Chapter 9: The Solitary Road

No one could sleep that night.

The innkeeper brought a stove. Everyone slept in the main hall with their clothes on.

They fell asleep, woke up cold, added wood, and slept again.

They barely made it to dawn. When the warm sun shone on the earth, everyone felt a bit safer.

In the morning, a soldier summoned the post station master. He was the official in charge of the station.

The soldier explained everything that had happened over the past few days.

With the innkeeper and the soldier as witnesses, the station master believed them and didn’t make trouble.

Then came the cremation. They found an empty spot outside Weiyuan Fort Station, built a burning platform, and set the middle-aged man’s body on fire.

The temperature wasn’t high enough to fully reduce the body to ashes. They buried what was left.

His gray horse, which had accompanied him for years, was set free. But the horse didn’t go far. It stayed in the snow outside Weiyuan Fort, gazing into the distance.

Next, they had to deal with the middle-aged man’s belongings.

At the site of the cart crash, they found three travel permits. One belonged to the woman’s husband. The other two had no relatives in Weiyuan Fort Inn; their families were far away.

The girl took the remaining two permits.

She borrowed paper and brush and drew a red phantom figure. It looked about sixty percent similar.

The innkeeper asked, “Immortal, are you looking for this person?”

The girl nodded.

The innkeeper stared for a while, then shook his head. He hadn’t seen him. He asked the others, but none had.

The innkeeper said he would keep an eye out for the blood-red phantom.

He watched the girl pack her things.

The innkeeper said, “Immortal, are you planning to go to the places on the travel permits?”

The girl nodded. She had that idea.

The innkeeper added, “That filth from last night… it’s not here anymore, is it?”

The girl nodded again. That thing had vanished. Weiyuan Fort showed no sign of it. After sucking out the middle-aged man’s seven souls and draining him to death, it had fled.

The innkeeper asked worriedly, “Will the immortal come back?”

The girl nodded firmly. She would definitely return. She couldn’t deal with that thing now, but she would in the future.

Maybe in a month, maybe in a year.

One day, she would definitely come back and kill that thing completely.

Before she left, the innkeeper gave her the axe from the woodshed as thanks for her help.

It was actually what the girl wanted. Strange as it was, the innkeeper gave it to her anyway.

Besides the axe, he also gave her a bulging money pouch.

It was the middle-aged man’s leftover money, plus what they got from selling the goods in the cart in the yard.

After the middle-aged man died, the innkeeper and a few others had pooled together and bought his cart of goods at a slightly higher price.

They converted it into coins, all in the pouch, and gave it to the girl.

She didn’t decline. She took it.

The station master next door even wrote her a travel permit, bending the rules, so she could pass through other places.

Finally, there was transportation. They had thought to take the middle-aged man’s gray horse, but it became agitated and wouldn’t let anyone near. When someone approached, it ran off. When they left, it came back to wait in the snow near Weiyuan Fort.

The station master wanted to give the girl a horse, again bending the rules, but she refused.

She set off on foot, trudging through the snow away from Weiyuan Fort.

Walking was dangerous. Besides enduring extreme weather, she had to watch out for bandits and monsters.

The girl knew the risks but still went.

She continued along the road. This time, she was alone.

As for the bandit threat, it turned out she needn’t have worried. The soldiers at Weiyuan Fort had hinted mysteriously, saying she would understand once on the road.

The girl walked on the snowy path. She slipped on ice and fell. She got up and carefully continued.

Walking was interesting, except for the pain in her feet.

No matter how thick her clothes, the cold seeped into her feet. Boots kept snow out, but not the chill.

This was even with her using techniques to increase her resistance to cold. After these days, she had gradually adapted to her current body. Her five senses had recovered somewhat, and her control over her mana had returned to the level before death.

Her mana upper limit had stalled again, unable to grow.

She could channel a little mana to boost her resistance to elements like heat and cold.

She was a bit stronger than an ordinary person. Her feet wouldn’t get frostbitten in the short term.

When she got tired on the road, she stopped to light a fire and rest. When she had warmed up, she continued.

Near evening, she reached a large fork in the road.

Recalling the soldier’s words, going straight led to Anlezhou Station, turning led to the border.

She lit a fire at the fork and waited.

Soon, people approached from a distance. It was a squad of six armored soldiers transporting supplies, pulling a cart slowly through the snow.

As they passed the girl, each couldn’t help but glance at her, but they had good discipline. They didn’t linger and turned toward the border.

This was what the soldiers at Weiyuan Fort meant about not worrying about bandits.

This was the border. Too many soldiers passed through. Would bandits come here to die?

After a while, a merchant came from the border. When he reached the fork, he wanted to rest. But when he saw the girl sitting by the fire, a lone white-haired, golden-eyed girl in the wilderness, he didn’t dare stay. He drove on, who could bet if she was human or ghost?

The same scene happened three times.

On the fourth, a caravan finally stopped.

A caravan wasn’t anything strange. For instance, one merchant asked another, “Friend, want to travel together?” The other answered, “Sure.” And thus a small caravan formed. Several merchants banded together.

They stopped at the fork, planning to camp there for the night.

Seeing the spot already taken, the caravan leader intended to negotiate for shared use.

When he got off the cart, even with all his experience, he was stunned for a long time.

Her snow-white hair and seemingly magical golden eyes formed a strange and magnificent picture.

As a child, he had heard elders talk about events three hundred years ago, around 1200. Those elders had heard from their elders about people from the mystic realm.

They could fly on swords, hide underground, and pass through walls. If they wanted fire, they could burn a vast area instantly. If they wanted water, they could flood a city in fifteen minutes.

One elder had seen such a person as a child. On the street, that person glanced at him, and his body felt frozen. It took a long time to regain his senses.

As the caravan leader grew older and met more people, he thought the elders were exaggerating.

Now, he realized he was wrong.

The girl before him gave him a very special feeling. Just a glance from her made his body pause.

It wasn’t just her appearance. It was the pressure of a superior? Or killing intent?

The merchants had all seen soldiers from the border. The soldiers carried an uncomfortable aura, which the merchants called killing intent.

The generals at the border carried an even heavier aura, combining killing intent with the pressure of authority.

When the merchants talked to them, they would stammer, oppressed by that invisible force.

Now it was the same. Although the girl was alone by the fire, she emanated an extraordinary aura. Invisible, but palpable.

Their instincts were right.

There were many reasons. One was that mystic realm cultivators’ bodies were continually refined by mana, no longer mortal flesh. Naturally, their bearing was different.

Besides that, the mana that unconsciously surrounded a cultivator had some effect on ordinary people.

It was a mysterious feeling.

The caravan leader was just a mortal without mana, so he was affected.

Realizing the girl by the road wasn’t ordinary, he thought about leaving. But it was getting late. After hesitating, he stayed.

He approached her and asked if she minded them staying.

She agreed. She didn’t care about such trivial matters.

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