Five Miles of Fog (10)
Chapter Twenty
The night was as still as water, and the moonlight poured down.
The sunlight streamed through the windowpanes into the unlit room.
Xie Yuan slowly opened her eyes. Her inner energy flowed warmly through her limbs and returned to her dantian. It felt so good to have inner energy again. She waved her hand to turn off the lamp and nimbly got out of bed.
Surprisingly, Ah Ling was actually able to hold back and not come looking for her this time.
In the past, she would only be halfway through her cultivation before he would impatiently interrupt her.
Was he hurt by something she said today?
Xie Yuan deeply reflected on her tone of voice at noon today.
She seems a bit fierce...
Hopefully he won't overthink it. Her apprentice is good in every way, except that he's too good at keeping things to himself, and she can't see through him.
In Xie Yuan's memory, Song Ling's attitude towards her changed in two extremes.
At first, he was extremely indifferent to her and resisted her touch.
Later on, he became extremely attached to her and hated nothing more than her being nice to other people.
Song Ling lacks a sense of security and when she is anxious, she likes to do things that involve bloodshed to make herself happy, but this also makes Xie Yuan very angry.
The system had repeatedly nagged her about how wicked Song Ling's character was, how vicious and extreme she was, and how she could threaten and backfire in all sorts of ways, trying to make her give up the idea of trying to influence Song Ling and return to the correct storyline.
She turned a deaf ear. Although the backlash was very painful, she still felt quite accomplished as Song Ling's master.
This might be the joy of the so-called "raising a child" system.
It's a bittersweet experience.
He was a small, soft, and sweet little thing nestled in her arms, his face cold as he said he was wrong.
Xie Yuanxin was completely charmed and wanted to kiss him to death. He was so adorable, oh my god.
Is this still the same heartless little apprentice who initially tried every trick in the book to kill her?
It wasn't until I saw with my own eyes that Song Ling, who was not even seven years old, expressionlessly took the small peach wood sword she had given him for self-defense and skillfully stabbed it into the throats of those people.
Xie Yuan was also surprised when he saw it with his own eyes. He was only seven years old, but he had killed people as if he had done it thousands of times.
However, even the system has no way of knowing anything about his past.
The system was alarming incessantly, urging her to leave quickly.
She ignored the warnings and stood quietly not far away, watching him.
Blood stained half of Xiao Songling's delicate, pale face. His small hand gripped the still-dripping peach wood sword tightly. His indifferent, empty gaze, like that of a lifeless corpse, showed a moment of panic when it met hers. He quickly reverted to his usual obedient and well-behaved self in front of her, standing there helplessly and nervously, like a child caught doing something wrong by an adult.
Xie Yuan didn't know why she suddenly had such an absurd idea.
Song Ling cared a lot about what she thought of him.
He was just pretending to be well-behaved in front of her to make her happy.
Xie Yuan thought this was a good thing.
Even if she can no longer protect him in the future, he will still have enough ability to protect himself from being harmed by malicious people.
This world is too unfair to him; turning to the dark side seems to be his inescapable fate.
She hoped that in the limited time she had, she could become a warm thought in his darkest past.
There must be something worth living for in order to live a life.
——
Xie Yuan picked up the sword that Song Ling had left in her room and went out. She stopped a waiter and asked if he had seen a handsome young man in red.
Upon hearing her mention it, the waiter suddenly realized. To be honest, with so many people coming and going at the inn, he wouldn't normally remember what the guest looked like. But that young man was truly outstanding, making it hard for anyone not to remember him: "I've seen him before. That young man in red didn't come out of his room after he went in. He must be asleep."
Xie Yuan nodded slightly in thanks, turned around and went back to her room, then decisively climbed out the window and went to the next room.
She gently pushed open the half-open window and found that the room was indeed empty. The teacup had not been touched. A set of red and black clothes, neatly folded, was placed on the table. Her slender, pale fingers lightly stroked the dark lotus pattern on the collar.
Oh right, I was so angry that I almost forgot that we agreed to wait for him to come back and I would change my clothes for her.
Song Ling always manages to make her feel inexplicably sorry for her in very subtle ways.
Since he acknowledged her as his master, he has almost never refused her requests...
Although Song Ling's life was different from Song's, without exception, he was still constantly losing.
The so-called villain's character settings restricted his life of suffering and tragedy. His father did not love him, his mother did not care for him, and his clan hated him and imprisoned him underground. He thought that his suffering was over and that he was about to be redeemed, but she died.
Ah Ling's requests never seemed to be fulfilled or go smoothly.
——
Xie Yuan searched the entire Wuli Town but couldn't find Song Lingren, but she accidentally heard some news about human trafficking.
According to local residents, Wuli Town is known as the Fog Town because every month, a mysterious thick fog will block the town for three days, preventing people from getting out and people from getting in. If you are unlucky enough to encounter the fog, being trapped in a fog is considered good, but if you encounter a man-eating monster in the fog, there is absolutely no chance of survival.
At night, most households choose to stay indoors, but strangely, the next day someone would always report to the government that a child had gone missing, and almost all of them were boys under the age of fifteen. However, no matter how much manpower, resources, and money were spent, they were still missing.
Xie Yuan realized almost immediately that the girls who were trafficked in the mountain bandit camps on the border were all around thirteen or fourteen years old. If the bandit camps had not been massacred, their fate would most likely have been the same as the rotting, fermenting corpses she had seen in the cellar.
She and Song Ling arrived in Wuli Town the day after the previous fog ended.
The fog had just cleared up, otherwise they might have run into it too.
However, Xie Yuan felt that something was not quite right, so she calculated the time.
If Song Ling hadn't been injured, they would have been at most two or three days away from Wuli Town according to the normal route, and they would definitely have encountered the dense fog. However, because he was seriously injured, those two or three days were delayed for a whole month before they could set off, and by some twist of fate, they missed the dense fog.
Is this really just a coincidence?
Never mind, never mind, maybe she's overthinking it.
Song Ling couldn't possibly have stabbed herself like that...
——
Xie Yuan finally found Song Ling at a place selling candied hawthorns at the end of an alley.
He stood quietly across the street, watching the children jumping and skipping around the old man selling candied hawthorns. They held up the few coins in their little hands and shouted in their childish voices, "Grandpa! Grandpa! I want candied hawthorns too! I want candied hawthorns too!"
The boy wore a distinctive indigo-blue outfit typical of southern Xinjiang, with a silver chain wrapped around his narrow waist. His black hair was loose and hung down his back, with several small braids on his left side, adorned with beautiful silver butterfly ornaments, interspersed with a few strands of black hair that fell in front of him.
Despite being surrounded by the bustling noise of the crowd, she felt lonely and desolate.
Xie Yuan remembered that Song Ling didn't like eating candy at first. He hated sweets. There were also small villages and towns at the foot of Luoqi Mountain. Sometimes she would try every means to trick him into going down the mountain so that he could experience more of the human world and the lives of ordinary people, instead of always staying in that small corner of the world. But he seemed to prefer to stay with his Gu worms every day.
But one day, he suddenly developed a liking for sweets, and he stopped distancing himself from her and started to get closer to her.
Xie Yuan loves sweets.
She also wanted to share with him the things that made her happy.
She was genuinely happy for him; at least for her, sweets were a wonderful thing that made her feel good.
Xie Yuan thought for a moment, then turned and left.
She didn't notice that the boy had already spotted her the moment she appeared. Even in the darkness of night, the bright red of her dress was still visible in the corner of his eye, and it had long since taken over his decaying, dark, swampy world. The silvery moonlight fell on his long, trembling eyelashes, which were as light as butterfly wings, and cast a hazy, dreamlike shadow on the corner of his eyes.
The moment he realized she had turned and left, his reason was on the verge of collapse, like a horse pulling back from a precipice, and an overwhelming sense of loss instantly overwhelmed him.
My heart started to ache again.
Having become a creature neither human nor ghost, he shouldn't be someone whose emotions can be swayed by anyone else.
After years of planning and scheming, he was confident of achieving his desired outcome, except for his master, who remained the exception and an uncontrollable variable...
——
Xie Yuan went to another street and bought candied hawthorns. She also gathered some sweets, wrapped them in oil paper, and went back with her bags. But Song Ling was nowhere to be found.
Huh, that's strange. Where did they go again?
“Master…” Just as she was walking along, a warm, slender body suddenly pressed against her from behind and hugged her tightly. The familiar, cool fragrance lingered around her nose. Song Ling seemed to have been crying, and his voice was tinged with the unique sob and magnetism of a young man.
Xie Yuan stumbled forward a few steps as he carried her, barely managing to regain her balance.
"Where did you secretly go to cry again, hmm?" She turned around in his arms, her slender, fair hand gently pinching his chin.
"I didn't dodge."
Xie Yuan's expression froze for a moment, then she belatedly realized something. No wonder she had felt for a moment that someone was secretly watching her from the shadows. She had thought it was just her imagination, but it turned out not to be. A hint of helplessness crossed her face. "You noticed me a long time ago."
Her tone was calm and even, and she didn't seem angry.
Song Ling gently rubbed her face against her palm. "Master, will you hate me?"
"You've asked me that more than once, Ah Ling."
Xie Yuan sighed softly, "Why do you always think I'll hate you?"
"Because I'm not good enough."
"What's wrong with it?"
"We must not tell Master."
"Are you afraid I'll leave you if I find out?"
"Yes, I did things that Master didn't like."
"For example?"
"For example, indiscriminate killing of innocent people?"
"Ah Ling, you're doing it again..."
Xie Yuan's brows furrowed with a hint of helplessness. He was testing her again, wondering what had happened to make him so sensitive.
"Master, I want to hear it." The boy's eyes were red, and his stubborn gaze fell into her eyes like a pebble falling into a cold mountain spring, creating ripples.
"I won't hate you. No matter what you do, your master will always be behind you."
Xie Yuan couldn't remember how many times she had made this promise to Song Ling, without getting tired of it.
That's it. He only has one apprentice. What else can we do?
He smiled and quickly became happy, subtly taking what Xie Yuan was holding.
"Master, you are so good to me."
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