Chapter 3-1

Mei, Lan, Ju, and Zhu. The phrase referred to the Four Gentlemen—plum blossom, orchid, chrysanthemum, and bamboo. They were also the names of the four women currently traveling with Xuelan.

-Someone is following us.

A sound transmission reached the ears of the four women carrying the palanquin in which Xuelan rode. They themselves were quite highly skilled in martial arts, but the Pavilion Master had assigned an additional guard to them just in case.

-Who is it?

When Mei, the eldest of the four women, asked through sound transmission, another transmission immediately reached all four of their ears.

-It’s the boy who was there when the Young Lady departed. He isn’t using lightness skill. He’s simply following the footprints and traces we left behind.

At the guard’s transmission, all four women nodded simultaneously. They had not deliberately left any traces. They simply had not been careful because they had never imagined anyone would pursue them. Yet someone was following those traces. Admittedly, the trail was obvious enough that no exceptional tracking skill was required, but they had never imagined that a young boy would follow it all the way here.

-What should we do?

-Kill him.

At the guard’s transmission, the four women simultaneously sent him a reply.

“No. Don’t.”

At that very moment, Xuelan’s voice came from inside the palanquin. It was not sound transmission but her natural speaking voice, yet it reached the four women clearly—no, it even reached the ears of the guard following from far away.

“Do not touch him.”

“Young Lady.”

At Xuelan’s words, neither the four women nor the guard could continue speaking. They had never imagined she could hear what they were saying through sound transmission. It meant that Xuelan’s internal energy was extraordinarily profound. They could understand why the Pavilion Master had ordered them to bring her back.

“If he dies, I will take my own life as well.”

“…Understood.”

They had not expected her to be this adamant. At Xuelan’s words, the four women exchanged looks, nodded, and began drawing upon more internal energy so they would leave no further traces.

Bai Shixuan stood beside the road with a troubled expression. He was currently in Gansu. Unfortunately, the trail had suddenly ended. Until now, the traces had continued without interruption, only to vanish completely at some point.

‘Could they have realized I was following them?’

That seemed highly likely. Otherwise, there was no reason the trail would have suddenly disappeared. Or perhaps this was simply where they had stopped leaving traces and turned elsewhere. Still, Bai Shixuan thought the first possibility was more likely.

‘Damn it. Where am I supposed to go?’

There was no longer any way to find them. Should he continue deeper into Gansu as far as possible? Or should he turn back?

‘For now, I’ll keep moving.’

At this point, all he could do was trust his instincts.

‘If I’d never managed to follow them in the first place, that would be one thing, but I don’t want to lose them after coming this far.’

What would he even do if he found them? Could he take Xuelan back from masters like those? Of course not. There was no chance. He simply wanted to be beside her. At first, he had thought he only wanted to see her face one last time, but increasingly, he wanted to remain with her. Even though he might truly die, just as the Madam had warned, he continued searching for her blindly.

How many days had he been traveling? Even though he had money, he never entered an inn and continued sleeping outdoors. For meals, he ate only cheap foods that could be consumed as quickly as possible, such as plain noodles, dumplings, or dried meat. He kept moving even after entering Gansu, but he could find no trace of them. No, by now, there were so many tracks left by other travelers that one trail looked like theirs, and then another trail looked like theirs as well. He could no longer distinguish their traces.

‘I was just lucky until now.’

Since the four women had always moved at regular intervals from one another, their tracks had not been difficult to identify. But Bai Shixuan was no master tracker, so following them by their trail any farther was impossible.

‘Come to think of it, isn’t this near the Qilian Mountains?’

The mountain range where Demon Shadow, one of the two strongest martial artists from two hundred years ago, was said to have first appeared. He thought it was somewhere around here. Cao Zhenshi had disliked the mountains because people said the vengeful spirits of the Orthodox martial artists who died back then still wandered there.

‘Could they really be somewhere like this?’

There was no way to know. Perhaps it was nothing more than a vague hope, yet for some strange reason, his feet began carrying him toward the Qilian Mountains.

“So these are the Qilian Mountains.”

They were extraordinary from the very entrance. Rugged and steep. He felt an inexplicable chill, but Bai Shixuan forced himself to ignore it and continued forward.

“This is…….”

Bai Shixuan had climbed many mountains since childhood because of Cao Zhenshi. His stamina was also excellent. Naturally, no matter how rugged the Qilian Mountains were, they were difficult for Bai Shixuan but not agonizingly so.

“Is this it……?”

After climbing for quite some time, Bai Shixuan stopped. It was a narrow place. Gazing into a gorge in the Qilian Mountains, Bai Shixuan reached out toward the sheer cliff wall. There were tremendous sword scars upon it. Looking at the countless marks, Bai Shixuan realized that the man called Demon Shadow truly must have fought here.

“Hup!”

While examining the countless sword marks carved into the cliff wall, Bai Shixuan suddenly threw himself into a roll. For some reason, he felt as though someone had attacked him. Of course, with Bai Shixuan’s senses, he would not have been able to detect someone hiding nearby, but an inexplicably bad feeling had made him roll aside.

‘Am I just getting jumpy?’

Perhaps seeing the countless sword scars on the cliff wall had made him tense without realizing it. Thinking that, Bai Shixuan gave a faint laugh and stood back up.

-Stagger.

But as Bai Shixuan rose, his leg suddenly gave way and he collapsed. Confused, he looked down at his right knee and saw a small hole there, with blood flowing from it.

“Why?”

Could the wound he had suffered while fighting to protect Xuelan have reopened? No. That wound had not been this small, nor had it been a puncture. As soon as he examined the injury, tremendous pain suddenly surged through him.

‘I need to get out of here first.’

Bai Shixuan forced strength into his leg and stood. Moving was difficult, but he had to move. He somehow began walking, yet his body refused to respond properly.

“Damn it!”

Just as Bai Shixuan tried to move forward, he saw a masked man step into his path. Had this person attacked him just now? Dressed in black clothing with a mask of the same color covering his face, the masked man silently watched Bai Shixuan glare at him.