SS CH37

They say that a newborn calf does not fear the tiger, which mostly means that before learning how high the heavens are and how deep the earth is, it first masterfully teaches itself how to seek death.

Qin Lanshang had already been wandering in this mountain valley for two days. She drank the morning dew when she was thirsty and fed on wild fruits when she was hungry. She was so starved now that even if she picked up a snake with her weapon, she would carefully weigh whether it was plump enough to eat.

Regrettably, in this barren land and malicious waters, the snakes carried less than two ounces of meat, looking no thicker than a pair of chopsticks when stacked together. Qin Lanshang let out a sigh. Using the sharp tip of a silver hairpin, she slit open a snake’s belly, dug out the tiny snake gall, and without the heart to feel disgusted, swallowed it whole along with the raw, bloody stench.

Forcing down the violent wave of nausea flipping through her stomach, Qin Lanshang scanned her surroundings warily. It was naturally difficult for the sun and moon to reach this mountain valley, causing the sky to lose its light by early evening; right now, it was as black as a heap of coal. An ordinary person would stumble and falter just trying to grope their way along the path, let alone trying to pursue people who moved like ghosts.

Fortunately, Qin Lanshang had grown up in the Hundred Ghosts Sect since childhood. Although she had not trained her eyes to see as clearly as a night owl in the dark, she still moved as smoothly as a fish in water through the black of night. Knowing her light-body martial arts were only average, she did not dare pursue too closely. She could only follow the carriage ahead from a moderate distance, her heart burning with anxiety, yet not daring to act rashly.

She had already suffered enough.

Ten days ago, she took two subordinates and left the Netherworld Valley without permission. Her original purpose was to find the Southern Scholar, Ruan Feiyu, but the man had been resigned from office for many years and had long since vanished without a trace. In a world this vast, how could it be easy to find him? She had to evade the tracking of the Hundred Ghosts Sect while simultaneously gathering information, making her no different from a headless fly crashing around blindly.

Yet, just five days ago, one of her subordinates who went out to gather information failed to return as agreed. Filled with suspicion, she took her remaining hand to investigate, only to discover the cold corpse of her subordinate beside an ancient path.

He had been struck squarely in the chest by a Heart-Crushing Palm, causing his heart meridians to shatter inch by inch. The person who did it had left no traces behind. It was only after her remaining subordinate carefully turned the corpse over that they discovered a rushed, scribbled character in the dirt beneath the body. It must have been carved in haste before the man died, and it read: “North.”

After burying the corpse, the two of them pursued northward. While passing through a small grove of trees, her sharp-eyed subordinate noticed an anomaly in a patch of earth. Upon digging it up, they discovered three corpses.

Encountering corpses in the martial world was nothing extraordinary, but they saw wild goose tattoos upon the arms of these bodies—the signature mark of the imperial Lingying Guards!

To involve the Lingying Guards at such a critical juncture, what else could it be about if not the Southern Scholar? Yet, the Lingying Guards had always moved in total secrecy; how could their movements have leaked, leading to them being intercepted and slaughtered here?

With her thoughts spinning rapidly, Qin Lanshang actually led her subordinate to follow the faint trail of clues. Twisting and turning, they arrived at General Town three days ago, only to see the dust-laden Lu Mingyuan and his companions outside the town.

Lu Mingyuan of the Sanmei Academy—even if Qin Lanshang had never met him in person, she had certainly heard of him. In recent years, whenever she slacked off in her studies or martial arts practice, her grandfather would always use this man to lecture her, wishing he could hang his portrait up as a daily target. Encountering him now, while her eyes didn’t turn entirely red with envy, she recognized him at a single glance.

Lu Mingyuan’s appearance here was naturally no coincidence. Relying on her subordinate who possessed superior light-body skills, Qin Lanshang followed behind them like a tail all the way into Yellow Flower Lane.

Lu Mingyuan’s party consisted of fourteen people, yet after entering the Shen family courtyard, everything fell completely silent. Qin Lanshang waited with mounting anxiety. When night fell, she finally lost her patience and led her hand to leap over the courtyard wall, never expecting to stumble into a bloody spectacle—the thirteen people Lu Mingyuan brought with him were all collapsed on the ground like dead pigs, while three individuals held flashing blades, slicing their throats as easily as chopping vegetables, leaving blood flowing across the ground.

Upon the stone table in the courtyard, Lu Mingyuan lay slumped over, entirely unconscious. Opposite him sat an elderly man as motionless as a mountain. A tea bowl lay overturned on the table; the brew inside had clearly been laced with drugs.

This sudden turn of events was so abrupt that they had truly arrived at the worst possible time. Before they could even react, the old man drew a bamboo tube from his grip, and steel needles shot violently toward them. Qin Lanshang’s subordinate shielded her from behind, but a steel needle pierced into his body, causing the wound to rot instantly.

With no time for words, her subordinate urged her to run. Ignoring the life-threatening blades and swords closing in behind him, he threw her out of the courtyard with all his might. Qin Lanshang ran for her life the entire way, cold sweat and tears smearing across her face. Fortunately, those four people likely did not want to cause a public commotion; seeing her flee onto the long street, they turned back. She did not dare wander too far either, hiding in the shadows to watch carefully. Finally, during the hour of the Ox, she saw a carriage emerge from the back gate of the courtyard, heading toward the southwest.

There were only two people driving the carriage, which meant two still remained in the courtyard. After a brief hesitation, Qin Lanshang grit her teeth and pursued them. These two were incredibly cautious, one driving while the other stayed inside, twisting and turning through the valley and frequently turning back to check their rear. Qin Lanshang nearly had her tracks discovered several times. She did not dare light a fire to cook, chewing on cold mantou for two meals and then eating whatever she stumbled upon without any pickiness, thoroughly grinding away her pampered demeanor until her backbone rivaled that of a beggar.

After two days passed without any anomalies, the two men finally relaxed a bit, believing they were temporarily safe. Letting their guard down slightly, they finally stopped to light a campfire. The man driving remained behind to guard the carriage, while the man originally inside went out to hunt. Qin Lanshang endured the insects while crouching in the grass for a moment, confirming that the man had walked far away.

A rustling noise came from within the carriage. The man lighting the fire barked impatiently, “Behave yourself! If you dare move again, I’ll…”

Before he could finish his sentence, he felt a sudden rush of wind behind his head. He instinctively turned around to block, only to be struck by a stone still clotted with dirt. The force was quite heavy, leaving his hand stinging with pain. Simultaneously, Qin Lanshang flipped through the air like a harrier, landing squarely upon the carriage shaft. The weapons she used were a sword and a whip. Fearing that the clashing of metal would alert others, she seized the opening to coil her soft whip around the man’s neck.

Though young of age, her strength was considerable. With one end of the long whip strangling the man’s throat, she flipped down holding the other end and dove beneath the carriage, using the leverage to drag the man violently to the ground. Before the saber in his hand could even leave its sheath, it clattered to the dirt.

Qin Lanshang gripped the soft whip with her right hand, exerting every ounce of her strength, while her left hand drew her sword from its sheath, stabbing the man’s chest and abdomen seven or eight times in rapid succession. Blood splattered across her hands. It was only when the man stopped moving entirely that she shoved him away. When she scrambled to her feet, a delayed terror finally washed over her, leaving her limbs as weak as noodles.

Her throat felt dry, and Qin Lanshang instinctively swallowed her saliva. Coming back to her senses, she climbed onto the carriage like a nimble monkey, throwing open the carriage door to speak, only for her gaze to freeze—there was no one inside the carriage, only a wild dog with its muzzle bound tightly shut!

A soft click echoed as a pitch-black thunder-fire bomb rolled down from the top of the carriage door frame. Qin Lanshang’s face twisted in horror, and she immediately spun around to leap backward, but it was already too late. With a deafening roar, the thunder-fire bomb detonated violently, blowing the carriage into fragments. The horse, severed from its reins, was also injured by the blast; in its terror, it let out a wild neigh toward the heavens and bolted away blindly.

Though Qin Lanshang had retreated swiftly, she was not fast enough. Her back was left a bloody mess, and her soft whip had caught fire, burning until it looked like a charred snake. She rolled on the ground a few times to smother the sparks on her body, opening her mouth to spit out a mouthful of blood; her internal organs had likely been shaken and injured by the blast.

Before she could drag herself to her feet, a pair of feet came to a stop right in front of her. Qin Lanshang’s heart skipped a beat—it was the hunter who had returned from his trip, looking down at her from his height.

“And here I was wondering who it was; it turns out to be you, you audaciously bold little girl. You wasted a good deal of my effort,” the man sneered. “We let you slip away two days ago, yet today you deliver yourself right to our door.”

Qin Lanshang spat in defiance, refusing to sit and await her death. Striking the ground with her left hand, she used the momentum to spring up, swinging the long sword gripped tightly in her hand upward in an oblique slash, parrying a dagger in the nick of time.

The dagger was engraved with a prajna flower. Qin Lanshang’s eyes narrowed as she grit her teeth and barked, “A dog of the Burial Soul Palace?!”

“The Young Mistress of the Hundred Ghosts Sect truly possesses an exceptional eye.” The man delivered a palm strike straight toward her face, forcing Qin Lanshang to dodge. However, her foundation was shallow after all, and she was already injured; with this dodge, her long sword lost its momentum and was kicked away, while the cold blade of the dagger came to rest against her throat.

Yet, taking advantage of the momentum, Qin Lanshang lashed out with her claws, tearing at his face. She failed to draw blood, but instead ripped away a masterful human-skin mask. The originally sallow face of a man instantly transformed into snow-pale skin and crimson lips—it was actually a woman with willow-leaf brows and almond eyes.

“Oh my, your claws are quite sharp.” The person smiled faintly, her voice returning to a soft, gentle feminine tone. “Young Mistress, meeting is a form of destiny. Why don’t you come with big sister for a trip?”

As she spoke with a smile, her hand rose to seal eight acupoints across Qin Lanshang’s body. Her strikes were exceedingly heavy, leaving Qin Lanshang unable to move a single muscle, let alone channel her internal energy, as a dull ache throbbed through her meridians.

Qin Lanshang could neither move nor speak; she could only glare at her with a pair of fierce eyes.

“You certainly have a beautiful pair of cat-like eyes. If the Palace Master sees them, he will surely love them.” The woman’s hand stroked the corner of her eyes, expressing both delight and a sigh. “Then I shall keep you alive for a few more days. When the Palace Master arrives, he can gouge out your eyes with his own hands to play with!”

Gouging out a living person’s eyes sounded as casual as plucking a grape from her lips. Hearing this made Qin Lanshang’s skin crawl. The woman patted her face again, praising, “It’s remarkably tender. Once I am finished with my business, I shall flay your skin to craft a new mask; it will definitely look much better than you do now.”

She was a beautiful woman who spoke in a soft, gentle voice, and her smile was more radiant than flowers or jade—yet she behaved exactly like the skin-flaying, heart-gouging vixen spirits and demons from folk tales.

Qin Lanshang already knew who she was.

Aside from the Palace Master, the Burial Soul Palace possessed Left and Right Protectors and four major Hall Masters. The two Protectors remained stationed within the palace year-round to assist the Palace Master with all matters, while among the four Hall Masters, only the master of the White Tiger Hall—which oversaw assassinations—was a woman. Her name was Xiao Yangu, an expert in the art of disguise who delighted in flaying human skin. Her execution of acupoint-sealing and concealed weapons was sublimely perfected, making her a woman more venomous than snakes and scorpions.

Snakes and scorpions would at most deliver a single bite, but she would not rest until she had stripped your skin and dismantled your bones.

Qin Lanshang’s pupils contracted. A sudden gust of wind stirred through the woods as another masked individual approached, carrying Lu Mingyuan over his shoulder. The scholar’s eyes were tightly shut; it appeared he had yet to recover from the effects of the drug.

Xiao Yangu proceeded with caution, raising her hand to seal Lu Mingyuan’s acupoints as well before speaking, “How was the cleanup handled?”

“Replying to the Hall Master, hands have already been stationed to guard Yellow Flower Lane. If anyone comes looking, we shall cut them down by the roots!”

“Very good.” Xiao Yangu looked at Lu Mingyuan, her smile blooming like a flower. “With Lu Mingyuan in our hands, why fear that that old immortal won’t open his mouth?”

Old immortal? Qin Lanshang’s heart leaped. Before she could ponder further, Xiao Yangu drew a silk sash from her sleeve, tied it around her waist, and hoisted the not-so-slender young girl up with a single lift.

This time they did not deliberately take a detour. Utilizing their light-body techniques, the two carried her and Lu Mingyuan as they sped rapidly toward the exit of the valley. This area was already close to the edge; before long, they emerged from the mountain woods, spotting a large, felt-covered carriage halted before a rock wall, with four individuals dressed as traveling vendors guarding the perimeter.

She and Lu Mingyuan were thrown into the carriage, nearly crashing into a heap. Fortunately, they were caught and supported by a pair of withered, thin arms.

An old man was also sitting inside the carriage. His hair was graying and his frame was slender, yet he appeared perfectly at ease amidst this pack of wolves, even holding a classic text to read intently. When he supported her, Qin Lanshang could even catch a faint scent of book ink.

The old man’s face bore the signs of weather and his eyes contained the vicissitudes of time, carrying the pedantic air of a scholar mixed with an inexplicable, lingering chill. He looked exactly like a rigid, old-fashioned schoolmaster, yet his speech was exceptionally gentle: “Young lady, are you unharmed?”

His hands carefully avoided the wounds on Qin Lanshang’s back, but the moment Qin Lanshang cast her eyes upon him, the blood throughout her entire body turned thoroughly ice-cold.

The Southern Scholar, Ruan Feiyu!