V2C115

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However, Zhu Yan, who has recently plunged deeper into the whirlwind of fate, was unaware of what sort of things had befallen to that shark child in the short two months or so she has been away.

The end of the Green Waters stretched into the mysterious, gloomy forest, with its dense trees and chilly shadows. Even in daylight, this Nightmare Forest beneath Jiuyi Mountain is seldom frequented by pedestrians and is as empty and silent as a tomb.

The faint sound of footsteps echoed along the forest path.

There was a handsome young man and a young beautiful woman with long aqua blue hair as smooth as satin, whose looks could not be concealed by their dusty appearance – it was Ruyi and Jian Lin from the Mirror Lake encampment.

They sneaked from Mirror Lake, crossing it over, travelling through the Green Waters and were already exhausted by the time they got here. Ruyi was holding a child into her arms and her steps were staggering, but Jian Lin, who was walking next to her, threw her bag over his shoulder and stretched out his arms, “Let me carry him for a while! You are not yet fully healed.”

“No,” Ruyi lowered her voice, “this little one falls asleep with such difficulty, don’t wake him up.”

In her arms there was a child who appeared to be only six or seven years old, thin and pale, with a small face that looked only the size of a palm, huddled in a fetal position like a sickly cat, sleeping with a tightly furrowed brow.

During the journey, the child had repeatedly fallen sick and was dependent on the medicine given by Doctor Shen Tu to survive until this point. They were about to cross the Nightmare Forest to reach the Abyss of Cangwu, but the child suddenly developed a high fever and started to talk incessantly while in the thick forest.

“Big sister… big sister…” murmured the child in her arms.

In the echoing forest, the sound appeared distinctly clear.

Ruyi lowered her head, sighed softly and held the child a little tighter. During the journey, the unconscious child had repeatedly called out two names: one was Ah-Niang and the other was Big Sister – Ruyi was a former slave in the western city of Yecheng and she knew that the child’s mother was Yu Ji, but she had never met the other so-called Big Sister, who must be the County Princess of the Red Clan that Doctor Shen Tu had spoken of.

Ruyi had grown up watching Sumo and naturally knew that this child was an isolated child. What kind of person was that Kongsang County Princess that would make this child develop such a dependency?

“Should we feed him some more medicine?” Jian Lin asked worriedly, “The boy seems to be convulsing.”

“Okay.” Ruyi nodded and slowed down, taking a quick look around.

Recognizing the situation promptly, Jian Lin hurriedly stepped forward and unrolled a cloth towel on a rock in the dense forest, before gesturing for his companion to sit down. Ru Yi looked at him with a grateful smile and sat down, taking out the medicine from her own bosom – however, at that very moment, Jian Lin’s eyes suddenly changed, and with a flick of his wrist he unsheathed his sword and turned around to swipe behind!

With a snort, a thin, white vine darted back from under a tree covered in dead leaves, drilled into the soil and disappeared.

“What was that?” Ruyi was taken aback and rushed to protect the child in her arms, “A snake?”

“A Maiden Loh.” Jian Lin whispered, “Strange, why did they target us?”

“A Maiden Loh?” Ruyi knew what kind of demon creature it was and couldn’t help but gasp – however, as far as the eye could see, there was a rustling sound everywhere in the dense forest where you couldn’t even see your own fingers, and something seemed to be churning underneath the dead leaves, like a snake undulating and tumbling beneath the ground.

Those were not snakes, but Maiden Loh.

This forest, located under the Jiuyi Mountain, has been named the ‘Nightmare Forest’ precisely because of the presence of the Maiden Lohs within it.

Ruyi took out the medicine from her bosom and popped it into the unconscious child’s mouth, then fed him with some water from the kettle. However, just as she put the kettle down, she heard a rustling sound in her ears, and to her surprise, something moved through the withered leaves again!

“Watch out!” Jian Lin exclaimed sternly again, striking out like lightning.

Only a flash of white light appeared and a pale hand was nailed to the ground, twitching incessantly – it was a woman’s arm, slender and delicate, devoid of blood, and looking almost beautiful if it weren’t almost a foot long. However, right now, it was rolling on the ground like a pierced snake, struggling and uttering strange noises that did not resemble human voices.

“Come out!” Jian Lin marched over with an arrow and wrenched the elongated arm up.

With a quick thud, as if a vine had been torn from its roots, a cry of agony and terror rose in the air, and something broke through the soil and rolled to the ground of the dense forest – it was a naked woman, huddled on withered leaves, shivering and emitting shrill cries, her long water-blue hair cascading like seaweed over her pale-white torso, bearing the appearance of a shark.

Her eyes, however, were empty, nothing but two muddy grey balls, hollow and dead, trailing two extremely long arms, the lower half of which were still buried in the ground, like snow-white vines. Her arm has been pierced by the sword, but the wound was strangely black and didn’t bleed, and there was a shocking mark burned on “her” white shoulder.

Ruyi looked at her and suddenly her heart ached: she recognized the marking, it was the branding of a slave – exactly the same as the one on her own shoulder!

Yes, these Maiden Loh, during their life, would have been her kinsmen as well.

They were all slaughtered sharks.

The people of Kongsang believed in destiny and reincarnation, so they attached great importance to the building of the royal tombs. Generations of Emperors of Kongsang were given extravagant burials, with large tombs and countless treasures – the most precious of which were the shark slaves from the Sea Kingdom. The Imperial slaves who were most favored by the Emperors during their lifetime were then put alive in special leather bags called “The Purple River Chariot” and sunk into the excavated burial pits, which were then filled with soil and sealed to complete the burial process.

The sharks were born on the sea, so despite the fact that there was no air to breathe under the ground and the water of the Yellow Spring was extremely cold, they could still live for years in the grave without dying, eventually becoming monsters. Because of their resentment and malevolence, those sharks in a state of immortality one day broke through the sealed pits, escaped from their tombs and wandered under the Jiuyi Mountains, gradually gathering in this Nightmare Forest, becoming a sort of demon between life and death, attacking passers-by and devouring their lives.

This kind of shark is known as a “Maiden Loh “.

When Ruyi looked at the struggling and shrieking girl, a sense of forbearance appeared in her eyes and she sighed softly, “Forget it, let her go.”

After a short hesitation, Jian Lin finally pulled up the pinned sword. As soon as she became free, she darted back into the ground, the surface of the earth undulating slightly, and in the blink of an eye she lurched away, disappearing into the depths of the dense grove.

“I thought the Maiden Loh never assaulted the sharks?” Ruyi was a little stunned, “Why this happened today?”

“Maybe it’s because there are so few pedestrians going through the Nightmare Forest these days, they are all starting to get hungry.” Jian Lin gripped his sword and carefully patrolled the area, “The sun is about to set, we need to hurry and cross this dense forest fast.”

“Okay.” Ruyi hastily poured the medicine into the child’s mouth and stood up with Sumo in her arms, “We’ve managed to escape the Kongsang people so easily, we don’t want to finish having an accident in a place like this.”

“I’ve seen the map, through this forest and up ahead is the Abyss of Cangwu,” said Jian Lin, who was young but experienced in his work, “If we bring the child there as the elders have instructed and hand it over to the Dragon God, our mission will be complete.”

“Mhm.” Ruyi sighed, “I hope that when we get there, the Dragon God will save this child.”

“…” Jian Lin remained silent for a moment before answering – Elder Quan once said, “If the Dragon God won’t save it, then this child is not the one we are looking for, so whether he survives or not is up to his own destiny.”

Does such an order actually mean… to abandon him?

As he pondered over this, Jian Lin suddenly felt the pouch on his back tightening, something squirming and moving inside – Ruyi was holding Sumo while his pouch contained the succubus that had been cut off from the child’s abdomen. The weird thing was still moving even though it had been sealed with silver needles by Doctor Shen Tu.

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