"Everyone, we have to get up early to travel tomorrow. You should get some rest while you can!"
Night fell, and two campfires burned on the boundless wilderness. Seeing that everyone had eaten their dry rations, Meng Hai stood up and spoke to Lu Mingyue and her three companions.
Lu Mingyue had been gazing at the stars filling the sky. At his words, she lowered her head and glanced at Meng Hai.
She had sensed it very clearly just now: when Escort Chief Meng mentioned resting, his gaze lingered on her for two extra breaths.
Lu Mingyue raised her slender brows slightly.
Escort Chief Meng had been perfectly courteous throughout the journey. Besides, she was a young woman, so not only he but even the others from the escort agency rarely let their gazes fall on her. Clearly, he kept his men under strict discipline.
But that look just now...
"Escort Chief Meng is right. All this traveling has worn me out. We're almost at Taiping City now. We really should get some proper rest!"
Just then, Guo Ding laughed in agreement, then pulled Yang Qin up from beside the campfire and said to Lu Mingyue and Bai Zishan:
"Brother Bai, Miss Lu, my wife and I will turn in first!"
Bai Zishan glanced at the pair with some shyness, drew his feet back, and gave a nod by way of an answer.
"See you tomorrow!"
Lu Mingyue, however, looked at the two and offered a polite smile.
Of course she had noticed Guo Yang's little gestures over the past two days.
She had originally thought they were worried about encountering rogue cultivators. Now, it seemed the situation might not be what she had imagined.
After all, if rogue cultivators might appear, Escort Chief Meng would hardly keep it from them.
Yet Escort Chief Meng seemed to have warned her just now without saying anything outright. That meant the danger probably lay among their own group...
Crackle.
Guo Yang returned to their carriage, while Escort Chief Meng and the others beside the other campfire lay down to rest as well. This left Lu Mingyue, who wanted a definite answer, rather speechless.
Escort Chief Meng really was cautious to excess.
Was he worried his little gestures would alert Guo Yang?
"I'm going to rest too. Brother Bai, see you tomorrow!"
Lu Mingyue clapped her hands, glanced at Bai Zishan, then rose and returned to her carriage.
Although it was summer, the temperature dropped sharply in the wilderness after nightfall. Even with a campfire burning, it felt somewhat chilly.
Thus, over the past few days, they had all slept inside their carriages, while Escort Chief Meng and his men took turns keeping watch around the campfires.
"What a shame to waste a night sky full of stars!"
Lying inside her carriage, Lu Mingyue opened the window and looked at the scattered stars overhead.
So many years had passed since she crossed over. She wondered how her family in the other world was doing...
Although her family in that world had not treated Lu Mingyue particularly well, whenever she thought about how she had already spent eighteen years in this world, while people in that world still faced birth, aging, sickness, and death, she was unwilling to dwell on it.
"Perhaps once I become a true immortal, I'll be able to return to that world?"
Repeating that wish to herself, Lu Mingyue kept a trace of vigilance as she slowly closed her eyes.
The night gradually deepened.
The two campfires in the wilderness were like two sparks, inconspicuous from a distance.
Apart from the escorts keeping watch, Bai Zishan had also returned to his carriage.
Because of Meng Hai's instructions that evening, the escorts who should have been divided between the two campfires were now all gathered around him.
Their campfire was a dozen or so meters away from the three carriages, an arrangement Meng Hai had made from the outset. His stated reason was to avoid startling the horses.
Unexpectedly, tonight it had become a legitimate reason for them to stay far from the three carriages.
"Mingyue..."
Lu Mingyue felt that she had slept very deeply, so deeply that, in her haze, she seemed to hear Old Lu calling her.
"Mingyue..."
"Grandpa!"
Lu Mingyue abruptly opened her eyes. Looking at her grandfather before her and the burning courtyard, she felt a chill in her heart and could not help looking around.
It was that courtyard in Yangguan City!
Having lived there for more than a decade, Lu Mingyue knew it all too well. This was the place where she and her grandfather had spent their days together for more than ten years!
"Mingyue... Grandpa picked you up out of the snow and raised you... How could you bear to kill Grandpa with your own hands?"
Just as horror filled Lu Mingyue's heart, Old Lu's face suddenly appeared before her, only a palm's breadth away.
"Grandpa..."
Every hair on Lu Mingyue's back stood on end. She formed a hand seal, and feeling the abundant Origin Power within her, she grew slightly reassured and did not cast a spell immediately.
But Old Lu before her began to change.
One side of his aged head suddenly caved in, and his entire face looked as though it had been smashed flat.
Red and white matter flowed from Old Lu's collapsed temple, covering his face.
One of his eyeballs had fallen out, but his remaining eye still stared fixedly at Lu Mingyue.
"Mingyue... Grandpa doesn't want to die... How could you be so cruel as to kill Grandpa...?"
Old Lu shakily reached out, seemingly intending to pat Lu Mingyue's head gently, just as he had when she was a child.
Two trails of tears slipped uncontrollably from Lu Mingyue's eyes.
After more than a decade spent together day and night, she had long since come to regard the old man before her as family. How could she bear to kill her grandfather with her own hands?
But-
"Grandpa... I'm sorry... I don't want to die either!"
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Lu Mingyue took a step back, avoiding the hand reaching to pat her head, tears streaming down her entire face.
"You little girl..."
Old Lu seemed to be chiding her and did not look angry, yet his right hand suddenly raised a bloodstained kindling cleaver.
Whoosh!
The kindling cleaver slashed down toward Lu Mingyue.
Lu Mingyue looked down and saw Huahua at her grandfather's feet, still biting his leg without letting go, even in death.
Her grandfather's kindling cleaver had severed Huahua's neck, leaving only a strip of skin barely keeping Huahua's head from falling off.
"Grandpa... I don't want to die! I want to live!"
In a flash of lightning, a spark struck from flint, the kindling cleaver was already above her head. Lu Mingyue withdrew her gaze, opened her mouth, and spat out a burst of flame, engulfing the old man before her.
"Aah-!"
Heart-rending screams came from the burning old man's mouth. He staggered backward and fell, reduced to a charred corpse in the blink of an eye.
Lu Mingyue wiped the tears from her face and looked up to examine the courtyard before her, trying to find a way out.
She was already certain this was only a dream.
But the dream was so real that she had failed to recognize it at first.
Yet before Lu Mingyue could find a way to leave this eerie dream, the charred corpse on the ground suddenly stood up again.
? ? Thanks to dear reader "2021...8209" for the two monthly votes~
? Thanks to dear reader "Birthday Cake" for the monthly vote~
? Maybe I should have asked for votes right from the start? (covers face)
? These past few days, I've been reading other authors' books. They all started asking for votes as soon as they launched their books, and their stats are much better than mine!
? I feel like I've missed out on so many of your votes... T^T
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