3. Snow Darts

The man held his forehead, shook his head and looked into Ye Lan, with a doting look in his eyes.

“You are out of weapons, what are you gona use to fight against me?”

“Weapons?” Ye Lan burst out a devilish laugh. She jumped high and opened her arms, grabbing in the air and held a flake of snow in her hand, “This will be my best weapon!”

She threw the flake out hard, only to see two streaks of light shining through. The snow flakes were like darts, breaking the sky after some clanks.

The frozen snow thrown by certain strength could cut clean through iron easily—a perfect weapon indeed!

Anything could serve as a weapon when they were in Ye Lan’s hands, even the most delicate hair could be turned into something to cut off the enemy’s ears.

Two darts with a blast, dashing towards the target at a lightning speed.

“Snow darts?!” a shocked look flashed in the man’s eyes. He waved his sleeves and dodged the snow darts, which were diverted into the pine tree, thawing only after a very long time.

“Miss, you have no spiritual power, but got a very good control of martial arts. You can turn the snow flakes into deadly darts simply by the strength of your wrist!”

Ye Lan sneered, “Scared? What comes later is even more impressive!”

Out of curiosity, the man said, “Really? I can’t wait to see!”

“I am afraid you can’t see it when you are alive!”

Ye Lan turned around and swirled, grabbing a couple of snow flakes in both hands. All at once, these snow flakes were dashing out when she exerted her force.

The flake darts were flying very quickly and the whirlpool was strong, carrying the falling snow to form a small storm, all going straight towards the man.

It seemed the man had nowhere to hide.

But the man didn’t panic; his eyes were glistening with craftiness. He made a gentle wave of his sleeve and all the darts and storm had turned around all of a sudden, making their cruel way towards Ye Lan.

To her surprise, Ye Lan didn’t expect him to be so powerful; she had no way but to retreat, but she was still faced with the risk of being attacked by the snow storm.

She managed to have a narrow escape by getting underground at last.

“Smart girl well done to hiding under the snowfield.”

Ye Lan made a sudden attack, flying out of the snowfield, and let out a quick blade-like kick towards the man in the air, but the man avoided the kick easily, simply by turning himself a bit to the other side.

“Higher legs and swifter moves will make a better attack.”

“No need for you to instruct me!”

The man sneered and his eyes were full of playful joy, “Stubborngirl!”

He made a move of his body and out of a blink, disappeared.

“Where is he? Disappeared all of a sudden?”

“Here!”

Feeling the warmth of breath from behind her ears, Ye Lan bent her elbow backward nimbly and turned around, ready to have another punch.

However, the man’s speed was faster, and because he appeared behind Ye Lan, with his left hand carrying her, she fell into his arm naturally.

“Let me go!” the unexpectedness of the whole thing didn’t frighten Ye Lan. She was as calm as she always was and her eyes were as cold as the snow flake.

Ye Lan darkened her face, and remarked coldly, “You better let me go, or else I will kill you without mercy!”

“Oh,really?” the man didn’t really care and started to blow air affectionately along Ye Lan’s ears, “I would like to see; how are you gonna beat me?”

Seeing Ye Lan in her silence, the man grinned, “With what you got right now, you want to beat me? In your next life!”

“Right now!”

“How come you…”

Seeing that Ye Lan managed to get rid of him using the technique of shrinking her bones, there’s a touch of amazement in his eyes.

But he immediately burst into laughter, with his eyes half closed but shining brightly, which became even more touching and temptingas if one would fall for them at just one glance.

Ye Lan gave out a horizontal side kick but the man didn’t seem to be keen on the fight. He disappeared with a flash.

Suddenly there was a voice coming from the sky. It was the sound of the man.

“If you want to beat me, keep cultivating your spiritual power, next time we can have a fight to see who is stronger. See you!”

“Next time, I will not let you get away like that!”

The snow was still falling. Ye Lan waited for a while. She knew that the man had gone as there was no response.

She returned to her mother’s side. After clearing the fern leaves, she carried her mother’s body and headed to the depth of mountain.

Ye Lan needed to find a more serene place for her mother to rest.

The place where she stopped seemed to be a good one, but it had become messy and inappropriate for burying someone after the fight.

She didn’t want to bury her mother like that.

Even though she was not Ye Lan’s real mother, she inherited the attachment to the mother when she entered the girl’s body. She must find a good place to bury her so as to fulfil her filial piety.

Ye Lan was a bit baffled; who was that masked man? Why would he reserve himself every time she threw him her deadly attack?

The snow was getting heavier; the mountain path was full of zigzags and slippery.

Maybe because she used up her energy, the view was becoming more and more blurry for Ye Lan. Suddenly she slipped and the mother’s body slid away from her back.

Seeing this, Ye Lan threw herself at the mother without a second thought, only to findthat before her was a sheer cliff.

“Can’t let go, can’t let go!”

Even though she was trying hard to hang on, but the numbing of her hands made her feel even more senseless.

She held the vine on the cliff closely with one hand, and held the mother’s shoulder with the other.

In the cold and frost, Ye Lan was hung on Xuanling cliff as if she was a thin leave that could be blown away by the chilly wind at any time.

The cold, the wound and the hunger, each biting her like cursed poisonous insects, her body was already taking more than what she could bear.

After another even stronger snowstorm, the snow stopped and the mist cleared, the day had turned sunny.

At this moment, Ye Lan saw that there was a clear pond at the foot of the cliff, covering an area of several square kilometers. The water was glistening with its ripples, making itself more jade-like.

There was a lotus-shaped isle in the middle of the pond, and the isle itself was full of lush greenery, forming a contrast with the surrounding white snow.

When she listened carefully and seemed to hear some birds chirping.

Where was she? Ye Lan thought this place was as lively as odd: it was in the middle of winter, but the water of the pond didn’t freeze, and the fish in it seemed to enjoy their swimming. It was a time when everything became stagnant, however, up on this isle, everything seemed to be in their prime and was full of lush greenery.

It was windy and snowy just now, and misty at the bottom, if it’s not because of the clear sky, she wouldn’t notice this place.

Ye Lan and the mother both fell into the pond along the vine.

The water wasn’t as chilly as Ye Lan expected, on the contrary, it was warm, making her feel like bathing in a hot spring.

Ye Lan took the mother and swam to the isle. When she made it to the bank, she found that the isle was still several tens of meters wide, even though it might look small from afar.

She helped put the mother under a tree and took a rest for a few moments. She then looked around and found that there’s a giant banyan tree on the isle, which might be the oldest as well.

Ye Lan decided to bury the mother under the banyan tree.

After giving a glance at her mother who was lying sideways, Ye Lan said gently, “Mother, your daughter has chosen a good place for you. You may now rest in peace.”

“Rest assured, it will be serene here; nobody will ever bother you.”

She tidied up her mother’s clothes carefully, but her mother’s clothes were already in rags and couldn’t even cover her body. Ye Lan managed to find some hemp weed and wove a simple blanket for her mother.

After that, Ye Lan skinned a whole bark from a eucalyptus tree, and wrote her mother’s tablet inscription using the ink water squeezed from the seaweed.

After digging and clearing thick layers of fallen leaves and pulled away some giant tree roots, Ye Lan managed to dig a hole by stone.

Clanging!

A crisp metal clank came from underground, Ye Lan felt that her hand was numb after the shock.