Chapter 29

The two of them rested for a night on the island, and early the next morning, they left Guixu Island on the old boatman's boat.

Without delay, the two men rode their horses towards Shu.

After traveling for half a month, they rode horses during the day and rested in dilapidated temples or small inns at night.

Ashina Yu always rushed to feed the horses, make fire and cook. When Shen Aheng wanted to help, he pushed her to the side of the fire: "Aheng, you sit down, I'll do it."

He still stuttered in the Central Plains dialect, but his movements were swift. Even when his fingertips were burned by sparks, he just grabbed the corner of his clothes and hid it so that Shen Aheng would not see it.

As we entered the territory of Shu that day, it was covered with dark clouds and the wind was damp.

Ashina Yu suddenly stopped, took out an old straw raincoat from the package, and gently put it on Shen Aheng: “It’s going to rain...don’t get wet.”

These days, he has been calling "Ah Heng, Ah Heng" more and more fluently.

Chen Ahheng looked at the ends of his hair wet by the rain, and suddenly remembered how he protected himself in the waves of Guixu Island, and his heart warmed.

I was exhausted from the journey, but it seemed that as long as he was by my side, even the pain of the journey was gone.

It wasn’t until he saw the stone tablet of “Shu Territory” in front of him that Shen Ah Heng turned around, his eyes brightening: “Ayu, we’re here!”

After passing the Shu boundary marker, the wind became increasingly damp, carrying the smell of rotten grass and trees, and it hurt when it blew on my face.

Since ancient times, the Shu region has been a secret place in the eyes of the people in the Central Plains. To the east is the continuous Wushan Mountain, where clouds and fog never dissipate all year round. To the west, there are countless deep valleys hidden in the Qingcheng Mountains, and the miasma in the valleys is very serious.

When her master took her to travel around the world, they always avoided this place. Even when they heard that someone from Shu was coming, they would retreat away.

In case they have a disagreement, they will throw poisonous insects at them.

Most of the people here live in Shu. The houses in the town are mostly made of bamboo and wood, with high eaves. However, the locals mostly speak the Bashu style of eaves. Although they can understand some of the Central Plains dialect, they often have to speak and gesture to understand.

The two of them walked a little further in the town with their horses. When Shen Ah Heng saw a stall selling tofu pudding on the side of the road, he walked up to it and said, "Uncle, how do we get to the Mass Burial Valley?"

The stall owner was an old man wearing a cloth towel. When he heard the words "Mass Grave Valley," the copper spoon in his hand dropped into the pot with a clang. He waved his hands repeatedly and said in a Sichuan accent, "Don't go there! The valley is full of poisonous insects. Once you go in, you can't get out!"

He pointed at the valley shrouded in clouds in the distance, his face full of fear.

The two men then sought out tea stalls and herbalists, but the results were always the same: they either hurriedly avoided them or whispered, "That valley will eat people! The miasma can kill you. Don't risk your lives. Go back quickly!"

Shen Aheng didn't believe it, so he continued to ask several people before finally finding out the way. He and Ashina Yu immediately rushed to the Mass Burial Valley.

The two men walked towards the valley in the general direction they had asked for. The grass and trees on the roadside became increasingly dense, blocking out the sunlight, leaving only sporadic patches. From the beginning when they were riding horses, the road became increasingly difficult to walk on. The two men simply tied their horses to a nearby tree, and without even taking their bags, they walked forward alone.

Ashina Yu walked in front, chopping the thorns on the roadside with branches picked up from the roadside, and looked back at Shen Aheng from time to time, his voice still a little stumbling: "Slow down, don't get pricked."

Shen Ahheng looked at his back and felt a little relieved.

The further we walked, the fewer people there were, the deeper the forest was, the denser the grass was, and the air was humid. After walking about seven or eight miles, we smelled a damp and rotten odor.

Shen Ahheng frowned and looked ahead, seeing a large black swamp stretching out in front of him, with pieces of dry bones sticking out of the mud, like animal or human skeletons.

Maybe he accidentally walked in here and died here.

Bubbles kept coming out of the mud, emitting a disgusting smell.

Ashina's ink-black eyes swept across the swamp. He suddenly raised his arm and swung his sleeves back. A strange internal force was wrapped in his sleeves. Without hearing the sound of the wind, the branch next to him, as thick as a bowl, broke into several pieces with a "crack" and fell at his feet.

Ashina Yu bent down to pick up a branch, threw a piece of it on the edge of the swamp, tried to step on it, and when he saw that the branch did not sink, he turned to look at Shen Aheng.

"Hold on, hold on to me." His voice was lower than usual, and his Central Plains dialect was still a little halting, but it exuded a reassuring power. Without waiting for Shen Ahheng to react, he had already reached out and put his arm around her waist, his palms warm and strong.

The next second, he tapped the ground with his toes and leaped towards the first branch with Shen Ah Heng, while throwing the other branch into the swamp in front of him.

As Ashina Yu's toes found support on the branches, his figure was as light as a gust of wind. The hem of his light grey robe swept through the swamp without getting stained by any mud. Every time he threw a branch, he took Shen Ah Heng a step forward, his movements brisk and neat.

The pair of eyes that usually looked gentle were now filled with concentration, staring only at the road ahead, protecting the person in his arms.

In just a moment, the two of them landed on the other side of the swamp.

Ashina Yu loosened her hand, as if to confirm that she was not frightened, her eyes full of concern: "It's okay, Ah Heng."

Shen Ahheng had not yet recovered from the light leap just now. Looking at the ends of his hair that were slightly blown by the wind, she remembered the firm strength he had when he held her waist just now, his agile posture when crossing the swamp, and even the breath on his body that carried a reassuring smell. Her heart suddenly skipped a beat.

Before she could say anything more, a damp smell of decay suddenly blew in the wind. Shen Ah Heng turned around and saw that they seemed to have reached the entrance of the mass grave valley.

The surrounding stone walls were covered with colorful poisonous insects, grinding the rock walls to make a rustling sound. Shen Ahheng's scalp tingled and she immediately took out the tinder. Before her fingertips touched the tinder, she felt a tingling sensation instantly spread from her fingertips to her wrist. Her hand shook and the tinder fell to the ground.

An ugly poisonous insect with a black and brown body and a face fell to the ground with a "pop". Before she could react, it quickly crawled into the crevice of the stone and crawled away.

“Ah Heng!” Ashina Yu’s voice was anxious, and she rushed over in a few steps. Before Shen Ah Heng could react, she grabbed her wrist and lowered her head to hold her fingertips.

Warmth and moisture wrapped around her numb fingertips. He moved hastily but carefully, as if he was afraid of hurting her, and as if he was racing against time against the poison.

Shen Ah Heng froze.

The warmth of his breath radiated from her fingertips, along with the exotic fragrance from his body, even overshadowing the original medicinal smell on him, causing her heartbeat, which had calmed down, to begin to speed up again.

Only then did Shen Ah Heng remember that he was a medicine man and his saliva could cure shallow poisons, but this action was too intimate, causing her wrist to feel warm.

After a moment, Ashina Yu spat out the venom on her finger. When she looked up, her eyes were red and her Central Plains dialect was even more halting than usual: "Don't be afraid, don't be afraid, I will protect you."

His fingertips gently rubbed her fingertips, still trying to confirm whether the poison had dissipated, and he was completely unaware of how inappropriate his previous actions were.

Shen Ah Heng's fingertips still retained the warmth of his breath, and her heartbeat "boom boom boom" hit her throat. She hurriedly pulled her hand back, rubbed it on the corner of her clothes, pretending to brush off the dust on her body, and deliberately changed the subject: "Well, this broken bug is quite powerful, it almost scared me to death."

He turned around and started walking, his pace quickening a bit: "Let's hurry up and find the Yinhuai tree. If we delay any longer, it will be dark soon!"

The two walked in the valley for a while, taking care to avoid poisonous insects, thorny vines, and skeletons everywhere. Finally, they followed the path they had inquired about before and saw the locust tree under a damp cliff.

The trunk was not very thick, and was dark green in color. There were a few black and gray aerial roots hanging between the branches, which swayed gently in the wind.

Unlike ordinary trees, it is not as vigorous as other trees, but instead has a kind of quiet and mellow quality that is unique to plants in secret places.

Shen Aheng’s eyes lit up, and just as he was about to step forward to pick it up, his wrist was gently grasped by Ashina Yu.

"I'll do it."

Before Shen Aheng could react, Ashina Yu had already pulled out a short knife and carefully cut off a piece of Yin Huai wood. Then she raised her hand and tugged at the hem of her gray robe, tearing off a piece of clean cloth, gently wrapped the piece of Yin Huai wood, and then held it firmly in her palm, fearing that the wet moss oozing from the wood would get on her hand: "This way... it's safer."

When the two men came out of the mass grave valley, it was already dark. As soon as they stepped out of the valley, raindrops as big as beans fell down. The hot and humid wind wrapped in raindrops blew straight into their collars.

Shen Ah Heng looked up at the blurry silhouette of the town in the distance, and couldn't help but frowned, muttering to himself: "The rain is falling too fast, I'm afraid it will be too late to rush back to the town."

Even if they rushed back in the rain, they would catch a cold.

A Yu is not feeling well and she doesn't want to take the risk.

At this moment, Ashina Yu suddenly pointed diagonally ahead, and said cheerfully, "Ah Heng, there's a temple over there."

Shen Ah Heng looked in the direction he pointed, and sure enough, he saw the eaves of a half-ruined temple exposed behind a tree on the roadside. He said happily, "Okay, let's go there to take shelter from the rain!"

The two men led the horses and walked quickly through the mud. They pushed open the creaking temple door. There was no one in the hall. Perhaps it had been abandoned for a long time, and the shrine was covered with dust. It was a good place to shelter from the wind and rain.

Ashina Yu first placed the bag containing the locust wood in a dry place next to the shrine, then turned around to pick up the dead branches in the corner of the temple.

They had just been caught in the rain outside the valley, and their clothes were soaked, sticking to their bodies and making them feel cold.

Shen Aheng was not idle either. He took out a fire starter and blew it up, then helped to gather the dead branches into a small pile. When the flames "crackled" and ignited, the hall finally felt a little warm.

Ashina Yu took off the short knife from his waist and put it aside. He took off his gray robe first, shook off the water droplets on it, and then reached out to help Shen Aheng untie the ties of his outer coat.

Shen Ah Heng was stunned for a moment, a little shy, but still handed him the wet clothes, and sat by the fire, shaking his sleeves to dry his hands.

The moisture on the fabric was gradually dried by the fire, leaving a faint smell of fireworks. But after a while, I suddenly felt an itch at my fingertips, with a slight pain.

Shen Ahheng subconsciously pinched his fingers and lifted them up, and took a look in the light of the fire. The place where he had been bitten by the poisonous insects in the Burial Valley was still faintly coaxed, and even the fingertips were a little redder and swollen than other places.

So ugly.

Ashina Yu placed both wet clothes on the broken wooden table near the fire. The water droplets on the fabric dripped down the corner of the table, leaving small water marks on the ground.

Ashina Yu hung up the clothes and turned around to see Shen Aheng lowering his head and picking at his fingertips, his brows slightly furrowed, obviously itchy and uncomfortable.

Ashina Yu didn't say much. He walked over quickly, squatted beside her, and reached out to gently grasp her wrist: "Don't scratch it. The more you scratch it, the more swollen it will be."

Shen Aheng's fingertips were still rubbing the palm of his hand gently, with a bit of grievance: "But it's really itchy, I can't help but want to scratch it."

As she spoke, she extended the red finger in front of him. In the firelight, the slight swelling mark on the fingertip was clearly visible.

Ashina Yu stared at the fingertips she held out, frowned slightly, turned around and picked up the dagger from the fire. The blade shone coldly in the firelight. He didn't say anything, but just made a small cut on his fingertips.

A stream of blood oozed out instantly.

Shen Ah Heng was so frightened that he suddenly drew back his hand, his voice changing tone: "What are you doing! Why are you cutting your own hand?"

Ashina Yu calmly pulled her wrist and gently rubbed his bleeding fingertips against her red fingertips. His movements were clumsy but focused.

"The blood of a medicine man can clear away poison."

Ashina Yu's tone was flat, as if it was not his own hand that had just been cut. He stared at her fingertips, making sure that the blood was evenly spread before gently letting go.

"Don't rub it off. It won't hurt after a while."