Great Wilderness Arrives

Great Wilderness Arrives

Working alongside one of the Luo Family's outstanding new-generation disciples... that sounded rather nice too.

Luo Qingqing was not only capable, but also exceptionally beautiful. With such an outstanding woman by his side, work in the future would surely be especially interesting, wouldn't it?

"Hey, what are you grinning foolishly about?" A voice full of disdain interrupted Xia Fan's thoughts.

"Uh..." He came back to his senses, scooped up another spoonful of meat soup, and brought it to the Fox Demon's lips. "I was thinking about the future... What do you think of the Capital Region?"

Since few people ever set foot on Baiqing Mountain, the hunting party had reaped a rich harvest that afternoon. Under the lead of Brother Yan, who had been born into a hunter's family, they had brought back more than a dozen wild rabbits and muntjacs, and had even luckily caught a pair of mountain deer, replenishing dinner for over a hundred examinees. This bowl of minced venison stew had also been specially prepared by him for the recuperating Fox Demon. Considering that she had difficulty moving and might tear open her wounds if she ate on her own, he ignored Li's protests and simply fed her spoonful by spoonful.

The Fox Demon curled her lips the moment the spoon touched them, looking as though she had been scalded.

"Ah... sorry." Seeing this, Xia Fan withdrew the spoon and blew on it again. "It should be fine now."

Yet Li looked at him even more strangely, practically as if she were examining someone abnormal. Only after a moment did she slowly drink the soup. "Why did you suddenly ask about Shangyuan?"

Shangyuan City was the capital of Qi State, and also the key Capital Region people spoke of.

"It's nothing. I was just wondering what it would be like if I went there someday." Xia Fan stirred the minced meat in his bowl. "Someone told me that examinees ranked near the top in the Scholar Examination would all be assigned to the Bureau of Military Affairs in the Capital Region. But as the royal capital, there should be very few Evil Spirit incidents there, right? With so many thaumaturges maintained there, does everyone usually just sit around idle?"

"I've never been there, but Master said that although Shangyuan looks grand and prosperous, danger lurks everywhere beneath the surface. Every thaumaturge who managed to put down roots there was no simple person."

"Danger?" Xia Fan asked in surprise.

"You don't think the Bureau of Military Affairs exists solely to deal with supernatural evils, do you?" Li revealed a mocking smile as she said this, one Xia Fan had seen before—he vaguely remembered that she had worn the same smile when she said the Bureau of Military Affairs was far more terrifying than he imagined. "That's right. Big cities have no mass graves, and their order is far better than in small places. But as the place where Da Qi's power converges, how could Shangyuan possibly be calm and peaceful? According to my Master, not only are there many thaumaturges there, but there are also many capable people and strange talents from elsewhere—scripture seekers who crossed oceans, missionaries from the Western Pole, visiting delegations from neighboring states... Just keeping watch on them was enough to leave the Bureau of Military Affairs scorched and frazzled."

"What do you mean?"

"When enemies use sorcery to plot mischief, if those in power are not properly prepared, wouldn't they lack even the room to resist?"

Xia Fan could not help freezing.

"To possess power ordinary people do not have, yet use it only against Evil Spirits—that would be far too wasteful." Li narrowed her eyes. "It is true that monsters harm people, but their numbers are only a fraction. The ones who truly kill the most are always you humans yourselves, yet you stubbornly fail to realize it. Since thaumaturges can become sharp blades, then weapons should continue to be used as they always have been. Isn't that a very simple principle?"

"You didn't have time to ask how I was injured before, so I'll tell you now." She recounted her clash with Ba Xingtian in full. "This man is the 'weapon' I spoke of. I could sense the intense Sha Qi on him. That means if not a thousand lives had fallen by his hand, then at least several hundred had. And this man was merely a Sentinel of the Bureau of Military Affairs. The thaumaturges above him likely had even more blood staining their hands. As for how many Evil Spirits they killed, would the officials sitting in Shangyuan City truly care? If you ask me..."

Li suddenly stopped, because Xia Fan had already brought another spoonful of soup to her mouth.

She shot him an annoyed glare, but in the end obediently opened her mouth.

"What I thought before was indeed somewhat simplistic, but this sort of situation shouldn't be treated as the norm." Xia Fan defended his own kind. "People ultimately want to live good lives. As long as someone takes the lead, the world will keep getting better and better. By then, even if people held powerful weapons in their hands, they would not use them lightly because of restraint."

What nonsense. Though the Fox Demon thought so inwardly, the inexplicable confidence in his words made her swallow those words back. In the end, she merely snorted. "You make it sound as if you've seen it before."

"Didn't we all come this far? If there had been no progress at all, humans should still be up in the trees, eating raw meat and drinking blood."

"I hope you can still think that way in the future." Li shrugged dismissively.

"If I go to the Capital Region..." Xia Fan paused briefly. "Will you come with me?"

The Fox Demon fell silent for a moment, then twitched her ears. "Don't worry, I don't have a habit of defaulting on debts. That place is dangerous for monsters, but the opportunities are just as great—if there is anywhere best suited to imprisoning an Azure Blade, it would probably be the Bureau of Military Affairs in the capital. It's just..."

"Just what?"

"Do you truly think you can rank among the best in the Scholar Examination?" Li rolled her eyes. "Forgive my bluntness, but with your strength, before I was injured, I could have knocked you down with a single tail. Being glib won't help you destroy the foul creatures in Great Desolation Evil Night. I told you before not to force yourself; waiting another three years would have been fine. Yet here you are—not only did you refuse to run, you're even thinking of taking first place? First think about how you'll keep your life in Great Desolation Evil Night!"

By the time Xia Fan fell asleep, it was already past midnight.

Li, however, could not sleep—this was the first time she had spent the night awake, crammed into a small room with a human.

He had spread out another set of blankets and bedding on the floor, so they did not interfere with each other. Yet considering that she was a monster, such a short distance was already unbelievable.

Li did not care about humans' tedious etiquette. That nonsense about men and women not touching hands when passing things was merely hypocritical propriety. The key was the difference in status between her and him. Master did not mind her drawing close because of the gap in their strength, but the person before her did not possess power sufficient to firmly suppress her, yet he slept quite soundly. It was simply unbelievable.

But speaking of unbelievable, was she herself any different? Determined to take revenge on the Bureau of Military Affairs, yet sharing a room with a thaumaturge who aspired to enter it, and openly accepting his care.

Where exactly had things gone wrong?

For a time, she could not puzzle it out no matter how she thought.

Until moonlight outside the window fell upon the empty bowl that had held porridge, the Fox Demon's gaze froze along with it.

What surfaced in her mind was the scene of Xia Fan blowing on the spoon.

Could someone truly go this far for a monster?

No... no one would do this, unless he had never regarded her as a monster—or an outsider.

An answer suddenly began to take shape in Li's heart.

To her surprise, from the first moment she met Xia Fan until now, he seemed never to have shown even a trace of rejection, as though there was no essential difference between him and her.

That was why she had found him "abnormal" back then—even Master would not go that far. At the very least, she could feel that in Master's eyes, she was still a different race, a nonhuman, as far removed from humans as heaven and earth. That was why Master had repeatedly taught her not to approach other people lightly.

But Xia Fan had not. The way he looked at her was always utterly ordinary. This "ordinariness" had even given Li the illusion that she was being ignored, causing her to briefly overlook how unreasonable it was in itself. Only when she thought back on it did she realize how rare it was.

It was as though he had not been interacting with a monster for the first time, but had already experienced hundreds, thousands of similar scenes.

Yet by his own account, she was clearly the first monster he had ever seen.

He had never encountered it, yet treated it as commonplace. It was somewhat like being born with knowledge. But... could such a thing truly exist in this world?

Two days was not long. By the seventh day, at dusk, the remaining examinees had all gathered in the center of Qingshan Town, preparing to face the final ordeal of the Scholar Examination.

Xia Fan climbed to the top floor of the inn—the premier room here had an excellent view, so it had been converted into a "defense command post." Standing by the window, one could take in the entire town at a glance.

It was around six o'clock, just as the sun was setting. Its red-orange afterglow had already stained half the sky. The Green Mountains stretching as far as the eye could see were no longer lush and verdant. Great swathes of shadow lay scattered below their foothills, as though reminding everyone of night's arrival. Coupled with birds returning to their nests in the distance and the chirping insects, everything seemed no different from usual.

"Looking at this peaceful scenery, sometimes I truly feel that perhaps my deduction was wrong." Luo Qingqing was the first to notice Xia Fan's arrival. She set down the documents in her hands and walked over.

He always felt that ever since that day's speech, the Luo Family prodigy had become much more proactive toward him.

"Wouldn't it be better if you were wrong? Holding the Source of Spirit Fire already means we've passed. We just need to wait peacefully until tomorrow." Xia Fan deliberately spoke lightly. "As for this town—with the Bureau of Military Affairs' authority, they won't make us compensate them for demolition losses, right?"

That so-called normality did not include the town itself.

After a round of modifications, Qingshan Town's inner ring had been joined into one whole. Compared to an ordinary fortress, it did not even have a "city gate"—the sole passage in and out had been completely sealed off after the hunting group finished its final hunt, theoretically preventing enemies from swarming in all at once. Of course, from another perspective, it also cut off the examinees' thoughts of fleeing before battle.

The houses in the outer ring, meanwhile, had been demolished until they were in tatters. Calling it a scene of utter devastation would not have been an exaggeration.

Hearing him mention compensation for the losses, Luo Qingqing could not help smiling.

"I have to admit, your plan is quite good." Fei Nian had come over with Luo Qingqing. As the leader of the Fei Clan's descendants, his attitude toward the plan to remain and defend was completely different from the Fang family's—perhaps because he was dissatisfied that the Fang family had seized the well passage first, or perhaps because he wanted to display the Fei Clan's strength before the Proctor. Not only had he taken the initiative to participate in defense decisions, he had also shouldered many guard duties. "The well passage would restrict Evil Spirits, but it would restrict us as well. Now that we're on the surface, not only can everyone take the high ground and gain the advantage of terrain, but we can also rotate flexibly and meet strength with strength. From every angle, it's far better than hiding underground."

"You can praise me tomorrow." Xia Fan smiled. "I have some experience arranging people to repair things, but leading a team against the enemy isn't what I'm good at. Whether we can hold out until dawn depends on the command of you two."

"Rest assured, this is exactly what the Fei Clan excels at." Just as Fei Nian was about to say more, a brief cry of alarm interrupted the three of them.

"Look toward Green Mountain!"

This warning immediately drew everyone in the room to the window.

Xia Fan was no exception.

Layer upon layer of white mist had risen among the mountains at some unknown time, like vapor drifting up through the forest after heavy rain—except it possessed none of that lightness, nor did it reflect the twilight's glow, as if it had nothing at all to do with this world.

As the mist spread, the outlines of Green Mountain swiftly blurred, followed by the distant dense forest and mountain paths, the thatched houses and streets.

Within only a few moments, the area around the town center had become a vast expanse of white. Even the houses over a hundred paces away, already torn apart by demolition, had become faintly visible and indistinct.