The woman’s sudden cry successfully stopped Xuanyuan Lige in his tracks. He turned to look and saw her clothes completely torn to shreds, her bare shoulders exposed, her delicate, tear-streaked face frightened and pitiful, achingly lovely.
And yet, even so, Xuanyuan Lige’s expression remained utterly blank, and he made no move to avert his gaze out of any sense of propriety.
His cold, detached eyes swept up and down over the woman without a flicker of emotion, leaving her flustered, hastily clutching at her tattered garments to cover herself.
Had she not witnessed with her own eyes this young master rescuing her just moments before, she might well have found this even more terrifying than what had come before!
This man’s cold, unreadable eyes gave no hint whatsoever of what he was thinking or intending.
“Young Master… thank you.” The woman spoke timidly, wrapping her torn clothes around herself, wanting to leave but not daring to move.
At this point, Xuanyuan Lige finally shifted his gaze away, scanning their surroundings. They were already several hundred zhang deep, and compared to higher up, the two cliff faces here had drawn remarkably close together, leaving room for perhaps only five people to stand shoulder to shoulder.
It wasn’t that the two cliff walls had converged toward each other—rather, each side had a large ledge jutting outward, narrowing the gap between them.
And this woman was standing on the ledge protruding from the western cliff face.
This particular ledge, along the eastern side of both cliff faces, was concealed from view both to the north and south, with no visible end in either direction.
Most of the ledges within Wuxie Ravine formed from natural cave-like indentations carved into the cliff face—but a protruding outcrop like this, shaped like a walkway jutting outward, was something Xuanyuan Lige was seeing for the very first time.
Without question, this was a geological wonder.
If something this extraordinary existed at this depth, what else might lie even further below?
Having taken in his surroundings, Xuanyuan Lige’s gaze settled back on the woman. “Why can’t I go down there?”
“Because… because… down there is deep sea, with sheer cliffs on both sides and nowhere to gain footing. The crosswinds down there are several times fiercer than up here. Going down means certain death!” the woman said, still visibly frightened, but answering honestly nonetheless.
“Who are you? You seem quite familiar with this place,” Xuanyuan Lige said. He understood that for this woman to be here at all, her circumstances must be far from ordinary.
“I…” The woman clearly hesitated. Had she been bold enough, she might have turned the question back on him: “And who are you? Since Wuxie Ravine has existed, almost no one has ever managed to descend this far.”
But the woman didn’t dare. She stammered evasively, unwilling to answer.
“Won’t say?” Xuanyuan Lige raised an eyebrow, showing not the slightest sympathy for a woman in distress, a trace of malice flickering through his cold eyes—enough to send a chill down the spine of anyone who saw it, even without knowing what he intended.
Xuanyuan Lige gently stroked his long, elegant fingers, seemingly without a care, when suddenly a blade of wind shot out, striking with unerring precision, grazing right past the woman’s cheek. She let out a terrified scream, “Ah…” and immediately retreated, backing away until she pressed against the cliff wall, still trying to retreat further.
Was this man her savior, or her doom?
“Speak,” Xuanyuan Lige said, without a trace of anger, his tone perfectly flat.
“I’ll talk! I’ll talk!” the woman gasped, terrified. “My name… I’m Mi’er, of the Duogong tribe.”
At these words, Xuanyuan Lige’s eyes lit up at once—he’d guessed correctly!
The moment he’d seen those men in silver, he’d known Wuxie Ravine couldn’t possibly be uninhabited—there had to be some tribe here, isolated from the outside world.
“The Duogong tribe? Then those men just now were also…” He’d never heard this name before; it sounded rather like something from the Xiongnu region.
“No, they’re Jiao Ren!” Mi’er quickly clarified, and it was clear from her tone, just uttering the words “Jiao Ren,” that she felt tremendous outrage.
Jiao Ren!
This, without question, was the most unexpected thing Xuanyuan Lige had heard so far!
“Jiao Ren?”
Across the entire Longyuan continent, wasn’t Nanzhao the only place with the Jiao Clan?
“Mm! Yes, Jiao Ren! They live down below, in that vast deep sea, the Boundless Deep. Our Duogong people live along the cliffs bordering the Boundless Deep—for generations, we’ve carved out caves to dwell in, surviving by fishing, living peacefully alongside the Jiao Ren. But two years ago, the Boundless Deep suddenly surged with a tidal wave, flooding our caves, and the Jiao Ren… the Jiao Ren…”
As Mi’er spoke, her eyes couldn’t help but well up with tears.
“Go on!” Xuanyuan Lige showed not a shred of patience.
Mi’er sniffled, and though her throat tightened with barely-held-back sobs, she didn’t dare delay. “They started slaughtering our people. We scattered and fled, hiding within the maze of caves, digging our way upward continuously, following the ledges upward in escape. But unfortunately, very few of us managed to survive.”
As she spoke, Mi’er had to keep pausing to steady her emotions, forcing herself to stay calm. “But the Jiao Ren still wouldn’t let us go. Worried that we might someday escape Wuxie Ravine and expose the secret that Jiao Ren live here, they… they… they raped and pillaged us, determined to wipe us out completely!”
By this point, Mi’er was crying too hard to continue speaking clearly, while Xuanyuan Lige’s brow furrowed slightly. He sat down beside her, murmuring to himself, “Jiao Ren…”
As he recalled, Ziqing’s Flowing Light had once managed to pierce black Jiao scale armor—and black Jiao scales were the hardest of all Jiao Clan scales, second only to the golden Jiao!
Those men just now, even without revealing their true Jiao forms, shouldn’t have had skulls hard enough to deflect his wind blade, even if they were black Jiao!
That kind of hardness was almost identical to the Flowing Light Dagger itself!
What exactly was the Flowing Light Dagger? And what was the origin of these Jiao Ren within Wuxie Ravine? Did they have any connection to Nanzhao?
Xuanyuan Lige found himself utterly unable to puzzle it out, but he soon abandoned the effort entirely!
Once, he had gone to great lengths to try to stop Ziqing from searching for the Solitary Island, from uncovering her origins, hoping she would never expose her identity, that she would remain safe forever. But now, he no longer cared about any of that.
He turned to look at the disheveled woman beside him, a wicked smile suddenly curving at the corner of his mouth. “How about I help you wipe out the Jiao Ren?”
At these words, Mi’er gave a violent start, momentarily unable to speak at all. She had no idea what kind of man this was—she only knew he was utterly terrifying.
“Gather up whatever companions of yours are still alive, and help me dig a tunnel. In return, I’ll make sure to wipe out the Jiao Clan for you—I guarantee both sides of Wuxie Ravine and the Boundless Deep will belong to your people. How does that sound?”
“You… you… who are you, can you really… really do that?” Despite her fear, Mi’er couldn’t help but ask.
Seeing her timid expression, the smile at the corner of Xuanyuan Lige’s mouth grew even deeper. “Just as I could kill you right now if I wished—of course I can.”
Mi’er’s already pale face turned ashen, and she nodded repeatedly. “I believe you! I believe you!”
The Duogong people had spent generations carving out caves within Wuxie Ravine, giving them unparalleled knowledge of the ravine’s soil and terrain, along with formidable excavation skills, no doubt.
This was the single greatest gain of Xuanyuan Lige’s entire expedition. He led Mi’er and a dozen or so surviving Duogong tribespeople out of Wuxie Ravine, then instructed Nanny Qin quietly, “Poison it. I want the Boundless Deep turned into a dead sea. If word of this ever leaks out, exterminate the entire family responsible.”
…