Chapter Three: Mountains (Three)

  Xia Yanyi had a dream.

  She stands alone in her dreams, gazing down at the multitude of lives below. Those tiny creatures are busy being born, busy dying, and busy missing out on life, but what's the point? It's just a fleeting existence of a few decades, gaining and losing, what does it all amount to? A single crossing of Naihe Bridge in front of Yanwang Temple and everything is gone.

  She suddenly felt bored and thought that even if she had lived for so long, she was no different from those people.

  Oh, the only difference is that she has inheritance but no reincarnation.

  It was just an instant, and the clouds, sky, mountains, and everything else disappeared. All that remained was a mixture of the sound of clashing steel and the smell of fresh blood gushing out of her body. As she turned around, a gleaming knife was thrust into her chest.

  How can it be so painful? How can it hurt this much?!

  She raised her head and saw a pair of crimson eyes, one sentence was like thunder exploding in her ears, the voice lingering on and on as if it would follow her to the ends of the earth and into the depths of hell.

  It seems like a curse.

  It's obviously a curse.

  "With the power of 100,000 dark troops from the underworld, I don't believe you can still escape this knife at your throat!"

  The dream ended here, Xiaoyan suddenly opened her eyes and scared Fangying who was about to wake her up: "I said can you not look like a zombie? If it wasn't for my good mental quality, I would have stuffed the black donkey's hoof into your mouth long ago."

  Xiaoyan, who had just woken up, was not as dazed as usual for a while - during which she wouldn't mind no matter how you poked her - She grabbed two handfuls of hair and jumped out of bed with a toothbrush to wash up: "Before you stuffed it in, did you consider the mood of kicking your black donkey hoof to death?"

  Afterwards Fang You stayed in place for half a day, unable to recover his spirits.

  "I say... don't you think that Yifei hasn't woken up yet," he quietly turned to Lan Ruo Xue who had started eating breakfast, "how did she come up with such an illogical statement?"

  The latter just shrugged and indicated that he wasn't very clear either.

  After splashing a handful of cold water on her face, Xia Yannuo finally calmed down and carefully thought about that dream. This dream was too real, so real that the pain in her chest still lingered until now.

  She reached out and touched her chest, just touching the warm jade pendant.

  Xia Yanfei splashed cold water on her face again, looked at herself in the mirror and smiled self-deprecatingly. It was just a dream after all, no matter how real it felt. Xia Yanfei had long stopped believing in supernatural retribution as she went about her mundane life.

  "That old man was talking to you yesterday in a mysterious way, does he want to keep you as his son's wife?" Lan Ruo Xue asked while leaning against the door frame, wearing a tight-fitting blue dress. "If your brother knew about it, he would immediately come over and fight with him." "Stop thinking about those messy things that don't make sense, pseudo-Lolita who will be 155 for life," Xia Yun replied while wiping her face with a towel, her voice muffled because of the towel. "Nothing much, just asking about university entrance exams and stuff like that."

  As she passed by Lan Ruoxue, the other party pulled her clothes and the girl who looked much younger than her actual age raised her head to gaze seriously into her eyes: "Do you still remember that divination that Shen Suan Lao Ba did for you? Your four pillars and eight characters are all yin, with only one word that can be broken for life. He also said that this year is a crucial year for you to pass through, so do you still plan to follow the young master of the Fang family down to the underworld?"

  In the end, Lan Ruoxue could no longer control her emotions and let out a low growl.

  However, she saw Xia Yunfei, who had always been smiling warmly - even though she had long known it was just a facade - put away his smile, lowered his eyelids and expression calm: "What's wrong? Do you still remember what I told you a few years ago? I, Xia Yunfei, don't believe in fate, let alone admit defeat. In more literary terms, my destiny is mine, not heaven's."

  Then Xiaoyan flew out of the door with a towel, smiling reassuringly at her: "I said you two haven't packed your gear yet? Are you men or not?"

  Lan Ruoxue watched as her back figure got farther and farther away from herself, suddenly having a kind of illusion that this good friend who had grown up with her since childhood was about to leave herself far behind.

  She didn't tell Xiaoyan that she had been shouting a name she had never heard of in her dream last night.

  Leave the blue.

  As soon as Xiaoyan flew into the mountain, she felt that the sky had darkened. She looked up in confusion and found that all around her were towering ancient trees, with branches and leaves intertwined, only allowing a few scattered rays of sunlight to filter through, like a trickle of silver flowing across the ground.

  The young man walking ahead - Fang and the others only learned his name was Li Yu after he turned around to remind them - said, "Be careful where you step when walking, during this season even with medicine powder some villagers will still get bitten by snakes or other things."

  When his eyes swept over Xia Yifei who wasn't wearing sunglasses and a hat, he obviously blushed.

  Fang Ying felt a pang in his heart for some reason when he saw this scene, and quickened his pace to chat with Li Yu.

  Xia Yanyi, who saw all this, was also delighted to pretend to be confused and didn't care, happily wandering in the middle of the team, occasionally paying attention to whether there were any traces left by her peers.

  "Grandpa must have told you too, this mountain is called Qinglong Mountain. It's said to be the place where the Green Dragon transformed, but he's told that story so many times, who still believes it?" Li Yu used his stick to part the grass in front of him to prevent any snakes, and chatted with Fang Ying about his grandfather who was obsessed with the past. But the words that came out of his mouth fell into Xiaoyan Fei's ears with a different meaning. Places with legends usually don't lack wealth, if it weren't for this so-called Qinglong legend, they would have thought they might be making a wasted trip.

  After walking for more than an hour, Li Yu suggested taking a rest before continuing on, as the mountain road ahead had become steep and treacherous, requiring sufficient physical strength to proceed. Fang Chenye, although eager to arrive at the tomb immediately, chose to swallow his pride and sit down, silently cursing Li Yu in his heart countless times, so as not to reveal their true intentions in front of others.

  After taking a sip of water, Xiaoyan and the remaining people said goodbye on the pretext that they wanted to see if they could bring some plant specimens back for their botany classmates. In fact, she seemed to have just discovered some marks left by her former colleagues, which looked like they were left by someone from the Xia family.

  She remembered that half a month ago, someone from the branch brought a team here, but for some reason, the whole team mysteriously disappeared. At that time, the matter was even reported to Old Master Xia's place, but she had run to Italy at that time and didn't know how it was finally resolved.

  As she thought and thought, her mind wandered, and when she came back to herself, she had already stepped into thin air and fallen into a hole.

  Fortunately, Xiaoyan had been through many life-and-death situations underground and immediately pulled out the wild field knife hidden at her waist and inserted it into the wall of the cave to stop her fall. At this time, her foot stepped on something soft.

  She cautiously looked down and saw a pair of eyes that were obviously human, bright red.