Rain had fallen that morning, leaving everything sodden.
When the cold wind blew, the newly yellowed locust leaves spun down through the air. The scent of pine needles mingled with wet earth, and little red fruits of some unknown kind poked out beside the road, only to be knocked back into the grass by the creaking carriage.
The wheels rolled through puddles, splashing muddy water.
The return journey was a little more comfortable, because He Ning had asked for a bundle of dry grass to pad the carriage.
Holding up her umbrella and carefully keeping both herself and the grass beneath her dry, she finally had a moment to quietly admire the mountains in the rain.
Now and then, a dark shadow flashed through the woods.
While they traveled, Black Snake hunted two pheasants. After autumn arrived, pheasants often appeared in the shrubs at the foot of the mountains. Their feathers were almost the same color as the dead grass, making them hard to distinguish. Fortunately, Black Snake's heat-sensing ability could see straight through their camouflage.
The carriage creaked all the way back to the foot of the mountain beneath the Azure Cloud Monastery.
He Ning thanked the driver, picked up her bundle, and hurried uphill. Black Snake had already reached the summit and coiled on a cold, wet rock, making do with absorbing a little rain vapor.
Once the mist had dispersed completely, he began recalling what he had seen and heard on this outing. He seemed to have learned something, yet also seemed to have grasped nothing at all.
His greatest problem now was that he could not distinguish good from evil, nor tell whether he himself was good or evil.
The more contact he had with the outside world, the more he felt an intangible strain. It