Chapter 47
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“…”
“I’ll follow your orders. You haven’t rested since leaving the capital yesterday. You should rest for a while. The imperial physician has prepared a sedative for you.”
“…”
“…”
“Slow down, I won’t carry you. Just hold onto my hand.”
“…”
“Rest for a while first. We can discuss strategies for dealing with the Northern Kingdom later. You need to sleep now.”
Inside the room, Fu Nian listened as the voices from above supported each other and left. He released the young shadow guard he had held hostage. Before the guard could stand up, Fu Nian rose to his feet and quickly headed out the door.
Taking advantage of the nighttime and the fact that they had just arrived at the palace, most people were still resting and reorganizing. Fu Nian slipped out of the palace, found a spot in the woods between the mountains, and stopped to light a campfire for warmth.
After listening to Chu Yao and Chu Zhaoyi’s conversation, he thought for a long time and finally decided to deal with his own matters first.
Chu Zhaoyi was extremely fond of his life. Besides, he had so many people protecting him; one less wouldn’t make a difference.
Throughout their time together, Fu Nian had always been skeptical of Chu Yao’s skills. Chu Yao was noisy by nature, and they were naturally incompatible. Fu Nian had never found him pleasant. However, Fu Nian admitted that when it came to loyalty to Chu Zhaoyi, Chu Yao had always been qualified. This time he came back, even though Chu Yao was still irksome in many ways, Fu Nian realized that there was a reason why Chu Yao was deeply trusted by Chu Zhaoyi. Even though his temperament was loud and flamboyant, he had been gradually working to become a capable shadow guard. Someday, the seal of the chief shadow guard would truly belong to Chu Yao.
The campfire burned brightly, yet Fu Nian still couldn’t feel warmth. He had managed to sleep a little in the first half of the night, but as the night progressed, the urge to cough became more intense.
“Cough, cough, cough—” Eventually, Fu Nian sat up and took a gulp from his water pouch.
The sticky, burning sensation in his throat didn’t subside even after drinking water. He took several more sips before the feeling of something stuck in his throat eased a little.
Fu Nian reached up and touched his earlobe.
“Why would I get a fever at a time like this?” he grumbled impatiently. He extinguished the campfire with some earth, feeling somewhat irritable.
Enduring dizziness and cold sweat on his back, he descended the mountain and reached the town. Fu Nian first went to a medical clinic to buy some fever-reducing medicine for himself.
After taking the medicine and eating something to replenish his strength, Fu Nian opened a map and calculated the nearest route and time to return to his sect.
As he mounted a horse again, Fu Nian began to contemplate the current state of his sect.
He wondered whether his senior brother had inherited the leadership of the Distant Moon Sect. Has the sect become more prosperous or declined? Were they still picking up homeless, physically impaired children and teaching them how to be someone else’s dogs, someone else’s tools, to earn a living?
When he reached the mountain gate, Fu Nian found a patch of grass, tied his horse to it, and prepared to enter the mountains on foot.
The specific location of the Distant Moon Sect was known only to its disciples.
Following the clues from his memory, Fu Nian headed towards the mountains.
It had been nearly two days since he left Shuzhou Palace, and he needed to arrive before nightfall.
The sky was overcast in the mountain ravine, and judging the time was difficult without sunlight. Coupled with his fever and weakened stamina, he walked and rested intermittently along the way. Following his recollection, he arrived near the valley where the Distant Moon Sect was located. Calculating that he had about an hour’s walk left, Fu Nian stopped and leaned against a tree, gasping for breath.
Autumn had arrived in the foothills, and the mountain was even colder. But at this moment, Fu Nian only felt uncomfortably hot all over, with sweat streaming down his face and dampening the light armor on his shoulders.
He clenched his teeth, used his artificial limb to slightly loosen his collar, and half-closed his eyes. He took deep, heavy breaths, not bothering to hide his labored breathing.
“Help…”
As he closed his eyes to rest, a hoarse voice suddenly echoed from deep within the ravine.
“Save me…”
“Help…”
The voice was faint, and Fu Nian listened for several seconds before confirming that it was indeed someone calling for help.
He hastily put away his water pouch and medicine bag, casually disguising a few footprints. Dragging his weak body, he leapt onto the nearest tree branch and stealthily headed in the direction from which the sound had come.
Not out of a sense of justice, but because this area had already entered the territory of the Distant Moon Sect, and ordinarily, people wouldn’t come here.
Of course, it couldn’t be ruled out that the person had been picking herbs in the mountains, or they had survived a fall into the valley and laid here calling for help.
“… “
He hadn’t reached the location yet, but Fu Nian was already detecting a bloody scent.
He quickened his pace and eventually stopped near the source of the breathing, hiding in the undergrowth and cautiously peering downwards, using the tree’s shadow for concealment.
—Beside the roots of a tree lay a scholarly-looking young man, soaked in a pool of blood. His cheeks were gaunt, and when he took deep breaths, his prominent pair of buck teeth stood out.
There was a sword wound on his abdomen and numerous knife marks on his neck. His clothes bore signs of having been torn by wild animals. Clearly, he had barely survived to crawl to this point.
Fu Nian squinted his eyes and thought that this person looked somewhat familiar.
“Help…” The young man still laid in the muddy ground, wriggling slightly.
After watching for a while, Fu Nian finally remembered.
Wasn’t this the young scholar who had traveled with him to the capital from the Northern Border when he was just reborn?
Realizing that it was an acquaintance, Fu Nian quickly jumped down from the tree branch, rushed to the person’s side, and softly confirmed, “Young Lord Pei?”
Upon hearing this, the young man lying on the ground turned his head with difficulty, his eyes somewhat bewildered.
“It’s me…” Fu Nian thought for a moment, recalling the alias he had given to the young man, “Cang Er. I went to the capital with you—”
Pei Zhou remained dazed for a while before recognizing the person in front of him. Without waiting for him to finish, he urgently interrupted, “Hurry, run…”
Fu Nian didn’t respond and paid no attention to the mud on the ground. He simply lifted Pei Zhou onto his shoulders and ran toward a nearby rock wall, searching for a dry cave.
Along the way, Fu Nian listened to Pei Zhou repeatedly muttering “help” and “run” with occasional shudders of fear, clearly indicating an unstable mental state.
Finally finding a cave, he set Pei Zhou down, gathered some dry firewood, and collapsed onto the ground, exhausted.
The mountain was damp, and despite the campfire, the cave remained dimly lit. Not to mention drying their clothes, even the crackling sounds of the flames were masked by the eerie howling wind.
His own fever hadn’t abated, and now he had another injured person to deal with.
If it were a stranger, Fu Nian would certainly let them die without saving. But Pei Zhou… had shown him kindness.
When he had just been reborn, Pei Zhou hadn’t looked at him with disdain. He had given him a usable prosthetic limb, taken him to the capital when he was penniless. In terms of gratitude and reason, Fu Nian couldn’t ignore a plea for help.
After resting for quite a while, Fu Nian finally had the strength to get up. He handed over his water pouch and some dried rations, asking, “What are you doing here?”
After asking, he saw that Pei Zhou didn’t take the things he offered and had an empty gaze.
Fu Nian started to panic, quickly got up, and checked Pei Zhou’s breathing.
He was still alive.
His body temperature was similar to Fu Nian’s, indicating that he too was running a fever.
He gave Pei Zhou some water to drink and then took out a small bag of medicine, extracting a portion of the medicine he had obtained in town earlier. When leaving Shuzhou Palace, Chu Zhaoyi had given him a small box of medicinal ointment, which had better effects than the common medicines he carried with him. After some consideration, Fu Nian took out the porcelain box decorated with a dragon pattern and applied the high-quality ointment inside it to the deepest wounds on Pei Zhou’s body.
Completing these tasks had drained Fu Nian’s energy, and he collapsed to the ground, unable to catch his breath.
He remembered that when he first arrived in the capital, Pei Zhou had mentioned that he was recognized as one of Fu Zhen’s sworn brother and was supported in his studies by him.
Thinking of this, Fu Nian gathered his strength, waited for about fifteen minutes, and then got up to examine Pei Zhou’s injuries, trying to determine the source of the wounds. Pushing aside the torn cloth, Fu Nian surveyed the disturbing wound with a furrowed brow.
The cut didn’t resemble the sword techniques his senior brother often used.
It somewhat resembled the traditional methods of the Distant Moon Sect, but he couldn’t identify whose techniques it was. After contemplating for a moment, Fu Nian realized that none of the fellow sect members he knew, including himself, could execute such precise and decisive cuts.
“Cang, Cang Er…” Feeling the pain or perhaps due to the effects of medication, Pei Zhou’s drooping head lifted slightly. “Quick, run.”
Fu Nian didn’t respond. Seeing that the person had woken up and not resuming his examination of the wound, he fetched a clean piece of gauze and began to dress the wound. “Why are you here?”
After asking, Fu Nian noticed a flicker of fear in Pei Zhou’s expression. Then, as if greatly startled, he shrank back against the rock.
“Quick, run.”
Holding some provisions, Fu Nian approached gently while mentally preparing himself. “Don’t be afraid. You’re safe now. Before, you said that you were in the capital for studying… Did someone bring you here?”
“Yes,” Pei Zhou answered dully.
“Who? And why did they bring you here?” Seeing that Pei Zhou could still talk, Fu Nian sped up his dressing of the wound. “You’ve done me a favor, so I’ll help you. But now, you must tell me what happened. We need to escape to safety.”
“Awake, awake right here. He killed so, so, so many people, and after they died…” At this point, Pei Zhou seemed to recall something, and his entire body shuddered slightly. “After they died, all those people… all, all…” He couldn’t continue speaking after that, “It’s as if, it’s like… in the process of refining witchcraft… So many people, he treated them like livestock…”
“Who is it?” Fu Nian saw that he was incoherent and didn’t press for specific details.
Pei Zhou’s gaze seemed to focus momentarily as if he was recalling.
Then, his facial expression twisted even more grotesquely with fear. His eyes widened, rounder than brass bells, and his mouth hung open as if he couldn’t even speak a single word.
“I don’t know.” After a long while of panic, Pei Zhou finally spoke hoarsely, tears streaming from his eyes.
“Does he have any distinctive features?” Fu Nian was also anxious; he knew that he was on the verge of collapsing.
However, he desperately needed answers.
Curling up into a ball, Pei Zhou clutched his head and pressed it against the rock. “He… he kept shouting a name. It sounded like ‘Fu Nian’. Yes, that’s it. He kept shouting ‘Fu Nian’…”
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