The young girl kept one eye on the wolves that could pounce at any moment while studying Ziqing. In the moonlight, Ziqing’s features were faintly visible.
She could tell at a glance that this was a woman from the Central Plains—stunningly beautiful, the most beautiful woman she had ever seen. But why was her temper so terrible?
Fiercer than a man!
In her mind, women from the Central Plains were always delicate, dainty, exceedingly gentle, even somewhat frail!
But this woman up in the tree—delicate, yes, but with the temper of a warrior, the commanding air of a queen!
“Do as I say, or your life is your own responsibility!” Ziqing said coldly, cutting off the girl’s train of thought.
“Oh…” The girl, as if possessed by some strange force, was cowed into silence, not daring to ask further. She guarded her torch and backed toward the large tree behind her.
Dozens of wolves circled her, closing in step by step!
Just then, Ziqing suddenly dropped down from the tree, snatched up a small stone, and hurled it with all her might straight at the head of the lead wolf!
Under normal circumstances, this strike would have surely cracked the alpha’s skull open. But with Ziqing’s current strength, it only enraged the beast, which spun around and charged straight at her, the rest of the pack immediately following!
Only a few wolves remained to guard the girl!
Ziqing gripped her dagger tightly and, without warning, kicked up a stone from the ground, striking it hard against the alpha’s jaw!
The blow made the alpha howl in fury, completely enraged now, calling its pack to charge at Ziqing all at once. In that same instant, Ziqing leapt into the air and landed back high up in the tree, panting for breath.
Once fully enraged, the alpha was the first to charge up the tree, scrambling along the single trunk straight toward Ziqing. A cold smile curled at the corner of Ziqing’s lips. Blocked from view by the alpha’s own body, no one could see exactly what she did—only that the alpha suddenly plummeted, blood at its throat, dead the instant it hit the ground!
Seeing their leader dead, the other wolves went into a frenzy, scrambling to be the first up the tree to avenge him. But the trunk was narrow, forcing them through one at a time!
Facing them one by one, Ziqing could still handle it with ease. In no time, she’d dealt with six or seven wolves!
But just as everything was going smoothly, the moment the girl climbed up into the tree, her torch went out at once.
The instant the torch died, the wolves lingering below the tree surged upward—just one of them was enough to make the girl scream.
She often went hunting in the mountains and had even taken down wild boar before, but right now she had no hunting tools on hand, and wild wolves were ten times more vicious than any prey she’d ever encountered!
“Help me…”
Instinctively, the girl could only clutch her head and scream. A wolf, moving with astonishing speed, scrambled up the tree, paused on a branch, then suddenly leapt straight for the girl!
Ziqing was too far away to help in time. She swung her dagger, cutting down another wolf, but seeing the scene unfolding across from her, she had no time to think it through—instinctively, she hurled Flowing Light from her hand.
Thanks to Flowing Light’s sharpness, though the throw lacked full force, it still struck a vital point on the wolf, saving the girl’s life!
But Ziqing herself was now in trouble!
She had no weapon left in hand!
She only ever carried two weapons on her—one was her zither, Wuzheng, the other was the dagger Flowing Light, a gift from Jun Beiyue!
She no longer had the strength to pluck wind blades from the zither strings. Wuzheng’s hard body could technically serve as a blunt weapon, but she didn’t dare risk it—if anything went wrong with it, she’d never forgive herself.
Across the way, another wolf leapt up into the tree, closing in on the girl, while on Ziqing’s side, only one wolf remained, closing in on her.
Just one—but that one was more than enough to kill them both.
Ziqing urgently needed to think of something, but what else could she possibly do?
In desperation, she suddenly clenched both fists tight—but the instant she did, it tugged at the wound in her abdomen, and she couldn’t hold back a mouthful of blood that spurted out.
She had no choice but to risk everything!
She kept pushing, gathering her energy, and just as the wolf crouched low, legs bent, ready to spring, Ziqing suddenly leapt up, both hands flicking out with all ten fingers at once!
Ten blades of wind, all striking the vital points of the two wolves. Though each lacked full force, so many strikes at once were enough to bring both wolves crashing down, collapsing to the ground, barely clinging to life!
At last, they were safe!
Ziqing slowly descended and landed. The moment her feet touched ground, her legs gave out beneath her, and her whole body went limp. Her vision swam between black and white, and she very nearly fainted.
Seeing this, the girl, who had been stunned into a daze, finally snapped back to her senses and leapt down from the tree, rushing toward Ziqing.
“Miss, are you all right?”
“Miss, don’t scare me like this! What’s wrong? Say something!”
She scooped Ziqing up, cradling her in her arms, and in a panic pulled out the heart-protecting pills she always carried, feeding them to Ziqing while rubbing her hands frantically to warm them.
After a long while, Ziqing finally came back to her senses. She had no energy to scold the girl for anything and said urgently, “More wolves will come soon—we need to leave right now.”
To her surprise, the girl said, “They won’t. They’re all dead. Any that could come already have.”
That…
“What do you mean?” Ziqing asked, puzzled.
“I was chasing after them from the foot of the mountain just now, and up on the mountainside I saw a huge pile of wolf corpses. Someone must have poisoned them—they’re all dead!” the girl explained at once.
Ziqing froze. Poisoned!
That couldn’t be right. She herself was immune to all poisons and carried plenty of them on her person, yet even she couldn’t easily poison wild wolves—there was no way to get close enough, no way to feed them anything!
How could anyone possibly poison such a massive pack of wolves?
And in such a short span of time, no less!
Still, Ziqing had no choice but to believe it, because what the girl said made sense—if the wolves hadn’t been poisoned, the whole pack would have already arrived long before Nanny Qin could have fled.
Who on earth could it be?
Someone with such mastery of poison?
Ziqing puzzled over it endlessly, brow furrowed, studying the girl. “You are…?”
“My name’s Yu Xiaomeng, from Mobei Town. I was up in the mountains gathering wood when I suddenly saw the whole wolf pack rushing up the mountain—I was curious, so I came up to take a look,” Yu Xiaomeng answered honestly. Seeing Ziqing say nothing, she went on, “Miss, you’re from the Central Plains, aren’t you? What’s your name? I saved you once, and you saved me once too—by your Central Plains way of thinking, that’s what you’d call fate, isn’t it? How did you end up tangling with so many wild wolves anyway?”
Ziqing just kept staring at her, without answering.
“Miss, you’re badly hurt. Come back to Mobei with me first to recover,” Yu Xiaomeng added, hospitable like everyone from Mobei, especially delighted to have met such an unusual woman from the Central Plains.
But just then, as Ziqing kept watching her, she suddenly closed her eyes and lost consciousness—she was simply too exhausted, not just from the fight itself, but from the long, grueling chase before it as well.
Seeing this, Yu Xiaomeng was alarmed and quickly hoisted Ziqing onto her back and set off. Small as she was, she was surprisingly strong!
Only once the two small figures had vanished from sight did Baili Weisheng, who had been hiding nearby all along, finally poke his head out. Rubbing his chin with a large hand, he shook his head repeatedly, muttering to himself, “Xiao Qingqing, go rest up and recover properly. Please, don’t blame me for this.”
With that, he followed a few more steps to make sure they were safe, then turned and went after Nanny Qin.
He had no other intentions. He had only one purpose—to keep Jun Beiyue and Ziqing from ever having the chance to reach Mingsha Mountain together. For that purpose, he would stop at nothing, regardless of the consequences.