She suddenly clamped her mouth shut, glanced around, and found a relatively thick tree to hide behind, muttering, "But it's still raining outside, and it'll take over an hour to fly to the nearest town."
This person had a bad temper. He might strike her with a palm strike if they disagreed. Hiding behind the tree felt safer.
He tied the wooden sword to his belt and turned around, only to see her entire body tucked behind the tree, with just her head peeking out like a little rabbit.
"If you don’t fear death, suit yourself."
He turned and walked away. Where his sleeves brushed past, thick fog began to gather in swirling masses, instantly enveloping the world. Beyond three steps, nothing was visible.
So he really was a demon! Xin Mei was stunned—a demon that could summon fog! No wonder she had encountered dense fog last time when she was looking for a place to camp near the Imperial Mausoleum. It had been his doing!
She looked around and decided to walk in the opposite direction. After only a few steps, she suddenly felt her foot kick something heavy, stubbing her toes. Picking it up, she found it was a dark blue money pouch filled with silver fragments and banknotes, heavy in her hand. Among the banknotes was a poorly made jade token of mixed colors. Strangely, the token bore no patterns—just the character "Lu" on the front and "Qianqiao" on the back.
The mud stains on the pouch were still fresh—it must belong to that demon. Was the name on the token his? Lu Qianqiao—a demon with a human name.
She clutched the pouch, hesitating, then glanced back. Finally, as if making up her mind, she resolutely walked in the direction he had gone. The swirling fog swallowed her figure in an instant.
Rainy, ancient forests were the worst, full of muddy pits.
Xin Mei leaned against a tree, struggling to pull her feet free from the muck. The new lambskin boots she wore, pristine and lovely that morning, were now caked in mud, their original color unrecognizable. At some point, thunder had begun rumbling overhead again, and several times she felt the lightning strike terrifyingly close.
This weather was far too unusual.
With great effort, she pulled one foot free and took a step forward. Suddenly, the air cleared—the thick, suffocating fog seemed to vanish all at once. Spotting what looked like a white cloth under a tree ahead, she brightened and hurried over to wipe the mud off her boots.
A faint groan sounded beside her. Startled, she circled the tree and found a dozen or so people sprawled haphazardly on the ground, all seemingly unconscious. The "white cloth" she had used to clean her boots turned out to be the hem of one person's robe.
Feeling a little embarrassed, Xin Mei quickly folded the fabric back to cover it. The person whose robe she had used seemed to stir slightly, letting out weak moans as they lay there.
She leaned closer and asked, "Why are you all lying here? Camping in the mud?"
The person trembled with difficulty, looking at her as if about to spit blood. "You... you didn’t see... that thing opposite..."
She turned around. On a massive bluestone slab across from them sat an extremely ferocious-looking tiger demon, legs crossed in meditation. Above him, thunderclouds churned, bolts of lightning crashing down intermittently. This was a demon undergoing the Heavenly Thunder Tribulation—if he succeeded, he would ascend to immortality.
"Did you all come to watch the tiger demon become an immortal?" she asked kindly.
The person fainted again in frustration.At that moment, as the thunderclouds gathered and the rain grew heavier, Xin Mei saw them lying in the muddy ground, drenched in filth. She couldn't help but bend down to support one of them by the arm, intending to drag them to a drier spot.
Suddenly, footsteps sounded behind her. She turned to see the man from earlier approaching with a wooden sword strapped to his side. The first time he laid eyes on her, his face finally showed a faint trace of what could be called "surprise."
"How did you get here?" he asked, his gaze unfriendly.
Xin Mei glanced around, found a sturdy tree to hide behind, and then pulled out the money pouch to place it on the ground.
"...You dropped this."
He remained silent for a long moment before picking up the pouch. Just as he was about to speak, the tiger demon let out an earth-shaking roar, making the entire mountain forest tremble. It seemed he was gradually unable to withstand the strikes of the heavenly lightning. His blood-red eyes snapped open, and he grabbed one of the people lying on the ground, opening his maw to devour them.
Xin Mei suddenly understood—these people had been captured by him to bolster his strength when resisting the heavenly lightning!
Lu Qianqiao kicked a stone, hitting the tiger demon squarely in the right arm. The person he had grabbed was sent flying, landing back in the muddy ground. Enraged, the tiger demon opened his bloody maw, and a dense volley of black arrows shot forth.
With a mere flick of his wooden sword, the black arrows seemed to hit an invisible wall, falling to the ground three feet in front of him. Anyone who didn’t know better might think he was wielding some divine weapon. Little did they know this wooden sword was something Xin Mei had just watched him carve moments ago.
The wooden sword floated in mid-air at his command. With a light flick of his finger, it transformed into a streak of light, emitting a piercing hum as if alive, darting around the tiger demon. Moments later, it abruptly halted mid-air and shattered into dust with a loud "bang."
This was because an ordinary wooden sword couldn’t withstand such immense force.
So powerful… Xin Mei gaped as she watched the nearly immortal tiger demon silently split into tiny chunks of flesh, dying without so much as a whimper.
Lu Qianqiao stepped over the carnage, picking up a fist-sized crimson orb from the shattered remains of the tiger demon—its inner core.
He was a demon himself, yet he killed his own kind to harvest their inner cores! With strength like his, even Qiu Yue would likely be reduced to dust if she stood before him. If he decided to silence her, wouldn’t that be disastrous?
Xin Mei looked around, deciding that slipping away at the first opportunity was the best course of action.
Before she could react, he flashed in front of her, casting a shadow over her head as he firmly grasped her wrist.
"You’ve broken through the cloud mist array twice. I can’t let you roam free. Come with me."
What cloud mist array? Did he mean the thick fog he had conjured?
Xin Mei clung to the tree trunk with her other hand, wishing she could climb it like a monkey. "It was just some fog! Anyone with a good sense of direction could find their way out!"
Unfortunately, her sense of direction was excellent—she had never gotten lost before.
"Liar."
He tightened his grip. If the cloud mist array were so easily broken, it wouldn’t be known as one of the three great formations.
Her arm felt like it was about to be dislocated.
Xin Mei suddenly turned to glare at him. "I only came back to return your money pouch!"
If she had known this would happen, she would’ve kept it for herself! Why was being a good person so difficult in this world?Lu Qianqiao noticed the glimmer of tears in her eyes, her expression both stubborn and angry. She had indeed just delivered a money pouch to him, trekking through vast muddy grounds—the yellow mud still clung to her feet, not yet dried.
He gradually loosened his grip but still didn’t let go. “No matter what, you’re coming with me,” he said.
“Why should I go with you?” She struggled fiercely, but his fingers were like iron clamps, unmoving.
“I’ve set up a cloud mist array around the Imperial Mausoleum. No one can enter or leave except me. Since you can break through it, I can’t leave you outside—it’ll cause trouble. I’m taking you back to the mausoleum.”
Xin Mei was stunned. “You… you’re abducting a common girl…”
Lu Qianqiao had no patience for further argument. He hoisted her over his shoulder and strode off without another word.
Still in shock, Xin Mei looked up at his face. Suddenly struck by a thought, she panicked. “Are you taking me to be your bandit’s wife?”
That’s how it always went in the plays—abducting a girl to be a bandit’s wife, treating her as a spouse when happy and beating her when displeased. Surely her fate wouldn’t be so tragic?
Lu Qianqiao’s eyebrows twitched slightly, but he remained silent.
Xin Mei racked her brain before stammering, “I—I won’t marry you… I don’t like Demons, and I don’t like expressionless people either…”
He stopped, glanced down at his hand, and considered whether to knock her out with one slap—or perhaps just one slap.
Suddenly, the sound of an ox bellowing came from above. A rickety oxcart pulled to a stop beside a tree, and Meishan Jun emerged, muttering to himself, “Weren’t the Tiger demons around here supposed to undergo a heavenly tribulation soon? How did they die so suddenly…”
Xin Mei’s eyes lit up as if spotting a treasure. “Lord Meishan!” she cried.
Startled, he looked up, first at her, then at Lu Qianqiao. His face instantly turned green. “War Ghost…” he muttered.
In a flash, he ducked back into the oxcart and sped away.
Lu Qianqiao watched the cart shrink into a distant speck before asking, “You know that immortal?”
Xin Mei was still stunned by Meishan Jun’s hasty retreat and could only nod blankly.
“I heard you call him ‘Meishan.’ Could he be that Meishan Jun from Meishan Residence, the one who spends his days prying into others’ secrets?”
Xin Mei turned away, silently weeping. So Lord Meishan was that kind of nosy, cowardly immortal—no wonder he’d fled faster than a rabbit.
“Is it him?”
“…I won’t tell you.”
Lu Qianqiao said nothing more.
OpenNovel