Chapter 37
"Halt! What are you doing?" Two city gate guards saw a creaking oxcart slowly approaching and immediately stepped aside, crossing their spears to block the way.
Dust was kicked up by the hooves of the cows, swirling in the setting sun. One of the guards, with a face full of scars, reached his rough fingers toward Ling Zhouling's disheveled face without warning, trying to turn his chin over for a closer look.
Just then, Ling Zhouling suddenly yanked Xi Xiao's arm, the force so great that she stumbled and fell against his chest. His rough, hoarse voice, filled with the venom and resentment of a common man, gave her no chance to react: "Your Honor, it was this wretched woman who secretly went out of town to meet some other man behind my back! I went through a lot of trouble, practically running myself ragged, to finally catch this slut!"
He spat almost onto the guard's face, then added viciously, his eyes sweeping fiercely over Xi Xiao's horrified face: "This shameless woman should be drowned in a pig cage, sir. Don't you agree?"
The guards glanced at Ling Zhouling's ugly and lewd appearance, then at the woman in his arms. Although she was dressed in coarse linen clothes, which were torn in many places, and her face seemed somewhat sallow with disheveled hair, her exposed eyebrows, eyes, nose, and lips were exquisite.
If she were fairer-skinned, she might even outshine the empresses in the palace. The two exchanged a knowing glance, a lewd grin spreading across their faces.
A guard casually rolled up the newly unfolded wanted poster and stuffed it back into his waistband. His gaze was fixed on Xi Xiao's face, filled with undisguised lust. He even reached out a finger, wanting to touch the delicate skin beneath her sallow complexion.
A flash of cold light appeared in Ling Zhouling's eyes, then instantly filled with bitterness. He suddenly grabbed the guard's wrist, which was about to take advantage of him, and held him like an iron clamp. His voice rose sharply, choked with sobs, so shrill it seemed to tear the air apart: "This woman was bought for me by my father with all his savings for his own funeral. Now look what happened! She went out and came back with a whole bunch of venereal diseases. My family was counting on me to carry on the family line. Now look what's happened! We've lost both our money and our wife! This wretch has ruined my whole family!" He howled as he desperately shook the guard's wrist, as if he wanted to pour out all his bitterness and grievances at the city gate.
The guard's arm ached from being pulled, and he heard the man wailing and lamenting, spouting "dirty disease" and "losing money." He then glanced at the villagers queuing behind him, craning their necks and looking curiously in their direction, fearing they might be tainted by bad luck or cause trouble.
He pulled his hand away in disgust, rubbing it on his clothes where Ling Zhouling had grabbed him, as if it had been stained with something unclean. He waved his hand impatiently to shoo it away: "Get out! Stop wailing here! Take your sick wife and get out of here! Don't get in my way!"
The oxcart creaked and groaned as it rolled across the cobblestone path of the city gate, finally emerging from the oppressive archway. Once out of the guards' sight, Xi Xiao abruptly broke free from Ling Zhouling's grip, her deliberately sallow complexion unable to conceal the grimness beneath. She glared at Ling Zhouling, her teeth clenched, her chest heaving, yet she remained stubbornly silent.
Ling Zhouling felt a chill run down his spine under her gaze. He gave a dry laugh and tried to explain, "Ahem... Guarding the city gate is tedious and boring. These crude men love to hear filthy and vulgar amusement. In a moment of desperation, it was a temporary measure, a temporary measure... Don't do it again, don't do it again!"
Xi Xiao turned her head away, no longer looking at him, and silently reached out to take the old purse from her waist. Her fingertips trembled slightly as she carefully untied the drawstring and took out the only remaining round pill.
She held it in her palm and gazed at it for a long time. Ling Zhouling, who was watching closely, knew that the reason her hidden injuries healed so quickly was mostly due to this miraculous pill.
But fleeing in haste, enduring wind and rain, he was completely unable to refine new medicines. He was inexplicably frustrated: "My men have already cleaned up all traces along the way. When we reach our next stop, Huizhou, I have a stable business there. Once we're on my own turf, buying supplies and making medicines won't attract attention."
His gaze inadvertently swept over Xi Xiao's arm. Beneath the rough linen sleeve, several fresh red marks were faintly visible. He swallowed hard, looked away, and said in a slightly hoarse voice, "He... that man is extremely cunning. Although the wanted poster only has my picture on it right now, it's hard to guarantee that he hasn't planted spies everywhere. Your appearance..." He paused, then continued, "...is too conspicuous. It's hard to guarantee that someone with ulterior motives won't remember you."
His words were spoken with deep meaning, and he was completely unaware that he had unknowingly considered so much for Xi Xiao. Just a few days ago, he was thinking about how to find an opportunity to get rid of her, but now a strange and indescribable sense of attachment and reluctance had quietly arisen in his heart.
Xi Xiao was unaware of his complicated emotions. She simply nodded slightly and said in a low, hoarse voice, "Yes, that's how it should be." She lowered her head and carefully put the pill back into the depths of her purse, tying it tightly.
*
The biting wind, sharp as a knife, howled wildly across the vast, empty wilderness, carrying with it tiny ice crystals. It was as if an invisible giant hand had smoothed out all the undulations of the world, leaving only a hazy gray expanse.
In the deathly silence, only the heavy, monotonous footsteps of Xi Yu and his two companions pounding the frozen earth could be heard, each step stirring up a faint dust that was then swept away by the wind.
Xi Yu suddenly stopped, her gaze sweeping across the desolate landscape. Qingfeng immediately understood, enduring the biting cold, and pulled a large roll of map from her robes. The map's paper was already yellowed and curled at the edges, worn and tattered from long-term handling. She laboriously breathed on her frozen, stiff fingers before finally unfolding the map in the cold wind and holding it firmly in front of Xi Yu.
Long, pale fingers pointed precisely at a blank area in the upper right corner of the map. His voice was broken by the wind, but remained gentle. However, beneath that gentleness, a suppressed urgency flowed like an undercurrent beneath the ice: "Ice Jade Powder... is extremely cold and yin, averse to light and preferring darkness. This place... is so open and unprotected, exposed to the scorching sun and fierce winds... it is extremely difficult to survive here."
He sighed heavily, his breath condensing into white mist in the cold air. "Although we don't know the customs of the vassal kings, they have the advantage of sheer numbers. If we fill them with sheer numbers and plow through them inch by inch... given enough time, we might just stumble upon them by sheer luck. We must find them before they do!"
His eyes suddenly sharpened, and he quickly rolled up the map. Qingfeng, standing beside him, was deathly pale, his lips trembling as he muttered to himself, "But…Young Master, the Ice Jade Powder marked on the map is in this Qilin Mountain…We…we've already turned the whole mountain upside down…"
The relentless, sleepless march over the past few days, coupled with the near-excavation search in this frigid land, had already exhausted their strength. At this moment, hope was fading, and despair, like the biting winds around them, seeped into the very marrow of each person.
The atmosphere froze instantly, a heavy sorrow weighing down like leaden clouds. Yunwu's cheeks were deeply sunken, her once delicate skin roughened and cracked by the cold wind, covered with tiny cuts. She dragged her heavy steps forward, looking up at Xi Yu, her eyes, dulled by weariness and worry, still holding a last glimmer of hope: "Young Master...we...we will definitely find the Ice Jade Powder, won't we?"
Xi Yu looked into her eyes, which were filled with torment, his throat bobbed, and he remained silent, his eyes churning with an overwhelming sadness.
Since that day, when she learned that if she couldn't destroy the Ice Jade Powder, Xi Xiao would become a "living medicine" coveted by everyone and become the target of everyone's hatred, she was even more worried. She could hardly swallow the only dry food she had. Day and night, all she thought about was "destroying the Ice Jade Powder".
Destroying the Ice Jade Powder was the best outcome they could hope for on this mission. Failure would not only mean all their previous efforts were in vain, but they might also be wiped out on the spot by the vassal king's forces who would arrive on the scene.
Seeing that Xi Yu remained silent for a long time, Yunwu felt a growing panic in her heart, and her voice trembled with a hint of crying: "Young Master... Miss... she will be alright, won't she?"
Xi Yu took a deep breath of the cold air, suppressing the bitterness surging in her chest, and finally let out a very soft sigh, filled with endless exhaustion: "...Let's go."
A single, scalding tear finally broke free from its restraints and slid down from the corner of her misty, cracked eye, leaving a faint, glistening trail on her rough cheek, briefly moisturizing the parched skin.
She abruptly lowered her head, her shoulders trembling slightly. After a few breaths, when she raised it again, the faint spark in her eyes had been replaced by an almost tragic determination. She said nothing more, only clenched her teeth, dragged her leaden legs, and stepped resolutely forward, one step at a time, towards the desolate wasteland ahead.
"Whoosh whoosh whoosh—!"
A piercing sound tore through the air, and three streaks of dark light shot down from the sky like venomous snakes, their target aimed directly at the three people's vital points!
"Watch out!" Xi Yu's ears twitched slightly, and as she shouted, her body leaped into the air like a startled swan. The wind and clouds reacted just as quickly, rolling and dodging to avoid the deadly arrow. The arrow pierced the frozen earth with a thud, its fletching still trembling violently.
"Who are you, you cowardly rat! Hiding your head and showing your tail!" Xi Yu's voice, carrying power, echoed across the open plains, filled with icy rage.
His response was a sudden and intensified gale, which whipped up dust and sand, obscuring his vision. When the wind subsided, he saw that a dark mass of figures had silently surrounded him, each dressed in tight-fitting clothes, holding sharp blades, and exuding a chilling aura.
The leader was none other than Pei Yun. He had clearly traveled day and night, and his usually spotless black robes were now splattered with mud. His face was as gloomy as the sky before a storm. His gaze was fixed on Xi Yu and the other two, as if he were looking at a swarm of annoying flies that he could never get rid of.
Xi Yu's gaze swept quickly around Pei Yun's surroundings, but she couldn't see the figure she had been longing for. Her heart sank, as if she had fallen into an ice cave, and she asked in a trembling voice, "Where is she!?"
Pei Yun's lips curled into a cold, mocking smile. "Of course she came looking for you, so I'll just wait for her here, lest she... make a wasted trip." He paused deliberately, enjoying the sudden change in Xi Yu's expression.
"You!" Xi Yu's expression changed drastically, and he instinctively wanted to step forward to question him. He had barely taken a step when, with a "whoosh," another arrow accurately embedded itself in the frozen ground in front of his toes, penetrating three feet into the earth—the warning was unmistakable. Xi Yu's chest blazed with fury, and he shouted, "Surrounded by powerful princes, eyeing us covetously, you've placed her in such a dangerous situation! How is she supposed to cope?!"
Pei Yun seemed to have heard the biggest joke in the world, his eyes surging with emotion. "She is very capable. Even I have fallen for her tricks. How can I not be able to handle myself?" He stared at Xi Yu with a cold gaze. "I might as well tell you that two hundred paces ahead, there is a thousand-year-old swamp, with tangled shrubs that block out the sky... The Ice Jade Powder you are looking for is deep in that swamp."
Upon hearing this, Qingfeng hurriedly grabbed Xi Yu's sleeve: "Young Master, we've explored that swamp. It's filled with miasma, the mud is bottomless, and countless poisonous insects lurk there. If anyone goes in, they'll die ten times out of ten. There's absolutely no way there's any Ice Jade Powder. He's lying to us!"
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