History

History

What she held in her hand was the bronze piece they had found on the Back Mountain.

Xia Fan froze slightly. "You know what this thing is?"

"Haven't you heard of the All-Things Heavenly Knowledge of the Luo Family in You Province?" Luo You'er muttered, still clutching her forehead. "Half the libraries in the country are run by the Luo Family. The main residence in You Province alone holds over ten thousand volumes of rare books. When it comes to worldly knowledge, no one can surpass the Luo Family. You look decent enough, but who would've thought you were such a bumpkin..."

So her family ran libraries?

"This is a minted coin. Because it is shaped like a blade, some also call it a Knife Coin," Luo Qingqing said. "As far as I know, only Yong State used currency like this."

"Yong State?" Xia Fan thought for a moment, but found no related information in his memories.

Even Luo Qingqing's expression turned strange. "It was a dynasty from more than a hundred years ago. King Yong was cruel and tyrannical, and he was eventually replaced by six new kings. Yong State then split into six. Da Qi was one of them."

Xia Fan suddenly understood the source of her grave expression—

Didn't that mean this was a relic of the previous dynasty?

"Afterward, all Six States carried out extensive purges of Yong State remnants. Keeping any object from the Yong Dynasty was a serious crime, and coins were no exception. If someone reported you, the informer would receive a hundred taels of silver. As for the offender, at best, exile; at worst—"

"Wait, wait..." Xia Fan hurriedly cut her off. "I had no idea this thing was connected to Yong State. I only picked it up because its shape was unusual. Don't go saying things like that!"

"Really?"

"It was on the winding mountain road of Green Mountain, around seven or eight hundred meters from the fork... uh, I mean, roughly two li. Besides bronze coins, there were wooden tracks there too..."

As he spoke, Xia Fan's voice slowed.

He caught a faint trace of a smile on her face.

"Hey... were you just pulling my leg?"

"Pulling your leg? What a strange turn of phrase." Luo Qingqing shrugged. "I wasn't lying. I simply didn't say that it was true now. In fact, the purges were only frequent during the first twenty years or so. Where would there be any hidden Yong Dynasty survivors now? Though it bore the name Yong, nothing in this world can exist forever. Even if you collected Knife Coins now, no one would care, so there is no need to be so nervous. Still, considering that the Proctors searched everything we carried when we entered, there is a high chance this thing was found in Qingshan Town."

Xia Fan could not find a response for quite a while.

That was absolutely... revenge.

Nothing was more stifling than being crushed by someone else's knowledge. He did not even know where to begin if he wanted to strike back.

"Two li into the Back Mountain..." Luo Qingqing pondered for a moment. "It seems we need to verify it."

"There isn't even a trail there. If we want to go up, we'll need at least several people together. Senior Brother will definitely object if he finds out," Luo You'er advised. "We need people to help the Fang family, and we also have to guard against people like him—" At this point, she glanced at Xia Fan. "We probably won't have enough people left at the inn."

"I'll explain it to him." Luo Qingqing remained insistent. "This place is simply too strange."

"You think something is wrong too?" Xia Fan asked.

"There is no harm in telling you." She nodded expressionlessly. "The place where we gathered Spirit Fire... those burial mounds were very shallow, as if they had been dug in a hurry. Also, we found two abandoned caverns carved into the mountainside. They were not small."

Xia Fan's heart skipped a beat. Here it was again—ruins of large-scale man-made structures, just like the wooden rails on the winding mountain road. "Was anything stored inside?"

"We only found several Wooden Kites."

"Wooden Kites? What are those?"

"Hey, do you have any common sense at all?" Luo You'er cried. "They're oversized kites! The largest are bigger than a person. Cover them in animal hide, and they can carry someone through the air for a hundred paces. Don't tell me you haven't even read the Art of Ingenious Craft?"

Uh... he really had not. When he had wandered the martial world with that cheap master of his, he could not always fill his stomach, much less spare time for reading. But Xia Fan knew that was not the point. The question was why a place meant for burying people would store things like these. And how much did the residents of Qingshan Town know about it?

Just as he was about to ask more questions, another female disciple of the Luo Family hurried into the hall. "Senior Sister, we can't hold them back much longer."

"I went over time. Let them in," Luo Qingqing instructed, then looked toward Xia Fan. "Do you still want to go to the Back Mountain again?"

With you? "No." Xia Fan knew his own limits. In the inn's main hall, they still had to hold themselves back. Out in the wilderness, though, things would truly be hard to predict. "I have already obtained the Source of Spirit Fire. For the next few days, I only need to guard it well."

Seeing this, Luo Qingqing said nothing more and turned to leave the hall.

The Luo Family disciples dispersed one after another. When the other examinees swarmed in, all they saw was the wrecked main hall.

From sealing the place off to leaving, no more than a quarter of an hour had passed. Considering that their response time had been limited to the hour or so since they discovered the house had been breached that morning, Xia Fan gained a new appreciation for the Luo Family's coordination and organization.

When he returned to the room, Li, lying on the bed, had already entered the period of discomfort.

Her complexion was visibly flushed, her breathing slightly labored, and sweat kept beading from her forehead, soaking the ends of her hanging hair.

Only now did Xia Fan have the chance to study her appearance carefully.

If he ignored the pair of ears atop her head, she looked no different from a human now. She had the same long black hair and fair skin. Though stained with dirt and blood, her lovely features still showed through.

Her brows were not long, and their untrimmed lines were somewhat thick—not the standard trait of a beauty. Yet that softened the sharpness of her features, making her seem far more approachable.

If he had not met her before, he would have found it difficult to connect the Fox Demon who opened her mouth only to mock him at night with the woman before him.

Her other distinctive feature was the touch of crimson at the corners of her eyes. At first glance, it looked like eyeshadow, but a closer look revealed that it was no makeup at all—it was natural. That streak of red extended the outline of her eyes outward and lent her an enchanting, otherworldly beauty.

As for those ears, the same color as her hair... Xia Fan secretly reached out and pinched them, confirming that they were real. She did not have a second pair of ears at the sides of her face. He was truly curious about the structure of a Fox Demon's head, and what she had looked like as a child before her hair grew in.

What a miracle of evolution, he marveled inwardly.

At that moment, Li's brows were faintly furrowed, and every so often she let out a soft groan, as though enduring extreme pain.

Xia Fan did not know how the microscopic world worked in this world, but judging from common knowledge and all sorts of phenomena, tiny organisms like germs still maintained the balance at the bottom of the circle of life. Once the body was wounded, they became life's greatest enemies. Whether Li could pull through would basically depend on these next few days.

He fetched a basin of clean water and wiped away her sweat, then laid a damp cloth across her forehead—one of the few things he could do for her at present.

Four in the afternoon, deep within Green Mountain.

"Senior Sister, are you sure we should keep searching?" Luo You'er complained with a pout. "In a little while, the sun will be setting."

"It takes longer to go up than down. One shichen is enough for everyone to return to town." Luo Qingqing was unmoved.

"The problem isn't the time. It's what exactly we are looking for. We found the wooden rails, and we found several Knife Coins, but that can only prove that guy wasn't lying." Luo You'er caught her breath. "You don't mean to climb all the way to the summit along the tracks, do you? Even the hunters in town have never gone there."

Luo Qingqing stopped and looked back at the group. Though no one spoke, obvious exhaustion was already written across their faces.

Since reaching the mountainside, the Luo Family disciples had spent nearly four shichen searching the dense forests deep in the mountains. Even with the aid of arts, clearing a narrow path through the tightly packed trees was no easy task. Add the muggy weather and the harassment of mosquitoes, and the drain on their strength and spirits was only magnified.

Had they been anyone else, they probably would have abandoned her and headed back long ago.

Most importantly, she truly did not know what she was searching for. Without a target, there could be no expectations, and that violated the principles of making a plan. Logically speaking, she should never have organized such a search without a clear objective.

Yet unease had remained coiled in Luo Qingqing's heart.

Besides the warehouse ruins they had discovered at the Spirit Fire Ground, she had also heard from Senior Brother that the Fei Clan and the Fang family seemed to have found several abnormalities in the town. For example, the drainage channels beneath several Dry Wells were unusually broad and had countless branches. At the ends of some side roads, stone doors had even been sealed shut, and no one knew where they ultimately led.

If it was only to gather Spirit Fire, why would the Bureau of Military Affairs set the examination grounds in a place that reeked of strangeness at every turn?

Perhaps the answer behind it all was the key to whether they could pass the Scholar Examination.

"We will search along the tracks for another three quarters of an hour," Luo Qingqing said after thinking for a moment. "If we find nothing new, we will head down the mountain."

"Eh, we're still going? I'm so hungry..." Luo You'er muttered weakly, but under the pressure of her senior sister, she had no choice but to obey. Just as she turned to take a step, her body suddenly tilted, and with a cry, she fell into the grass.

"Junior Sister, you're exaggerating too much. You're done already?" a fellow disciple teased. "You're a cultivator, at least. How can your stamina be worse than a hunter's?"

"It isn't that! I just tripped by accident!" Luo You'er scrambled up indignantly and stamped down the weeds beneath her feet. Then she let out a surprised sound. "There's a new track here."

"What did you say?" Slightly startled, Luo Qingqing quickly stepped forward and lowered her head to inspect it. "This is... a branch line?"

"The tracks forked? But we're on a cliffside, aren't we? There shouldn't be anything beside us."

"Exactly. We're following a winding mountain road. If it turned inward, it might lead to somewhere like a cave. But it turns outward."

The group began discussing it all at once.

Luo Qingqing pondered briefly, then swiftly made her decision. "We'll follow the new wooden track."

"We're not continuing upward?" Luo You'er rubbed her ankle.

"Since we cannot reach the summit anyway, we might as well see where this branch line goes," Luo Qingqing replied.

This time, they reached the end very quickly.

After passing through a patch of waist-high shrubs, a steep cliff appeared before them.