Where Immortals Once Walked

They were also busy settling their mounts, shaking off rainwater, and starting fires. With winds and rain this fierce, even straw raincoats and oiled cloaks were no guarantee against getting soaked. In the end, everyone had to huddle by the fire to dry themselves and warm up.

Seeing that the newcomers showed no hostile intent, the Stone Gate Merchant Caravan finally lowered their weapons and returned to their seats.

Watching the men and horses across the way and the firelight flickering there, He Lingchuan tilted his head toward Fushan Yue. “So they chased you all the way out into the wilderness?”

He had spotted familiar faces over there, though it was clear the other side no longer recognized him.

That was right. The ones who had violently searched the private rooms at Golden Spring Elegant Baths last night were among the newcomers. He Lingchuan distinctly remembered that there had been two men and one monster then. Now, however, there was only one man and one monster, while the third was nowhere to be seen.

Given that they had butted heads with the local forces last night, losing one person was hardly surprising. However, it was entirely possible that the missing man was not dead and just being detained somewhere.

“Probably not,” Fushan Yue replied. He had wrapped himself up so tightly that only his eyes were visible, lurking deliberately in the shadows behind He Lingchuan so as not to draw attention. “Anyone heading north to the State of Chiyan has to pass through these mountains. They were likely driven in by the storm too. Heh, this is what they call fate bringing enemies together.”

Dressed like this, he looked no different from any other traveler. The Chiyan party across the way appeared completely relaxed, as if they truly had not noticed him.

He Lingchuan asked, “What do you plan to do?”

Fushan Yue leaned forward, almost brushing He Lingchuan’s ear as he whispered, “That fierce tiger, he’s Uncle Da.”

There were only two monsters on the other side: the owl monster He Lingchuan had encountered last night, and a massive tiger. He Lingchuan had not expected Fushan Yue to refer to a tiger as his “uncle.”

The tiger was slightly smaller than an ordinary one of its kind, but its proportions were more balanced, its coat darker and glossier. Its eyes were intense, fierce, and piercing, while its cheek fur flared outward. When it had emerged step by step from the darkness earlier, it carried itself with the swagger of a big boss on patrol.

The effect on the Stone Gate Merchant Caravan’s animals had been immediate. Oxen and horses grew restless; several of the weaker horses reared in fright, nearly bolting into the mountains.

Only after the drivers worked frantically to calm them and once the tiger settled by the fire without making any further move did the animals barely steady themselves. Even then, they kept scratching the ground and snorting, nerves still jangling.

He Lingchuan noticed that when the tiger crouched down, even the flames seemed to hesitate.

He recalled the pair of tigers that had ambushed him by Three-Heart Lake. Those had been larger in size, yet the pressure they exerted had been nowhere near as suffocating as this one’s.

A guard who had followed the ruler of Chiyan for over a century was no one to trifle with. When He Lingchuan had helped Fushan Yue treat his wounds last night, he had seen a conical puncture wound straight through the arm. Now, comparing that memory with the long fangs revealed when the tiger yawned, he felt he had found the culprit.

Uncle Da’s fangs were clearly longer than those of an ordinary tiger.

Fushan Yue had used a talisman to mask his scent. Combined with the torrential rain, it kept the blood smell from giving him away. Otherwise, it would never have escaped the tiger’s nose.

Their voices were extremely low and further drowned out by the downpour. The tiger did not look their way, but its ears twitched in their direction, and its tail flicked once.

Fushan Yue fell silent at once.

He Lingchuan casually studied the carriage opposite them. A scrawny man jumped down, holding a golden basin, and went to fetch hot water by the fire. Before he could even reach out, a nearby guard kicked him impatiently. “Worthless slave, don’t you know to wash the basin first?”

“Y-yes, yes.” The man was not offended in the least. He scrambled up, smiling apologetically as he clutched the basin and ran toward a nearby stream, heedless of the pouring rain.

The guard spat on the ground the scrawny man had just stepped on. “Pig!”

The clatter of the basin hitting the ground drew a glance from the members of the Stone Gate Merchant Caravan, but they only spared it a brief look before turning away.

That slave was clearly one of the pariahs from the Twilight Plains. He washed the golden basin carefully three full times before bringing it back to fill with hot water. While the other guards lounged about carelessly, he stayed hunched and cautious in every movement. This time, he had learned his lesson. Before climbing back into the carriage, he meticulously picked off clumps of mud and grass from his clothes to avoid dirtying the interior.

Hm, the passenger inside should be someone important.

With the guards, including Uncle Da, forming a protective ring around it like stars around the moon, who else could it be?

He Lingchuan smiled and asked Fushan Yue, “Don’t you think the difference in how you two are treated is a bit extreme?”

On one side, there were layers of guards and constant attendance. On the other side, Fushan Yue was wounded, down on his luck, hiding his identity and curling up inside a small-state merchant caravan.

The difference between having a doting father and not having one was truly night and day.

Fushan Yue rolled his eyes, having nothing to say, but inwardly, he was alarmed.

Dead men don’t need hot water. How is Fushan Ji still alive?

He had clearly stabbed the other party with the lignifying poison. Fushan Yue was confident in his methods, and he had even tested that poison himself. The poison of a divine child was nearly incurable. With Fushan Ji’s level of cultivation, he should not have survived more than twenty hours.

Just then, Peach brought him a cup of hot water, which Fushan Yue waved away. He Lingchuan glanced at the little girl and saw that the stitches on her lips had already healed.

From appearances alone, no one would now associate her with a cursed child.

Suddenly, He Lingchuan said, “Is Peach sick?”

Her lips were pale, yet her cheeks were flushed. Fine beads of sweat dotted her forehead, and pain showed clearly on her face.

He Lingchuan pressed a hand to her brow. “She’s got a fever.”

No one knew when she had caught the chill, but she was used to suffering and had not said a word, just gritting her teeth and enduring it.

Fushan Yue examined her briefly, then leaned in and sniffed her twice.

The motion was oddly canine, and Peach squirmed uncomfortably.

“Pariahs don’t get sick that easily,” Fushan Yue said flatly. “She’s absorbed too much baleful qi.”

Poor folk had tough lives. In truth, his words could be flipped around: the pariahs who got sick easily had long since turned to bones. Those who survived were the hardy ones.

“Baleful qi?” He Lingchuan was briefly surprised, then understood. Lingxu City had sent people here to perform rites and purge the resentment and malice at least a dozen times, but judging from the current state of the Twilight Plains, the effect had been minimal.

After all, that world-shaking massacre had taken place across every corner of the Twilight Plains. Like weeds, the malice-formed baleful qi sprouted again, no matter how often it was pulled.

Fushan Yue had an innate ability to draw in baleful qi. On the Twilight Plains, he felt like a fish in water. Yet here, at the ruins of Qianxing City—one of the densest sources of baleful qi—it did not flock to him at all. Instead, the little girl beside him seemed far more enticing.

“So Peach really is a cursed child,” He Lingchuan murmured.

“Mm-hm, she needs to learn methods to control baleful qi,” Fushan Yue said thoughtfully. “Otherwise, the earth blight here will probably kill her. Even if it doesn’t, absorbing too much will turn her into something truly ominous.”

Peach asked timidly, “Will I cause other people to die?”

“That would mean they deserved it. What does it have to do with you?” Fushan Yue patted her head. “At worst, you’ll become a blightful child. If you stay somewhere too long, people around you might get sick, crops might wither, just like this Twilight Plains.”

But Peach’s logic was clear. “Sick people die more easily. If they die, wouldn’t that be because of me?”

“I already said that it would be because they deserved it,” Fushan Yue replied cheerfully. “Who told them to be so weak?”

He looked up to find He Lingchuan studying him. “What?”

“You two are actually pretty similar,” He Lingchuan said, stroking his chin. “You both absorb baleful qi.”

After all, were the earliest ba not formed when resentful corpses encountered earth blight?

Fushan Yue snorted. “We both eat rice too, does that make you like me?”

As if heaven itself had flipped a switch, the raging wind and rain suddenly eased. Another quarter hour passed, and the gloom cleared entirely. Clouds parted to reveal a bright moon, its light pouring down like liquid mercury, casting a hazy sheen across the ground. Travelers could now see their surroundings clearly even without firelight.

Only the lingering scent of mud and crushed grass hinted at the storm that had just passed.

Mountain weather truly obeyed no rules.

Peach suddenly pointed ahead. “It’s changed!”

Moonlight mingled with the damp ground, and vapor began to rise, twisting into shapes.

It was not just where she pointed; the entire ruin around them was changing.

First-time visitors instinctively drew their weapons with a clang, faces taut. Second Boss Shi waved them down.

“Easy. This is just an illusion that appears now and then. It’s completely harmless!”

The vapor began to “grow” from the foundations of Qianxing City’s ruins, quickly forming walls, terraces, and towers.

Even the stone houses they occupied were overlaid with massive structures, as though palaces were rising from them. He Lingchuan reached out and swept a hand along a wall. His hand passed straight through, as expected, without resistance, only a faint coolness.

Under the moonlight, everything was rapidly restored.

In barely half an hour, the phantom of a complete ancient city rose from the ground, majestic and whole. Even the people running through its streets were phantoms, yet their facial features were astonishingly clear.

It was a perfect reconstruction.

The former Qianxing City now spanned time itself, reappearing before mortal eyes.

Only then did He Lingchuan realize that the Stone Gate Merchant Caravan was positioned in what had once been the armory, just behind the city gate.

Inside and outside the city, shouts of battle thundered. Armored war elephants charged the gates, each bearing a massive battering ram.

Each elephant stood over six meters tall, its long, curved tusks stretching more than three meters. Their hill-like bodies were clad in imposing armor, and the arrows raining down from the walls did nothing to stop them.

The battering ram was shaped like a dragon’s head, holding a blazing brand in its jaws. With every impact, it shattered a layer of red light on the gate’s surface.

That was an origin energy barrier on the verge of collapse.

Before the gate, the enemy tide surged, packed densely with all manner of monsters, some of which even bore rather grotesque forms. Regardless, the roars of the monsters shook the heavens.

Even knowing it was all an illusion, the living onlookers felt their scalps prickle.

The Chiyan party’s position happened to lie amid the phantom monster army. When Uncle Da crouched among the spectral beasts, he blended in seamlessly.

Siege ladders were raised one after another against the walls. The defenders atop them were taking heavy casualties, their resistance weakening by the moment.

Since it was all an illusion and posed no danger, the caravan members relaxed. They split into small groups, wandering through and exploring the ancient city lost to history.

Fushan Yue pointed at Second Boss Shi, signaling to the cursed child. “Stick close to him.” Then he turned to He Lingchuan and asked, “Shall we take a walk?”