Chapter 132: On the Road

Chapter 132: On the Road

Shivering, Scholar Lü was jolted awake by the cold. Groggily, he glanced at the campfire, finding the embers nearly extinguished, and cast a dissatisfied look at Gouwa, who was supposed to be keeping watch.

There sat the sharp-faced, monkey-cheeked fellow, his head drooping and nodding rhythmically, clearly fast asleep long ago.

Yet Scholar Lü dared not go over and reprimand him; his father had given him strict instructions beforehand.

These men were his future escort guards, and if he wanted them to keep following, he must avoid any conflict with them and tread carefully.

With a face full of discontent, Scholar Lü climbed up, tossed enough firewood into the pit to stoke the flames, and then crawled back under his quilts.

But no sooner had he closed his eyes and dozed for a few seconds than he felt his father prodding him with a smoking pipe.

"Yaoxiwa, wake up quickly, go fetch water from the river, dawn is breaking."

Scholar Lü let out a wail, grabbing the quilt with both hands to cover his head.

Yet the very next second, the smoking pipe ceased its prodding and switched to knocking.

"Hurry up! All you know day in and day out is eating and being lazy! Are you trying to be a good-for-nothing? A good-for-nothing can't even afford a wife!"

As the sun gradually rose, everyone camped around also began to stir awake.

Bai Lingmiao rubbed her eyes, propped herself up from the warm embrace of Chun Xiaoman, and looked around.

When she still failed to see that familiar face, a trace of disappointment flickered across her features.

Immediately after, she raised her head and gazed into the far distance, spotting the cloud-shrouded peaks.

According to Abbess Jingxin, Li Huowang's destination was right there; if they truly couldn't run into him on the road, they would have to go into the mountains and ask.

She pulled her feet out from under the quilts and began putting on her shoes and socks; they had a long journey ahead and couldn't go hungry.

Merely eating what was readily available and sitting on a mountain until it was bare wouldn't do; they had to economize in various ways, and supplementing their meals was one aspect—the more supplementary food they had, the less grain they needed to consume.

She, along with Xiaoman and the daughter-in-law of Scholar Lü, walked together into the woods to forage for wild vegetables.

At the turn of spring and summer, the wild vegetables in the forest were abundant. It wasn't long before Bai Lingmiao's basket was filled with some polygonatum, wild scallions, and wood ear mushrooms.

They passed by a patch of mushrooms but didn't pick any.

After days of practice, Bai Lingmiao had basically learned to identify the wild vegetables.

But mushrooms were a different matter; a mistake could be fatal. She didn't dare pick them, even though these looked perfectly normal and seemingly harmless.

When she returned to the campfire with the washed wild vegetables, she saw that the noodle fish had already been cooked by that sensible young Daoist acolyte.

Little dough shapes, resembling tadpoles, tumbled and boiled continuously in the rolling water.

"Little Yang, leave this kind of work to the adults," Bai Lingmiao said, pinching the wild vegetables in her basket into small pieces and dropping them into the pot.

"It's fine, Senior Sister Bai, I like cooking. Hehe."

Wild vegetables cook quickly anyway, and as the last spoonful of pure white lard melted into the pot, a hearty bowl of wild vegetable noodle fish was ready.

The group held their bowls and slurped away noisily.

When the two groups first came into contact, they still cooked for themselves separately.

But after a few days, they realized it was truly troublesome and time-consuming, so Scholar Lü simply proposed they all eat from a common pot, with each side contributing grain for a meal.

With a loud slurp, Scholar Lü sucked a fragrant strand of noodle fish into his mouth, chewing as he asked, "Miss Bai, is the little Daoist master heading this way? We haven't taken a wrong turn, have we?"

"No mistake at all. Abbess Jingxin said Brother Li could only have taken this route, and there are no other paths," Bai Lingmiao replied with firm conviction.

She was the first to notice that Li Huowang's reaction was somewhat off when he left.

When Brother Li spoke to her, his face was no longer gloomy; instead, he had a sudden look of enlightenment, a feeling that filled her with inexplicable dread every time she recalled it.

It was precisely for this reason that she had led the others to rush back, only to ultimately miss him.

Therefore, she brought the unexpectedly encountered Lü Family Escort Agency, hurrying in the direction Li Huowang had gone. "Brother Li, please, you must be safe..."

"As long as he's fine, as long as he's fine, I was just asking casually," Scholar Lü said, forcing a smile.

Though he smiled, his heart was inevitably anxious; his confidence in leaving seclusion to escape the ravages of war lay entirely in Li Huowang, yet upon meeting up, he found everyone else was there except him.

Having traveled for so long without seeing his reliable escort, he was genuinely uneasy.

The large pot of wild vegetable noodle fish was soon devoured, not even a drop of broth left behind; the broth contained oil, and pouring it away would be a terrible waste.

Full and satisfied, they set off once more.

Traveling was tedious, and the day passed just like that, with no changes whatsoever except the distant mountains becoming slightly clearer.

As the sky gradually dimmed, Bai Lingmiao noticed what seemed to be a light on the distant mountain.

"Have the people on the mountain already met Brother Li? The Abbess said these people are very dangerous; could Brother Li have fallen into peril?"

That night, by the light of the fire, Bai Lingmiao used needle and thread to mend her shoes; traveling day in and day out, it was only natural for the soles to wear through.

Except for Zhao Wu, who was keeping watch, everyone else was asleep; compared to the daytime clamor, everything around them had fallen silent.

"Zhijian, your shoes are torn too. Take them off and let me patch them up," Bai Lingmiao said to the tall man gripping an iron rod.

"Mm... mm... smelly!" Gao Zhijian shrank his feet back.

"It's alright, take them off. Look, your toes are poking out. If you don't mend these shoes, they'll fall apart completely."

After some stuttering excuses, just as he was hesitantly taking off his shoes, he suddenly gripped the iron rod with both hands and let out a mighty roar toward the right side of the woods.

That roar startled everyone awake, and as soon as they regained their senses, they immediately understood why Gao Zhijian had done it.

From the pitch-black forest came a certain sound, a crunching, gnawing noise, accompanied by a wailing that sounded like the cries of ghosts.

In the dead of night, the emergence of these two sounds in the woods instantly sent a chill down everyone's spines.

"T... this... are we running into them again? Why am I so unlucky this year! Again?" Scholar Lü, draped in his clothes, complained with a bitter face.

Immediately after, he turned and cupped his hands toward Bai Lingmiao and the others, saying, "Everyone, you are also the junior martial siblings of the little Daoist master. Given the situation, you should be able to handle it, right?"

As he finished speaking, the sound was still drawing nearer, closer and closer, as if just beyond a patch of bushes.

The atmosphere instantly grew tense, and everyone picked up their weapons.

Suddenly, the bushes rustled, and a woman wearing a red bridal veil and colorful garments stepped out from within.

"Mother of God!! There's a female ghost!!" Scholar Lü shrieked, scrambling to hide under the cart.

"What's wrong? What is it?" Bai Lingmiao cautiously asked the Second God.

The Second God said nothing, merely raising his right hand, adorned with long black nails, and waving it repeatedly, signaling Bai Lingmiao to come closer.