Volume 1, Chapter 48 – The Camp

Cao Chuan drove an olive-green military off-road. Bai Xiang chose the back seat; after setting down her bag and wooden sword, she asked him, “Are we working tonight?”

“Yes.” Cao Chuan kept his eyes on the road, voice cold as ever.

Street scenes slid fast past the window. Bai Xiang asked again, “Besides me, how many others?”

“Three,” Cao Chuan said. “One is Li Yu, an expert sent by Nanmu Consultants. The other two are Han Zhifeng and Gu Yong, both from Senluo Consultants.”

By “consultants,” he meant private security consulting firms.

These companies recruit minor Sword Dao experts; if you came out of a good university’s Sword Institute, you can usually find a spot on the market.

Sometimes the Inspectorate police are short on hands; some places are dark and out of the way, or too gray to handle directly. In those cases they pay to commission this sort of firm, and the firm dispatches the right specialists.

Whether you need muscle, debt collection, or mediation over a marital mess, most of the time the company can find the role to settle it.

Naturally, some roles handle Demon Pools.

Not only fighting, but investigation too.

People who use their heads are always fewer; those who can flexibly apply what they know and what they have seen to spot a Demon Pool’s weak point, helping a team finish a commission at lower cost, are welcome anywhere.

She just did not know whether people that capable also all had tempers.

Setting the thoughts aside for now, Bai Xiang took out a box of [Nurture-the-Spirit Calming Tablets] from her bag, shook out one, and swallowed it.

Each tablet was the size of a broad bean, compressed from white powder. The moment it reached her stomach, a steady warmth spread out; her nurturing efficiency surged.

This time Bai Xiang drew both feet up onto the seat and sat cross-legged, eyes shut, and began cultivating right there in the car.

Cao Chuan saw it in the rearview mirror and said nothing. He only reached to tilt the air-vent louvers so the wind would not blow straight at her.

It took roughly fifty minutes to get out of the circuit city; another hour from the outskirts to the field camp.

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Roads in the wild were not easy. Caravans often go out scouting and hunting, so many tracks already show tire-pressed ruts and bare dirt, but the Nanling belt is hot and humid, shrubs and undergrowth wildly lush; Cao Chuan had to slow down to avoid hidden sight lines and oncoming vehicles.

The air-conditioning was off. The windows were cranked most of the way down to let the forest air pour in; with it came giant mosquitoes and flies, bugs of startling size. The mosquitoes alone were ten times the size Bai Xiang remembered.

“Not afraid of bugs, are you?” Cao Chuan glanced at the mirror again. “This season is already ‘few bugs.’ If you cannot get past this, turn back.”

Bai Xiang said nothing. She silently pulled on a glove of the same fabric as her stab-resistant suit on her left hand, then clamped that hand over a mottled spider half on the window frame, the size of a fist, and squeezed until it popped.

Cao Chuan’s mouth twitched. He never mentioned bugs again.

Inside the camp, the road smoothed at once.

Men in grass-green uniforms were everywhere, each armed with sidearm and baton, faces smeared with anti-mosquito oils and paints.

“That is the Chilong Army,” Cao Chuan said. “Two thousand here, with autocannons and heavy firepower. They are building fortifications.”

Bai Xiang peered off to the side; she could indeed see several concrete walls and blockhouses standing there.

The whole worksite was lit; gantry rigs thrummed through the night; soldiers shouted to one another; in the beams you could see swarms of huge mosquitoes piling and whirling.

If this only started in the past few days, the pace was very fast.

Bai Xiang noticed machine guns and autocannons already mounted on several berms. The latter’s caliber was something else; if one shell hit a person, even wearing a Black Water Serpent suit, she reckoned you would be cut in half.

On first arrival, Cao Chuan took Bai Xiang to see Huang Qian.

Captain Huang was the city’s top military officer, big and dark. Because he had met Bai Xiang on the thirteenth, she had left a deep impression; he greeted her warmly, then had someone assign her a tent at the north edge of the camp.

The demon kingdom lay to the south; Bai Xiang’s tent sat as far from it as the camp allowed, closest to the circuit city, the safest spot.

“Want to go by the tent first?”

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Once the tent was assigned, Huang Qian studied her with interest.

“I have nothing to put down,” Bai Xiang said plainly. “Since I am here to investigate a Demon Pool, I would like to see the site first.”

“Good, let Officer Cao take you.”

Huang Qian was obliging to a fault; he instantly assigned a squad to escort them.

Only after the two left did he wipe sweat from his brow.

“One side is Fang Xiaochun and Xiang Xian; the other is Zhou Jing’an and Zheng Wenbo.”

“Watchman Xu was right.”

“I will take my merits by the book. Best keep out of these people’s way.”

Elsewhere, Cao Chuan was driving Bai Xiang toward the illusory-realm Demon Pool.

A wide belt of woodland had been cut back along the way, leaving a three-lane track down the middle, with lights strung along both sides.

“You are not going to ask me about the Demon-Immortal Dao?”

Driving, Cao Chuan could not hold it in at last. “You are at odds with them, right?”

“The Demon-Immortal Dao will not dare to hit this camp head-on,” Bai Xiang said without even opening her eyes.

“Either they see their plan exposed and go rabid, attack, and get shredded; or they plan to lie low and bet it all, which means right now they are hidden and gathering strength.”

“I do not feel tension in the air here, so it is the second.”

He choked on that again, and finally let it drop, driving in silence to their destination and stepping out with his war sword.

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Bai Xiang got out too. As soon as she cleared the vehicle, a dense night fog slid across her view.

This was a bit over a hundred meters from the camp’s defensive line. There was mist there too, but nothing like this depth.

She looked around. Ahead was a wall of fog, blocking the road right here; she figured what lay inside was where she would “work.”

Tilting her head, Bai Xiang saw two more vehicles parked by the roadside.

Not military off-roads, but glossy black business vans with only tires and undercarriage modified for off-road.

Both were shut down. From the light, or lack of it, through the front windows, they were likely empty.

“This is the outer rim of the illusory-realm Demon Pool,” a Chilong Army soldier said, pointing ahead for the two of them.

“Officer Cao has been here. Consultant Li and the others are inside.”

“We will hold here. We will not intrude on the rest.”

Cao Chuan nodded and strode into the thick fog first.

Bai Xiang was about to follow when a soldier stopped her and handed over a corded pendant with a bronze tag.

“Keep it.”

The soldier’s eyes held a trace of dry humor.

“If you die and your body is unrecognizable, we can use this to know it is you.”

Bai Xiang took the pendant; her own name was neatly engraved on the bronze.

She said nothing, slipped it into her pocket, then pulled the black stab-resistant suit from her pack and zipped in. Only then did she follow into the fog wall.

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Visibility inside the mist was low, but the strong beams outside still helped mark a path.

After she had gone a stretch, she saw Cao Chuan crouched ahead, as if examining something.

“Officer Cao.”

She came up behind him, right hand tightening on her wooden sword’s hilt.

“Look at this.” Cao Chuan stood and showed her what lay on the ground.

Bai Xiang narrowed her eyes.

In the slanting downlight, she could just make out a person lying there, or “a corpse” was the better word.

The man had silver-gray hair, a stab-resistant suit, high boots, a sword at his waist, but the flesh inside had been gnawed to a skeleton by insects; the sight was gore-slick.

Cao Chuan nudged the corpse’s collar aside with his scabbard. A bronze-colored name tag fell free, the characters 【Gu Yong】 engraved upon it.

“I only assess conditions. Those few run the schedule.”

Cao Chuan shook his head.

“Take this.”

He handed Bai Xiang an olive-drab waist pouch.

“Inside are a radio, a flashlight, a spray, bandages, and a signal flare.”

“First let us examine the body and see how he died.”