Chapter 134
Chapter 134
-----------------------------------------------------------------
>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 134
>Chapter Title: On the Road
>-----------------------------------------------------------------
Shivering Lv Xiucai was frozen awake. He groggily looked toward the campfire and saw that the flames had nearly died out. He shot a dissatisfied glance at Gouwa, who was supposed to be on night watch.
The sharp-faced, monkey-like guy had his head drooping, nodding up and down—he had clearly fallen asleep long ago.
However, Lv Xiucai didn’t dare go over and scold him. His father had warned him early on.
These people were to be his future bodyguards. If he wanted to keep traveling with them, he couldn’t have any conflicts with them and had to handle them carefully.
Wearing a dissatisfied expression, Lv Xiucai climbed up, added plenty of firewood to the fire, and then crawled back into his bedding.
But just as he closed his eyes, not even a few seconds later, he felt his father prodding him with his pipe.
“Little one, wake up quick. Go to the river and fetch some water. Dawn’s breaking.”
Lv Xiucai let out a wail and grabbed his blanket to cover his head.
Yet in the next second, the pipe stopped prodding and started knocking instead.
“Get going! All you do day in and day out is eat and laze about! You trying to be a good-for-nothing? Good-for-nothings can’t even get a wife!”
As the sun gradually rose, everyone around also began to wake.
Bai Lingmiao rubbed her eyes and propped herself up from Chun Xiaoman’s warm embrace, looking around.
When she still didn’t see that familiar face, a hint of disappointment appeared on her own.
She then looked up toward the distant horizon and spotted the mist-shrouded mountain peaks.
According to Abbess Jingxin, that was Li Huowang’s destination. If they really couldn’t run into him on the road, they’d have no choice but to ask around inside the mountains.
She pulled her feet out from under the blanket and started putting on her shoes and socks. They still had to travel soon and couldn’t go hungry.
Just eating rations and draining supplies wouldn’t do. They had to scrimp from various places. Adding side dishes was one way, and with more sides, they could eat less grain.
She went into the woods with Xiaoman and Lv Zhuangyuan’s daughter-in-law to dig for wild vegetables.
At the transition between spring and summer, the wild vegetables in the woods were plentiful. Soon, Bai Lingmiao’s basket was filled with some yellow essence, wild onions, and wood ear mushrooms.
They passed a patch of mushrooms but didn’t pick any.
After so many days of practice, Bai Lingmiao could basically identify wild vegetables now.
But mushrooms were different—mess them up, and you could die. She didn’t dare pick any, even though they looked normal and seemingly non-poisonous.
When she returned to the campfire with the washed vegetables, she saw that the noodle fish had already been boiled by that sensible young Daoist boy.
One by one, the tadpole-like dough bits tumbled in the boiling water.
“Yang Kid, leave this sort of thing to the grown-ups.” Bai Lingmiao tore the vegetables in the basket into small sections and dropped them into the pot.
“It’s fine, Sister Bai. I like cooking. Heh heh.”
Wild vegetables cooked quickly. As the last spoonful of white pork lard melted into the pot, a hearty bowl of wild vegetable noodle fish was ready.
Everyone held their bowls and slurped it down noisily.
At first, when the two groups met, they each cooked their own meals.
But after a few days, they realized it was too much hassle and wasted time and effort. In the end, Lv Zhuangyuan suggested they all eat from the big communal pot, with each side contributing a meal’s worth of grain.
With a “slurp,” Lv Zhuangyuan sucked a steaming noodle fish into his mouth, chewing as he asked, “Miss Bai, is the young Daoist really headed this way? Hope we don’t take a wrong turn.”
“No mistake. Abbess Jingxin said Li Shixiong could only have gone this way, and there are no other roads besides.” Bai Lingmiao answered firmly.
She was the first to notice something off about Li Huowang’s reaction when he left.
When Li Shixiong spoke to her, his face wasn’t gloomy anymore. Instead, he seemed suddenly enlightened, and that feeling made her inexplicably uneasy every time she recalled it.
That was why she hurriedly brought the others back chasing after him, only to ultimately fail to catch up.
So now, she was leading the Lv Family Troupe they’d run into along the way toward the direction Li Huowang had gone. “Li Shixiong, you absolutely must be safe…”
“Good, good, as long as he’s fine. Just checking.” Lv Zhuangyuan flashed a smile.
His face smiled, but in his heart, he couldn’t help feeling anxious. His confidence in leaving the pass to dodge the soldier unrest had been Li Huowang, but when they met up, everyone else was there except him.
They’d traveled so long without seeing their reliable bodyguard—it really made him uneasy.
The big pot of wild vegetable noodle fish was soon polished off, not even a drop of noodle soup left. The soup had oil in it; wasting it would be too much.
Full and watered, they set off once more.
Traveling was dull. The day passed just like that. Aside from the distant mountains growing slightly clearer, nothing changed.
As the sky gradually dimmed, Bai Lingmiao noticed lights seeming to flicker on the distant mountains.
“Have the people on the mountain seen Li Shixiong already? The abbess said those people are very dangerous. Could Li Shixiong be in danger?”
That night, by firelight, Bai Lingmiao took needle and thread to mend her shoes. Traveling every day naturally wore them out.
Everyone except the night watch Zhao Wu was asleep. Compared to the daytime clamor, everything around was now quiet.
“Zhijian, your shoes are worn too. Take them off, and I’ll patch them.” Bai Lingmiao said to the big fellow gripping an iron rod.
“Mm… mm… stinky!” Gao Zhijian pulled his feet back.
“It’s fine, take them off. Look, your toes are poking out. If you don’t mend them soon, they’ll fall apart.”
After some stammering refusal, just as he was bashfully taking off his shoes, he suddenly gripped the iron rod with both hands and let out a great roar toward the right side of the woods.
The roar startled everyone awake. Once they came to their senses, they immediately understood why Gao Zhijian had done it.
From the pitch-black woods came a sound—some kind of crunching, gnawing noise, accompanied by a ghostly wailing.
Deep into the night, these two sounds in the woods instantly made everyone’s hair stand on end.
“This… we ran into it again? Why am I so unlucky this year! Again?!” Lv Zhuangyuan, draped in his clothes, complained bitterly.
He then turned and cupped his hands toward Bai Lingmiao and the others. “Everyone, you’re all the young Daoist’s juniors. With things like this, you should be able to handle it, right?”
As he spoke, the sound kept drawing closer, nearer and nearer, as if just beyond a cluster of bushes.
The atmosphere grew tense at once. Everyone grabbed their weapons.
Suddenly, the bushes rustled, and out stepped a woman covered in a red veil, dressed in colorful clothes.
“Mommy!! There’s a female ghost!!” Lv Xiucai yelped and dove under the carriage.
“What is it? What’s there?” Bai Lingmiao cautiously asked Ershen.
Ershen said nothing, just kept waving his right hand with its long black fingernails, beckoning her closer.