"Xianxi, Jiu Wu, Xiang Mao... Which of these three places is the closest?"
Xin Xiu sat on her large motorcycle, holding a stack of maps in one hand while drinking water from a gourd flask with the other. For two days before leaving Shuling Mountain, she had been flying on her motorcycle, not seeing any signs of human habitation. Surrounded by endless mountains, she finally realized just how remote Shuling Mountain truly was.
She was fortunate to have transportation. Otherwise, this journey would have taken at least 10-15 days on foot, even using lightness techniques.
The flying motorcycle greatly improved her travel efficiency, but a problem she hadn't anticipated before also arose - the motorcycle couldn't fly continuously for two days. Xin Xiu finally figured out that it ran on spiritual energy.
Previously in Shuling Mountain, where spiritual energy was abundant, the bike could automatically recharge no matter where she flew. She had never encountered a situation where the motorcycle ran out of energy, assuming it had unlimited power. However, now that she had left Shuling Mountain's territory, the spiritual energy concentration dropped dramatically. Under these conditions, the vehicle ran out of fuel and stalled. She had to stop to rest and let the flying motorcycle automatically absorb the surrounding spiritual energy to recharge.
If she were a powerful expert, she could act as a charger herself, directly infusing spiritual energy into the flying motorcycle. But she wasn't at that level yet. Her own spiritual energy was barely enough for herself. Even after cultivating diligently all night, she couldn't produce as much energy as the motorcycle absorbed on its own.
After leaving Shuling Mountain, Xin Xiu also stopped flying at high altitudes, staying at most around the middle of the mountains. This was out of necessity - while Shuling Mountain had a pleasant temperature, neither too cold nor too hot, once she left, the temperature dropped sharply along with the spiritual energy. The area outside seemed to be in deep autumn. Flying in the air without a sweater made her feel like her face and limbs would freeze off.
Halfway through her flight, she had stopped the bike on a cliff edge and rummaged through her magical bag to change into thicker clothes.
When her cultivation level was higher, she would be able to withstand extremes of heat and cold. For now, she could only imagine the comfort of the future, while honestly finding a scarf to wrap around her head.
Stopping and starting like this, Xin Xiu finally encountered people. Though "encounter" might not be the right word, given the unusual circumstances. She was riding her motorcycle in mid-air when she suddenly heard a loud shout. At first, she thought it was a mountain ape, but listening more carefully, she realized it sounded human.
Using her post-cultivation eagle-eye vision, she located the person shouting. It was a mountain woodcutter with firewood on his back, repeatedly kneeling and shouting in her direction, his body language conveying terror. Xin Xiu couldn't understand the accent, but she guessed the man was either shouting about a monster or an immortal. She quickly accelerated and flew away.
"What a sin," she thought. Her ultra-fantastic flying motorcycle must have frightened the poor man. Who knows what strange ghost stories might spread in this area afterwards.
Now that she had seen signs of human habitation, Xin Xiu needed to consider which direction to go first.
She had three mission objectives, but unfortunately couldn't simply enter a name into a map app for automatic navigation like in modern times. She only had maps, and Shuling Mountain only had very old, rudimentary ones at that. For cultivators living in the mountains, the outside world changed too quickly, making frequent map updates too troublesome. Besides, they rarely needed to use them anyway.
Now she had to use this stack of old maps from perhaps 100 or 200 years ago to search for three places not even marked on them.
A kind senior brother had pointed out directions for her, saying Xianxi was to the west, Jiu Wu to the north, and Xiang Mao to the south. When she asked which was furthest, he didn't know. When she inquired about specific countries or regions, he shrugged, indicating he had no idea either.
The world was vast, and even her senior brothers hadn't been everywhere. Even if they had visited these places, they couldn't circle exact locations on these incomplete maps. In the end, it was her all-knowing master who looked through the maps and pointed out approximate areas for her.
Those areas were truly enormous. It was as if she had asked where Beijing was, and someone had outlined the rough borders of China, saying, "It's somewhere in this area, find it yourself."
"Since I don't know which is closer or farther, I'll just have to leave it to fate," Xin Xiu said.
She skillfully made a die, carving circles and crosses on its six sides to represent the three place names, then tossed it onto the map.
...
"Grandmother, do you know where Xiang Mao is? Xiang Mao?" Xin Xiu repeated several times before giving up in frustration.
This was the third village she had passed through. The village was dilapidated; Xin Xiu only saw elderly people, children, and women with weathered, aged faces. At the village entrance by a water channel, she saw two women washing clothes and approached to ask for directions.
However, they might as well have been speaking different languages.
The older woman gabbled incomprehensibly, just like in the two previous villages Xin Xiu had visited. However, the accents in all three villages were different. She said a few words, and the woman waved her arms, pointing at the village, then outside, repeatedly gesturing in a confusing manner.
Xin Xiu: "..." Although she hadn't harbored unrealistic expectations of getting directions with a single question, encountering a language barrier was a bit too realistic.
How strange, she thought. In the novels she used to read, those protagonists who adventured everywhere never seemed to have language problems.
Years ago, when she first transmigrated to that place - the small town where LingZhao Immortal was worshipped - she didn't know exactly where it was or which country it belonged to. Perhaps only the language there was similar to the common tongue used in Shuling Mountain.
As she was pondering this, several barefoot men suddenly ran out of the village brandishing wooden sticks and hoes, led by an old man supported by a middle-aged woman, all shouting something.
Xin Xiu: "?" What's going on?
The older woman she had been talking to suddenly grabbed her hand nervously, as if afraid she might run away. The group approaching looked unfriendly, and they were carrying ropes, clearly intended for tying someone up. Xin Xiu twisted her hand, easily breaking free from the woman's grip, and leaped directly onto a nearby persimmon tree.
The tree was five or six meters tall. Seeing her jump up in one bound, the people below were stunned. The woman who had tried to grab her earlier cried out in shock, her legs giving way as she collapsed to the ground. Everyone looked up at her with expressions of fear. Only the man holding the hoe, his face tense, seemed to want to chop down the persimmon tree to get her down, despite his obvious terror. But after a few chops, he was pulled back by the others, and the whole group fled back to the village like they were escaping from a monster, slamming their doors shut with a bang.
Sitting in the tree, watching this farce unfold, Xin Xiu sighed, "... Ah, what is all this about? Surely ancient villages weren't this xenophobic."
It was autumn, and the persimmon tree was rather bare, with only a few red persimmons left at the top, difficult to reach. She casually picked two persimmons, muttering, "I'll take these two persimmons as compensation for the scare you gave me."
To avoid frightening people when entering the village to ask for directions, she had previously stored her flying motorcycle in the belly of her panda companion, Dingdang. Now miniaturized, the little black and white Dingdang emerged from her sleeve, comfortingly patting her finger with its small black paw.
Xin Xiu: "I'm fine, these few people can't scare me. I'm just curious about what's going on."
She didn't bother taking out her flying motorcycle again, instead using her "lightness skill" to leap from treetop to treetop. She hadn't flown far when she heard crying and stopped on a nearby tree to observe.
There was another village ahead. A large crowd was playing instruments and making noise, led by a rustic-looking shaman who was circling around a clearly unproductive fallow field. Whatever had been planted in the field had mostly withered and died. Among the crowd was a young girl, about thirteen or fourteen, maybe fifteen or sixteen, bound with ropes. She was crying hoarsely, followed by a weeping couple - the source of the cries Xin Xiu had heard.
The shaman carried himself with great authority. After performing an awkward dance that looked like flailing limbs, he waved his hand, and the bound girl was pushed onto the withered grass of the fallow field. A man holding a knife looked reluctant but, under the shaman's rebuke, raised the blade to the girl's neck.
Xin Xiu: "..."
She understood now. It seemed this place had suffered some kind of famine or other incomprehensible disaster, and the village shaman or witch doctor was demanding the blood of a young girl to appease the gods, much like sacrificing to a river god.
Xin Xiu had read about similar events in historical records from her previous world. In primitive times when people were less enlightened, such occurrences were not uncommon. It truly seemed that there was nothing new under the sun, even in a different world.
The village she had just passed was very close by, and she guessed they had encountered a similar situation. Those people who wanted to capture her likely intended to use her for the same purpose.
She pulled out a yellow talisman from the small pouch at her waist, breathed onto her index finger, and drew a symbol on the yellow paper. Senior Brother Bo Yu had taught her this talisman technique. While Xin Xiu wasn't very proficient with other talismans, she was most skilled with this thunder talisman, as it was practical.
Xin Xiu pointed the completed talisman at the person performing the exorcism ritual. In broad daylight, a bolt of lightning struck directly on that person's head, electrocuting them to the ground. Seeing the person's head burrowing into the soil like a fly hit by an electric swatter, Xin Xiu felt satisfied. She snorted, waving her fingers to brush away the self-combusting talisman ashes.
This sudden turn of events stunned everyone. The drumming and beating stopped, and even the crying ceased. All that remained were the desperate wails of commoners who thought they had incurred divine punishment and didn't know what to do.
Xin Xiu sat in the tree, watching the chaos from afar. Suddenly, she remembered asking her master before leaving, "Master, do you have any final advice for your disciple?"
Her master had then casually told her, "After you leave the mountain, don't be afraid to kill."
Xin Xiu was speechless at the time, but now she began to understand the meaning behind her master's words. This world was not peaceful, especially compared to Shuling Mountain - it was far more brutal.
If she were a great hero, she would go over now to save that girl and prevent these people from killing again. But she wasn't - she was a cultivator.
Cultivators generally don't interfere in such "minor affairs," right?
Xin Xiu stood up, waving her hand over her body to transform into the awe-inspiring, ethereal appearance of Uncle Master Jingchengzi.
But she wanted to intervene, so she might as well go and do something about it.
A group of people were kneeling in the field, wailing, when suddenly they saw a patch of colorful clouds in the sky and an ethereal immortal descending. With a wave of his hand, the ropes binding the girl snapped. Another wave brought a sweet rain falling into the fields and onto the people. They felt their spirits lift and their minds clear, even their grief dissipating.
The immortal said nothing, only wearing an expression of compassion. Finally, leaving behind a wooden statue, he vanished, with only the colorful clouds slowly drifting in the sky.
"It's an immortal! An immortal has appeared!"
"We're saved! The immortal has brought us sweet rain. We're saved!"
Xin Xiu landed in a distant grove, hearing the ecstatic cheers. Though she couldn't understand the words, she could guess their general meaning.
Due to the language barrier, she could only remain silent. What she had sprinkled was the sweet dew given to her by Uncle Bai Fei. Bai Fei's spiritual treasure, the White Jade Purifying Bottle, could condense sweet dew. It was a precious item - Xin Xiu had only received one small bottle, and now she had used up nearly half of it shortly after leaving the mountain. She felt terribly distressed.
She had almost exhausted the small amount of spiritual power she had cultivated. The transformation technique consumed a lot of energy - if she had stayed three more seconds, she would have been exposed.
The wooden statue she left behind actually had no use. It was carved by The Fifth as a hobby, who had made many such items and given them to her and the others as parting gifts. Xin Xiu brought it out on a whim, thinking that if these desperate people needed something to take comfort in, it would be better for them to worship this piece of wood than to drag young girls to the fields to behead them and use their blood to water the crops.
She left this depressing, remote village and headed further south.
After crossing a roaring river, the lives of people on this side seemed much better. Clusters of villages formed into towns of various sizes, visibly more prosperous than the other side of the river.
Xin Xiu thought to herself, surely the people here wouldn't be so quick to resort to violence.
She walked alone on the road leading into the city. Ahead and behind her were villagers carrying loads to sell in the city, as well as ox-carts transporting goods. Judging from their clothes and demeanor, their lives seemed fairly comfortable.
Whenever she reached populated areas, to avoid becoming a panic-inducing oddity, she always had to put away her flying motorbike. But simply walking was too inefficient. Should she buy some kind of transportation? A horse, donkey, or mule?
"Hya! Hya!"
The sound of horse hooves came from behind, drumming rapidly on the ground. Xin Xiu saw people on the road looking alarmed, hurriedly moving their carts and goods to the side. Not understanding the situation, she also stepped to the side of the road.
In broad daylight, with the city walls so close, surely they wouldn't encounter bandits? Why were these people so panicked? Not only were they frightened, but they also gave her worried glances, as if wanting to say something but holding back.
Xin Xiu thought, "I have a bad feeling about this."
A group of horsemen stopped in the middle of the road. Xin Xiu squinted her eyes against the dust they kicked up. She saw a short, stocky man with a red face on horseback, holding a whip and eyeing her lecherously. He grinned and pointed at her, shouting something to his companions.
She still couldn't understand much, as the language here was different from what she had heard in the remote village. However, Xin Xiu caught two words she could roughly understand: "woman" and "not respectable."
After the red-faced man said this, the men on the horses behind him all laughed uproariously, the kind of laughter shared by a group of men discussing lewd topics.
Xin Xiu said, "Are you talking about your mothers?"
Even if they couldn't understand the swear words, body language is universal. The man looked displeased, skillfully flicked his whip to catch Xin Xiu around the waist, and pulled her forward, reaching out to grab her onto the horse.
Xin Xiu went with his momentum, leaped up, and planted her foot on the man's face, kicking him off the horse. She landed lightly on his horse.
Xin Xiu said, "Is it this dangerous for a girl to travel alone in this era? Even walking peacefully on the road in broad daylight, one can get robbed."
After saying this, she swiftly kicked the other men off their horses as well. The men tumbled into a heap, staring at her in disbelief, no longer able to laugh.
Xin Xiu ignored them, sitting on the horse and stroking its mane.
"I was just thinking about whether to buy a horse, but now I don't need to. You seem perfect, and you came to me for free. Come on, little darling, let's go. You're with me from now on."
She sat somewhat awkwardly on the horse, tugging at the reins to make it turn in another direction. The red-faced man behind her didn't dare make a sound, watching helplessly as she rode away with his horse.
