369 The Rescue (1/2)

Chapter 369: The Rescue

Translator: TransnEditor: Transn

As she took in the desolate land and strange sights around her, a mixture of joy and fear grew in Shangguan Ru.

From a young age, it was her dream to wander in jiang hu. In her dreams, she would always be leaving the Stone Castle in a blaze of glory and returning triumphantly, but now, she was alone and without support. She had no direction and was like a migrant bird who had left its flock.

There was a short while where she felt that the world was unfair to her. She had done nothing wrong, yet her family and friends treated her terribly and she was surrounded by lies and conspiracies since she was young.

As such, the seeds of hatred were very nearly sown in the young woman's heart.

At this moment, the chilly winds of cold, early Spring blew across and her mood suddenly became carefree. The wind had completely blown the seeds of hatred away.

However, when she recalled her past, the carefree feeling soon went away as quickly as the slight warmth in the wind.

She began to think that she was not completely innocent. She was only used to being pampered, and even if she had harmed somebody in the past without meaning to, she would be completely clueless until she experienced the same kind of hurt herself. Only then, would she understand how much pain she had caused others in the past.

She had happily tortured the slaves in the fort in the past and believed their smiles to represent their true feelings. She had even informed against Slave Huan to her father, causing the deaths of the two giant golden-crowned rocs, who were like family to Slave Huan. At that time, she was proud of her own actions, but Slave Huan dared not show that he was displeased in the least.

”There's a cause and effect to everything,” she continued thinking. ”I have to find out the real reason behind my tragic situation today.”

Her thoughts led to Shangguan Yushi, who was her closest friend and with whom she seemed to be completely open with. She could now recall that their conversations were never about her friend and they only talked about herself. ”What did Master Yu like? What did she hate? How could I not know anything about them?” she thought.

The 18-year-old Shangguan Ru was like an old person who was self-aware of her own impending death as she tried to recollect every moment in her life. She felt increasingly detached from her previous self the more she remembered. ”How could that spoilt brat be me?” she thought.

She would have been driven insane if she kept at it. Luckily, a very simple need dragged her out from the depths of self-pity.

She was hungry till the point where her stomach was slightly hurting.

She fished out some dry rations, and her hunger subsided as she ate a little. Her abdominal pain, however, kept growing stronger. She felt as if someone was poking and stirring up her insides with a pair of blunt scissors. Eventually, it grew to a point where she was unable to continue riding her horse.

he had to dismount to rest. She channelled her Internal Strength in a bid to contain the pain, but it made matters worse. She felt as though her internal energy had become thousands of tiny steel needles threading their way through her meridians. Every inch they moved caused her to feel even more immense pain.

Eventually, she gave up. She sat on a rock, hugging her knees close to her chest, comforted by the idea that she was about to die.

She was certain of the source of poison - someone had put it in her food. ”Was it Slave Huan or Maid Lotus? It doesn't matter. Both of them are as good as one,” she thought.

Sweat droplets the size of beans began rolling off her forehead onto the ground in front of her toes. The dry earth absorbed them up instantly, leaving no traces behind.

”Perhaps, a handful of grass will sprout here someday,” she thought, her nonsensical ideas still not yet completely stopped. She continued thinking that her corpse would probably provide sufficient nutrients for a small tree.

Her pain gradually stopped after two hours. She felt a little regretful that she was still alive.

”As long as I'm not dead, I have to continue living,” she thought.

She led the horse by its reins, wandering about the wilderness without any hurry. She only wanted to head southwards, as far away from her previous life as possible.

She did not travel far that entire day. The pain in her abdomen kept coming back every four to six hours and when it flared up, she had to stop and curl up with her knees close to her chest as much as possible for the pain to slowly subside.

The option of heading back to get the antidote from Slave Huan did not even cross her mind.

That night, she erected a small tent. She kept her ears peeled to the calls of the wild outside as she lay inside. She tried to bear the pain in her abdomen but it kept her awake throughout the entire night.

On the morning of the next day, she felt incredibly tired but did not wish to stop at her current spot. As such, she dismantled her tent and decided that she would travel for as far she could.

The sack for the tent was left outside the entire night, tied to a sturdy piece of rock. Just as Shangguan Ru was about to keep the folded felt tent, she noticed that there was something unexpected inside.

At first, she was shocked as she thought that it was a wild creature that had crawled into the sack in the middle of the night to escape from the cold. When she took a closer look, she discovered that it was not a creature but seemed to be a small child. It was curled up into a ball like a porcupine and looked as if it was trying to bear an abdominal pain like hers.

Shangguan Ru grabbed and lifted the intruder by its hair. She soon recognized the creased, extremely ugly face of Old Man Mu.

Her first reaction was to fling him dozens of steps away and draw her wooden saber, readying herself for a fight.

Old Man Mu tumbled around a few times after hitting the ground. He was still curled up like a shrivelled up piece of meat and he did not shout in pain or move. He seemed to have been dead for a while.

Shangguan Ru's heart was racing. As she began thinking about his terrible kung fu technique which specialized in ripping out the hearts of his opponents, it began beating even faster.

After exactly 15 minutes, she slowly moved towards Old Man Mu. She prodded him with her wooden saber for a few times with increasing force. Eventually, he gave out a weak groan, proving that he was still alive but had lost the ability to react.

Multiple questions came to her mind. Shangguan Ru did not understand how he had escaped or come to be hiding in the sack, but the most pressing question was how she should handle him.