Chapter 294: Revisiting Old Haunts

Chapter 294: A Return to Old Haunts

At sunset.

Cui Yuanyong kicked open Zhao Changhe’s door: “You’ve been nursing that stupid bird wound for a whole damn day, isn’t that enough? Get up and take a piss!”

The room was empty, all belongings cleared out.

“What the hell?” Cui Yuanyong was dumbfounded: “Wasn’t he just lying there like a dead dog from his injuries? And now he’s gone without a word? He knows we were going to find him for a victory drink, right?”

Then it hit him who else had vanished: “Damn it, he’s got no loyalty when it comes to women. How did I never see this side of him before? If I don’t badmouth him a hundred and eight times in front of Yangyang, my name isn’t Cui!”

Fuming, Cui Yuanyong stormed off to the Warrior Camp, where chaos reigned and men were drinking like mad.

Deep down, he knew Zhao Changhe was exhausted and really didn’t want to deal with such a scene. But damn it, they could have had a few quiet drinks together!

Forget it. Cui Yuanyong grabbed a drunken, stumbling martial artist: “Hell, I haven’t even come back yet, and you’re already drinking without me?”

The man slurred: “The, the battle’s over. Who the hell are you? Think we really give a damn about your Cui family?”

“Damn it.” Cui Yuanyong was so furious he could spit blood. Too lazy to argue, he asked, “Where’s Situ Xiao? He didn’t actually run off to find Xue Canghai, did he?”

In truth, despite their words, the men still respected Cui Yuanyong deep down. One answered honestly: “No idea. Heard someone say he ran outside the city gates.”

What was he doing out there? Eating dirt?

Bewildered, Cui Yuanyong climbed the city wall and looked out. The sky was dark and heavy. Situ Xiao lay sprawled on the half-sand, half-snow earth, his limbs splayed wide, guzzling from a gourd of wine.

In the distance, unburied bones lay scattered, with broken spears, swords, and halberds, fallen arrows, shattered shields, and vultures circling overhead—a desolate and tragic scene under the dying sun.

Cui Yuanyong shouted: “What the hell is wrong with you?”

Situ Xiao sang: “Drunk, I lie on the battlefield—don’t laugh at me! Since ancient times, how many warriors have ever returned…”

“I swear the only reason you joined this war was to have this moment, wasn’t it?”

Situ Xiao raised his gourd drunkenly: “Brother Cui knows me well! Come, have a drink!”

“Drink my ass! What kind of crap is all this?” Cui Yuanyong stormed back into the city in a huff, only to have his ear seized.

Such a swift strike! No time to dodge!

What kind of expert was this?

Cui Yuanyong spun around to see his father’s expressionless face: “Back to the ancestral hall for three months of confinement. You’re not coming out until you clean up that mouth of yours. Otherwise, your mother will show you what a mother really is.”

Cui Yuanyong, one of the heroes who repelled the Tartars, a newly promoted Earth-rank master who had personally driven back the Golden Tent Prince, didn’t even get a sip of victory wine. Instead, he was dragged home by his father, rewarded with three months of confinement, a stack of sage books, and a Qinghe Sword that faintly hummed with spirit.

The tragedy was that the sword’s spirit was so faint and elusive, no one knew if it would even acknowledge him.

…

Days later, at Beimang.

The mountain stronghold was still there. The amusing part was that the people were still there too.

Back when Zhao Changhe had cut down men and left, the bandits he’d captured and thrown into jail by Cui Yuanyong were held by the county jail until winter, then released.

After all, under their former chief, this gang had no real record of atrocities. They didn’t deserve execution or exile, and keeping them locked up was a waste of food. Seeing the winter provisions running low, the magistrate couldn’t be bothered to feed them and simply let them go.

But once out, they still loafed around, unable to do anything else. Figuring the stronghold’s supplies were still there, the bandits naturally drifted back together, reassembling their old lair just a few days ago.

They counted heads. Apart from the former chief and deputy chief, not a single man was missing.

Not one had been willing to go back and live a proper life. A complete failure of reformation.

Their ferocity hadn’t diminished either. The first thing they did when they gathered was fight over who would be the new chief. They split into factions and bickered for days, finally agreeing to a duel. Today was the day.

The dueling ground was the main training field. Beside it was a huge pit trap, once dug by the former “bandit queen” herself, which had captured the Cui family’s legitimate daughter—a famous landmark of the stronghold.

The two sides were circling the field, cursing each other out, about to start the fight, when a voice from outside suddenly rang out with exaggerated surprise: “Ooh? A drinking contest with a fight? Good, good, good! That’s a great idea. Split into groups, and I’ll put up the prize money. Winner takes the cash, loser drinks the wine!”

Everyone in the field froze. The voice was very familiar, and even the words were familiar—like they’d heard the exact same sentence somewhere before…

They turned to look at the source. In the flickering torchlight, the chief and the bandit queen stood by the edge of the trap pit, smiling as they watched everyone.

For a split second, their minds seamlessly connected to the past, not even realizing anything was wrong. A roar of excitement erupted: “Since the boss says so, let’s get started! What are we waiting for? Making the sister-in-law laugh at us… Hey…”

The noise gradually died down, until it was dead silent.

Then they started staring blankly.

“Not bad,” Zhao Changhe said with a grin. “Where did you find the oil for these torches?”

Someone answered naturally: “There was still a little left in the stores. The county office didn’t take it all.”

Zhao Changhe tossed a gold leaf: “Go to town and buy more. I’ll see you through the winter.”

“Long live the boss!” The crowd surged forward. The two who had been about to fight on the platform were completely ignored.

No one remembered that it was Zhao Changhe who had abandoned them in the first place.

“We were in that damn jail every day watching the boss climb the rankings!”

“The other prisoners looked at us with such envy when they knew we were with Boss Zhao!”

“We knew back then the boss wasn’t ordinary!”

“Boss, boss, so is our bandit queen really Yue Hongling, right?”

Yue Hongling had been standing quietly to the side, smiling slightly, until now. She put on a stern face: “Fake.”

If it weren’t for you damn fools stirring things up, her relationship with Zhao Changhe wouldn’t have drifted into that ambiguous territory, and wouldn’t have… well…

But strangely, she didn’t feel much embarrassment. Instead, this feeling of time being severed and then reconnecting stirred something deep within her, as if she had grasped a hint of Dao insight.

It was as if everyone’s journey had been plucked out for a year, existing outside time, and when they returned, everything picked up right where it left off, unchanged.

Zhao Changhe was thinking the same thing. Was this what Ying Wu was searching for? And if he himself could find the way home, choosing the moment of departure to rejoin the timeline—was that the meaning?

Mysterious, and intriguing.

“Alright.” Zhao Changhe clapped his hands. “Has my chief’s room been cleaned?”

The two men who had been about to fight on the platform grimaced and sighed: “Just tidied up and swept. The bedding is brand new, untouched. That’s what we were fighting over—who gets to claim it… Well, it seems heaven knew the boss was coming back and made us prepare it. Oh, right, the sister-in-law had another room before. That one hasn’t been done yet…”

“What other room?” Zhao Changhe glared, then pulled Yue Hongling close by the waist: “From now on, just one room!”

“Bang!” The chief was viciously thrown over the bandit queen’s shoulder in a judo flip, and she dragged him like a bear cub up to the mountain-top chief’s quarters.

Through the wind and snow, her scolding voice drifted: “Think you’re something special? Today I’ll show you what it means to be the bandit queen!”

The bandits in the stronghold looked at each other, then burst out laughing.

What a strange world.

Inside the chief’s room, the bedding was fresh and fragrant, the candlelight warm.

Even the furnishings hadn’t changed.

Yue Hongling stared at it, lost in thought. The Zhao Changhe she was dragging seized the chance to break free and embraced her.

“What?” Yue Hongling pouted.

“Back in my hometown of Zhao Village, it’s common for people to get married first, then later find time to go back to friends and family for a banquet. Don’t you think we’re just like that now?”

Yue Hongling thought it really did feel that way.

Especially the brand-new bedding, the candle already lit in advance… If you told her Zhao Changhe had come back early to arrange it all, she’d believe it.

But she knew there was truly no arrangement—this was simply fate. Zhao Changhe's sudden whim to revisit old haunts seemed to bestow a ritual upon them both.

Yue Hongling felt a strange unease in her heart.

She was willing to entwine with him in a secluded, uninhabited realm, willing to wander the ends of the earth together, but in the heart of this female knight, the thought of a wedding witnessed by kin and friends had never even crossed her mind.

That was an entirely different experience from the pitch-black, deserted secret realm.

She lowered her head slightly and murmured, "What wedding night? My sect doesn't even know about it."

Zhao Changhe leaned close to her face, kissing her as he said, "Then when we have time, shall we go back and make up for it?"

"Dream on." Yue Hongling pushed against his chest, pretending to fend off his kiss: "When did I ever say I'd marry you?"

Before the words faded, her waist tightened—he had already lifted her horizontally and carried her toward the bed.

Though Yue Hongling's words were stubborn, she did not struggle; she went limp in his arms as he laid her on the bed, saying, "Fine, let me help you heal with dual cultivation. You're injured and still rushed for so many days—how tedious."

In her heart, she resolved: tonight, she would not cry out.

He wanted to hear his sister moan? Let him listen to ghosts howl.

The night was deep, the moon hidden, the stars dim.

A bird skimmed over the rooftop, hearing from within the house the muffled cries of some creature, growing louder, until at last they turned into indignant fury: "Swap positions! I'm taking over the stronghold!"