Chapter 362: In Peril

Niu Youdao had been about to enter the cabin when his steps stopped. He turned back toward the mainland. “They went ashore?”

Gongsun Bu sighed. “Black Peony was worried you were in danger. She took Duan Hu ashore and said they would help draw away whatever danger might be following you.”

“Draw danger away from me?” Niu Youdao’s gaze came back to Gongsun Bu’s face. He slowly turned his whole body toward him and barked, “What happened?”

The shout drew Lu Lijun out from inside. He stopped in the cabin doorway and looked over.

“We received a message earlier telling us to leave at daybreak. Black Peony guessed that Master Dao might have run into danger…” Gongsun Bu explained the whole situation in detail.

Guan Fangyi’s bright eyes blinked several times. Inwardly, she sighed with emotion. Whether Black Peony’s decision was right or wrong, one thing could not be denied: she was a loyal subordinate. People like that were rare in this world.

“Absurd!” Niu Youdao snapped. He drove the tip of his sword hard against the deck several times. “I kept the ship offshore precisely so all of you would wait at sea. What were you doing running onto land? Who told you to go ashore?”

How was Gongsun Bu supposed to answer that? Still, he could see something from Niu Youdao’s reaction. For him to lose his temper this badly meant there really was danger. Worry for Black Peony and Duan Hu immediately rose in his heart.

Niu Youdao’s face was grim. He paced back and forth across the deck, repeatedly looking toward the coastline. Anxiety showed in his eyes.

He had already found something strange earlier. After escaping the ranch, their journey had been smooth to an almost unnatural degree. He had not sensed the slightest sign that anyone was searching for them.

He had even begun to wonder whether he had been overthinking things, whether the danger he feared had never existed at all. They had encountered no resistance whatsoever.

Now, however, it seemed there were only two possibilities. Either he truly had been overthinking it, or Black Peony had actually succeeded and drawn the searchers away from him.

The reasoning was simple. If that danger truly existed, then from the difference in timing and the relative positions of friend and foe, it was possible to make certain estimates.

He could only hope he had worried for nothing. He could only hope the danger he feared had never existed.

“Did they take a Goldenwing with them?” Niu Youdao asked from beside the rail.

Gongsun Bu answered, “No!”

Niu Youdao said, “Did they say which direction they were going?”

Gongsun Bu shook his head. “No. They only said that if we couldn’t wait for them, they might go to the place Shen Qiu’s group is heading. They would meet us there.”

Thud!

Niu Youdao drove his sword against the deck again, with nowhere else to vent the anger in his chest.

Without a Goldenwing, there was no way to contact Black Peony and Duan Hu. Without knowing where they had gone, there was no way to search for them. The land was vast. Sending the few people here wandering around in hopes that a blind cat might stumble over a dead mouse would be no different from searching the sea for a needle. It simply was not realistic.

“Master Dao, what do we do now?” Gongsun Bu asked tentatively.

What he really meant was: were they still setting sail?

Niu Youdao snapped, “What else can we do? Wait!”

Guan Fangyi had originally intended to indulge her usual little temper. The sight of this rendezvous point had made her rather unhappy. When Niu Youdao sent Uncle Chen and the other two away, he had refused to reveal the location to them. He had obviously been guarding against them. But seeing him now, plainly furious, she swallowed the complaint she had been about to make. A chain of mountains stretched across the land, steep and rugged. The place was called Jiudaochuan.

At the foot of the mountains, two riders galloped onward.

“Eldest Sister, this is bad!”

Duan Hu, who had been constantly scanning their surroundings from horseback, suddenly cried out. Black Peony whipped her head around and followed his gaze. Beneath the clear moon in the night sky, several dark shapes swept past one after another.

Giant flying birds.

Black Peony’s expression changed drastically. The situation had exceeded her expectations. Her plan had been to stir up a trail, then immediately flee toward treacherous terrain where she could use the land to make her escape. She had never imagined the other side would use giant flying birds to pursue and search for them, much less so many at once.

In Black Peony’s experience, even a single giant flying bird was worth an astronomical sum. It had never occurred to her that anyone would deploy so many merely to hunt them down.

Before this, she had believed their chances of escaping were fairly good. But with giant flying birds in pursuit, the enemy’s speed of response was far beyond what she had anticipated. She had never expected them to catch up this quickly, and some of her opportunities to slip away had already vanished.

She did not bother hoping these birds were simply passing by and had nothing to do with them. She knew now that they were truly in trouble.

Truly in danger.

“Go!” Black Peony shouted.

She launched herself from the saddle and flew toward the mountain. Duan Hu sprang after her. Both abandoned their mounts at the same time and flung away the veiled hats on their heads, exposing their true faces as they fled for their lives.

In the sky, five giant birds split apart and rejoined as they searched the area, sometimes climbing high, sometimes dropping low.

One bird skimmed almost along the ground, passing low over the two riderless horses before banking upward. It angled toward the two figures racing up the mountain and gave chase. A piercing cry rang from its throat. The other four birds immediately turned. Their wings beat faster as they accelerated toward the signal.

Before long, Black Peony and Duan Hu were forced onto a mountaintop. On the other side lay a sheer cliff and a gorge, with a raging torrent roaring below.

One bird circled above their heads. Two more wheeled around them. A fourth landed across the gorge, while the fifth swept back and forth over the torrent below.

Each of the five birds carried three riders. Every one of them wore a black cloak and kept half his face covered, making their features hard to see.

Judging from the beards and facial wrinkles visible on some of them, however, quite a few seemed to be older men.

Every path of escape had been cut off. They were completely surrounded. Black Peony and Duan Hu were both tense and uneasy. To say they were not afraid at all would have been a lie. One man drifted down from a flying bird and landed opposite them. He studied their faces. To an experienced eye, it was obvious at once that neither had disguised their features.

Black Peony’s complexion and looks were plainly nothing like Guan Fangyi’s, while Duan Hu was visibly far older than Niu Youdao. There was no possibility he could be Niu Youdao.

Black Peony said in a deep voice, “Who are you? Why do you keep chasing us?”

“You aren’t Niu Youdao and Guan Fangyi. You impersonated them to draw us away. Speak. Where did Niu Youdao go?” The man’s voice was muffled and heavy.

Black Peony said, “I don’t understand what you’re talking about!”

“You still dare be stubborn!”

The man flipped one hand and struck out with his palm. A green-glowing palm projection as broad as a tabletop blasted violently toward them.

The two were horrified. There was nowhere to dodge. From the instant the man attacked, both knew his strength was simply beyond anything they could resist.

But Black Peony and Duan Hu had roamed the cultivation world together for years, and their coordination was practiced.

Black Peony immediately drew on every scrap of her cultivation and thrust both palms forward to block the attack.

Duan Hu slammed both palms against Black Peony’s back, drawing on his entire cultivation to pour spiritual power into her and reinforce her defense.

Boom!

The green palm projection smashed through their combined defense with a single strike. Black Peony’s arms were flung apart. The sound of bones breaking in succession could be heard as she threw back her head and sprayed a mouthful of blood into the air.

Bang!

Black Peony was hurled backward into Duan Hu. He too spat blood, though Black Peony had borne most of the force and his injuries were clearly lighter.

The two figures were blasted off the cliff and into the gorge, striking the raging torrent below one after the other.

The flying bird sweeping back and forth through the gorge raced over. One man leapt from its back, flipped out a luminous pearl, and plunged into the water after them.

The instant they hit the water, Duan Hu grabbed Black Peony, who had almost completely lost the strength to move. He fought his way deeper, carrying her down toward the riverbed and letting the torrent sweep them rapidly along. He knew this river might be their only hope of escape. A glow seemed to flash behind them.

Duan Hu panicked.

In desperation, survival instinct would not let him ignore any possible opening. His hand swept across what might have been a cave mouth or merely a gap in the rock, a narrow opening just wide enough for one person to squeeze through.

There was no time to think. Holding Black Peony beneath one arm, Duan Hu shoved her into the opening. She slid in easily, which meant there had to be space beyond it. He squeezed in after her.

Only once inside did he realize it was an underwater cave. He had no idea how large the space within might be. He immediately pulled Black Peony against him and stayed absolutely still, covering her mouth with one hand so that the bloody scent from her nose and mouth would not continue leaking into the water outside. Light flashed past the entrance and vanished. Duan Hu probed backward with one foot and discovered another small opening behind him.

At first, he ignored it. Holding Black Peony, he swam toward the larger space deeper in the cave. Before long, the two surfaced. The cavern around them was of unknown size. He had intended to carry Black Peony ashore, but after a moment’s thought, he unexpectedly dove back underwater.

He returned to the small opening near the entrance and explored it briefly. The space beyond was only large enough to hold three or four people.

He pushed Black Peony inside, then went alone into the larger underwater cave, wrestled a heavy stone free, and brought it back. As he squeezed into the small hollow himself, he dragged the stone into place and blocked the narrow opening. The light of a luminous pearl bloomed over the surface of the rushing river. A man surfaced, raised the pearl and waved it once, then plunged underwater again.

At once, ten people descended from above. Each produced a luminous pearl and entered the river. Lights immediately appeared beneath the torrent, spreading both upstream and downstream in search. Two flying birds, each carrying one rider, swept back and forth above the river. Two more remained in the sky, each carrying one rider and searching among the mountains.

The black-robed man who had attacked Black Peony stood atop the cliff, with a flying bird waiting beside him.

Someone found the entrance to the cave where Duan Hu was hiding and entered with a luminous pearl in hand.

Concealed inside the small hollow beside the cave mouth, Duan Hu instantly tensed. He could see light seeping through the cracks around the stone that blocked their hiding place. Yet the quick decision he had made in desperation proved correct.

The newcomer ignored the hidden opening. After entering the cave, he passed right by the large stone tucked into the corner and moved deeper inside, using spiritual power to search everywhere. It simply never occurred to him that someone might be hiding beside the very entrance he had just used.

To a certain extent, Black Peony had been wise to choose Jiudaochuan as their escape route from the outset.

The pursuer surfaced deeper inside the cavern and climbed onto the rocky shore. Holding the luminous pearl aloft, he searched the underground space, which extended dozens of zhang inward. He did not overlook any of the larger or smaller caves connected to it.

Only after searching thoroughly and finding no one did he return to the water, swim back out of the cave, and reenter the rushing river to continue searching elsewhere. Inside the small hollow, Duan Hu saw the light flash past outside and disappear. He knew the man had probably left, but he still did not dare move.

Only when he felt Black Peony, unconscious in his arms, beginning to lose her breath did he have no choice but to take the risk.

Carefully, he pushed aside the stone blocking the entrance, pulled Black Peony out, and swam into the larger cavern. He carried her onto the rocky shore.

Using spiritual power to keep water from dripping off their bodies, he hurried deeper inside, found another secluded space, and hid there with her. Only then did he begin emergency treatment on Black Peony.

[End of Chapter 362]