Evening fell, and the unit made camp by a stream.
Li Danggui unhooked his homemade fish spear from his belt, and in less than a quarter of an hour, he had speared five or six fat fish.
He foraged nearby, unearthing a few edible wild mushrooms and medicinal herbs from the underbrush, and even brought back a clutch of wild bird eggs.
"Kid, were you a hunter before?" Chen Feng asked, sitting cross-legged by the campfire while grilling fish.
Li Danggui shook his head. "I often went into the mountains with my sister to gather herbs when I was little. After a while, I got used to it."
Zhao Wushang took a bite of grilled fish and raised an eyebrow. "This fish isn't fishy at all. What did you add?"
"There's wild ginger and mountain pepper by the stream. It removes the gamey taste and brings out the flavor." Li Danggui pointed to his pack. "I also picked some mint leaves to steep in tea. It helps ward off fatigue."
Several veterans exchanged glances, their expressions showing a growing sense of approval.
Late into the night, most of the squad had fallen asleep, leaving only two night-watch guards and Li Danggui.
"I heard you're from Baicaotang?" Wang Tie, the veteran on watch, asked in a low voice.
Li Danggui nodded. "My sister is an apothecary."
"No wonder you know so many herbs." Wang Tie smiled. "The styptic grass you found a couple of days ago saved my brother's life."
Another veteran leaned over. "Who did you learn your swordsmanship from? It doesn't look like the style used in the army camp."
Li Danggui fell silent for a moment. "I figured it out on my own."
The veteran remained puzzled, but he didn't press further. Anyone chosen by Ning Fu certainly couldn't be ordinary.
Not far away, perched on a tree branch, Ning Fu stood with her sword in her arms, coldly watching the camp.
Baize's voice suddenly sounded by her ear: "Do you think bringing him along was the right choice now?"
Ning Fu didn't turn her head. "He knows the mountains and forests, nothing more."
Baize chuckled softly, and a route map for the next day materialized on his bamboo slip. "There's a karst cave three miles ahead. The Shadow Stalkers are likely hiding there."
Ning Fu's gaze turned frosty. "We're finally going to meet."
She leaped down from the tree branch, the frost from the Cold Chi Sword tracing a silver line through the trees as she headed straight for the dark depths ahead.
The pre-dawn mist lingered in the forest. Li Danggui squatted by the stream to wash his face, the ice-cold water snapping him fully awake.
The conversation with the veterans last night still echoed in his ears—they had started calling him "little apothecary" instead of "newbie."
"What are you daydreaming about?"
Ning Fu's voice came from behind, a fraction less severe than usual.
When the young man turned around, his breath hitched slightly—today, General Ning was not wearing her helmet, and her dark hair was tied up high, revealing the jade-like line of her neck.
The wind and sun of the military camp had failed to mar her in the least.
Her skin remained as white as fresh snow, her brows like sharp swords, the bridge of her nose straight, and those cold, clear eyes resembled a frozen pool reflecting a chilly moon, the outer corners uptilted, carrying a natural majesty.
When the soldiers in the camp spoke of General Ning, they always liked to call her the cold beauty of the Rouge Rankings, discussing her handsome features and upright posture.
"Speaking of the beauties on the Rouge Rankings..."
Li Danggui had heard that kind of opening line far too often.
They always loved to compare the elegance of Lady Hongxiao to the allure of Miss Ziyan...
And they always ended up coming back around to their own general's cold, striking beauty.
Yet Li Danggui never cared about any of that.
Lady Hongxiao of Exquisite House had shown him kindness, and he held her in grateful regard.
Miss Ziyan of Fengyu Tower was a stranger he had never met, so what did she have to do with him?
As for General Ning—he was never infatuated with her appearance the way others were.
What he liked best was simply the sight of her in fish-scale armor, holding her sword as she walked ahead—the silver armor reflecting the morning light, and wherever her long sword pointed was the direction he was willing to go through fire and water.
"What are you spacing out for? Didn't you hear me talking to you?"
Ning Fu frowned, only to see the young man still staring blankly at her.
She suddenly felt her ears burn and hastily tried to cover it up with an even colder tone.
She was far too familiar with that look in men's eyes.
Yet the gaze of the young man before her was as clean as the snow of the northern lands, clearly carrying nothing but pure admiration.
This was why Ning Fu rarely grew angry with him.
It suddenly made her remember that night after sword practice in the moonlight, when the young man had pulled a sword tassel from his tunic with a blushing face.
He had said it was to thank her for teaching him sword forms.
At the time, she had simply thought it overly sentimental and casually shoved it into her sleeve pocket.
Yet when she looked closely at it by the candlelight that night, she realized that every woven knot was exceptionally neat, with a small turquoise bead dangling from the tassel's end—something so intricate must have taken countless sleepless nights to craft.
In her memory, that was the first time anyone had ever given her a gift.
This morning, acting on a sudden impulse, she had finally tied it to the hilt of her sword.
The reason she had come to find him was naturally so he could see it.
Surely, when he was weaving the sword tassel, he must have wanted to see what it looked like hanging from a sword.
At that moment, the indigo fringe was swaying gently with the movement of her hand holding the sword, yet this silly boy was just staring fixedly at her face.
"Oh, I... I heard you. This subordinate was just thinking..." Li Danggui pointed toward the faint outline of the mountain cliff in the distance, "Mr. Baize said the karst cave should be right beneath that rock wall."
The frost from the Cold Chi Sword suddenly spread across the ground, freezing into a clear route map.
Ning Fu's sword tip drew a cross at a certain spot: "We move out at the Sih hour. You are responsible for identifying medicinal herb traces."
With that, she turned to leave.
Then, her footsteps suddenly halted.
"Does the General have any other instructions?" Li Danggui asked in confusion.
Ning Fu pressed her lips together, then suddenly half-drew her long sword with a sharp *clang*.
Sunlight pierced through the fluttering sword tassel, tracing a luminous arc before the young man's eyes.
"Before we set out on the expedition today," she turned her face away to look at the distant banners, "I wanted to show you what it looks like hanging from the sword."
The turquoise bead struck the sword guard, producing a crisp, clear chime.
It sounded precisely like the frantic beating of the young man's heart at that moment.
The entrance of the karst cave resembled a ferocious maw, with hanging blood vines acting like fangs, dripping dark red sap.
Li Danggui crouched down, his fingertips lightly touching the ground—on the damp moss, several three-toed claw prints were clearly visible.
"They just went in not long ago," he whispered.
Ning Fu stood at the very front, the Cold Chi Sword slightly unsheathed as frost spread across the ground, solidifying into a guiding silver line.
She didn't speak, merely raising a hand to make a gesture—"Spread out, encircle them."
Twenty elite soldiers instantly split into four groups, silently clinging to the rock wall like shadows.
Chen Feng led five men to flank the side, Zhao Wushang took archers to occupy the high ground, Baize also observed from an elevated vantage point, Wang Tie led the shield and blade men to cut off the retreat, and Ning Fu personally took Li Danggui and three close-combat experts straight into the depths of the karst cave.
The interior of the cave was damp and chilly, the stone walls covered in glowing fungi that cast an eerie, greenish glow across the entire space.
*Clack.*
A slight sound of grinding bones came from the shadows.
Ning Fu's sword light suddenly burst forth!
The Cold Chi Sword struck like a silver dragon emerging from the abyss, instantly piercing through a deformed figure lunging from the dark—the creature possessed a human-like body, yet topped with a rotting wolf's head, its spine twisted and deformed, extending centipede-like bone appendages.
Ning Fu gave a sharp warning: "Fall back!"
Before her voice had even faded, dense clusters of crimson pupils lit up in the depths of the karst cave!
Baize, watching from the high ground, frowned.
"Not Shadow Stalkers..." He lightly touched the bamboo slip at his waist, which suddenly vibrated as a Bagua formation map rapidly spun across its surface. "They're Corpse Puppets."
His silver hair fluttered without wind, a faint, wondrous glow reflecting within his pale pupils.
His gaze swept across the cavern, lingered briefly on Ning Fu's resolute back, and then brushed over Li Danggui's hand gripping the sword hilt—that hand was steady, without the slightest tremor.
The bamboo slip gradually calmed, its divination signs returning to blankness.
Baize's mouth curved upward in an imperceptible smile.
"Form up!" Ning Fu shouted coldly. The Cold Chi Sword swept horizontally, frost shattering as the foremost three Corpse Puppets instantly froze, only to be hacked to pieces by Chen Feng, who rushed up right behind her!
Zhao Wushang loosed arrows from the heights, the shafts piercing precisely into the eye sockets of the Corpse Puppets, yet those monsters seemed entirely insensible to pain, snapping the arrow shafts as they continued their charge.
Li Danggui pressed his back against the rock wall, his blade slicing across the throat of a Corpse Puppet. The moment black blood sprayed forth, another creature had already lunged toward his back—
"Duck!" Wang Tie's shield whistled through the air, directly smashing that monster into the stone wall!
The battle was fierce, but the twenty elites of the Chiwen Army coordinated seamlessly, actually managing to suppress dozens of Corpse Puppets!
Just as the horde of Corpse Puppets was on the verge of collapsing, the entire karst cave violently shuddered!
*Bang!*
The rock wall fractured, and a massive figure stepped out over the shattered rubble—it had the head of a tiger and a human body, with a three-meter-long bone tail extending from its spine, leaving behind corrosive scorch marks on the ground with every step it took.
"Iron Fang..." Ning Fu's gaze turned icy cold.
Ning Fu didn't waste words.
She took a single step forward, the Cold Chi Sword erupting with dazzling frost as her entire body shot straight toward Iron Fang's throat like a silver lightning bolt!
*Clang!*
Iron Fang's bone tail swept horizontally, colliding with the sword edge in a shower of sparks!
A shockwave exploded, sending the surrounding soldiers stumbling backward.
"Clear out the Corpse Puppets," Ning Fu said, her voice as cold as an ice blade. "This one is mine."
Before her words had faded, she had already lunged forward once more, her Cold Chi Sword churning into a storm of silver, every single strike aimed precisely at Iron Fang's joint vulnerabilities!
Iron Fang roared, its bone tail whipping about in a wild sweep, yet it never managed to touch even a shred of her clothing—Ning Fu's footwork was fast to the point of being ghostly, her sword techniques as fierce as a sweeping gale of snow, actually forcing the massive Corpse Puppet to retreat step by step!
*Crack!*
The Cold Chi Sword finally found an opening, slicing through Iron Fang's bone tail with a single stroke!
The moment corrupt blood gushed forth, Ning Fu spun and leaped into the air, her blade transforming into a desolate slice of moonlight from bottom to top—
*Screech!*
The tiger head flew into the air, and Iron Fang's headless torso crashed heavily to its knees.
A dead silence fell over the karst cave.
Ning Fu sheathed her sword, her hair not even slightly disheveled as she turned around.
She looked at the blood-stained soldiers and uttered only two words:
"Clean up."
The karst cave was thick with the stench of decay and blood. The twenty elite soldiers bandaged their wounds and cleared the battlefield.
Iron Fang's headless corpse lay on the ground, the black blood already congealed, yet the severed end of the bone tail was still twitching slightly, as if retaining some bizarre trace of life.
Li Danggui used the tip of his sword to flip over a piece of shattered bone, his brow deeply furrowed. "This thing... is a Shadow Stalker?"
"Of course not."
A clear voice echoed from the cave entrance.
Everyone turned back to see Baize holding his bamboo slip as he slowly stepped inside.
His robes were spotlessly clean, utterly out of place amidst the gore of the cave, and the ink on the bamboo slip flowed of its own accord, as if recording something.
"These are called Corpse Puppets. Neither living nor dead, they are mere automatons," Baize squatted down, suspending the bamboo slip over Iron Fang's remains.
"There is a kind of pale mycelium that burrows into flesh, corroding internal organs, and ultimately twists and mutates the bone structure to form a new killing vessel.
Iron Fang's tiger head and bone tail were both the result of forced modification," Baize said indifferently.
The remains of the Corpse Puppets in the cave had already been burned to ashes, the acrid smoke swirling upward to form a distorted gray shadow at the entrance.
Ning Fu stood high upon the rock wall, the Cold Chi Sword reflecting the morning light while frost sketched erratic footprints across the ground—there were no footprints of living men, only the claw marks of Corpse Puppets.
"The Shadow Stalkers aren't here," she said, her voice cold and hard. "They deliberately led us here."
Li Danggui's heart tightened.
If the Shadow Stalkers' target wasn't the northern suburban forest, where could they have gone?
"A feint to the east while attacking the west," Baize said.
After the battle in the karst cave, Ning Fu did not pause her steps.
The twenty elites of the Chiwen Camp continued pushing deeper into the northern suburbs, constantly discovering traces left behind by the Shadow Stalkers along the way—broken branches hung with scales, three-toed claw marks pressed into the damp soil, and even several gnawed remains of wild beasts, their bones still coated in corrosive saliva.
Mist wove like a spiderweb through the forest, and the sole of Ning Fu's boot crushed a glowing scale.
The frost from the Cold Chi Sword meandered across the ground, outlining chaotic tracks—webbed three-toed prints interspersed with a few slender human footprints.
"Two kinds of traces." Li Danggui pushed aside a dew-soaked spiderweb and suddenly froze.
"Not ordinary Shadow Stalkers," Baize's voice carried a rare solemnity. "There is a 'Rain Master' guiding them."
The unit instantly tensed.
The Rain Masters of the Kuru Tribe could manipulate poisonous rain, bringing plagues wherever they passed.
Ning Fu's sword tip pressed slightly downward, and a line of frost suddenly erupted on the ground, darting like a silver snake toward the northeast—
"Pursue."
Deep within the dense forest, the mist grew thicker.
The members of the Chiwen Camp followed the trail, arriving by a quiet stream.
The stream should have been clear, but at present it carried an eerie, greenish hue, rotting lotus flowers floating upon the surface and emitting a cloying, sweet scent.
Standing in the center of the stream was a woman.
Draped in a pale cyan robe, her sleeves fluttered without wind, and her bare feet trod upon the water's surface without leaving a single trace of dampness.
Her long hair hung down like a waterfall, unbound and unbraided, yet the tips drifted slightly as if alive, guided by invisible silk threads.
Cupped in her hands was a clay jar, its rim constantly dripping muddy liquid. Every single drop that fell into the stream caused a ring of sickly colored radiance to ripple outward.
Behind her, a Shadow Stalker crouched quietly, its scales gleaming with a pearlescent luster, entirely devoid of the frantic nature of ordinary monsters; instead, it guarded her side as quietly as a tamed hound.
The woman slowly raised her head, revealing a pale yet delicate face.
Her eyes possessed no pupils, only a hazy expanse of mist that seemed capable of devouring all light.
Her gaze swept past the unit and landed directly upon Li Danggui.
"Little apothecary," she spoke softly, her voice like raindrops falling onto a lake, carrying a faint, elusive smile. "We meet again."
Li Danggui trembled all over, his pupils violently contracting.
"It's you..." His voice tightened. "That night by the Blackwater River..."
The woman's smile deepened. "It seems you still remember me."
Ning Fu's sword blade abruptly swung toward Li Danggui, the freezing aura almost tearing the air apart.
"You know her?" Her voice was bone-chillingly cold.
A chill struck Li Danggui's heart, and he hurriedly explained, "No! She suddenly appeared that night by the Blackwater River, and I—"
"Suddenly appeared?" Ning Fu sneered. "And then what? What did you two do?"