Chapter 259 Some encounters happen unintentionally

Xiao Yan took Ji Ruxue away from Changsha, but did not go straight south. Instead, they turned southwest and entered Qianzhong from Hunan. It took them seven or eight days to enter Qiannan.

Because according to the intelligence, although King Nanping Liu Yin had already established a country and proclaimed himself king, after receiving the imperial edict from Daliang, he still sent people into Raojiang to negotiate as soon as possible, regardless of his reluctance. This was for a batch of tens of thousands of golden nanmu trees. After all, whether buying or taking it by force, it is best to check the owner's face before taking action.

Although in the eyes of the people in the Central Plains, Raojiang is a barbaric land, the people there live a life of drinking blood and eating raw meat, and there is nothing in that land except mountains.

However, as the master of Lingnan and the neighbor of Raojiang, Liu Yin obviously knew some inside information. Even if he didn't give face to Raojiang, he couldn't ignore the Gu King who founded the Ten Thousand Poison Cave. As the saying goes, "Don't look at the monk's face, look at the Buddha's face". In recent years, nine out of ten Gu Masters in the world came from the Ten Thousand Poison Cave. Most of the villages in Raojiang also surrendered. It can be called a kingdom whose strength cannot be underestimated.

Under such circumstances, it was actually a very reasonable and appropriate action for Liu Yin to send an envoy to negotiate with the Wan Du Cave.

But the strangest thing happened. According to the intelligence passed on by Nanping Kingdom, Liu Yin sent people to the Ten Thousand Poison Cave a month ago, but there was no information about the subsequent progress. It was not known whether the information was cut off at that point, or Nanping Kingdom did not pass it on, or it was intercepted by Chu State, or even that it was false news passed on by Nanping Kingdom from the beginning to the end.

Therefore, Xiao Yan believed that if he went directly to Raojiang for investigation, he would gain more than going to Shaozhou.

Ji Ruxue certainly had no objection, she just followed.

……

Looking up at the sky through the layers of green shade, I saw only clouds and fog, with dark clouds covering the sky, pressing down on the highest mountain in the distance.

Ji Ruxue retracted her gaze, frowned, held the reins and asked hesitantly: "Can this road really lead to Raojiang?"

"How should I know?"

Xiao Yan was waving his fingers in front of him, controlling a Tang sword suspended in the air to cut through the thorns and bushes, and he swept out a wide road along the original traces. At the same time, he sighed slightly: "If I had known, I would not have been tricked by the old man who showed the way to take this rotten road."

Ji Ruxue rarely saw Xiao Yan like this, so she suppressed her smile and tried to persuade Xiao Yan: "The old man said that a few years ago, when cutting wood on this road, he could still meet people on their way to Raojiang to learn Gu Shu. It should be that the road is just deserted, and it shouldn't be wrong. I'm just afraid that there will be a heavy rainstorm soon, and the fog in the forest will spread, and I might lose my way."

After hearing these words, Xiao Yan felt even more helpless. He simply crossed his legs and lay on his back on the horse. The Tang sword floating in front of him did not need to be controlled. It was wrapped in the inner energy and cut through all the thorns blocking the road. In the meantime, it also chopped down some large and small poisonous snakes on the roadside to prevent the mounts of the two from being frightened.

He put his hands behind his head, and as his mount moved forward, he staggered and swayed. He closed his eyes and said, "This mountain blocks out the sun. Saker Falcon is used to the grasslands in the north, but is not used to this land. Otherwise, it wouldn't be so troublesome."

Ji Ruxue looked up at the towering ancient trees and could only see the sky through tiny gaps.

The fog in the forest is very thick, especially in this gloomy weather, it is like night. Even if we really let the Saker Falcon go out to find the way, it may not be of any use.

Before, Xiao Yan even flew to the top of an ancient tree, trying to find the way, but even with Xiao Yan's eyesight, he could only see forests on all sides. So before entering the mountains, Xiao Yan simply let the accompanying Saker Falcon go to Shaozhou in the east to find Youyi, and then find a way to contact him if needed.

Therefore, at this moment, they could only follow the instructions of an old man when they entered the mountain before, and follow a covered road to the south. What was even more strange was that in the village where the old man lived, even if Xiao Yan paid a lot of money to hire someone to be a guide, no one was willing to take this job. Looking at the road that had not been visited for several years, it was obvious that there were some strange things here that only the locals knew about.

Fortunately, the old man was a kind-hearted man. Although he tried his best to persuade Xiao Yan and the others not to go into the mountain, seeing their firm attitude, he still walked with his old bones to accompany Xiao Yan and the others for a while, so that they could follow the old trail and avoid wandering around aimlessly.

As a thank you, Ji Ruxue quietly put an old ginseng that Xiao Yan found on the way and two strings of copper coins in the old man's backpack. It was not a small amount, but not much either. It was enough to improve the old man's life, but not enough to make others jealous.

"After entering Raojiang, if the situation is different from what we expected, what should we do?" Ji Ruxue asked again.

"What's the big deal?" Xiao Yan patted the wine gourd beside the saddle, opened his eyes and looked at the green shade of the ancient tree covering the sky: "If the news from Youyi is also good, everyone will be happy. Chu has not started a war, and Nanping is also at peace, then there will be no such trouble, and the people below will suffer less unnecessary disasters. We can go directly to Raojiang to negotiate, which will save trouble."

Ji Ruxue frowned. It sounded like this made sense, but she always felt that it seemed a little different from the plan made in advance.

Xiao Yan in the front smiled suddenly: "Remember what I told you before, I want to see something with my own eyes this time."

"I remember." Ji Ruxue answered without thinking too much.

"So, going to Raojiang is my ultimate goal, so the sooner the better. It just happens to be on the way."

Ji Ruxue nodded slightly. In fact, according to her and Miao Chengtian's ideas, there was really no need for Xiao Yan to make this trip. Although the tens of thousands of golden nanmu trees were precious, there was no need for Xiao Yan to make this trip in person. Things in Bian Jing were obviously more important.

However, as long as Xiao Yan thinks it is necessary, she will support him unreservedly to the end, just as he needs her. It is all natural and she will not think too much about it subconsciously.

And she could also clearly feel that Xiao Yan was in a very good mood on this trip, or rather, he was particularly relaxed when he was with her, with the comfortable attitude that a young man should have. He lacked the maturity and stability he had when he was in Hebei. Instead, he seemed like he was on a long journey and did not take the important matters of the court to heart at all.

For example, Miao Chengtian and others probably couldn't even imagine that he was lying on the horse's back leisurely now, because in their minds, Xiao Yan was the synonym of rationality. He was also the prince of the previous dynasty who had to shoulder the heavy responsibility of restoring the country and had to endure hardships. They often subconsciously ignored Xiao Yan's age.

In Ji Ruxue's eyes, Xiao Yan was just that Xiao Yan. It was him who shined in Hebei and decided the lives of tens of thousands of people with a single word. It was him who caused a sensation in Bianjing and made millions of fortunes with a flip of his hand. It was still him who was lying on the horse's back, sighing and complaining.

But from beginning to end, he is just the boy in the snow who is about to turn twenty years old.

Thinking of this, Ji Ruxue was in a very good mood, and her heart was filled with sweetness. She felt that Xiao Yan had not changed at all, and that they had been safe and sound all the way, which was better than anything else.

Xiao Yan, who was in the front, didn't understand why the girl behind him suddenly laughed, so he turned around to look at her with amusement.

But just as he stood up, the mount under him suddenly became restless, and the speed of the horse that was leading the way came to an abrupt halt. The horse's hooves dug the soil restlessly, and it snorted, refusing to move forward.

Xiao Yan exclaimed, and with a wave of his finger, the Tang sword flew back into its sheath. Then he stood up straight, squinted his eyes, scanned the dense forest in front of him, stroked the wine gourd, and subconsciously began to ponder.

The smell of blood was faintly felt in the air.

Ji Ruxue at the back pushed out an ordinary long sword with her thumb and glanced around vigilantly.

"How strange."

Xiao Yan got off his horse, put the wine gourd behind his waist, and walked forward. He pinched the black blood on a tree trunk with his fingers, then crouched down and turned over a dead body under the tree roots without changing his expression.

Swarms of flies scattered with a foul buzzing sound, but Xiao Yan killed a large number of them with a wave of his hand.

Behind, Ji Ruxue covered her nose with her sleeve and walked closer with a frown. Then she saw that the corpse had a shriveled face and a large black wound on its neck, which had been rotten by mosquitoes.

"There's another one over here." Then, she walked away, used her scabbard to push aside the branches, and called back. "There's one here too... and over there..."

Finally, the two came to the conclusion that there were fourteen dead bodies in total, but they were scattered. The two farthest bodies were hundreds of meters apart, and all were in varying degrees of decay.

"Why are these people so skinny?" Ji Ruxue took two face towels from the horse's back and handed one to Xiao Yan.

Although Xiao Yan didn't need it, he tied it on seeing Ji Ruxue's cautious and prudent look, and at the same time looked through the dead bodies with unevenly distributed injuries.

Apart from the first corpse's neck which had wounds that looked like they were torn by a wild beast, the other corpses had hollowed-out abdomens, pierced hearts, and gnawed faces. The deaths were all extremely tragic, but the bite marks were clearly human, which directly ruled out the possibility of wild beasts.

Without exception, the attire of these people is very different from that of the Central Plains. Although it is similar to the people in the villages outside the mountains, there seem to be some differences. The patterns on their clothes are complicated, and they look more like the dress of Raojiang.

"They were drained of blood." Xiao Yan grabbed a large piece of water mist to clean his hands, and concluded: "The murderers should not have much consciousness, but their instincts made them try their best to attack the weakest part of the human body, and then absorbed the blood of these dead bodies to varying degrees."

He picked up a branch and turned over the first corpse, analyzing it: "This one must have been scratched from behind. In pain, he was knocked down when he turned around, and then bitten on the neck like a wolf. He should have struggled to half-kneel when the murderer sucked his blood, but he didn't break free and was sucked to death. That's why he is face down."

Ji Ruxue nodded repeatedly and listened to Xiao Yan's explanation based on the environment around the corpse. She suddenly felt her mind opened up, and even the scene of this person's death appeared in her mind.

She frowned, glanced around hesitantly, and whispered, "Is it a zombie?"

Xiao Yan laughed, threw away the branch, and shook his head, saying, "Let's not talk about whether this thing exists or not. If it does exist, it shouldn't look like this. According to the story, zombies can kill these ordinary people with just one claw. Why would they go to such trouble to make the corpses look like this?"

He stroked his chin and said, "The dead are great, rest in peace."

Then, he chopped off a branch as thick as his arm with a knife, sharpened it with the knife, and used his internal force to dig a large pit in a flash. He buried the fourteen bodies in it, and finally covered them with soil. However, he did not erect a grave mound, so it seemed that there was no trace left.

Ji Ruxue lent a hand from time to time and didn't ask any further questions.

Xiao Yan sat cross-legged on the horse's back, with the Tang sword placed horizontally on his knees. He looked at the rough traces in the dense forest heading south and thought: "It seems that this incident is indeed related to Raojiang."

Ji Ruxue did not forget the zombie's guess and continued to ask: "Why did the murderer want to suck human blood? Could it be because sucking human blood can increase their strength?"

Xiao Yan did not comment on this, but just patted the scabbard and said to himself: "According to what the old man said, after crossing this mountain, we can enter the territory of Raojiang. These perpetrators abandoned the bodies here and turned back to the south. If it was not intentional, perhaps they were controlled by someone and could only move within this range... It's interesting."

Ji Ruxue seemed to be thinking about something.

Xiao Yan continued to ponder, "I just don't know what conditions this method requires. Is the person being manipulated alive or dead? What is the cost? How strong is the manipulator..."

He looked towards the east and frowned again, "If the cost is extremely low, then this method is the easiest way to stir up trouble."

"What you mean is..." Ji Ruxue looked up in surprise.

Xiao Yan nodded, then shook his head: "These are all guesses, they can't be true, you have to see it with your own eyes."

After saying this, he flicked his finger, and the Tang sword came out of its sheath again, heading straight south.

"Keep going. Maybe we'll run into three or two of them on the road. We can study them slowly then." Xiao Yan smiled and pinched Ji Ruxue's face. "It seems that this journey is not as easy as we imagined. If the war of annihilation is combined with these evil spirits, it will be really tricky."

“Just come at me.” The girl was unusually heroic, with blue light flashing in her eyes, and it seemed that she had already established a firm foothold in the lower realm.

Xiao Yan burst into laughter.

…………

Following the mountains to the south, across the Zangke River, there is a Zangke Village with about a hundred households. They have always lived and worked by the water and settled down there.

On this day, the village chief, who was nearly seventy years old, was hunched over in the bamboo house with a sad look on his face. He just kept muttering to himself in a dialect that people from the Central Plains could not understand.

In front of him, a purple-dressed girl wearing a white scarf had an impatient look on her face as she busied herself with the seriously injured villagers in the room. Although sweat was pouring down her forehead, she still spoke out to comfort them.

"I know, I know. With such a great saint, this little thing should be easy for her to handle!"

……

To the east, a white-haired young man wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, tightly holding the scimitar in his hand, and slowly retreated while protecting the people of Nanping behind him, while looking at the more than 100,000 poison den guards in front of him, and said in a deep voice.

"I did not collude with the Nanping Kingdom. Someone framed me... I want to see my adoptive father."

------

The fog permeated the mountains and forests and lingered for a long time, as if it would never stop.

On the road that was forcibly opened, mountain songs echoed from afar and spread throughout the forest.

"Head not lowered, legs not separated, walking shadow floating fire separated from the mortal world, buried for a long time without decaying soul stagnant spirit, bright inside and dark outside, corpse chaser~"

In front of the covered corpse pit, several stiff figures were digging the soil quickly with their bare hands. In a moment, they had lifted up all fourteen corpses.

A handsome man with a red umbrella on his waist got down from the sedan chair, squatted beside the corpse with a smile on his face.

“Yeah, that’s the taste.

The smell of Gu."

(End of this chapter)