After finishing lunch, the group continued forward. The road began to grow difficult, with massive ice falls and exposed black rocks everywhere. Yun Ye spotted marmots constantly appearing and disappearing, so he took out his ice axe and climbed up along a small path. Among the ice and snow were pale green snow lotuses everywhere. Since it wasn’t the right season, he couldn’t see them in full bloom, but for medicinal purposes, these were already excellent.
Snow lotuses only bloom after growing for four or five years, and they’re a fine medicine for women. Yun Ye took out his small knife and cut the snow lotus from its roots, placing them into his backpack to take back for Na Rimu.
Liu Jinbao was clever—seeing his lordship taking action, he immediately set to work as well. His agility was far superior to Yun Ye’s, and in no time he had gathered many. Wu She also picked one, tore off a petal and chewed it twice, then spat it out and said to Yuan Shoucheng: “Indeed quite good, though the medicinal properties are cooling in nature—this should be medicinal material for women’s use.”
“Disdaining to be grouped with common grasses, how noble and solitary is its fragrance! Why is it not appreciated by people, enduring the harsh frost in deep mountains and remote valleys?” Yun Ye raised his head and sang out, his clear voice carrying far and startling away those marmots that had been poking their heads about.
“Marquis Yun, this is a dangerous place. We shouldn’t linger long—it was right here last year that we encountered the snow dragons,” Yuan Shoucheng warned Yun Ye.
Yun Ye smiled without responding. Seeing that everyone had gathered several snow lotuses, they continued forward. The pine trees on both sides were gradually becoming shorter, and the pine forest had also become much sparser. Walk a bit further and perhaps only low shrub forests would remain.
A bear was rubbing its back against a tree as if no one else existed, its body plump, indicating this fellow had eaten well this month. It should have no interest in attacking people. When the snow melted, many animal carcasses that had been frozen for half a year by ice and snow would be exposed, enough for it to feast on. Moreover, last year Yuan Shoucheng had left over forty corpses here.
Being able to find jade stones was truly a delightful thing. That fist-sized jade stone was crystal clear, not at all like raw stone, and when held in hand it even had traces of warmth. Yun Ye happily placed this warm jade into Liu Jinbao’s backpack.
Yuan Shoucheng’s expression was very unpleasant. He had come to find the immortal land, yet Yun Ye’s behavior was more like a spring outing. However, he seemed to have truly come at the wrong time. Last time upon reaching here, he had already lost over a dozen men, but now, not only had no crisis occurred, they could even gather medicinal herbs and pick up gemstones. The greatest threats were just that bear scratching its itch earlier and the massive rock eagles constantly circling overhead.
These eagles were extremely large, with wingspans of a full zhang when spread, able to easily lift rock sheep weighing sixty or seventy jin. Yun Ye’s greatest hope in ascending the Tianshan Mountains was to catch two young eagles to take home and raise.
When in Chang’an, everyone else carried sparrowhawks, but he didn’t know how to handle them. He borrowed one from Zhangsun Chong’s family to make do, but who knew the sparrowhawk would slap him in the face with its wing, leaving him unable to see people for half a month. He became a laughingstock among the dandies.
If he could get two such rock eagles back, when hunting again next time, he wouldn’t have the rock eagles catch prey—instead, they’d specifically catch other people’s hunting dogs. Let’s see if those bastards would still dare to mock his past.
Han Zhe’s family had two such eagles, unfortunately he had released them himself, but those iron pieces for controlling eagles were still around—at this time they might come in handy.
A loud eagle’s cry rang out. A eagle dove down like an arrow in attack. Snow powder immediately flew up from the nearby snow mountain. When the eagle flew up again, they discovered it had a snow dragon over a zhang long grasped in its claws. At this time, the snow dragon’s body had already returned to white, its head crushed to pulp by the eagle’s two talons, hanging limply in the air.
“Mister Yuan, look—it’s like this. In this world, one thing restrains another. At this time, eagles come out to forage, and all those snow dragons have hidden away, so we can swagger up the mountain,” Yun Ye said.
Yuan Shoucheng gave a muffled grunt without speaking. One of his disciples had died right here, and now hearing Yun Ye’s sarcastic remarks, how could his heart feel comfortable?
By near sunset, they had walked sixty li. This was already Yun Ye’s limit. If not for his extremely soft boots, his two feet would definitely have already developed blood blisters by now.
Though the road surface was clearly large blocks of red sandstone, Yun Ye still required everyone to continue pitching tents on the ice. Yuan Shoucheng and his four disciples had originally wanted to pitch their tents on the sandstone, but seeing Yun Ye’s half-smiling expression, Yuan Shoucheng still ordered his disciples to listen to Yun Ye.
They moved over a large stone slab and lit a fire on it. Yun Ye glanced at the sun about to set behind the mountains, then he and Liu Jinbao carefully approached the red sandstone. Liu Jinbao took out a small bottle of chicken blood, mixed it with hot water to dissolve it, and poured it on a nearby stone. Then the master and servant hid to the side, quietly watching that stone slab. Before long, a pitch-black palm-sized thing drilled out from under the stone—it turned out to be a massive scorpion. Liu Jinbao immediately clamped the scorpion with fire tongs, and Yun Ye swiftly used his long blade to chop off its tail stinger. Liu Jinbao threw the large scorpion onto the ice surface, and before long, that scorpion curled into a ball and stopped moving.
Using this method, they caught seven or eight large scorpions in succession. Seeing the sky growing dark, the two reluctantly returned. Liu Jinbao took a small knife and quickly dismembered the scorpions, removing the poison glands and revealing the snow-white scorpion meat—excellent ingredients for roasting.
While eating dinner, everyone got a portion of scorpion meat. The taste was indeed marvelous. Yuan Shoucheng watched Yun Ye talking with Wu She with a very strange expression. He couldn’t understand why Yun Ye was so familiar with this place—having come once before shouldn’t result in this degree of familiarity.
The four old Daoists had disappeared. Yun Ye was about to ask when he saw them walking over from that pile of ice and snow, hands dragging a snow dragon, with the snow dragon’s blood spilling all along the way. Yun Ye immediately began shouting: “Quick, quick, pack up everything and prepare to respond!”
The veteran soldiers were well-trained. Hearing Yun Ye’s words, they immediately grabbed the powerful crossbows at their sides, drew their horizontal swords from their scabbards and stuck them in the ice blocks before them, vigilantly looking around in all directions.
Yun Ye looked around and discovered no abnormalities, then hurriedly said again: “Pack the tents, we need to leave quickly. We can’t stay here anymore.” Before Yun Ye could say anything else, that small snow mountain over there seemed to boil over. Countless snow dragons snaked down from the mountain, mouths gaping wide as they charged over…
“Run!” Without another word, Yun Ye turned and fled, running along the sandstone road. On this type of terrain, snow dragons couldn’t run fast. Screams came from behind. Wu She wanted to go back, but Yun Ye tightly pulled him along to run quickly. The thirty veteran soldiers and Liu Jinbao naturally followed their master closely—who had time to care about the old Daoists? With so many snow dragons, who could manage it all?
After running a full li away, Yun Ye finally stopped and counted heads. Another old Daoist was missing. Standing there looking back at their campsite, it was already packed full of snow dragons. All the tents had been knocked down, and several snow dragons were even attempting to stamp out the fire.
“From now on, don’t take matters into your own hands without orders—here it will get people killed,” Yun Ye said lightly, then ordered people to build a new fire. Fortunately, when setting out, he had already told everyone that no matter what, they couldn’t abandon their backpacks, so they could still continue forward.
“How is Marquis Yun so familiar with the Tianshan Mountains?”
“Familiar? Do you know how much I did before climbing the mountain?” Yun Ye turned his head to look at Yuan Shoucheng and asked in return. Seeing he didn’t speak, he continued: “This winter, while you hid in your rooms all day chanting scriptures and cultivating the Dao, I wasn’t idle. This winter, Tian Yuanyi copied for me all the legends about this mountain—the piled-up documents filled an entire chest. My staff then compiled and organized the useful and credible legends from them, finally organizing them into volumes and presenting them to me for review. I spent an entire winter reading, only then managing to memorize these things. Among them were legends of snow lotuses, black pipa scorpions, and snow dragons.”
“I’ve looked through them—in these legends, not one avoids death. Since these are lessons exchanged for lives, I firmly remembered every single lesson, not knowing when it might save my life.”
“Snow lotuses are good things that can cure illness. Black scorpions haunt rocky beaches. Snow dragons are most troublesome—as long as you injure one, the rest of the snow dragons will swarm out and devour those who offend them. In winter when snow dragons mate, they actively attack people. At this time, snow dragons don’t come out during the day, hiding in the snow to avoid natural enemies. If you don’t provoke them, nothing will happen. Your people ignorantly went to provoke them—seeking their own deaths. Next time if you do this again, be careful I’ll invoke military law to deal with it.”
“Poor Chengfeng, to lose his life to the Yellow Springs over a moment’s impetuousness. Marquis Yun, rest assured—from now on we will certainly follow your lead.” Yuan Shoucheng sadly cupped his hands, then sat on a large rock with his other three disciples to chant scriptures for the deceased Chengfeng.
Without tents, the group could only place animal hides beneath them, wrapping themselves in blankets and leaning against each other to spend the night on the ice. After daybreak, they returned to the campsite and retrieved their sleeping bags. The tents, however, were unusable. That dead snow dragon had disappeared without a trace, and Yuan Shoucheng’s disciple Chengfeng was also nowhere to be found. On the ground were only a sticky backpack and a blanket.
Walking further inward, the glacier disappeared. Here they had already reached the sunny side of the Tianshan Mountains—completely a different world from the shady side. Thick green grass covered the entire hillside, purple fresh flowers were competing in bloom, clusters of iris grass blooming magnificently. Very regrettably, they had no fragrance. Not only did the iris grass lack fragrance, most of the other flowers also had little scent—at most a faint medicinal fragrance. Though he didn’t recognize them, Yuan Shoucheng still gathered them extensively with his disciples, believing they had arrived at the garden of the Queen Mother of the West.
On the left side was a small valley. Yun Ye picked up a handful of broken pebbles and threw them forcefully into the valley. The entire valley seemed to come alive at once. Those colorful trees seemed to be shedding leaves—the leaves colorful, not falling downward but rising upward in spirals, just like a rainbow dragon pouring forth from the valley. Rising to the high heavens then plunging down to the ground, as if shattered, the entire grassland was filled with flying fragments of brocade.
“What is this?” Yuan Shoucheng grabbed Yun Ye’s arm and asked.
“Butterflies, just butterflies…”