Book 1: Winds Begin to Blow in Tai Yuan

Chapter 7 - I"m Very Cold

It was a heavy darkness, and the slow, long night seemed tonever end.

The mountain cliff where Meng Fuyao had just fallen off ofwas still predominated by silence; occasionally there would still be smallpieces of rock that tumbled off the side, with the echo of impact only soundingafter a very long time.

One could hear, that it was a very steep drop.

Some of the wild brush on the cliff side suddenly began tomove.

After, a dai colored shadow appeared from within the thick,impenetrable darkness under the cliff, slowly arising.

That shadow seemed to completely ignore the laws of gravity,and like it was pulled by some mysterious unseen force, it lazily drew a semicirculararc in the air, steadily landing on top of the cliff.

The slender figure raised her head, moonlight shining in hercold, calm pupils.

Meng Fuyao.

With a mirthless smile, Fuyao"s wrist beckoned, and a streakof indiscernible dark light snapped through the air and burrowed back into hersleeve.

"Want to harm me? Not that easy."

Meng Fuyao lightly stroked the thin black whip coiled aroundher wrist - this was the soft whip she used as a belt. Back when Pei Yuan"sexpression became odd, she had already wrapped the strap around her palm. Theway Pei Yuan had torn her sleeve was very unusual, long causing her to be onher guard; when the red cloak swept over her covering Pei Yuan"s motions,Fuyao"s tying of the whip to an un.o.btrusive side rock was also concealed.

When Pei Yuan poked her nexuses, her preventative revolutionof her injured "Breaking Nine Heavens" method managed to protect thepoints on the side of her body Pei Yuan was on. Because Pei Yuan was movingunder the cloak, her precision was off and the power behind the jabs waslacking; furthermore, Fuyao also borrowed the force from falling off the cliffto completely breakthrough the slight paralysis.

Then, when she was pushed off the drop, the soft whip haltedher descent. She had waited without moving until the two of them had gone faraway before finally crawling back up the cliff.

Standing on the cliff while watching the darkness in frontof her, Meng Fuyao thought she could see at the end of the darkness the high,exalted mountain village that once sheltered her, and the n.o.ble youth who oncegave her such precious warmth.

Strong winds buffeted the mountain outcrop. The pale-facedyoung woman stood straight, her face devoid of expression. Before, thinkingabout those youthful days would unwittingly bring a smile to her face; now,however, her face held nothing.

Those days of confused affection and momentary impulses werebut only a detour of exploration in the road of her life. She had mistaken thatwarm happiness she vaguely glimpsed between the hanging leaves and thick forestas her long-searched-for Garden of Eden, yet very quickly she was expelled fromthat fantasy.

But it was alright. In this world, there would always belosses to suffer, and there would always be debts to repay.

Meng Fuyao shook the gold threaded whip, the whip sendingout a dazzling crack, echoing out into the mountain valley like the clear blowof a horn.

Smiling, she scooped out from her bosom a couple inky greenstrands of gra.s.s. The tips of the gra.s.s were actually white, as if the strandshad morning frost acc.u.mulated on them.

Observing the gra.s.s with satisfaction, Meng Fuyao felt thather luck was quite good - she fell down a cliff just to unexpectedly find"Finger Frost" growing on the rocks. This type of herb had excellentmedicinal efficacy for healing inner and outer wounds, and could evenstrengthen the const.i.tution and nurture cultivation. This event was truly anaffliction working out a blessing.

Carefully plucking a strand of gra.s.s, she went to put it inher mouth.

All of a sudden, she paused.

She slowly widened her eyes.

Wait a minute ...

She had counted the strands of gra.s.s before, and there wasclearly six strands. How come now there were only five?

The gra.s.s had always been gripped in her hand, and no onewas around - how could one have gone missing?

Teleportation? s.p.a.ce distortion? Ghosts?

The last guess sent a cold shiver down Meng Fuyao"s back.All of the scenes from the horror films she saw in her past life immediatelyflashed past uninvited; those super scary images and sounds from theatricalspecial effects and CGI began to tumble around inside her head, letting outghostly wails and evil howls.

Meng Fuyao had crossed over to this world for many yearsnow, and after many extraordinary experiences could be considered to have apowerful will. However, right now she was on top of the empty mountains andhigh cliffs, and among the thick forests and howling winds. The trees and gra.s.sthat surrounded her swayed like ghostly figures dancing, already exuding a darkmenacing aura. With the strand of herb vanishing from her hands without atrace, the Meng Fuyao who couldn"t understand no matter how hard she thoughtcould only shiver in place, almost wanting to shriek "There"s a ghost!!"

Just then, she thought of one of the things that old guyused to say: "There were no ghosts at first, only after people started tofear them, then did ghosts come into being."

Keeping this thought in mind, Meng Fuyao mustered hercourage, and with a crack of her whip, a "pa" sound resounded outwhile she hollered, "Who"s there!"

No one replied, only the wind"s whistling sound could beheard.

Meng Fuyao waited for a long while without moving, but theonly result was her angrily retrieving the long whip. She thought to put backthe herb strands, but in that instant her whole body shook, with her fallinginto a shocked daze again.

The gra.s.s was missing yet another strand!

Dumbly examining the remaining four strands of gra.s.s in herpalm, Meng Fuyao was completely unable to stop herself from attributing thestrange events to the supernatural. But this ghost couldn"t be seen and didn"tharm her in anyway, what was it doing by constantly stealing her herbs?

Biting her teeth, Meng Fuyao grew spiteful, and quicklyshoved the remaining four strands all into her mouth while angrily masticating,"Let me see you steal them now! Why don"t you just keep stealingthem!?"

Within the gust of mountain wind there seemed to drift alight chuckle.

After hearing the mirthful sound, Meng Fuyao was actuallynot as afraid as before. The matter of them being a person or ghost aside, theyseemed to hold no ill-will. Relaxing a little, Fuyao straightforwardly sat downwhere she stood, exaggeratedly closing her eyes and adjusting her breathing.

Then with a careless wave of her hand, "You there, lookslike you"re pretty bored. If you really have nothing else to do, why don"t youprotect me while I"m cultivating."

Yet another light chuckle came, its sound low and soothing.It was slightly cool and elegant, the tones melding together in a strangeeuphony. Hearing it conjured scenes of the unbroken peaks in the northern stateof Di, where wind blew through jade, building-like trees and gave rise tojeweled chimes.

The surroundings were heavy and still, with autumn"sfragrance transpiring from the forest in the deep night. Within the forest"s scent,there emanated a trace of an aroma different from the air of the natural surroundings- it smelled purer and more refined.

Despite all this, Meng Fuyao acted like she neither heardnor smelled anything out of the ordinary, only shutting her eyes and focusingon meditating.

The third chuckle rang out, this time right next to the sideof her ear. At the same time, with a rumbling sound, a streak of fiery lightinstantly ignited on the ground in front of Fuyao. The dancing orange blaze shineda warm red onto the eyelids of Meng Fuyao, who previously was surrept.i.tiously peekingthrough her eyelashes.

On the other side of the fire, on top of a lonely pine, laidtilted a wide-sleeve robed man. The light-colored folds of his robes draped downward,st.i.tched with obscure, silvery inscription patterns. The symbols were hard todiscern in the darkness, but when his body moved they constantly glittereddimly.

He leaned slanted on top of a skinny and fragile end of atree branch. Despite his clearly tall stature, he gave off a feeling of beinglight like a wisp of clouds; despite his clearly idle posture, he gave off afeeling of being far up high, like a towering jade mountain.

The tree branch leisurely swayed, while he leisurely cast treebranches - every time he threw a branch, it accurately fell into the fire,landing under the previously thrown branches. With the increase in the amountof branches, the fire gradually expanded into an arch-shaped structure of firewood,causing the firewood to blaze even more wildly.

With the movements of his palm, it slightly revealed acorner of a mark in the middle of his right hand. The mark"s color was darkerthan the skin around it, but because of the distance between them, the shapewas not clear.

Meng Fuyao"s vision swept back and forth, finally landing onthat beautifully architected fire structure. Her two hands pushed into theground, cautiously shifting backwards a step.

Even if she calculated with her fingers1 shewould realize, that this guy was that "ghost" from before. Puttingaside everything else, just judging by his extreme skill in Qinggong2and the awesomeness displayed through randomly throwing some branches, if thisguy"s thoughts turned wicked, her little two legs were far from enough for herto escape.

However, before she even had time to move her b.u.t.t, theperson began to speak.

"Girl, the night"s frost is heavy. I"m very cold."3

1. Basically means any idiot would realize, i.e. if shecounted with her fingers. I am sure those of you who read Emperor"s Dominationare familiar with this term

2. Type of martial training that allows user to be as lightas a feather and do gravity-defying moves (shown here by the guy lying on askinny tree branch), also characterized by extreme speed