Volume 1, Chapter 32 – Eerie

Seeing the refugees’ reaction, Shi Lan fell silent for a moment, stepped back twice, then swung herself straight into the saddle. She pulled on the reins to turn the horse, ready to leave.

“Wait!”

One of the refugees, sharp-eyed, had spotted the demonic beast meat packed on Shi Lan’s horse. He called out to stop her, whispered a few words to his companions, and the group closed in around her.

Clearly, seeing that Shi Lan was alone, young, and didn’t look particularly intimidating, they’d gotten some bad ideas.

“Leave that meat!”

“Get down. The horse stays too!”

“Yeah, the horse stays!”

“What’s that on your back? Take it off and open it up!”

Listening to their demands grow more and more excessive, a complicated look flashed in Shi Lan’s eyes. She’d avoided refugees before precisely because she’d been worried something like this would happen.

The human heart has both light and shadow. Clearly, hunger gnawing at their bellies and the state of having nothing at all had magnified the darkness in these people’s hearts to the extreme. Greed and bullying the weak are human nature to begin with.

When you’ve lost everything, it’s easiest to be driven to extremes. The restraints of morality weaken or even vanish altogether.

Seeing Shi Lan remain silent, one refugee stepped up to her and reached for the bundles on her horse.

Snap—

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With a sharp crack, the refugee clutched his hand and collapsed, howling, rolling on the ground.

Shi Lan slowly drew back the horsewhip in her hand, swept her gaze over the ring of refugees, and said coolly, “Clear the way.”

The refugees surrounding her instinctively backed up a few steps, but after exchanging a few looks, the ferocity in their eyes rose again, and they all rushed at Shi Lan together!

Clearly, unlike that tiger demon, Shi Lan did not inspire so much fear that these refugees lost all will to resist.

A sliver of cold light flickered in her eyes, and she raised the whip in her hand without hesitation.

Layer upon layer of whip shadows lashed out, several sharp cracks splitting the air!

The refugees lunging at her were almost simultaneously sent flying by the blows, crashing to the ground with a chorus of screams.

This was already Shi Lan holding back. Otherwise, with the strength she currently wielded, a single lash would have been enough that these long-starved refugees would never get up again.

“Hyah.”

Without lingering, Shi Lan lightly squeezed her legs against the horse’s belly, riding past the bodies strewn across the ground, gradually leaving them behind.

…

Shi Feng walked slowly up beside the group of refugees, his gaze complicated as he watched Shi Lan’s figure receding on horseback.

When she’d first been surrounded, he’d already been preparing to step in. Based on the way Shi Lan used to be, there was no way she could have handled these refugees. But before he could act, she’d given him a “huge surprise.”

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Looking at the refugees sprawled on the ground, Shi Feng’s pupils were utterly indifferent. He raised a hand and sent out two arcs of blade qi nearly three meters long, slicing the tiger demon’s corpse into several pieces.

This time, the wounds he cut were no longer charred black. Fresh blood sprayed everywhere, and the thick metallic scent was carried away by the wind, dispersing in all directions.

In a region like this, where demonic beasts roamed unchecked, the smell of blood was nothing less than a guiding beacon.

…

Shi Lan lay forward over the horse’s neck, mind turning over who the person following her could be.

Shi Feng was her prime suspect. But if it was Shi Feng, why didn’t he just show himself and follow her openly?

She also thought back to the first time she practiced the Vajra Divine Fist—how she’d passed out from menstrual cramps, and that mysterious person who had saved her. Maybe there really had been someone at her side all along, following her, and she just hadn’t known.

At that thought, a chill ran down her spine. If there really was such a person, wasn’t that basically a pervert…?

The more she thought about it, the more her head hurt. Shi Lan shook her sun-dazed head, sat up straight, and began looking around for somewhere to escape the heat.

After riding for another half an hour or so, she finally spotted a small grove ahead, with a narrow stream cutting through the trees.

Shi Lan crouched by the water’s edge and splashed her face. The icy stream water against her skin jolted her awake.

She sat down under a tree, propping her chin up with one hand and looking up at the sky, feeling a bit lost. She didn’t know where she was supposed to go. If she kept wandering aimlessly like this, how long was she going to keep walking?

“System, any quests?”

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【Host’s cultivation has yet to reach the required level to unlock the main quest.】

Shi Lan felt a bit ridiculous. When she’d been hounded by quests, she’d mentally cursed the System countless times. Now that there really weren’t any quests, she actually found herself missing that sense of having a goal.

She took some beast meat down from her horse, roasted it and ate, then closed her eyes and began circulating the Jade Tempering Art. Improving her strength was always the top priority.

Before she knew it, evening had come. Shi Lan rode her horse out of the grove like the wind.

It was the height of summer, and as evening fell, it felt like every insect in the forest wanted a bite of her, especially the mosquitoes.

“Everything has a spirit—except mosquitoes!”

Shi Lan cursed under her breath and urged her horse faster, just hoping to run into a city or town before it became so dark she couldn’t see her hand in front of her face.

In the end, her plan fell through. Even after the sky went completely black, she still hadn’t found any place people lived, and could only stop to rest in a mountain valley.

She got a fire going and set the meat on the rack to roast.

The meat was only halfway done when a woman’s soft laughter suddenly echoed through the valley. The sound of it bounced between the cliffs, and in the darkness of night it was downright creepy.

Shi Lan shot to her feet, tension tightening her shoulders as she glanced around.

A graceful figure stepped out of the darkness and into her line of sight.

A woman. A very beautiful woman, every movement of her hands and feet dripping with an astonishing allure.

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Her fiery figure was covered by nothing but a single layer of black gauze. In the firelight, you could faintly make out several “mysterious landscapes” beneath.

Shi Lan backed up two steps and swallowed reflexively. Out in the wilderness, a campfire and a beauty—by rights, this was the kind of setup where some kind of “intense battle” was about to kick off.

But right now, all she felt was fear. This was the Lingyang Realm, not Earth. Science didn’t apply here. Ghosts were very much real.

Out in the middle of nowhere, a woman dressed this provocatively suddenly showed up, all alone at that. Anyone who thought about it for even a second could tell something was wrong.

She’d probably run into a ghost…

“Young master, alone in a place like this in the wilds—don’t you feel lonely?” The woman walked up to Shi Lan and sat down by the fire, her red lips parting slightly as she asked, tone full of implication.

“Being alone is pretty nice.” Shi Lan gave a dry laugh, backed up two more steps, and secretly started hoping that the person who’d been lurking behind her all this time would step in again.

The woman lightly lifted the gauze, revealing two long, jade-like legs. Her eyes, liquid with charm, fixed on Shi Lan. “Young master, do you think I’m beautiful?”

“You’re… pretty enough.” Shi Lan’s gaze flickered away, panic stirring in her chest. Just what on earth was going on here…?

Hidden in the darkness, Shi Feng’s clothes were already soaked through with cold sweat, his eyes deep and unreadable.

For a lone woman to appear in this region, dressed this revealingly, and for him to be unable to gauge her depth—there were only two possibilities.

One, she was a demon king who had already taken human form. Two, this “woman” was a wandering ghost…