The Hunt

With summer fast approaching, the Gao Family had built a new garden adjacent to the back mountain to serve as a summer retreat for their kin.

It had yet to be put into use, making it the perfect place for an escape.

After Chen Ye entered the garden via a small path, he finally managed to slip out through the back gate of the Gao Family estate just before the sky turned bright, plunging headlong into the bamboo-covered Spring Mountain.

Spring Mountain, which the Gao Family estate backed onto, was not particularly tall, but its forests were dense.

The mountain was blanketed in moso bamboo that blotted out the sun; whenever the wind blew, the rustling leaves were enough to hide a person completely.

The other side of the mountain's base connected to the main road, and heading northeast led to the border of Qinghe Prefecture.

Once he crossed that boundary, the Gao Family's reach would no longer extend that far.

Chen Ye dared not rest.

The bruise on his ribs from Zhang Tieyi's kick was still throbbing with pain.

Every time he drew a breath, it felt as if someone had wedged a razor blade between his bones.

Enduring the agony, Chen Ye kept his head down and pushed on over the mountain.

The short blade was tucked into his waist; the blood on the hilt had already congealed, sticky and viscous, brushing against his hem with a soft, rustling sound.

Just as he climbed to the base of the other side without stopping, he unexpectedly heard the barking of dogs.

They were not the dogs kept by hunters, but spirit hounds.

The kind the Gao Family raised.

Separated by a mountain ridge, it was impossible to tell how far away they were.

These spirit hounds were experts at tracking, but fortunately, they were rare and precious, and the Gao Family did not have many.

Chen Ye only heard them barking from one direction; the other three were silent.

The Gao Family's movements were far faster than he had anticipated.

Chen Ye ducked behind a fallen old bamboo stalk, crouching down to steady his breathing.

He scanned his surroundings.

In the distance, the roots of the bamboo rose from the ground, gnarled and tangled, and beyond a dozen paces, there was nothing but the flickering shadows of bamboo.

He counted the voices in the distance.

There were the fewest people to the west.

He tightened his grip on the short blade, glanced at the old bamboo, and climbed up using both hands and feet. After ascending a few meters, he peered through the gaps in the leaves.

Five men.

Two walked in front, carrying crossbows.

Two followed behind, with one on the far flank.

The five men were fanning out, pressing toward his position.

After a moment of deliberation, Chen Ye slid down from the tree with light, cautious movements.

Five against one—fighting them head-on was suicide.

But the bamboo forest was dense; if he could take them out one by one without alerting the others, he would have a chance.

He pondered the route, found a thicket, and crawled inside, lying in wait like a patient leopard.

After a short while, Chen Ye saw a Gao Family guard pass by the thicket.

The guard looked to be in his twenties, about 1.6 meters tall, with a hunched back.

He clutched a crossbow in his hand, the bolt pointed downward, grumbling under his breath as he walked, clearly not taking the mountain search seriously.

Chen Ye held his breath.

The man walked a dozen paces and paused when he passed an old bamboo stalk, seemingly intending to relieve himself behind the roots, leaving his entire back exposed.

He did not hesitate for a second.

Chen Ye lunged from behind the thicket, covering the man's mouth with his left hand while drawing the short blade across his throat with his right.

The blade sliced through flesh as if cutting through thick leather, clean and efficient.

The guard let out a few muffled, guttural sounds, his fingers spasming as he pulled the trigger, sending a bolt skidding into the mud.

Chen Ye held the man's mouth for a moment, waiting until the body went completely limp before dragging it into the thicket.

He knelt on one knee beside the corpse and quickly searched his robes, finding only some loose silver.

It amounted to barely half a tael.

He exchanged all of this silver for two days of lifespan.

The numbers on the panel flickered.

[Current remaining lifespan: 23 days.]

Having done this, Chen Ye took the opportunity to snatch the crossbow and quiver from the man, slung them over his shoulder, tucked his short blade back in, and cautiously crept off in another direction.

This was the second time he had killed someone.

As expected, killing was a matter of practice; the first time was awkward, but the second time felt familiar.

Now that he had experience, his hand no longer trembled when he gripped the blade to slit a throat.

The remaining four men were spread too far apart in the woods, each able to see only the bamboo a dozen paces in front of them.

They shouted to one another every so often, and having just checked in, they had yet to realize one of their own was missing.

Borrowing the rustling sound of the wind through the bamboo leaves, Chen Ye retreated a few steps deeper into the grove, crept toward the second man, and arrived at his rear flank.

There was a raised, old tree root in the bamboo grove, half a man's height; crouching against it placed him perfectly in the target's blind spot.

He had never fired a crossbow in his life, but at this distance, as long as one notched the bolt and pulled the trigger, even a fool could hit the mark.

Having already undergone one Mortal Shedding, Chen Ye's breathing was exceptionally steady.

He crouched on the tree root, braced the crossbow body with his knee, and pulled the trigger toward the back before him.

Puchi.

Chen Ye heard the dull thud of a bolt sinking into flesh.

He saw the guard stumble forward two steps and grab onto a bamboo stalk.

A few murky gurgling sounds escaped his throat before he collapsed face-first into a pile of dead leaves.

Chen Ye walked over, crouched on the man's body, and searched him quickly.

One tael of silver.

Blood was still seeping continuously from the wound, soaking a large patch of the man's chest, leaving the tael of silver he fished out slick and greasy.

He didn't bother wiping it off and immediately redeemed it for lifespan.

[Current remaining lifespan: twenty-seven days.]

Watching the numbers on the display tick upward, Chen Ye felt a slight sense of relief.

Just then, the remaining three men finally sensed that something was wrong.

The bamboo grove fell silent for two heartbeats.

Then, someone shouted a companion's name.

Chen Ye did not respond; he reloaded the crossbow and crouched on the ground to listen to their movements.

"There's trouble over there, quick! Call for help!"

The three men stopped searching separately and began to close in rapidly, pressing toward Chen Ye's position.

They didn't have to run far before they spotted Chen Ye in the bamboo grove, and both sides raised their crossbows simultaneously.

Two bolts flew past each other and embedded themselves into the bamboo nodes behind Chen Ye, emitting two dull thud-thud sounds.

Visibility in the bamboo grove was abysmal; neither side had hit their target.

Chen Ye did not linger, retreating quickly to lean against the earthen wall of a gully on the hillside, using the power-generating method of the Array-Breaking Style to adjust his breathing rhythm.

"The three of us will surround him. As long as we stall him for a moment, the others will get our message, and he won't be able to escape."

Chen Ye glanced over; the three were gradually closing in, with him at the center.

The one on the left was the closest, and the line of sight there was the most open.

He suddenly vaulted from the gully wall and pulled the trigger on the man to his left.

The opponent reacted quickly and fired an arrow as well.

Two bolts crossed paths again, and again neither hit, but Chen Ye had already closed the distance to him.

He decisively discarded the crossbow, drew his blade, and charged, pouring all his physical strength into the short knife in his hand.

The guard hurriedly raised his blade to parry, hiding behind a stalk of moso bamboo.

But it was useless.

Chen Ye's immense force snapped the bowl-thick bamboo clean in two, and the blade, without losing momentum, grazed the guard's hilt and sliced diagonally into his side.

The man let out a muffled groan, stumbled backward, tripped over a bamboo root, and fell heavily to the ground.

Chen Ye had no time to deliver a finishing blow.

The remaining two men had already arrived.

They realized Chen Ye was alone, and the blade in his hand was already notched and nearly useless.

The two stood side by side, holding their blades horizontally in front of them, and said, "You can't escape. The foot of the mountain is crawling with Gao Family men. If you're smart, surrender now, and you might still keep your life."

Chen Ye said nothing; he weighed the notched short knife in his hand, then suddenly hurled it at them.