"Ah, Master, I'm almost dead!" Gu San wailed as he slumped over Fan Yi's back, two bundles dangling around Fan Yi's neck.
"Didn't you want to learn martial arts? There's plenty more suffering ahead of you!" Fan Yi said earnestly. "Back in the day, your master here... I endured far more hardship than you. How else do you think your master achieved this level of cultivation?"
*Ahem...* To be fair, he *had* endured a tiny bit of hardship before unlocking Mingjin.
*Em...*
As an adult, one occasionally had to tell a few well-intentioned white lies. What else was he supposed to say? *"Your master is simply a peerless genius whose cultivation skyrocketed all on its own, completely unstoppable"*?
Wouldn't that shatter a young child's mental state? As a first-time master, Fan Yi felt he really needed to be careful about such things.
Right, he definitely had to cultivate this disciple properly—it would come in handy later for putting on airs.
"Master, haven't we found an inn yet?" Gu San was exhausted and starving. The sparkle had completely vanished from his eyes, and he looked utterly wilted.
"There's dried meat in the bundle, and tea in your master's gourd," Fan Yi said.
"Why on earth are you carrying tea in a wine gourd, Master?" Gu San asked, bewildered.
"Less chatter!" Fan Yi reached out and knocked Gu San on the head.
*I'm still a minor, how am I supposed to drink alcohol?* Of course, he wasn't about to say that to Gu San.
Damn it all. Three hours ago they had passed an inn, but seeing that the sun hadn't set yet, he had decided to push on. Who would have thought that night would fall without another inn in sight?
"Sigh, I still lack experience," Fan Yi muttered, cranking his Tread-Sky Step up to full power.
Half an hour later, Fan Yi finally spotted a dilapidated Mountain God temple.
"Good disciple, now your master is going to test your courage." Fan Yi put Gu San down with a solemn expression. "Go take a look inside the temple!"
Gu San stared blankly at the ancient temple ahead.
In the moonlight, the temple was overgrown with weeds, and most of its surrounding wall had collapsed. The front gates stood wide open. Inside, right in the middle of the hall, stood a dilapidated, two-meter-tall wooden statue of a Mountain God with a green face, fangs, and three heads and six arms.
At that moment, a cold gust of wind blew, and an owl suddenly fluttered out of a tree with a startled beat of its wings.
"Ah...!"
Terrified, Gu San rushed over to hug Fan Yi's leg, looking up with a pitiful expression. For some reason, he always felt his master was deeply unreliable.
Fan Yi secretly swallowed a lump in his throat.
Truth be told, in novels, Mountain God temples always seemed to be haunted by fox spirits or serpent beauties. What if they took a fancy to his body? That was precisely why he had sent the child to scout the path—surely those entities wouldn't extend their sinful hands to a mere kid, right?
Otherwise, the censors would ban them!
He hadn't thought much of it before, but ever since he learned that the people from Tianmen Gate seemed to have found some Qi Refiner techniques, he had become rather paranoid.
"Ahem." Fan Yi looked down at Gu San's pitiful little face and decided this wasn't very becoming of a master.
"What are you afraid of? It's just an owl." Fan Yi patted Gu San's head. "Follow your master inside!"
*Dark, gloomy, and terrifying*—that was Gu San's summary of the Mountain God temple. He was convinced he was going to have nightmares here.
However, his master seemed as stubborn as an old turtle chewing on a weight stone and was dead set on resting here. Consequently, Gu San clung desperately to the cuff of Fan Yi's robe and refused to let go.
Fan Yi wore a helpless expression. It wasn't that he insisted on resting here; it was just that while sleeping outside in this fickle early-spring weather was no big deal for him, Gu San's scrawny frame simply couldn't handle it.
As a side note, the large bundle belonged to Gu San, while the small one was his own. Fan Yi had only brought some silver banknotes, a change of clothes, and some dried meat. His own clothes were just single summer layers that took up virtually no space.
Gu San, on the other hand, had packed heavy winter gear—he simply couldn't compare to Fan Yi, who was already immune to heat and cold.
Dragging Gu San, who was clinging to him for dear life, Fan Yi finally managed to build a campfire.
"With your master here, you don't need to fear even if the sky falls!" Fan Yi sat cross-legged and patted Gu San's head.
As it turned out, Gu San had already fallen asleep while clinging to the hem of Fan Yi's robe during the fire-starting process, a tiny trail of drool leaking from the corner of his mouth.
*Next time, I'm definitely bringing a flint striker!* Fan Yi thought silently. Looking speechlessly at his stained robe hem, he carefully pulled a thick garment out of Gu San's bundle and draped it over the boy.
The campfire crackled from time to time.
Fan Yi, who had been sitting with his eyes closed to rest, suddenly snapped them open.
With the index finger of his right hand, he tapped the back of Gu San's neck, then gently sliced through the hem of his own robe, and soared directly out of the Mountain God temple.
Beneath the wooden Mountain God statue, a small figure clutching a piece of torn fabric lay fast asleep beside the campfire.
After a few bounds, Fan Yi stood atop a budding tall tree deep in the back mountain, his eyes blazing as he stared fixedly at a patch of bushes ahead.
"So many breathing sounds?" Fan Yi frowned as he looked toward the thicket. "I want to see what kind of games you're playing."
*Squeak, squeak...*
At night, all living creatures rested, but the insects were exceptionally active.
With a peculiar expression, Fan Yi listened closely, a faint, half-amused smile playing on his lips.
"A code?" Fan Yi thought to himself. "Every single insect chirp corresponds to a change in someone's breathing rhythm."
Indeed, this was a group of people communicating in code.
"The target is almost here. Stay alert!"
"Remember, no survivors!"
Of course, Fan Yi knew nothing of this; he didn't possess a cipher manual.
Yet, relying on his powerful senses augmented by spiritual force, Fan Yi knew that the people this group had been waiting for were finally arriving!
Twenty-six people and a carriage were traveling along the main road.
The moment this ambush party arrived, the insect chirps stopped entirely. Fan Yi knew they were adjusting their states, preparing to strike.
...
Tonight, the moonlight was hazy and the sky was blanketed with twinkling, densely scattered stars. Under the night veil, the group carrying torches remained entirely unaware of the murderous intent ahead.
Fan Yi had no intention of stepping in. While he was a bit chuunibyou, he wasn't brainless. If it were ordinary bandits robbing travelers, that would be one thing. But assassins meant a personal feud—and a wealthy family feud at that.
After all, ordinary people couldn't afford to hire assassins.
Who knew which side was righteous and which was evil? Besides, he had figured out in his past life that many things in this world could not be simply divided into right and wrong.
"Squeak, squeak." Another insect chirp rang out.
"They're about to make their move!" Fan Yi knew this party was mostly doomed. He then split a portion of his focus to sense Gu San back in the temple.
"Stupid kid, don't let a wolf drag you off." After double-checking that he had cleared all poisonous snakes within dozens of meters of the Mountain God temple, Fan Yi shifted his gaze back to the battlefield.
Sure enough, as the insect chirps ceased, twenty-seven dark figures burst from the bushes and lunged straight toward the caravan!
"Professional killers," Fan Yi mused quietly. These fellows, the strongest of whom were only at the Seventh Layer of Dark Jin, had charged out of the brush without making a single superfluous sound!
Clearly, these were assassins specially trained in unique methods!
Even when he was at the Ninth Layer of Dark Jin, Fan Yi couldn't have pulled that off. The only explanation was that these people had been trained from childhood using specialized methods to condition their muscle tissue.
Not only that, their intelligence gathering was impeccably precise: twenty-seven people, one to deal with each guard, leaving the Third-Layer Dark Jin thugs to assassinate the target inside the carriage.
"However, these folks probably didn't expect the other party to have a trump card up their sleeve," Fan Yi smiled faintly. He could sense three people inside the carriage. One of them had a breathing rhythm that was slow, deep, and steady, with a strong, powerful heartbeat—several times more vigorous than that Seventh-Layer fellow!
The Seventh-Layer Dark Jin assassin clutched a slender sword and plunged into the carriage like a ghost.
"Audacious!" With a roar that shook the entire carriage, the vehicle shuddered violently!