Chapter 19: A thought flickers and disappears
The trial began in the early morning of three days later.
Before daybreak, she was masked and put into a carriage. The carriage trembled and traveled for an unknown distance until a bloody and stench of decay hit her nose. She knew she was in Qianren Valley.
In today's world, many wealthy families have such a place, which is nominally a hunting ground but is actually a slaughterhouse. Lowly slaves are no different from wild beasts, and sometimes they even become food in the stomachs of wild beasts.
Yun Yuan's hood was lifted. The morning mist had not yet dissipated. The mountain and valley before him were narrow, leaving only a gap wide enough for one person to pass through. The cliffs stood a thousand feet high. Looking up, he saw only swirling clouds and mist, with no view of the cliff top.
Feng Jiu warned her from behind: "Once you enter that narrow passage, it will be a battlefield of life and death. Remember, you must not only avoid wild beasts. Also, protect your wind token."
Yun Yuan raised her hand and looked at the bone-chilling black iron token on her wrist. There was no point in hesitating any longer, so she stepped into the narrow passage.
Just after passing the narrow passage, she heard a rustling sound. Looking closely, she saw three emerald-eyed pythons scurrying from beneath the rotting leaves. Their bodies, as thick as bowls, clenched the old tree roots. Yun Yuan quickly retreated three steps, the eagle claw blades on her wrists clanging out of their sheaths. These were her only weapons—a pair of dark gold silk gloves, the fingers honed into eagle hooks, the claw blades gleaming with a peacock-blue, poisonous light.
At that time, Feng Yanyuan took her to Hanji Building to choose weapons. She was dazzled by the sight, so Feng Yanyuan handed her the black gold silk gloves.
"This one suits you best."
He was right. She didn't know any weapons, so her five fingers were more comfortable to use.
The leading python opened its bloody maw. She held her breath and leaped onto its head, piercing its scales with her claws and yanking fiercely. The python writhed in agony, its venomous blood splattering against the rock wall with a sizzling sound, staining a vast expanse of crimson. The other two seized the opportunity to entangle her feet, their scales standing up like hacksaws. She spun around, grasping the snakes' necks, and stabbed each with her claws. Blood splattered, and the two giant pythons convulsed as if struck by lightning—her claws were laced with peacock bile poison. When the pythons stiffened, she gouged out the venom seven inches from their limbs.
"Two sets of good medicine." She put the snake pills into the cloth bag and was about to cut out another one when a sharp wolf howl suddenly sounded in the valley.
Dozens of snow wolves swarmed from all directions, led by a one-eared wolf, charging straight at her. Yun Yuan shrugged off the python corpse and sprinted away, but the wolves, seemingly recognizing her, pursued her relentlessly. She stopped by a clear river and soared to the treetops.
"Want this?" She took out a blood-stained snake pill and threw it randomly into the distance.
The moment the snake pill hit the ground, the herd madly pounced on the faint light. Yun Yuan took the opportunity to land, intending to fly onto the river stone and leap to the other side, but she didn't expect the one-eared wolf to suddenly dart out from behind the bushes. She flipped over and leaped onto its back, stabbing her eagle claws into the wolf king's back.
With a "crack," the claws caught in the animal's bones. The Wolf King ran away in agony. She hung on the wolf's back like a kite, the whistling wind filling her ears. Suddenly, a cliff appeared in front of her. Yun Yuan's pupils shrank. This Wolf King actually wanted to die with her!
Yun Yuan raised his other hand and stabbed the one-eared wolf's eyes with his eagle claws. The one-eared beast howled and leaped up on its front legs, finally deviating from the direction of the cliff and crashing down half of the stone wall.
When the dust cleared, she had fallen to the ground, leaning against the rock wall, her face covered in dust. Her fingers were cramped with pain—the forcible removal of her claw had dislocated her right index finger. She endured it, and with a "crack," she snapped the bone back into place.
The sound of iron chains rubbing against each other mixed with the smell of blood hit my face.
Yun Yuan looked up.
A burly man wrapped in iron chains suddenly emerged from behind the ancient locust tree, four blood-stained wind tokens lying in his palms. "Young lady, with your meager skills, you dare to challenge the Wind Spy Trial? Why don't you give the tokens to me and leave your body intact?"
Yun Yuan pursed her lips.
The rules of the first trial were simple: defend the Wind Token and survive until dawn to leave the valley. However, there was an exception: gathering five Wind Tokens allowed one to leave the valley at any time. But now, barely half an hour into the trial, this man possessed four—and he had already killed three!
Feng Yanyuan's last words pierced his eardrums: "Your Qinggong is not bad, and your Eagle Claw Blade is adequate against the beasts of the mountains, but the other trialists are more skilled than you. You will be their prey."
She couldn't defeat these people and could only escape.
She looked around at the canyon wall, and when she caught a glimpse of a black hole in the shadow, she suddenly remembered the Qianren Valley Bailingtu that Feng Yanyuan had shown her.
The bloody handprints on the rock wall hadn't even dried yet, and the chained man was already within three feet. She suddenly leaned over, tore into the wolf's belly, and grabbed a handful of the smelly innards.
"You can't give me the Wind Card. But, Brother, you can try this first."
Wolf blood wrapped in peacock gall bladder poison splashed into the air. The strong man instinctively swung his chain backward to block it. For a moment, blood splattered everywhere. He knew it was poisonous, so he jumped back to avoid it. At this moment, Yun Yuan had already hung under the black hole and threw a handful of bloody wolf gall bladder into the hole.
The strong man dodged the wolf blood and was about to catch up with Yun Yuan when he suddenly heard the sound of intensive flapping wings from the depths of the black hole - it turned out that the bloodthirsty bats smelled the blood and swooped down on the strong man like a black cloud.
The cloud kite had taken the opportunity to fly up to a high branch on the other side, but when it was about to leap, it suddenly stopped and looked back at the strong man who had shaken off the bat group and was running towards it.
"Your Qinggong is quite impressive! Let's see where you can run to!" The strong man raised his hand and swung the iron chain like a python wrapped around a tree, "Take my whip!"
The moment the bark was torn by the chains, Yun Yuan quickly tapped his toes and leaped onto the ledge five meters away. After the tree collapsed, the sturdy man ran headfirst into the onrushing pack of wolves—the wolves had been drawn there by Yun Yuan, and when they got closer, they sniffed the wolf king's blood on the man and pounced on him.
"What a vicious girl!" The strong man had just repelled the wolves with his iron chains when several young pythons with green eyes slipped into the gaps in his armor.
It turned out that when Yun Yuan was digging out the snake pills, she had found a python with eggs—presumably the scent released by the dying mother snake had called the young pythons to her. The wolves and pythons had come to seek revenge on her, but the strong man's bloody scent was even stronger, so he acted as a shield for her.
She didn't delay any longer and took the opportunity to escape by climbing up the rocks.
After nearly a day of hiding and running, Yun Yuan was exhausted and thirsty. The sun was setting, and she stumbled forward amidst the golden dust filtered through the pine needles. Suddenly, a fresh breeze washed over her face—water! She ran toward the source. The stream gurgled over the bluestone. As she knelt toward the water mirror, a red figure crashed into her arms.
A brown-red elk grabbed her bloody cuff and pulled her away.
"Even you want to stop me?!" she cried, anger and pain piling up together. The poisonous claws on her fingertips had dug deeply into the red deer's horns, and the claw blade of her other hand was against its warm neck. Just an inch further would make this ignorant creature bleed to death on the spot.
The red deer was completely unaware of the power of her eagle claws. It did not dodge at all, but just tilted its head slightly. Its hot and moist breath brushed across her wrist. Its pair of innocent and clear deer eyes reflected a completely distorted version of itself.
Yun Yuan suddenly let go and staggered back half a step.
Forget it, maybe this is its territory, and it doesn't allow a dirty passerby like her to get involved.
She turned and swam upstream, trying to shake off the stubborn deer.
Gravel crunched beneath its hooves, but it stood between her and the stream, unbending. It waited until her figure was completely clear of the shimmering water before it finally took a step. But it walked very slowly, its amber eyes glancing back frequently. Once it was sure she was following, it leaped forward at a light, jogging pace.
Yun Yuan frowned and followed until they passed the three-tiered waterfall.
The clear water covered the green shirt, and the lips of the dead man were covered with wriggling white worms. On the palms soaked in water, dense and swaying blue fungal hyphae were spreading downstream, like weaving an invisible net.
Her throat tightened and her eyes were fixed on the hyphae - they were not simply floating, but... growing.
Yun Yuan felt as if all the blood in his body had frozen.
She stumbled and fell to her knees, remembering Feng Yanyuan playing with the mycelium bulb. "This is a highly toxic substance from the valley. It will revive you if it comes into contact with water, but it will corrode your bones if it enters your throat and regenerate white worms. You must be extremely vigilant."
Bone-eating fungus... This water is actually poisonous. But how could she be completely unaware?
She stared down at the bloodstains on her skirt—it was this strong stench that had numbed her keen sense of smell, which she had always prided herself on. As soon as the thought occurred to her, it struck her as ridiculous—the bloodstains she had been exposed to today had more than just dulled her sense of smell. Just now, she had nearly slaughtered the red deer that had come to her rescue.
Suddenly, she looked up and around. The jungle was deep, and there was no sign of the deer, only a few strands of silver hair on her sleeve. She had never expected such a spiritual creature to exist in this canyon. She suddenly felt that the Qianren Valley had changed in an instant. As the long day drew to a close, her eyes discovered that this man-eating valley still had golden sunlight, lush flowers and trees, and gurgling water.
Amid the roar of the waterfall, Yun Yuan suddenly laughed.
The decisiveness of tearing the wolf's belly and digging out the snake's skin in the morning was defeated by a glance from the red deer.
She stared at the corpse, her eyes suddenly falling on the half-closed backpack at his waist. A shiver ran down her spine as her fingertips touched the cool leather—seven black iron wind tokens lay quietly within. Yun Yuan sighed softly. There was a rule in the Qianren Valley Trial: the more wind tokens you snatch, the higher your ranking, which also meant higher-level missions and rewards. If this man hadn't coveted the wind tokens and left the valley earlier, he wouldn't have ended up like this. She watched the man's twisted fingers still tightly grasping the wind tokens, and her throat suddenly tightened.
Her fingertips trembled slightly as she took four blood-stained wind tiles, adding her own, making five - this number was enough to leave the valley early.
Yun Yuan's heart suddenly relaxed, remembering the secret path Feng Yanyuan had marked on the sheepskin map before they left. She looked around. The stream shone coldly in the twilight, winding down and disappearing into the deep woods.
She tightened her backpack and walked quickly along the stream. In just half an hour, the jagged bluestone cliffs were within reach.
Her heart suddenly lightened, and she ran towards the gap.
Behind him, there was a sudden explosion of air-piercing sound! That was the sound of a black iron bow being drawn and an arrow tearing through the clouds!
In a panic, she spun around and moved along the slippery rock wall - the first arrow brushed past the tip of her hair and hit the crevice, the second arrow was narrowly avoided by her waist tilted back, and when the third arrow came, she touched the protruding rock with her toes and leaped into the air, the arrow tip brushed past the hem of her skirt, lifting half of the blood-stained gauze.
When she turned over and fell, the fourth arrow pierced her chest directly!
She was hit by the force of the arrow towards the side of the cliff, hit the rock wall heavily, and fell to the ground. The arrow also fell to the ground, and the tip of the arrow was bent.
Yun Yuan touched her aching chest and remembered that she was still wearing a set of gold-thread soft armor - it was placed at her door by Feng Yanyuan last night.
The arrow didn't penetrate, but it still made her dizzy and dazed. But before she could recover, the cold blue light from another arrowhead had already entered her pupils!
But his body felt as if it was filled with bronze and he could not move at all!
A sweet and fishy taste of rust surged in her throat, and a thought suddenly crossed her mind: Is she going to die at this exit?
But at this moment, a strong wind suddenly blew up!
It turned into a roaring tornado carrying gravel and dead leaves, and swept over the life-threatening arrow, which drew an arc in the air and just brushed past her ear!
Before she could react with her messy hair, she heard another loud bang!
It turned out that the other arrow that followed was just blown away by three inches by the swirling strong wind and was deeply wedged into the green rock beside her temples.
Broken hair mixed with stone chips fell down, and the earlobe that was cut by the arrow was like a talisman that ignited, turning the pain into a raging fire that spread throughout her limbs and bones. Yun Yuan finally raised her leg, turned around and pounced on the light gap that was just enough for her to move sideways.
She rushed out of the narrow gap, but didn't see Feng Yanyuan. She only saw Feng Jiu look up in shock and jump down from the boulder where he was crouching. Her legs gave way and she fell, her will fading into the darkness with one last thought: Was it luck that I dodged those last two arrows?
Later that day, the young master frowned when he received the report from the spy.
"He really is able to sit back and watch the situation."
The young master smashed the lacquer table with one punch, shocking the concubine serving beside him so much that her face turned pale.
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