The Black Feather Division — Tiancheng’s most elite unit — why had they appeared at Sanmu Pass?
Xiao Nanhui’s mind was like a mass of paste, countless thoughts churning through it — yet she could not grasp a single thread of any of them.
Not far away, from behind a toppled wall, a grey-shrouded figure came stumbling and lurching out sideways — it was Wu Xiaoliu.
Xiao Nanhui had no time to think further. She let out a sharp cry.
“Don’t move!”
Wu Xiaoliu’s round, stout body came to an abrupt halt, freezing in place just a few steps from Ke Sang’s corpse.
He too sensed something was wrong. A faint, subtle sound hung suspended in the air.
It was the sound of tens of thousands of bowstrings drawn taut all at once — like a great beast opening its mouth wide, with no way of knowing when its sharp fangs would suddenly snap shut.
After what felt like an age, a long, drawn-out zither note rose again — low and gentle, like a feather slowly drifting downward.
Only then did the tension in those taut bowstrings ease. The formation shifted from attack to defense. The sound of armor rubbing against armor echoed back and forth through the valley, so perfectly uniform that not a single discordant note could be detected.
Only then did she turn to look at Wu Xiaoliu, exasperated: “What are you following me for? Are you looking to die? Don’t think I wouldn’t dare kill you—”
“Didn’t you say you wanted to go and have a look at Fortress Chief Pan’s stronghold?”
“I have legs.”
“Your legs aren’t working well.”
“What does my not working well have to do with you?”
Xiao Nanhui’s voice was cold and hard, deliberately trying to cut the conversation off at its root.
In the next instant, Wu Xiaoliu walked toward her without the slightest regard for her words. Before she could react, he hoisted her up onto his back.
“You can’t walk. I’ll carry you.”
Xiao Nanhui froze, then struggled against the fat man’s back for several seconds. But with blood pouring from her legs and her whole body going rigid, she felt like a fish that had been whacked on the head and left on a cutting board.
She hadn’t entirely calmed the anger in her heart, but this was not the moment to calm it. In the state she was in right now, whether she had another breath in her at all was questionable.
Wu Xiaoliu’s stout body turned in a circle and began taking slow, laborious steps toward the road leading west.
Xiao Nanhui’s head was pointing directly back at the cliff face behind them. Jostled along in the motion of being carried, she forced herself to look up — and unexpectedly caught sight of that ominous dark mass parting to the left and right, revealing a faint shimmer of brightness.
It was a person, unarmored, robes billowing in the wind.
He stood in the wind, his figure slender yet upright, standing tall on the stone cliff above — like the massive divine statue at Sanmu Pass, looking down upon the living beings struggling in the yellow sand below.
Though the person’s face was too blurred to make out, that bearing was undimmed even across a thousand li.
A familiar coldness and haughtiness — exactly as on the day he sat atop the Lingxiao Tower, watching the slaughter at the altar below as a bystander.
If there truly were gods in this world, they must look down upon all living things precisely like this.
Who was he?
Xiao Nanhui stared at him for a moment, lips trembling, then suddenly realized the jostling had long since stopped. She gave Wu Xiaoliu a sharp smack on the back of the head.
“Stop staring. Let’s go.”
Wu Xiaoliu turned his head back with a resentful look at the woman on his back, undisguised displeasure on his face. She had clearly been the one staring first.
Wu Xiaoliu labored to move his feet forward, while Xiao Nanhui lay across his back, thoughts drifting in and out of clarity.
Hmph. Regardless of who this person surnamed Zhong Li was — he certainly had nerve. First he dared steal the Prime Minister’s Mansion’s tablet, and now he had actually gone and stolen the Black Feather Division’s authority! Of all things! Could he be anything less than a trusted guest of some powerful house? He must be some dissolute young master from a great family. With the Black Feather Division involved in an incident this size, once she returned to Chizhou she would surely hear something of it. Should she pull him out of trouble then?
After all, counting the incident in Huozhou, this lingering ghost had already saved her twice now.
Xiao Nanhui’s thoughts swam and drifted for a while longer before sinking completely into the depths. She entrusted her life into Wu Xiaoliu’s hands, as though none of the unpleasantness between them had ever happened.
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The seven-stringed zither was narrow and lean, its surface deep in color like burnt sienna, the fine crackle lines running through it delicate as hairs — just like spring rain and a gentle wind.
A zither worth a thousand gold pieces, and yet here it lay on the coarse, gritty ground without the slightest care, its player nowhere to be seen.
Watching the silhouette of those two figures, stacked one atop the other, slowly disappear into the distance, the man’s upright figure still had not moved by so much as a fraction.
A dark shadow landed soundlessly behind him. One knee touched the ground. The scabbard touched the earth. A blade-bearer’s most respectful salute was performed.
The man at the cliff’s edge turned his face slightly to the side, exposing half a profile of composed indifference.
“Any trace of Yanfu?”
“None, I ask the master’s forgiveness. This person’s martial skill is beyond measuring — this subordinate underestimated him.”
The man said nothing, his gaze still resting on the far distance.
Ding Weixiang dared not rise. A worry he could not shake spread through his eyes. They should not have come here at all.
“Master — though the Sun Family’s remnants have been cleared from this area, there is still danger around Sanmu Pass. If the Bai Family catches wind of this, they will certainly come to investigate. This is not a place to linger.”
The figure in the distance still had not moved, as though he had not heard a word.
“Master?”
The man finally drew his gaze back in. His tone was so light it carried no color at all.
“So be it. There will be a time to meet again.”
The figure turned away from the edge of the cliff. Only then was Ding Weixiang able to see clearly the direction in which that person had been looking — and all he could find was a faint grey silhouette, which in a moment had also vanished into the dust.
“Who did the master mean?”
The cool profile swept past his eyes like a breath of wind, offering no intention of replying.
Ding Weixiang fell into silence, then turned and followed.
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