Chapter 17
The woman screamed, grabbing Victoria’s hair and p pulling so hard that it alm
almost ripped her scalp off.
Victoria felt pain, but her body reacted faster than her consciousness. She quickly grabbed the opponent’s wrist and performed a neat shoulder throw, slamming the woman hard onto the ground.
Dust flew up, the woman curled up in pain, and there was an immediate outcry around her.
Victoria stood coldly to the side, her chest slightly rising and falling
Her wound throbbed faintly due to the
se intense movement,
but her eyes remained sharp as a knife.
“Victoria!”
Elliot grabbed her arm so tightly that she frowned.
“She was the first to take action.”
Victoria said lightly.
Elliot didn’t answer, but walked quickly to the woman and crouched down to check on her condition
st Victoria, shouting
The woman struggled to sit up, her face full of tears, and hysterically pointed at
Why do you still want to save these people? Have you forgotten how they treated us?”
Her
er voice was hoarse and desperate, like a wall squeezed out from the depths of her soul. Victoria was stunned.
She looked at Elliot, only to find that his back stiffened for a moment.
The woman continued to cry out, “The big fire ten years ago… my son was only eight years old! They didn’t even spare the children! And now you are saving their lackeys?”
The villagers around started whispering, some murmured in agreement, some shook their heads in sighs, but without exception, their eyes were filled with deep hatred..
Victoria finally understood, “they hated not her, but the identity behind her.”
She used to be Howard’s person
And Howard…once destroyed this village
Eliot helped the woman up and whispered a few words. The woman eventually left, wiping away her tears.
The crowd gradually dispersed, but those hostile glances still lingered like a shadow.
Victoria stood still, the sea breeze tous ling her hair and dispersing the anger she had just t
She suddenly felt very tired
“Let’s go,”
Elliot came back, his voice low.
“Go home.”
He didn’t explain, and she didn’t ask
For several days in a row, Victoria always felt a cold gaze sticking to her back.
Whenever she turned around, that gaze would disappear, perhaps hiding behind the drying fishing nets, perhaps lurking beside the banyan tree at the village entrance, or blending in with the returning fishermen from the sea.
But she didn’t tell En
Tline days, she followed him to go fishing, mend fishing nets, and accompany her grandmother to pickle salted fish, the days abnost forgot the bloody past.
s were so peaceful that she
fered always used to stroke her hair and say “Vicky.” Elliot, although not very talkative, would silently place a cup of warm milk outside her door when she was awakened by nightmares in the middle of the night
This kind of wannah was something she hadn’t experienced in ten years.
pick them
Eliot, benwever, Inowned
can the nonuntain were tender and she wanted to cook a pot of wild vegetable song, Victoria volunteered to go
“UwNly.”
She stood up and wiped her wet fingertips on the coatne claili.
“He’s not a delicate person,”
“You talk to grandina nirely, I’ll be back in a wille
He starrshat her lot a few seconds, and finally nodill.
When Victoria left with a sunbon Isasket, Mellina was still nagging forms.mtly.
“Vicky, come back only, Grandma saved some sweet cakes for you,”
The sunlight filtered through the cracks of the leaves to the mintain path, mottled and varies. Victoria stepped on the soft soll, breathing in the fragrance of grass and trees, feeling sense of being in a different world.
How long has it been since I walked so easily in the sunshine?
Ten years? Or even longer?
She bent down to dig up fresh wild vegetables, when suddenly she heard a “snap” not far away, as if a branch had been broken.
Victoria instantly teased her nerves, her hand quietly reaching for the small knife at her waist.
The surroundings were masually quiet, even the chirping of birds had disappeared.
Her gaze swept over the abandoned small house not far away, with the wooden door half open and the dark window resembling a peeping eye. Something’s not right.
Victoria slowly stood up and was about to leave
Just then, there was a sudden rustling sound coming from the bushes bebini.
Victoria suddenly turned around, before she could see who it was, she was knocked down to the ground by a strong force.
“Grab her!”
