moment, Lu Shiyuan reached the man, quickly snatching the axe as it dropped. Without a second thought, he gripped the handle tightly and swung the heavy weapon with all his strength. His body spun over two hundred degrees, and he brought the axe crashing down into the treasure hoarder's side, as if he were chopping down a tree.

The force of the blow drove the blade deep into the man’s torso, embedding it into his waist.

This was, without a doubt, a fatal strike!

The success of the attack was all thanks to the element of surprise from the initial attack with the phone. Although it was out of power and couldn’t be used as a regular phone, it could still appear and disappear at will. Indestructible and capable of returning to its owner, the phone was the perfect tool for such a sneak attack, even in its powerless state.

“Ugh—!” The man fell to the ground in agony, clutching at the gaping wound, howling in pain. He was in no condition to deal with the siblings anymore.

"Let's go," Lu Shiyuan urged, glancing back at the treasure hoarders in the distance, who had realized something was wrong and were starting to move. He quickly hoisted his sister onto his back and began running again.

This time, however, instead of staying on the main road, he veered off toward the edge of a nearby cliff.

It was a small cliff, not too high, with a river flowing below.

Determination flashed in Lu Shiyuan’s eyes. “If I keep running along the main road, they’ll catch up sooner or later. I have to take a shortcut.”

He could only hope the drop wouldn’t knock him out or result in him hitting his head on the riverbed.

There was no time to think it over further. Holding his sister tightly, he leapt from the cliff, falling backward and crashing into the water below.

For a moment, the surface of the river was still. Then, two small heads popped up from beneath the water. Lu Shiyuan dragged his sister to the shore and moved along the riverbank, staying close to the cliff.

Perhaps it was because the treasure hoarders couldn’t swim, but none of them followed the siblings by jumping off the cliff. This allowed the two to put more distance between themselves and their pursuers, finally escaping their line of sight.

---

The siblings, supporting each other, trudged along a remote path. Lu Shiyuan’s face was pale, and his body and clothes were covered in blood.

To be honest, after being hit by so many arrows and fighting two treasure hoarders, not to mention the injuries from their fall into the river, Lu Shiyuan was completely exhausted.

At this point, he was only moving on sheer willpower.

“Brother, are you going to leave me too, just like Father and Mother?” Lu Qianzhi asked in a trembling voice, sensing her brother’s weakening body and feeling overcome with fear.

“What are you talking about?” Lu Shiyuan gently patted her head. “Don’t worry, I won’t die until you’re all grown up.

So stop thinking nonsense and keep walking.”

“But... but the blood on you...”

“It’s fine. Once we find a village, I’ll rest up and be fine,” Lu Shiyuan forced a smile. But his deathly pale face and bloodless lips made his words far from convincing.

“Really?”

“Of course, I—" Lu Shiyuan tried to reassure her, but suddenly, his vision went black, and his legs gave out, sending him crashing to the ground.

“Brother!” Lu Qianzhi screamed in panic.

Lu Shiyuan squinted up at the sky, letting out a bitter laugh. “Seriously? My body gives out at a time like this? Couldn’t it have waited until after I finished saying something cool?”

His consciousness was fading rapidly. His eyelids grew heavier, and he struggled to stay awake.

But just then, he heard a voice in the distance, faint but unmistakable.

“Master! Look over there! There are two children! One of them seems to have passed out!”

Upon hearing these words, Lu Shiyuan could no longer hold on, and he finally lost consciousness.