Very Fragrant

A little black donkey came ambling down the road through the night. On its back sat a pretty young lady, while ahead of it, a maidservant with twin buns in her hair carried a small blue bundle patterned with scattered white flowers and held a lantern in her hand.

The black donkey had been fed exceptionally well, its coat sleek and gleaming. As it walked, it held its white chin high, and the two little bronze bells on its chest jingled brightly, their sound carrying far into the night.

When they reached the foot of a gentle slope, the little maid kicked something and let out a soft cry, frowning.

She wore thin cloth shoes, but what she had kicked was sharp and hard, stabbing pain into her foot. Frowning with delicate brows, the maid lowered the lantern to look and found that it was a knife. She looked farther ahead, then turned to the person on the donkey. "Oh, Miss, look!"

The lantern's light illuminated the surrounding patch of ground. Scattered weapons lay everywhere, along with the charred skeletons of wagons. Several carts leaned crookedly against the slope, while wide swathes of grass had already been burned black.

The young lady on the donkey tilted her head to look at the ground, then covered her mouth with one hand. "Oh my."

She had a pair of bright black eyes and a fair face that seemed to cast a cool glow in the night. Her hands were slender and delicate, the hands of a well-bred young lady who never left her chambers. Yet her raven hair was gathered behind her head and held only by a small wooden hairpin—hardly the attire of a noble young miss.

"This... this..." the young lady on the donkey said softly, "did they run into bandits?"

The maid pursed her lips in thought, then nodded firmly. "That must be it."

The young lady on the donkey covered her chest with her other delicate hand, her fine brows knitting together. "Then wouldn't a great many people have died?"

The maid waved her hand. "No, no, Miss, look. There are only weapons on the ground, no bloodstains. Maybe everyone is still all right."

"I've never seen anything like this before. I want to have a look." The young lady glanced toward the distant woods—towering trees melded together in the night like countless vague, looming demons, their leaves rustling in the night wind.

The little maid sighed in distress. Raising her face to the girl on the donkey, she counted on her fingers. "Ai, Miss. A few days ago, you said you'd never seen a monkey show, so we traveled for two days to watch one. Then you said you'd never heard a storyteller, so we sat in a teahouse and listened to them tell The Dragon King's Tale for a day and a half. The day before yesterday, you said you wanted flatbread, so we waited another day in Huicheng for the Hu merchants. But Miss, you also wanted to go to Weicheng to see the Lantern Festival. We won't make it at this rate!"

The young lady thought for a while in embarrassment, then sighed. "But it smells so good."

The maid's eyes widened. "Hm?"

"Over there, there's a very fragrant scent." The young lady lightly patted the donkey's rump, and the little black donkey trotted several steps into the wilderness beside the road. The young lady sniffed, then raised a slender hand and pointed toward the distant woods. "There. The scent went that way."

The maid rubbed the buns atop her head in distress. "Miss..."

"Let's go take a look." The young lady smiled faintly, revealing a row of small, snow-white teeth.

Unable to defy her young mistress, the little maid could only carry the lantern into the wild grass.

Two people and a donkey crossed the pitch-black plains, with a bean-sized point of lantern light ahead of them. Their slender figures moved through wild grass nearly as tall as a person, accompanied by the little maid's complaints. "If I'd known, I would've tattled to Master."

As she pushed aside the wild grass, she continued to nag. "I thought sneaking out with Miss would mean good food and fun things. But what happened? Everything Miss likes is stuff I got tired of ages ago. If you ask me, Miss, you can't keep doing this, running east and wandering west. The capital has the most fun things. Or else we could go toward the Vast Ocean—I heard over there—"

The young lady neither grew angry nor impatient. In fact, it seemed she had not heard a single word the maid said—she was staring into the woods with her big eyes wide open.

After walking for two quarters of an hour, the maid suddenly tripped and staggered.

This time, she took one look at the ground and sprang up like a cat. "Oh, my shoes!"

Under the lantern light, her embroidered shoes of blue satin with tiny floral patterns were stained over a large area. Darkened blood, half-dried and sticky, was smeared across the shoe's surface.

A man's corpse lay facedown in the grass, clutching half a broken branch in his hand. Blood had flowed from his neck—a finger-wide wound across his throat, cut clean and neat.

The young lady was startled as well. She covered her mouth again. "Oh, I only bought those shoes yesterday."

Then she looked at the corpse. "See? I told you people would die."

The little maid wore a miserable expression, her voice nearly breaking into tears. "Miss, let's go back—we'll definitely find lots more ahead!"

The girl on the donkey looked toward the woods and smiled with pursed lips. "I can almost smell him. Let's keep looking."

Thus mistress and servant followed the faint scent of blood, continuing toward the woods through waist-deep wild grass.

The bronze bells on the little black donkey's chest jingled again, their sound carrying far into the night.

Li Yunxin held his breath and pushed aside a clump of branches and leaves before him, catching sight of the sword-wielding swordsman. This one was not as skilled as the previous two. That did not merely refer to swordsmanship, but also to his methods of using talismans.

Both Red Pine Master and Kang Cangzi had been able to use talismans even after their qi seas were sealed. Before Li Yunxin had designed the destruction of those things, they had been immensely useful—including, but not limited to, tracking, concealment, and restoring stamina.

The swordsman before him was not nearly as capable as those two. The six of them had split up to kill people, and they were quite confident in themselves. But Li Yunxin was equally confident in himself.

They believed that having others distract the pursuers would let them escape at leisure, but now the escort agency people seemed to have brought him some trouble instead.

A man and a woman fled frantically in this direction. They appeared to be Qiao Jiaxin and Qiao Sifu. The forest was very dark, with only scraps of moonlight filtering through gaps in the branches and leaves, almost negligible. Yet Qiao Jiaxin's unique girlish scent and slender outline allowed Li Yunxin to recognize her.

The two had already slowed their movements as much as possible and softened their breathing so as not to draw attention. But their pursuer seemed even more adept at such things—the swordsman was now only one step away from Li Yunxin, advancing steadily and lightly toward them. Li Yunxin estimated that the swordsman would erupt into action when he was five steps from them. A quarter of an hour earlier, he had seen the swordsman kill that way. Within five steps, the slender sword was as fast as lightning. He could clearly see the man's intent and movements, but his body, no longer supported by spiritual power, could not handle it.

Fortunately, he had practiced Watercloud Force since childhood. When it came to holding his breath and concealing himself, he was still quite at home. Otherwise, he likely would have died at the hands of those two Daoists long ago and never survived until now.

He looked around, hoping to find something, but found nothing.

There should... be someone nearby, shouldn't there?

Otherwise, what had that female ghost been about just now?

The instant the female ghost appeared, everyone by the campfire had been badly startled. While the ghost headed toward the swordsman and they lost their heads for a moment, the escort agency people fled by another route. They had thought that vicious ghost could hold the swordsmen back, perhaps even frighten or kill them.

Who could have known that with only one slash of a sword, the female ghost vanished?

If Li Yunxin had not done something similar before, he would almost have suspected that someone was using the illusory realm methods of the Way of Painting, creating something to frighten people just as he had done earlier.

But by now, several people from the escort agency had already died, and that "expert" still had not appeared.

The swordsman was already seven steps away from the two.

At this point, Qiao Jiaxin and Qiao Sifu believed themselves temporarily safe and began speaking in low voices, utterly unaware that they had become prey.

Yet fortunately, that very conversation saved their lives.

Because Li Yunxin heard Miss Qiao whisper—

"Fourth Brother, do you think Father and the others escaped?"

Qiao Sifu probably had no mind to answer her, or perhaps simply did not know what to say.

So Qiao Jiaxin spoke again, as if talking to herself. "I wonder how he is... I hope he escaped too."

Li Yunxin sighed inwardly.

It seemed that everything he had done before had changed his image in this girl's heart once again. Aside from his parents, she seemed to be the first person in this world to show him sincere yet utterly unprompted goodwill.

Which made this... troublesome.

If he had not heard those words, he could probably have gritted his teeth, hardened his heart, and allowed the swordsman to kill the two of them and leave, after which he could quietly withdraw.

But now, he felt that he probably could not do that.

It was not a matter of righteousness, compassion, or anything of the sort. It was because if this girl, after saying those words, were immediately killed before his eyes...

His thoughts would remain obstructed.

The night wind rose again, and leaves rustled through the forest. Li Yunxin took out his brush from his sleeve.

This brush had been with him for nearly ten years. Its tip remained sharp, round, even, and resilient, proving that it was no ordinary item. But to him, it was merely convenient to use. It did not even look as good as one of those twenty-five-yuan Taobao brushes from his era.

He could not produce an array painting like the one from earlier now, but he could still scare people. A painter's most important quality was keen observation. Fortunately, whether in his previous life or this one, he had always been the sort of person who liked staring blankly at an object or person.

First, you had to see clearly their essence, vitality, and spirit. You had to see the flow of spiritual energy within him, her, or it. The Great Dao had no form, yet heaven and earth possessed spirit—even a table had spiritual power within it.

Once you discerned its origin, you could paint it with paper and brush, forging countless threads of connection with its will and soul, and create a phantom image. According to his parents, this was truly the most basic introductory technique for painters. Yet in this mundane world, it was already an astonishing immortal art.

He had previously painted an image of the Ninth Young Master, and so the Ninth Young Master sensed it and came to relieve his predicament.

Now that he wanted to save Qiao Jiaxin, he had to use the same method again.

With skills practiced for over a decade, he completed it in almost a single breath. A slip of paper was hidden in his sleeve. With a flick of his wrist, his fingers moved so swiftly they left afterimages, and a little figure sprang vividly onto the page.

The swordsman took another step. Only six steps now separated him from Qiao Jiaxin and Qiao Sifu.

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