On that very day alone, aside from Ning Luo’s family, half of the Lado tribe’s members chose to abandon their relatives and friends and enter the city, becoming strangers to those left behind from that moment on.
“Luo Luo, I will never abandon you,” Vigo said as he held Ning Luo’s hand. His heartfelt words deeply moved her. “Vigo, I will not abandon you either, nor will I abandon any of you.”
Gaien, Aimo, Ming Jiu, and Black Wolf all hurried to state their positions as well. They would not abandon any of the remaining members. In the end, Ming Jiu said that he wanted to fly up into the sky to see what exactly was inside the city. Ning Luo and the others agreed.
On the second day, more Lado tribe members entered the city early in the morning. One person even spat at Ning Luo as he passed by her. “Finally free of you.”
Ning Luo’s face turned pale. She did not understand why he treated her this way. Without her, could the Lado tribe really have survived peacefully in the forest for over ten years? Were not so many of the tribe’s new things brought by her?
Every member who entered the city cast a look of disgust at Ning Luo as they passed her. She felt utterly at a loss. She had done nothing wrong. Why were they treating her like this? What exactly had she done wrong?
“Let me tell you.”
“You think you did nothing wrong, right?”
“You think you brought countless benefits to the Lado tribe and contributed the most, right?”
Ning Luo looked at the somewhat aged beastman in front of her. Was that not the case? She had helped them so many times.
The aged beastman looked toward the towering city walls ahead, a faint smile in his eyes. “If you had not existed, we would not have had to flee from the Mata Kingdom and come to this forest, living here for over ten years. Living in the forest itself would have been fine. We beastmen are used to living in forests.
“But Ning Luo, have you forgotten? Whenever anything good was found in the forest, your powerful mates would always bring it straight to you. No matter what it was, you chose first, and only then did it reach us. When the beast tides came, they were the strongest warriors, yet the first ones they always protected were you and your children.
“When conflicts happened among the tribe’s children, right or wrong did not matter. The ones at fault were always the other members’ children. If your children made a mistake, you would step out to apologize for them and then compensate us with a bit of food.
“Have you forgotten the incident when Little Tiger pushed Ai Yi’s child into the river and drowned them?
“In the end, you only compensated Ai Yi with animal hides and food. If she refused, she was said to be making things difficult for you, accused of arguing with a child. But you forgot that she lost her child. And in the end, what did she do? Ning Luo, were you not furious, wielding that sharp blade and chopping her body into pulp?”
“Ning Luo, when something does not happen to you, of course you think it does not matter. You believe that casually compensating with things you can easily obtain, things you do not truly value, is enough to soothe others. But once something happens to you, you are more ruthless than anyone else.”
“I…” Ning Luo fell silent, unable to say anything, only lowering her head as tears fell.
The aged beastman sighed with regret. “If back then, when you wanted to hand Ah Guoguo over, we had stood up to stop it and directly let the Mata Kingdom warriors take you instead, that would have been better.”
That way, Ning Luo would not have continued to ruin the Lado tribe. Perhaps she might even have ruined the Mata Kingdom itself.
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