Chapter 130: Dreams from the Past
In the desolate village, beneath the dry well, deep within the Zhanbu Tribe’s settlement, the healing spell’s clear emerald light illuminated the rudely arranged cave walls.
On a bed covered with animal skins, the unconscious Furongluo lay on her side, her upper garment partially removed, exposing her wheat-colored shoulders. Under the glow of the healing spell, the ghastly wound, deep enough to see bone, was continuously writhing and soon faded into a shallow pink scar.
“Ha…” Having healed the last of Furongluo’s injuries, Bai Kai slowly exhaled a breath of turbid air, ceasing the spell, then reached out to feel Furongluo’s forehead.
Her temperature was high, seemingly in a state of low fever.
Withdrawing his hand, he quietly helped Furongluo dress, laying a damp towel on her forehead, then retreated to a nearby chair to sit down, quietly watching Furongluo, deep in thought.
Should he stay, waiting for Furongluo to wake up?
But if he waited too long, it would be easy to miss the best opportunity to enter Yumen Pass.
Although it wouldn’t take long for him to travel back and forth between the desolate village and Sanlongsha, by the time he left Sanlongsha, Yumen Pass would almost be upon them.
Should he set off immediately back to Sanlongsha?
But Furongluo was severely injured and still unconscious; could he really leave her behind?
Without a word of complaint, without any unnecessary action, the air grew tense and oppressive under Bai Kai’s influence.
So much so that Furongluo, who had actually woken up long ago and was initially planning to pretend to be unconscious to garner Bai Kai’s concern, could no longer bear it and sat up.
“Little Bai Gege…”
Hearing Furongluo’s soft call, Bai Kai snapped back to attention, glanced at her, smiled, and gently asked, “You’re awake? Do you feel better?”
“Much better!” Furongluo replied.
As she spoke, she deliberately swung her arm vigorously, seemingly wanting to prove to Bai Kai that she had indeed recovered.
“So, you should leave now?”
“Leave?” Bai Kai was taken aback and asked knowingly, “Where to?”
“To where you should go!” Furongluo said, “Actually, I guessed long ago that your return to the Gobi Desert this time isn’t for me.”
“Don’t worry! I won’t hold you back. I’ll make sure to stay quietly in the settlement with my people. Once I feel better, I will lead them to the place I’ve already selected…”
She had known all along? Bai Kai fell into a daze, not sure whether to feel dazed because Furongluo knew he was deceiving her but still cooperated with his “performance,” or because this was the first time in nearly a decade that a woman had tricked him.
Furongluo waited a moment, seeing Bai Kai still not leaving, took a deep breath, and called out, “Little Bai Gege!”
“Mm?” Bai Kai snapped out of his daze and tilted his head to look at Furongluo.
“Just go! I don’t need you to stay anymore.” Furongluo raised her voice a few decibels.
After saying this, she lowered her head, drooping her shoulders, as if this one sentence had drained her of all her strength.
From the day Bai Kai rescued her from the Bozzi Tribe, he had been her unique hero, and everything she had experienced in this short two days proved that she had never misjudged him.
However, a hero should go save the world and shouldn’t be held back because of one person.
So, she didn’t need Bai Kai to stay with her anymore—not now, nor in the future…
Thinking of this, Furongluo’s expression turned cold as she shouted, “Someone! Get this person out of here!”
As soon as her voice fell, within a minute, two warriors from the Zhanbu Tribe rushed in, grabbed Bai Kai’s arms from either side, and dragged him out of Furongluo’s dwelling.
They pulled him out of the Zhanbu Tribe’s settlement and heavily threw him onto the howling sandy ground.
“…”
Lying on the sandy ground in an “X” shape, Bai Kai stayed stunned for a few seconds before breaking into a silent laugh, silently getting up, brushing the sand off his body, and then flashing his figure as he sprinted towards Sanlongsha.
————
Ten minutes later, near Sanlongsha.
A man, around forty years old, stood on a protruding boulder, gazing into the distance.
He had a handsome face, sharp eyebrows, deep and cold eyes, and wore a well-tailored black Zhongshan suit, his posture straight as an arrow, much like the uniquely shaped halberd he held in his hand.
The man was indeed the General.
He had been waiting here for quite a while.
In fact, before receiving the news sent by Bai Kai using the Gray Owl Badge, he had already brought a good bottle of wine to the Liao Zhai Tavern, prepared to set off, which was just a few hours later than Luxianbei.
However, Hu Boss, annoyed by Luxianbei, reacted by throwing out the General when he heard he wanted help.
Only after the General had pulled out the sealing smoke, putting it to Hu Boss’s neck, and “detaining” him for some time, was he finally sent to the wilderness five kilometers away from Sanlongsha.
Many years ago, there was a station there where Hu Boss had done some business, but with the passage of time and the rise of urban legends in the Gobi Desert, he hadn’t been there in a long time.
Upon reaching the vicinity of Sanlongsha, the General immediately hurried to the place he had agreed upon with Bai Kai.
When he arrived, he didn’t see Bai Kai, but he happened to catch a glimpse of a group of half-monsters entering the newly opened Yumen Pass gate, following closely behind the Miracle Cult.
On the surface, as the guardian of the Siye Society, he should have acted to stop those half-monsters.
However, he was worried that if he moved away, Bai Kai would just show up and miss out, so he allowed those half-monsters to enter Yumen Pass.
After all, even if all those half-monsters were to attack together, they were no match for him, and Yumen Pass was perilous, so even if he let them in, it wouldn’t cause much trouble.
Shortly after, over fifty operatives from the Siye Society arrived and also went inside.
Then came the illegal spirit energy organization preparing to take advantage of the chaos, from unknown origins.
Strangely enough, the members of the Solar Eclipse Society indicated in the intel hadn’t appeared, most likely hiding among the Siye Society operatives, the Miracle Cult, or those small illegal spirit energy organizations.
After waiting for a long time and seeing the wind and sand weaken, with the Yumen Pass gate about to disappear, Bai Kai still hadn’t arrived.
They had missed this opportunity, and he didn’t know when the next one would be.
Although it’s not necessary to enter Yumen Pass through the “main gate,” as Huaiyuan Jun and the previous leader of the Yumen Sands Sea had done, it was sufficient for Yumen Pass to descend from the void onto this sandy area.
In fact, if it weren’t for Miracle Cult members opening the Yumen Pass gate, the General and Bai Kai would have originally been planning to “climb over the wall” just like Huaiyuan Jun and Nanling Peak.
But now that the gate had already been opened, why risk injury climbing over a wall?
It was simply too long of a wait…
The last time he waited for someone for this long was before going abroad to study, waiting at the airport for his first love to come and plead for him to stay.
That day, he waited for a full three hours but ultimately couldn’t wait for that familiar face to appear…
That guy wouldn’t not show up, right?
As the General’s emotions grew increasingly restless, he was hesitating whether to ignore Bai Kai and go off on his own when a familiar sound of something slicing through the air suddenly came from afar.
Over the past period, as he had helped Bai Kai adapt to his newfound power, he had heard this sound countless times. Without needing to see the person, he knew just from the sound that Bai Kai had arrived.
Raising his hand to look at his watch, when the General lifted his gaze again, Bai Kai had just come to a stop beside him, and he perfectly said what he had been holding back for a while.
“You’re late. You’re thirty-seven seconds behind the scheduled time.”
“Is it because of that half-monster girl?”
“…” Bai Kai opened his mouth, wanting to argue, but suddenly saw the ravaged wilderness and the colossal city gate in the distance, which seemed to be on the verge of disappearing amidst the blowing sand, and was momentarily taken aback.
“What… what happened? I was gone for just a short while, how did it…”
How did it turn into such a mess?
The ground was a chaotic mix of red, black, and gold, as if someone’s color palette had been toppled.
“You should ask your good niece about that,” the General said expressionlessly.
“What?” Bai Kai exclaimed in surprise. “Did Xiaohua do this?”
After a brief moment of astonishment, he thought it over and found it somewhat expected, given that Nanling Yaohua was a little devil in her childhood and had caused him no small amount of trouble.
“No, I was talking about Luxianbei…” the General shot Bai Kai a glance. “Although I don’t know what she did, all over this wilderness are remnants of her spirit energy fluctuations and the debris from the alchemical bombs she made.”
Bai Kai, “…” If it was Luxianbei, that made more sense. She was indeed a genuine little devil.
“So where is she now?”
The General glanced at Bai Kai, then at the majestic gate in the distance, pointing, “She went in.”
When he arrived here, he saw Luxianbei’s figure, swept up into the sky like a plastic bag by the wind, being pulled into the open gate of Yumen Pass.
This was even a bit earlier than those half-monster tribes.
“Oh, she went in… wait!” Bai Kai suddenly snapped back to reality, grabbing the General by the collar and growled, “You saw her go in and didn’t stop her? Don’t you know how dangerous it is in there?”
His fierce demeanor gave off an air of desperation.
This was like not stopping your longtime friend when you saw your underage daughter secretly sneaking into an underground world to play.
Did Bai Kai not know what kind of place the underground world was?
Could a pretty young girl come out intact from there?
“There are three reasons: First, there wasn’t enough time to stop her; second, I was afraid if I left, I would miss you…” The General explained slowly, “Third, why should I stop her? I actually invited her to join us; I just didn’t wait for her reply.”
“You actually… you invited Luxianbei behind my back?” Bai Kai’s eyes widened, adding more force to his grip.
This escalated the situation further. Not only was his girl going to the underground world, but it was also because the creepy neighbor uncle invited her.
How did he not realize before that this sturdy, big-browed guy was actually a pervert involved in human trafficking?
“Do you not understand why I invited her?” The General retorted. “Luxian’s father not only mastered the legendary spell that only the Yumen soldiers could wield, but he is also the only descendent of the Yumen Sands Sea lineage to have escaped their fate. His child must possess something special.”
“Moreover, she’s actually quite strong, strong enough to stand on her own; you shouldn’t always view her as a child.”
“Her senior brother could escape his fate because…” Bai Kai’s words were cut short as if he recalled something, his brow furrowing and slowly releasing his grip on the General’s collar.
Lan Ming managed to escape his fate after meeting Wang Meili, and to say that there was no connection between Luxianbei and that was something Bai Kai himself did not believe.
Seeing Bai Kai release his grip, the General patted him on the shoulder, “Looks like you’ve come to understand.”
“Hmph!” Bai Kai remained noncommittal, coldly huffing and asserting, “Although you have a point, there is one thing I absolutely do not agree with! No matter how strong Luxianbei becomes, be it now or in the future, she is still my child, and I will bear the burden for her no matter what happens.”
“Alright,” the General shrugged. “In that case, there’s no use in you fretting here. It’s better to go in early. You might catch up with your two nieces.”
Bai Kai was momentarily taken aback, his eyes widening at the General, “Two? Isn’t there only Luxianbei?”
The General shrugged, “Nanling Yaohua saw Luxianbei get sucked into Yumen Pass and followed her in.”
Bai Kai’s expression darkened, “And you didn’t stop her?”
The General pondered for a moment. “Well, I have three reasons for not stopping Nanling Yaohua. Do you want to hear them?”
“To hell with your three reasons! Let’s go!” Bai Kai shouted loudly, as if carrying a dead pig, he hefted the General over his shoulder and headed toward the majestic city gate, now shrouded in decreasing wind and sand, leaving only a blurred outline.
————
In an almost dazed state, Luxianbei felt herself rolling.
It was as if someone had stuffed her into a gigantic blender; had it not been for the Ling Tai Purification safeguarding her body, she might have already been ground to pieces.
In the darkness, it seemed like many people surrounded her, countless eyes watching her, whispering among themselves, and faintly, the sound of clashing weapons echoed around her.
As she continued to roll and float, she suddenly felt a sharp pain in her eyes, and moments later, began to “see” a vague image emerge.
Though she “saw,” all that was in front of her was darkness, as if something was blocking her view, yet images kept surfacing like a dream from the past that had accidentally invaded her mind.
She saw a figure clad in menacing armor, kneeling on one knee in front of the majestic gate of Yumen Pass, receiving a document made of silkworm filaments from a man in fine clothing, seemingly being conferred a title.
After the armored figure took the document and stood up, the man in fine clothing leaned forward and whispered a few words in his ear, only for an astonishing scene to unfold the next moment.
The armored figure suddenly drew the sword at his waist and beheaded the man in fine clothing in one swift motion.
Along with a fountain of crimson bl**d, a group of black-armored warriors surged out from behind the gate, surrounding the followers of the man in fine clothing in an instant.
The scene abruptly came to a halt.
The darkness before her, like thick fog blown away by the wind, gradually dissipated.
Luxianbei opened her eyes to see a familiar face.
That woman leaned closer to her and mischievously said, “You’re awake? You should already know what I want to say next, right?”
“Tsk tsk, I didn’t expect that a few days away would turn you into a little golden figure. I must say, you look much better this way, even if you still have that Sima face.”
Luxianbei, “…”
The dilapidated rooftop, the almost nonexistent nutritious small talk, and that eye-catching red hair—who else could it be but the Proxy Player Sister?
However, what was that in her arms?
Some sort of bootleg Pokémon doll? Isn’t she afraid of a cease and desist letter?
As Luxianbei pondered this, the “doll” in the Proxy Player Sister’s arms suddenly moved, waving at her…
