Meng Yingtai gasped as she crawled out of the earth. Mud covered her entire body, clogging her mouth and nostrils. Despite this, she felt nothing but relief. She was alive. That was all that mattered.

She was alive.

Meng Yingtai forward crawled for a few more feet, before she stopped and rolled onto her back, staring up at the sky above.

Thank the Young Mistress for her foresight. Before assigning her this mission, she gave Meng Yingtai an Earth Burrowing Charm, which allowed her to hide underground when that beast of a woman arrived. Otherwise, Meng Yingtai would’ve died with the rest of the Blood Wolf Gang.

Hiding underground hadn’t been a pleasant experience, but that didn’t matter. Survival took precedence.

After a while, Meng Yingtai’s relief faded away and dread took its place.

Her mission had been a complete and utter failure.

At first, it seemed simple. Her Young Mistress ordered her to infiltrate the Blood Wolf Gang and ensure that they delivered the Xu siblings to the Blood Lotus Cult without issue.

Infiltrating the Blood Wolf Gang proved easy. That fool, Li Zhanhao, was easy to deceive. All that remained was retrieving the Xu siblings.

Nothing should’ve gone wrong. No one knew about the Xu siblings’ true identities. All Meng Yingtai needed to do was nudge things along while the Blood Wolf Gang did most of the work.

However, everything started to go wrong almost from the very beginning.

First, the Blood Wolf Gang lost the children. They managed to track them down to Rising Sun City. Meng Yingtai and three others snuck into the city to find them. Somehow, two of the four ended up dying, which drew the city lord’s attention to Li Zhanhao. The third tried to kill Meng Yingtai out of jealousy, so she eliminated him and disposed of his body.

Despite this, Meng Yingtai managed to find the children as they wandered around Rising Sun City. She knocked them unconscious and brought them back to the Blood Wolf Gang’s hideout.

That should’ve been the end of it.

Instead, someone infiltrated the Blood Wolf Gang’s hideout and stole the children away. Worst of all, that fool Li Zhanhao got himself killed. Just as Meng Yingtai decided to take action herself, that beast of a woman arrived and started slaughtering the entire Blood Wolf Gang.

At this point, there was no chance of recovering the children. All that remained for Meng Yingtai to do was return to the Blood Lotus Cult and report her failure to her Young Mistress.

She would be punished. There was no way to escape that fate. However, perhaps she could spin things in her favor and reduce her punishment. That was the best she could hope for.

As for running away, Meng Yingtai never considered the possibility. Her loyalty to her Young Mistress was absolute.

After resting some more to catch her breath, Meng Yingtai stood up and started heading back to the Blood Lotus Cult. A long journey awaited her.