Chapter 225 I’ve Observed Carefully
Upon hearing that Luxianbei had been following her from the start, Shen Baiwei was momentarily stunned, only to regain her composure shortly after. She noticed Luxianbei’s eyes scanning her small notebook with ill intentions. Her heart skipped, and she hurriedly clutched the notebook to her chest.
“Why are you following me! Who told you to come along?”
“Don’t be so fierce!” Luxianbei scratched the back of her head and replied flatly, “Strictly speaking, we’re in this together. If I don’t follow you, who should I follow?”
While speaking, she lifted a hand and pointed at the formation of Longxiang Army Armor Soldiers in the main camp, “Or do you think I should stand there and tell the brothers of Longxiang Army something?”
“Well, that wouldn’t be bad. I just got a little closer to listen in on that old guy Longxiang’s pre-war mobilization speech, and honestly, it was quite subpar—repeatedly talking about national righteousness and the welfare of the world.”
“If it were me, I’d just go up and give them a grand talk, even if it’s just to get the brothers of Longxiang hyped up… uh, inspired? By that time, not only would they rid themselves of the Shaman Queen, they’d also think about how every emperor takes turns, and this year, it’s their turn…”
“Smack—!”
Sinful little hands were slapped away by Shen Baiwei, the sound cracking sharply.
Before Luxianbei could finish her sentence, her hand suddenly stung, causing her to fall silent.
“Geez, don’t be so stingy! Just looking won’t cost you a dime!” Luxianbei said while rubbing her hand, “Besides, we’re both on the same rope now, so we should be honest. How about this… I’ll share my secret with you, and you show me what’s in your little notebook?”
“Don’t worry! I won’t tell anyone that in your notebook, you drew the monk from Zawen Temple as a bald man.”
“Get lost!”
As Shen Baiwei heard that calamity had discovered her little secret, a sudden heat rushed to her face. She let out a low growl and held her beloved notebook even tighter against her, eventually stuffing it down her collar.
Luxianbei wondered, “What should I do? I was initially just a little curious, but now after her antics, I suddenly want to see what she wrote or drew in her notebook.”
Anyone would have a bit of curiosity and rebelliousness, and Shen Baiwei’s extreme reaction entirely piqued Luxianbei’s curiosity and rebelliousness.
It was as if it were a challenge: “You shout! The louder you shout, the more excited I become!”
—
Luxianbei’s persistent teasing was always top-notch. She ran a jewelry store on Mudan Street, yet even the grumpy He Dadao was squeezed into buying a pile of children’s toys by her when she was young.
When unsuspecting passersby asked He Dadao why his elegantly decorated store filled with exquisite jewelry had two extraordinarily conspicuous Ultraman figures, He Dadao would finish narrating the story and quietly light a cigarette.
If He Dadao knew about Luxianbei’s experiences over the past year, he might carefully ask, “Did you just say that guy… is a relentless tease?”
However, after being relentlessly bothered by Luxianbei for over ten minutes, Shen Baiwei held on and didn’t let Luxianbei touch even the cover of her notebook.
Moreover, to prevent Luxianbei from having any ulterior motives toward her beloved notebook, she was more determined than anyone!
No one could endure as much as she could!
Shen Baiwei thought to herself, rolling her eyes at Luxianbei, and sternly said, “Didn’t you say that to be a bystander, you need to observe closely, so you followed that guy here to the camp?”
“Then why are you bothering me now? Hurry up and observe!”
“I am observing!” Luxianbei replied flatly, acting as if it were obvious.
“Huh?” Shen Baiwei widened her eyes slightly in confusion, “When?”
Hadn’t she been following me all along? Shen Baiwei thought to herself.
“When I followed you over, and while you were sitting there, I don’t know what you were scribbling or drawing in your notebook!” Luxianbei pouted, “If I wasn’t observing carefully, would I have merely been watching you this long?”
“You, however, promised to be an excellent bystander with me while holding a notebook, and instead, you’re there doodling and making fun of those two big shots. Aren’t you afraid they’d find out? Can’t you use that notebook for something serious?”
“For example, show me what you wrote in your notebook?”
“I won’t!”
“Come on, just take a look!”
“Get lost!”
“……”
After finally breaking free from Luxianbei’s entanglement, Shen Baiwei subconsciously placed her hand over her chest where she hid her notebook, feeling its outline through her clothes. She furrowed her brow as if she thought of something.
Although Calamity’s words were a bit harsh, from a certain perspective, she found that Calamity had a point, or perhaps it was in line with her thoughts.
All along, besides recording information about potential enemy Spiritual Ability Users and urban legends, she had also cultivated the habit of casually recording what places she visited, who she met, or even enjoying a delicious dessert… In short, documenting her experiences in her beloved little notebook.
Even though most of these casual entries would be lost time and again like a “reload” process, it felt as if her “self” was gradually losing itself in the forced ‘reload,’ she still persisted.
As if doing so, she could preserve more of her “self” than if she did nothing.
However, this time, perhaps being stirred by Calamity, she was pushed to her limits. When she opened her notebook, the only thought on her mind was to vent, not to document anything.
In fact, had Calamity appeared a little later, she might have drawn a portrait of Calamity in her notebook, its level of mockery definitely surpassing that of Nanling County King and Hong Bian.
As Shen Baiwei’s thoughts began to drift, Luxianbei suddenly spoke again and yanked her back.
“Moreover… Although you look pretty decent, my beauty surpasses yours. Do I really need to keep watching you? I might as well look in a mirror.”
Upon hearing this, Shen Baiwei’s expression darkened, and a layer of shadow seemed to descend upon her thick glasses. Her pink fists clenched slightly.
Although it was the truth, it was infuriating! She fumed, slightly parting her lips, ready to say something, when suddenly, Luxianbei interjected again.
“It’s about to begin.”
The abrupt and disjointed remark stunned Shen Baiwei momentarily, and she instinctively blurted out, “What’s about to begin?”
“How should I put it…” Luxianbei tilted her head and explained, “It’s something like a departure ceremony, right? Didn’t they just say it? The Longxiang Army Armor Soldiers need to leave behind letters and the like before sending them back to Yumen Pass.”
“Now that old guy has finished speaking and returned to his tent, four armor soldiers who look distinctly different from the others have left the formation. They should be starting to collect the letters or tokens from those Longxiang Army Armor Soldiers, right?”
As soon as Luxianbei finished speaking, they saw the few Longxiang Army Armor Soldiers who had left the formation following Longxiang into the main tent. Shortly after, they came out carrying two solid-looking iron boxes about one meter in length and half a meter in height.
They placed the two iron boxes on either side of the array and spoke a few words to the Longxiang Army Armor Soldiers in the array. The soldiers then began to take action.
The first to step forward was a tall, sturdy man with a dark square face. As he walked out from the ranks, he was searching his arms and had yet to retrieve the item. Luxianbei suddenly said to Shen Baiwei, “He should put a rattle drum in there.”
Sure enough, as soon as Luxianbei’s voice fell, the sturdy man pulled out a exquisitely crafted rattle drum decorated with exotic patterns and adorned with a small tuft of peacock feathers. He lovingly gazed at the drum, gently shook it a couple of times, sighed, and carefully placed it into the iron box.
Shen Baiwei’s eyes widened slightly in surprise, “How did you know he would…”
“Because I just observed him!” Luxianbei replied flatly.
“When he was resting in the tent just now, he kept fiddling with that rattle drum, and kept talking to his companions about his younger sister, saying that elder brothers are like fathers and that he wants to gain military merit and money to help his sister find a good family.”
“That rattle drum must be a gift for his sister, right?”
Upon hearing Luxianbei’s words, Shen Baiwei squinted her eyes, feeling skeptical.
She had observed and recorded many times how Calamity acted against enemies, knowing that Calamity had some kind of ability similar to foresight, always able to dodge enemy attacks in seemingly unreasonable situations.
What if she was just stringing me along? If she predicted he would take out a rattle drum and then concocted a backstory, that would make sense too, Shen Baiwei thought.
As she pondered, the sturdy man who had set down the rattle drum suddenly shouted toward the formation behind him.
“You brats, be careful when putting the stuff in later! If anyone squishes the little toy I bought for my sister, I’ll twist his head off!”
Upon hearing that shout, Shen Baiwei’s mouth fell open in shock.
It really was for his sister!
She turned to look at Luxianbei, as if seeking some confirmation from her expression, but Luxianbei was merely staring ahead with an expressionless face, calmly observing the Longxiang Army Armor Soldiers one by one, who were putting their tokens or letters into the iron boxes while quietly talking.
“That guy should put in a hairpin… that’s one his wife gave him, saying he could look at it whenever he misses home.”
“That guy’s should be an essay he just wrote, not for his family but for himself; it seems he no longer has any family… writing it for himself to survive the war? Sounds a bit like a time capsule! Is that considered romantic for an ancient person?”
“And that guy…”
“……”
Listening to Luxianbei babble on, and seeing that nearly all her deductions about those Longxiang Army Armor Soldiers were confirmed, Shen Baiwei finally could not help but interrupt, “Wait! How do you know so much?”
Luxianbei furrowed her brows, tilted her head, and looked straight into Shen Baiwei’s eyes, declaring seriously, “Haven’t I told you? I’ve observed carefully…”
“And that’s why I said that old man Longxiang’s rhetoric about national righteousness and the welfare of the world is utterly shallow! Because he doesn’t need to say it.”
“Although those Longxiang Army Armor Soldiers are afraid of dying, they’re all mentally prepared to d*e on the battlefield. After all, if they retreat at this moment and Yumen Pass falls, it will be their loved ones who will ultimately suffer the flames of war.”
Shen Baiwei, “……”
Chapter 226 A Line of Small Words
The departure ceremony for the Longxiang Army Armor Soldiers lasted nearly an hour.
Although dedicating an hour to such a ceremony in a critical moment with war imminent might seem somewhat wasteful, living often revolves around an aspiration.
It was clear that Longxiang had deliberately allocated enough time to safeguard that aspiration for his subordinates, not rushing them.
Everything proceeded in an orderly fashion.
Under the dark night sky shrouded in clouds, the wind-eroded soil forests, sculpted over millennia, silently watched the shadows clad in ebony armor move across the open ground.
During this time, Luxianbei initially continued sharing with Shen Baiwei the stories of the Longxiang Army Armor Soldiers, who seemed like a cohesive group yet each had unique characteristics.
However, despite her careful observations, the camp was home to thousands of soldiers, each a distinct individual; within a limited time, she could only observe a small fraction.
So, by the latter half of the ceremony, Luxianbei had no more stories to tell.
Rarely falling silent, she stared intently at each armored man, whether they were silent, jesting, or sighing in sorrow, walking toward the iron boxes placed at the front of the formation, depositing their tokens inside, and then turning away without a second glance.
With a resolve tinged with a touch of both determination and finality.
While Luxianbei narrated the sturdy man’s rattle drum, the slender man’s hairpin, and the gentle youth’s essay, Shen Baiwei still exchanged a few words with her, but soon fell silent.
It was unclear whether the stories pouring from Luxianbei made her feel too overwhelmed to interject, or if, from hearing Luxianbei’s descriptions, she sensed a powerful yet invisible essence within those Longxiang Army Armor Soldiers, fostering an awe that refrained her from interrupting.
In silence, she took out her small notebook, picking up her quill to record their stories, as well as possibly the fleeting moments of heroism that could be their last time.
Later still, Luxianbei also became quiet. Holding a feather quill in one hand and cradling the small notebook in the other, Shen Baiwei followed suit, watching the silhouettes approaching the iron boxes, only to swiftly turn away.
“……”
They were about to d*e…
From the tragic scene that would unfold at Yumen Pass a thousand years later, the majority among them would likely not survive this war.
By then, after their deaths, the tokens they had securely deposited in the iron boxes would be delivered to their families and friends, and those individuals would surely mourn deeply, Shen Baiwei thought absently, picturing vivid scenes.
Younger siblings gently wiping their brother’s belongings, silent and grieving.
A wife holding her husband’s letter, seemingly in disbelief, reading it repeatedly, her tears and the sweat from her palms soaking the paper repeatedly.
And a mother in her dreams, seeing her lost child, gently stroking his cheek, unable to find her voice for a long while, eventually just asking softly through tear-filled eyes, “My child… does it hurt?”
After a long time, it was as if Shen Baiwei had awakened from a dream, letting out a faint exhale, withdrawing her gaze and refocusing on her notebook.
“Shasha… Shasha…”
The feather quill continuously glided across the checkered pages of the notebook, producing a reassuringly delicate sound, pausing briefly as Shen Baiwei periodically looked up at Luxianbei’s profile.
Thus, after several minutes, a somewhat chaotic but extremely vivid half-length portrait sketch of Calamity appeared in her notebook.
She seemed pretty decent?
Shen Baiwei gazed at Luxianbei, momentarily lost in that thought, only to snap back to reality and shake her head vigorously.
Have you lost your mind, Shen Baiwei?
If it weren’t for this person’s chaotic influence, would you even be here right now?
Without her, you could have long since fulfilled your wish, free from the threat of Spirit Patterns, walking about freely!
Shen Baiwei thought, lowering her gaze to her small notebook, and upon reading what she had just completed, her eyes suddenly flickered.
She saw that on the portrait sketch she had just finished, at some unknown point, a line of small words had appeared—”She seems pretty decent?” tucked away among the disordered lines.
Why did the words appear? I was just thinking about it… Shen Baiwei furrowed her brows.
She couldn’t quite grasp whether that line of text was written by her hand guided by her thoughts or if the little notebook, which had now formed a subtle connection with her power and become a Spirit Energy Item, had sensed her thoughts and independently added it in.
In any case, she would never voluntarily write such a thing; she had never encountered such a situation before.
So strange!
If she had merely written those words unconsciously, that would be one thing, but if the little notebook itself had added them… wouldn’t that imply some kind of subtle change in her Spirit Pattern powers that she herself didn’t comprehend?
“Shall we go?”
Just as Shen Baiwei gazed perplexedly at the small words that had mysteriously appeared in her notebook, Luxianbei’s voice suddenly reached her ears, making her feel as if she had just been caught in the act like a thief. Her mind went into a frenzy, her cheeks burning, and after a flurry of activity, she finally snapped the notebook shut with a “pop.”
“Huh? Oh… wait!” She tilted her head at Luxianbei, puzzled, “Where are we going?”
She felt that Calamity’s tone was somewhat off, as if they weren’t about to return to the tent they had just occupied.
“Of course, we’re escaping!” Luxianbei said earnestly, “The departure ceremony has ended. I estimate that it won’t be long before they confront the Shaman Queen’s Army in battle. If we stay here, it could be dangerous, and we might even lose our lives!”
Though the situation was tense around Yumen Pass, and leaving the Longxiang Army camp might mean encountering the Shaman Queen’s Army roaming the Gobi Desert at any moment, it could be said that while one might dodge the first day, one could not escape the fifteenth. However…
If they could avoid the first day, wouldn’t they buy themselves another fifteen days?!
She hadn’t wanted to come here in the first place; she had been forcibly dragged here by that old dragon guy…
If they slipped away at this moment, he would probably be too preoccupied to notice them, Luxianbei thought earnestly.
“But…” Shen Baiwei turned to glimpse the Longxiang Army Armor Soldiers in the distance, who had already reformed their ranks, hesitating for words.
She wanted to say, “Can’t we think of a way to help them?”
But at the tip of her tongue, she found herself as if under a spell, unable to say a single word.
Clearly, she had always been the one to stop Calamity from influencing the past.
Clearly, even if she had influenced the past, she had been the one most harmed.
Now, how could she suddenly feel the urge to help those Longxiang Army Armor Soldiers…
If she voiced it, Calamity might get all pumped up and rush to help those Longxiang Army Armor Soldiers, and whether or not it succeeded, it wouldn’t end well.
In the already historical past, if suddenly many who were supposed to d*e survived, what would happen? Shen Baiwei didn’t dare to imagine.
If just a couple more people appeared, time might correct that; but if a whole army appeared…
As Shen Baiwei reached this thought, she noticed the Longxiang Army Armor Soldiers in the camp below preparing, starting to organize their gear and lead their warhorses out of the stables. The entire camp suddenly became “chaotic.”
Chaotic yet orderly.
A series of noisy sounds floated into Shen Baiwei’s ears, interrupting her thoughts.
At that moment, Luxianbei suddenly urged, “Hurry, hurry, while that old guy hasn’t noticed yet! If we stay here, we can’t do anything; we can only watch, and that’s useless!”
“Who knows, if the Longxiang Army fails against the Shaman Queen’s Army and finds themselves in a bind, that old guy might even have to protect us! Wouldn’t that just make us a burden? I think, this might have a greater impact on the past!”
“What on earth are you standing there for? If we drag it out any longer, it will be too late!”
Upon hearing this, Shen Baiwei nodded thoughtfully.
She felt that Calamity had a point.
It was indeed time to leave.
She wasn’t worried about being a burden or caught up in the war and losing her life; she was mainly worried that if she stayed here, witnessing those Longxiang Army Armor Soldiers d*e one after another, she wouldn’t be able to hold back from intervening.
“What’s there to be done?”
Just as Shen Baiwei hesitated briefly, a magnetic male voice came through, freezing both her and Luxianbei, who had just been about to rise.
Turning around, they saw Longxiang, who was inspecting them with narrowed eyes and a meaningful smile on his lips.
Upon seeing this, Luxianbei frowned, moved closer to Shen Baiwei, grabbing her clothing hem and tugging twice as if blaming her for dragging their feet in escaping, which led to this calamity waiting for them, making it impossible to leave.
Shen Baiwei, “……”
Seeing that the two were silent, Longxiang continued, “You two aren’t thinking about leaving, are you?”
Hearing this, Luxianbei’s mind raced, and in less than a second, she answered, “No, no! Your Highness, you misunderstand! We are guests you invited; until you, the host, dismiss us, how could we just leave?”
“I said it was getting late because I saw the military men below moving; they should be preparing to depart, so I urged her to hurry back!”
“Oh? Is that so?” Longxiang smiled at Luxianbei, “However, Miss Shen might be disappointed!”
After a pause, he added, “I’ve come to issue you a dismissal order and to ask you two, Miss Shens, for a small favor…”
Every move of the two Miss Shens since entering the camp was under the keen perception of him, a genuine Disaster-Class Spiritual Energy Manipulator.
Although Hong Bian advised him to be cautious of these two, claiming they bore some traits similar to the Shaman Queen, after observing discreetly, he felt that there was no longer any need to restrict their actions.
In fact, he could even utilize them a little?
If it weren’t for that purpose, he could have easily turned a blind eye and let the two Miss Shens slip away unnoticed.
With that in mind, Longxiang laid out his purpose for appearing here, “I have sent two subordinates to return the armor soldiers’ tokens to Yumen Pass. If it’s convenient for you two, could you help escort them for a bit?”
Luxianbei, “……”
