Chapter 56: Passing Through the Official Road (Part 7)
The atmosphere fell into silence under Yan Yi’s influence. Bai Chunsheng, still lagging behind, was trying to figure out exactly what Yan Jingqiu’s weakness was. After a long pause, he finally seemed to have a revelation and added a remark to Jiang Ji, “If you’re referring to Yan Fengxing, he’s already dead.”
Although Jiang Ji had met Yan Yi before, she hadn’t let down her guard—especially not with an enemy still nearby. While she appeared to be conversing with Yan Yi and Bai Chunsheng, she was secretly circulating her internal energy, ready to defend or attack at any moment. However, upon hearing Bai Chunsheng’s words, she was genuinely stunned. “What did you just say?”
She let out a laugh, assuming the two of them were trapped in an illusion and hadn’t yet awakened. “That’s impossible. It looks like you just encountered Yan Fengxing and Han Fengchen. Han Fengchen is extremely skilled at creating illusions…” As she spoke, she suddenly realized something. How could these two, whose cultivation was only at the early Dao stage, have possibly survived an encounter with Yan Fengxing?
—She began to suspect that these two were nothing more than illusions crafted by Han Fengchen to deceive her.
Jiang Ji subtly summoned her horsetail whisk to her side. After the fierce battle earlier, the front end of the whisk was already stained with blood, but it was still usable.
Yan Yi noticed Jiang Ji’s movements but didn’t stop her. Instead, he turned to Bai Chunsheng and asked, “Shall we head back?”
After all, they had only come out to find their way out of the illusion, not to save this woman. Whether she believed them or not was none of their concern. It was cold outside, and Yan Yi wanted to hold his soft little animal, but in human form, Bai Chunsheng was far too shy and would never allow it.
Bai Chunsheng thought for a moment and said, “Let’s go.”
Saving her was just incidental, but it was done nonetheless—that was enough.
Staying here any longer might lead to members of the Yan family catching up. If that happened, they would be caught between Bo Yan’s subordinates from the Ten Thousand Demon Sect in front and the Yan family’s swordsmen behind. If they recognized Yan Jingqiu, Bai Chunsheng would be in trouble in every possible sense.
Jiang Ji watched as the two of them actually turned to leave, feeling even more suspicious. But she still didn’t dare lower her guard. If this were truly an illusion created by Han Fengchen, then why didn’t they attack her before leaving? And if it wasn’t an illusion—putting aside the question of how two cultivators at their level could have possibly killed Yan Fengxing—why hadn’t they asked for a reward after saving her? Even though Tianqing Sect had fallen, she was still the former peak master of Yuhan Peak.
After tending to her more treatable wounds with caution, Jiang Ji curled up behind the roots of a tree and watched Yan Yi and Bai Chunsheng walk away.
The two of them continued in the direction they had come from. Bai Chunsheng seemed a little worried. “What if the carriage has already left?”
Yan Yi: “Then it’s gone. It’s only a half-day’s journey anyway.”
“We can find an open spot in the forest to rest for the night. Tomorrow, we’ll take the small road back and rent another carriage.”
That was the only option. Bai Chunsheng sighed.
Not long after, they spotted a carriage stopped at a fork in the road. It looked familiar. Bai Chunsheng brightened. “They didn’t leave after all!”
But just as the excitement appeared on his face, it quickly faded. In the dead of night, a carriage sat silently in the middle of the forest path. The surroundings were eerily quiet.
Bai Chunsheng walked up and opened the carriage door.
Inside, several people were sprawled across the floor, motionless. At the center lay a corpse with its head missing. The only thing they all had in common was their shriveled skin. Their faces bore no signs of fear or pain, as if they had merely drifted into a long dream.
The rogue cultivator from the East Sea was still clutching the magical tool used to control the carriage.
It seemed they hadn’t heeded Yan Yi’s warning. They must have continued driving the carriage forward and unwittingly wandered into the territory of the Drunken Shadow Sharks.
Seeing them die so silently, Bai Chunsheng couldn’t help but feel a creeping sense of dread. He feared his own fate would be far worse than theirs. Glancing at Yan Yi nervously, he found that the other had already seized the moment and smiled. “Don’t be afraid, I’m here.”
Bai Chunsheng: “……” That was exactly why he was afraid.
With a blank expression, Bai Chunsheng used his spells to move the bodies out of the carriage. Then, he dug separate graves for them in the forest using an earth-moving technique. By the time he returned to the carriage, Yan Yi had already cleaned the bloodstains from inside with water magic.
The sky had begun to lighten slightly.
The carriage wheels slowly started to turn again. Now, only Bai Chunsheng and Yan Yi remained inside. Bai Chunsheng made a point of sitting by the window, determined to keep his distance from Yan Yi until he figured out Yan Jingqiu’s weakness and gained control over him.
Just as he was lost in thought, he suddenly heard a “knock, knock” on the window beside him.
Huge shoutout to @_nyanmaru_ on Discord for commissioning this! The chapter will be posted regularly, show your support for Ciacia at Kofi.
