Uncle Zhong seemed to have expected to encounter her here. Lifting the curtain with a smile, he said, “Miss Tang, you travel so quickly!”

Qing Xia smiled and said, “Elder, it’s that you’re traveling too slowly.”

“Hehe, this old man is getting on in years and isn’t accustomed to rapid travel. Miss, I won’t delay you.”

“Yes, elder, I’m leaving now. Farewell.” With that, she spurred her horse past their convoy and galloped northward.

She hadn’t expected that Uncle Zhong and his party were also heading north toward Qin. However, since they hadn’t invited her to travel together, it was clearly inconvenient. Qing Xia didn’t think much of it. In these times, to encounter such good people was already fortunate – how could she have other extravagant thoughts?

It was winter now, and the days were extremely short. Soon, the sun gradually moved westward. Qing Xia raised her head and looked at the large patches of fiery red flowing clouds in the west, suddenly feeling her vision extremely open. The depression that had long been suppressed in her heart also gradually disappeared.

As long as she found Yang Feng and confirmed he was safe, she could begin a new life, couldn’t she?

Qing Xia smiled as she raised her face. Golden sunlight poured over her body. Life suddenly had so much more color and brilliance.

For some reason, Qing Xia suddenly wasn’t so eager to reach Bailing Prefecture. She had bought a map and carefully calculated the route, discovering that to reach Bailing Prefecture by horseback would take only a month at the slowest pace. Yet Yang Feng had set a two-month deadline with her. A trace of unease suddenly arose in her heart. Alertness slowly crept up from within her. She gritted her teeth and forcibly suppressed that unease. But the speed of her feet gradually slowed.

The Xihei Wilderness was a peculiar landscape on the continent. Qing Xia knew this land was the same Huaxia continent where she had once lived. However, history had been forcibly bent at the Second Emperor of Qin, and many things of later generations had been completely reversed. There was no longer a great Han Dynasty that expelled the Tartars, no longer the brilliant and glorious Tang Dynasty prosperity. Correspondingly, many things had undergone earth-shaking changes.

First were the place names here, which had long been changed beyond recognition. Qing Xia had to work hard to combine each piece of land here with the maps in her memory, just as laborious as when she first learned a foreign language. Second, the political upheavals had caused the territories here to change accordingly. The four nations were locked in continuous warfare, mutually restraining yet interdependent. Under the impact of war, towns located in the central areas between the four nations shrank smaller and smaller through repeated scorched earth strategies, finally even disappearing entirely, with even their broken walls and ruins buried deep underground by the torrent of time.

Where once prosperous marketplaces had stood, towering trees and barren weeds now grew. Fertile lands had become wilderness, and the flesh and blood of warriors along with the accumulated white bones of women and children had become the best fertilizer for these wild grasses.

Walking across the barren grassland, Qing Xia felt only panic in her heart. It shouldn’t be like this. When had the Central Plains ever produced such vast grasslands? This was undeniably ironic. At this moment, she even began to understand this body’s father. War was like a man-eating beast, devouring the blood and tears of the entire world. She had always struggled desperately to escape from that golden cage, but after truly escaping, she starkly discovered the cruelty of reality.

Regarding war, she had seen too much. She thought her heart had long gone numb, but actually it hadn’t.

Qing Xia sat on the withered grass and lit a small campfire. Her horse lay beside her, dozing contentedly, occasionally snorting, very leisurely. Qing Xia took out her water flask, tilted her head back for a drink, broke apart some hardened dried food, barely filled her stomach, and prepared to rest.

Reaching her hand behind her, she suddenly touched something ice-cold and hard. Qing Xia frowned as she looked, and was startled to see a bone emanating ghostly aura. Qing Xia’s brow couldn’t help but knit tightly. This was a section of slightly yellowed white leg bone that looked very slender and short in length – it should have belonged to a child between ten and twelve years old.

Scanning her eyes around the area, she indeed found several more scattered white bones. It seemed this child had been dumped here after death and later gnawed by wild dogs and jackals, becoming this appearance.

She drew the dagger from her boot and dug a shallow pit in a few strokes. Just as Qing Xia was about to place the child’s several bone fragments inside, suddenly another dark skull appeared before Qing Xia’s eyes.

It turned out this was the burial place of another deceased person.

A wave of desolate feeling instantly surged up in her heart. Qing Xia held the child’s bones and was stunned for a moment.

“Quickly!” A low shout suddenly rang out. Qing Xia alertly grabbed the silver sword placed beside her. This was what she had bought in Huanchao City. Although she couldn’t use a sword, since Qing Xia was dressed as a man, she had bought one to complete the appearance.

About two hundred riders swept past on the official road in front of Qing Xia. Though numerous, they made very little sound, as if deliberately suppressing it. At a glance, they were obviously a formally trained army with strict military discipline. Although these people all wore brown short clothes, rode tall horses, had single-colored bird feathers inserted in their heads, looked fierce, and were oddly dressed – appearing quite similar to the legendary Nanjiang Ludan people – Qing Xia still immediately recognized they must come from a regular army supplied by imperial provisions.

Fortunately, the wild grass on the wilderness was dense, and Qing Xia had previously stayed far from the official road for safety. Moreover, her horse seemed unusually intelligent, as if knowing the visitors were unfriendly, widening its eyes and lying on the ground without making a sound.

“Sir!” A low shout suddenly rang out. A single rider galloped from the south, stopped before the two hundred-man troop, and said in a deep voice, “Just twenty li ahead, including drivers and servants, fewer than thirty people total.”

“Mm.” The brown-clothed man in the lead nodded and responded calmly. After pondering for a long moment, he said, “Are there any other idle people around?”

“Two merchant caravans are following behind, but this subordinate has already made arrangements – they definitely won’t be able to pass Panyun Marsh within three days. Besides them, only a young man dressed as a scholar left the city yesterday. Please rest assured, sir.” The messenger soldier looked very capable and quickly reported in a low voice.

The leader nodded lightly and asked again, “Have the routes been clearly scouted?”

“Please rest assured, sir. I’ve made markers all along the way – there’s no possibility of error.”

“Good.” The leader said in a deep voice, “Let’s go.”

Upon hearing this, everyone followed behind in unison without a sound. The two hundred-plus riders galloped away and were soon far in the distance.

Qing Xia’s brow couldn’t help but furrow tightly. She knew very clearly who they were referring to. Now she was only considering whether she had the ability to rescue them.

Large-scale combat had never been her specialty. Although she was agile, as a woman she was naturally inferior in strength. Against such formally trained soldiers, in direct confrontation she could barely handle three men, and would need a quick victory. Once it became a war of attrition, it would be the prelude to her own defeat.

Even the most valiant warrior could only face several dozen men. People like those described in movies and novels – single individuals with supreme martial arts fighting ten thousand troops alone – simply didn’t exist in this world.

For a special agent, hiding in darkness was always much safer than being in the open. Once you stood before people, it meant you might not live long. South Chu’s failure was because Zhuang Qingxia had long aroused Chu Li’s vigilance.

Perhaps she could use a more roundabout method.

A sharp gleam flashed in Qing Xia’s eyes. She agilely stood up, grabbed the horse’s reins with one hand, and said with a smile, “Brother, let’s go.”

The long periods of warfare and desolation, combined with this area’s location on the Nanjiang border with frequent rainfall, had after several hundred years of development actually produced dozens of large and small marshes in the Central Plains heartland. This was also why this small area of the Xihei Wilderness required meandering progress for hundreds of li. Without local guides, one could easily sink into these man-eating marshes.

From this, Qing Xia could even more easily determine that these people were definitely not local barbarians. She didn’t know what kind of enemy Uncle Zhong’s party had offended to warrant such a massive assassination attempt.

Throughout her life, Qing Xia had experienced countless treacherous terrains and was particularly skilled at dealing with marshes. Her eyesight was extremely sharp, and relying on her superhuman photographic memory, in a short while she had gotten ahead of those people and cleverly altered several markers left by the scout. Then she hid in the shadows and watched that group roar away in the wrong direction. Qing Xia clapped her hands in satisfaction at her success. Even if these people didn’t get lost and die in the marsh, finding the correct path would take three to five days. This could be considered repaying Uncle Zhong’s life-saving grace.

After resting for half the night, when she woke in the morning she felt refreshed. After traveling for less than half an hour, she actually saw Uncle Zhong and his party’s leisurely convoy again. She had originally been ahead of them, but because she had to lead those killers onto the wrong path, she had gone off course and ended up behind them.

Hearing sounds behind them, Uncle Zhong poked his head out from the carriage. Seeing it was Qing Xia, he smiled and greeted her, “It’s Miss Tang. How did you fall behind us again?”

“The terrain here is complex. I took the wrong path.” Qing Xia smiled in reply. She was now dressed as a man, with a smooth forehead and hair that wasn’t as long as the women here who wore it to their knees. Her movements were crisp and her voice clear – she really did look like an elegant young gentleman.

“Elder, this area borders Nanjiang where bandits and thieves run rampant. You must be careful.”

Uncle Zhong was startled upon hearing this, raised his eyebrows slightly, nodded and said, “Understood. Thank you for the warning, miss.”

Qing Xia smiled as she spurred her horse forward. When passing the third carriage, she suddenly heard a slight cough come from inside. Qing Xia glanced sideways and saw the heavy blue cotton curtains swaying gently with the carriage’s movement. That white shadow occasionally flashed through the gaps, and the stifling heat could be felt even from such a distance.