Legend of Fu Yao

Meng Fuyao reached out and slammed her hand on the Kirin!

Bang!

Meng Fuyao, whose eyes were shut and waiting for death, found the noise rather strange. It wasn’t the same sound of the arrows from before, and following the sound, she felt a rush of cool air blow above her head. With great ecstasy, she stood up from the water and raised her head to see that there was another cave entrance, and it had already opened a fraction to reveal another stone room. Drenched, she hastily clambered up, and the stone wall silently closed again, separating her from the water below.

Meng Fuyao lay on the ground panting like a dying dog for a long time. She thought of how she had nearly lost her precious life in that goddamn passageway and cursed in a fit of anger, “Zhan Beiye, I’ll definitely ask you to experience drowning and burning…”

After cursing for a while, she finally got up and thought for a bit. This stone room looked very similar to the one that Little Seven had tricked her into falling into, but it was much larger, at least five square meters wide. There were even a table and a long bench, piled with clothes. This was probably the real secret room in the passageway, and the one earlier was a trap. Both were exits; one was a dead end, leading to the bottom of the river, while the other was a life exit, heading to this secret room. The one that designed these traps must be a master strategist; he had calculated that whoever entered this secret passage would first go through the poison arrows from the Kirin, and then clouded with suspicion and not dare to touch the real button.

Meng Fuyao sat on the ground catching her breath, and after several moments she thought, ‘Why did the traps in this secret passageway feel rather similar to the ancient tombs of the Gun Tribe? Could it be possible that the two are related?’

She still couldn’t understand what was going on when she suddenly heard the sound of hushed conversation.

The sounds were unclear and stifled as if they were talking to each other while being separated by a distance.

The stone room was pitch black, and it was hard to see under the sparse light. Suddenly, the surrounding area was filled with a strange smell. It smelled like the original smell of the rocks mixed with water and the faint metallic smell of blood. It made one involuntarily think of the bloody corpses buried deep in the graves situated in the forest, shining in the moonlight… Thereafter, in the complete darkness and silence, she suddenly heard a flurry of voices.

Meng Fuyao was so shocked that she instantly jumped up.

She reached down to feel for a matchstick, but after feeling her wet hand, she remembered that her matches were all soaked and rendered useless. Hence, she could only quieten her heart and sit in the darkness, listening carefully.

The air seemed to be shrouded in a thick layer of fog, wisps of black drifting slowly as a bird of the night cried out in the distance and flapped its wings, its sound piercing the darkness. Meng Fuyao’s bright, clear eyes glinted brightly in the darkness.

After a while, she suddenly stood up, following the voices as she felt against the ceiling. Sure enough, she reached a tiny hole and pressed her ear against it. Immediately, the voices became a lot clearer; it turned out that this was an air vent, and just above was the surface, and two people were talking up there.

It was already in the middle of the night, for people to come out into the forest to talk so secretively, what kind of good could they possibly be up to? Meng Fuyao pressed her ear firmly against the air vent and listened intently.

“… I heard that it was just nearby, but the brothers have been searching for the past few days and still couldn’t find it.”

“There’s an 80% chance that it’s fake? After all, Prince Wen Yi’s entire family had been executed and their wealth confiscated. Even if one managed to survive, where would they find the money to set up an underground resistance in various nations?”

“Rumours don’t come from nothing, the Regent King said, we must keep looking carefully and dig out his nest.”

“The man himself had already been captured and if there’s anything to ask, can’t we just interrogate him? If we torture him, why should we be afraid of not getting any results? Why do we have to spend effort and come here, even suspiciously digging graves in the middle of the night…”

“The Regent King is clever and meticulous since he wants to find Zong Yue’s nest, he naturally has his own reasons… You should stop talking in case you let something out. Zong Yue’s position is high in the various nations, and he has many connections. If word goes out that he had been captured by us, things will get troublesome…”

Zong Yue!

Meng Fuyao couldn’t hear what the two above were saying anymore. Her mind was whirring, and her eyes were wide in shock.

Zong Yue had been captured? Regent King? The only nation in the Five Regions Continent that had a Regent King was Xuanyuan.

Did Xuanyuan Cheng capture Zong Yue?

Zong Yue had traveled across the continent, his position was high, he was well-informed, and he had an immeasurable amount of secret powers with him. His actions were also extremely secretive and given his relationship with Xuanyuan Yun, it seemed like it fit the description of this person.

Meng Fuyao lightly sucked a breath of air as she listened even more attentively, wanting to see if the two would reveal the location where Zong Yue was captured. However, the two above suddenly stopped talking, and there was no sign of movement any longer, only the faint whistling of the wind and the terrible cry of the old crow, “Ah— Ah—”

The sound was shrill, and Meng Fuyao felt a chill go down her spine. She remembered how the two men had mentioned that this was a burial mound and couldn’t help but smile as she thought, ‘Could it be that they had suddenly encountered some ghosts?’

Thereafter, she heard a series of ghost-like footsteps.

‘Relax, relax.’

As though it were a gently bouncing feather in a pillow or an infant bird’s feather falling from a tree, almost no sound was made. If not for Meng Fuyao pressing her ear tightly against the ground and feeling the faint tremor and sound, she simply wouldn’t have noticed.

Another way to put it was, regular martial arts masters would definitely not be able to notice it.

The footsteps drifted closer, following a strange tempo; it was light and floaty yet fast;

Shuu—

Only one sound.

Wu—

After that, silence fell once again and apart from the cries of the old crow becoming even more shrill, there was complete silence on the surface once again.

Meng Fuyao listened, alarmed, wondering who or what the last “wu” came from. Suddenly, she felt a coolness on her ear, as though a liquid had suddenly dripped onto her ear.

Meng Fuyao froze temporarily. ‘Not good!’ She had been too engrossed in listening to the news of Zong Yue. Since her ear was pressed so closely to the hold, if anyone noticed and dripped a drop of mercury down, her life would be over in a flash!

This fright was not to be taken lightly, and she hurriedly tilted her head to let the liquid drip out. She reached out to touch it; her fingers felt rather sticky, and she stole a look under the faint light—it was crimson red!

‘Blood!’

Had the two people above been killed in an instant?

Meng Fuyao sucked in her breath sharply. Had the “wu” sound come simultaneously from the two people? No wonder it sounded rather strange, the other party’s sword was too fast and only made a single move, killing both men together. ‘The stifled “wu” actually came from the two men’s throats as they died?’

Such a fast sword, such a straightforward and clean method of killing people. As Meng Fuyao watched, she couldn’t help but sigh and think that she had been too merciful in her method of killing people.

Blood from the ground continued to seep through the vent, collecting into a small puddle. It seemed like the other party preferred slaughtering people as a method of killing. It was a little bloody.

Meng Fuyao stared at the puddle of blood on the ground when suddenly, she noticed that the reflection on the puddle seemed to change.

It seemed as if… something was moving?

Meng Fuyao immediately flipped and pressed herself against the roof—she had seen enough strange things happening today, it was better to be cautious.

Sure enough, her hunch was right. Just as she had flattened herself, the opposite wall noiselessly opened again, revealing the cloudy night sky and releasing a silvery fog and enveloping the ground like a silvery-white blanket.

Under the moonlight, above the silvery blanket, a shadow clothed in black noiselessly appeared.

Tall and muscular, lean, clothed in a tight black outfit, with the moonlight shining on his figure. The man’s body was full of elasticity and power, yet it wasn’t bulky. It carried a strange, wild kind of beauty and the black hair that had been tied up shone like silk, drifting slightly as he walked into the room with his strange footwork. It made one think of the five-colored spotted leopard from the forest.

‘What a great figure!’ Meng Fuyao nearly whistled; she hadn’t even seen the face yet, but the figure was more than enough!

She held her breath and sized the man up lecherously, silently pressing herself even closer against the ceiling—that man’s figure was good, but it seemed like his fighting skills were even better, and she didn’t want to fight right now.

After the man entered, he pressed something, and a secret door appeared. The man then headed to a pile of clothes and lit a candle and picked up a robe.

Meng Fuyao stared at the flame on the candle, once again noiselessly shifting herself into the darkness.

She then continued to look down, and then… nearly stared until her eyeballs dropped off.

Across, in the faint candlelight, that man was… changing clothes.

If when fully clothed that figure already made one hard to tear one’s eyes away, after the clothes were removed, it was even more… brilliant.

Extremely luscious skin, supple, smooth with a faint jade-like quality, seeming to glisten like honey under the candlelight. It was different from the exquisite whiteness of regular Jiangnan men. On the other hand, he carried a wilder allure, and as the candlelight outlined his body, one could see the lines of his muscles, faintly glowing, every inch hinting at the flexibility and power of the man, yet there were no knots, everything flowed smoothly and naturally to the point where it was mesmerizing.

‘Ah… What a beauty… Only a body that looks even better without clothes can be called true beauty…’

Meng Fuyao’s eyes roamed greedily all over the body. ‘The extremely beautiful inverted triangle shape, the broad shoulders and narrow waist, the smooth and clean back, the intricate movement of the shoulder blades… and below… skip, skip… oh, what long legs, yet full of elasticity and power, a perfect balance between elegance and strength, it is truly the most perfect and touching body shape…’

It was a pity that time was too short…’Why did the man have to change so quickly… Sigh…’

Ultimately, the man did not turn around, and he had changed into yet another black outfit. He gathered his previous bloodstained robes into a bundle and held it in his hand, and using his strange footwork, he opened the door of the secret room and left.

Meng Fuyao waited for several moments until she was sure that he wouldn’t be coming back before slowly coming back down. Her “Cleaving Nine Heavens” technique had been continuously improving, and she could hold her breath for a much longer time than normal people. It was also thanks to this that she had gone unnoticed by the man, or else no matter how far she was, she would have been found out by this powerful man.