This wild child who had grown up in the mountains was indeed exceptionally ignorant. He knew nothing about almost everything.

 

For exiled travellers, the night was always very long, because sleep was a luxury. Danger lurked everywhere, and there was nothing to do.

Hua Yi could hardly remember the last time he had slept so deeply that he had lost all sense of time. Even when he closed his eyes, some part of his nerves always remained awake.

This was especially true when he travelled alone.

Making a living was not easy. Fighting had become his instinct, from the moment he opened his eyes in the morning until night fell once more.

Sometimes, when Hua Yi thought about it, he wondered what exactly he was living for. His life seemed to offer little enjoyment. There was more pain than happiness, and he had accumulated more scars on his body than sweets in his mouth. If he wanted to have some fun, he had to dig deep within himself and find something amusing in his own life.

He had no family. He had a few friends, most of whom were much like him. He did not even dare to hope that he might find a wife.

There would be little point in marrying anyway. He might be dead a couple of days later. He spent every day rushing from place to place simply to complete his employers’ tasks and earn more money and resources. Then he could go and take revenge on Jing Chu of the Snow Wolf Tribe.

But what would he do after taking his revenge? He had no idea. He could not think of anything, and there was nothing he looked forward to.

Yet, although his life was so dull and tasteless, he still did not want to die. He did not want to die, even if he had to fight with all his might to stay alive.

Once, an enemy had cut open his abdomen. Even then, he had forced his intestines back inside himself and crawled along until the companions who were coming to meet him finally arrived.

On the one hand, Hua Yi did this kind of work while constantly hovering between life and death. He lived like a desperate outlaw and did not particularly treasure his own life. On the other hand, he clung fiercely to the very idea of being alive.

Perhaps it was determination. Perhaps it was simply anger.

Even he did not understand why he was so conflicted.

There was only one person nearby, someone sleeping so deeply that he was barely conscious. Since nobody was watching him, Hua Yi stopped smiling. The flickering firelight was reflected in his eyes, making his gaze impossible to discern. Only vast shadows could be seen within them.

After sitting in a daze for a while, Hua Yi turned to look at Chang An. He watched him for quite some time, yet all he could conclude was the obvious: the boy was handsome.

As if possessed by some strange impulse, Hua Yi leaned closer and tentatively waved his hand towards Chang An. The boy did not move at all. His breathing remained steady and regular, and his sleeping face was as peaceful as a child's.

Hua Yi sat there for a while longer, bored to the point of frustration. With nothing better to do, he edged closer. When he was about a foot away from Chang An's face, he waved his palm like a fan, stirring up a little breeze that lifted a strand of hair from the boy's forehead.

Chang An still showed no reaction.

Could anyone really sleep so deeply out in a forest? Hua Yi did not believe it. Unless the boy had been born with skin of bronze and bones of iron, impervious to blades and spears, he would have died long ago, no matter how capable he was.

Just then, Hua Yi's hand moved forward another inch or two by accident. Yet that tiny distance, no more than half a finger's breadth, was enough. Chang An, who had been sleeping with his head on his cloth bundle, oblivious to the passage of time, suddenly opened his eyes.

A cold glint flashed in his distinctly black-and-white eyes. The boy who had just been dreaming peacefully now radiated a chilling murderous intent.

It was like… some divine weapon forged by an ancient celestial god, a weapon that had vanished from the world and survived only in legends. The instant it was drawn from its sheath, it could make anyone shudder.

“What are you doing?” Chang An asked. His voice was still hoarse with sleep, but his eyes were clear, as though he had never been asleep at all.

Hua Yi realised that he had been looking for trouble for no reason. Embarrassed, he withdrew his hand, ran a hand through his own hair, and gave an awkward laugh. “You weren't asleep?”

“I was asleep,” Chang An replied. “As long as you don't come within a foot of me, I won't wake up.”

Hua Yi was puzzled. “Why is that?”

Chang An had been sleeping peacefully when Hua Yi had disturbed him for no reason. He almost wanted to smash the hilt of his sabre into Hua Yi's face. He was thoroughly irritated. However, Hua Yi was, after all, his benefactor. For that reason alone, Chang An finally managed to restrain himself. He kept a straight face and did not reveal that he wanted to hit him.

He treated Zhe Yan and A Yan the same way.

When Zhe Yan went mad, he was impossible to reason with. When A Yan started crying, she would not stop. Both of them had habits that were difficult to tolerate, yet Chang An was always extraordinarily patient with them.

When Zhe Yan scolded him, he listened without saying a word. When A Yan cried for no apparent reason, he would go outside and pick flowers covered in morning dew for her.

At that moment, Chang An stared silently at the wet ground among the trees. He forcibly suppressed his anger before finally speaking. He answered the other man in a polite and agreeable manner.

Hua Yi heard the boy reply in a very gentle, almost humble tone, “Because nothing can hurt me from more than a foot away. There is no need for me to wake up.”

Hua Yi: “…”

He had never met anyone who could be so brazen while remaining so calm and matter-of-fact.

“Do you have any other questions?” Chang An asked patiently.

Hua Yi remained silent for a while, then casually poked at the fire. “Did you used to live in the Vulture Tribe? Have we met there before?”

He was considering how to coax some information about the mysterious boy's background out of him. However, before he could even settle on a strategy, the boy gave him a concise and complete answer of his own accord.

“When I was little, I lived with Zhe Yan in the Vulture Tribe. I met you there. You washed my face and ended up washing me right into the river. I felt I had no way to repay you, so I gave you a flower.”

Chang An's tone was so casual that Hua Yi could not tell whether the boy was simply stating the facts or reproaching him for being so clumsy back then that he had sent a perfectly good child tumbling into the river.

“Later, Zhe Yan died. After A Yan took care of me for a few months, I went up Mount Yufeng and grew up there with my master.”

Hua Yi was startled. Mount Yufeng lay between two worlds, with the Vulture Tribe on one side and the Snow Wolf Tribe on the other. He had grown up listening to stories about that mysterious mountainside, where strange and inexplicable things were said to happen.

He looked Chang An over again. For some reason, if anyone else had told him this, Hua Yi would certainly have assumed they were joking. But when Chang An said it, he believed him.

Looking at the boy, wasn't he exactly the kind of little monster who had been raised among monsters?

Hua Yi was speechless with astonishment for a moment before asking, “Then where are you heading now?”

Chang An paused, then glanced at Hua Yi. He stretched out his arms and legs towards the fire to warm himself.

Bei Shi was truly an even worse master than a useless glutton. He had treated Chang An's illness for ten years, and the fact that he had not managed to kill him in the process was already quite an achievement. Even though Chang An had been left with the problem of having cold hands and feet even in summer, he could still consider himself lucky.

After remaining silent for a while, Chang An said, “Isn't someone trying to kill you? I'll escort you for a while.”

Hua Yi was momentarily at a loss for words. He felt rather strange about it.

Silver-marked beastmen were naturally strong. Hua Yi had been able to hunt alone since seven or eight years, and he had been almost as capable as an experienced hunter. Yet, after all these years of bluffing, deception, and repeatedly coming within a hair's breadth of death, he had never expected a sub-beast to appear and casually offer to escort him on his journey.

Of course, Hua Yi was not foolish enough to refuse a benefit that had been offered to him so readily.

After speaking, Chang An clenched his fists and felt that his palms had finally warmed up a little. Satisfied, he lay down again. Even after settling down, he quietly reminded Hua Yi, “If you need anything, you can call me. Don't suddenly creep up on me without making a sound. If you hang your hand there without moving, I might mistake it for a snake and accidentally hurt you. That wouldn't be good.”

Hua Yi: “...”

For the first time in his life, he had been rendered so utterly helpless in such an absurd way that he simply did not know what to say.

Hua Yi lowered his head and glanced at his own arm. Although it was covered in scars, it was still thick with muscle. Then he looked at Chang An, who was lying on his side nearby. He silently estimated a distance of one chi (NT: roughly one-third of a metre), stretched out his arm, and compared it with Chang An’s waist from every angle. He then reached the rather biased conclusion that his arm was thicker than the other boy’s waist. You little brat, he thought, I won’t crouch to your level.

Chang An kept his word. Starting the very next day, he followed Hua Yi everywhere, always carrying his sabre on his back.

He did not talk much, but he was not dull company either. He had the particular curiosity characteristic of someone his age.

This wild child who had grown up in the mountains was indeed exceptionally ignorant. He knew nothing about almost everything. He had never even known that there was such a thing as an ocean, or that the land was divided into two continents, north and south.

When the two of them had nothing to do and roasted meat to eat, Chang An would listen, engrossed, to Hua Yi’s stories about distant places. He would keep urging Hua Yi to continue. Hua Yi was the sort of person who became more animated when he had an audience, and once he started talking, he could go on endlessly, showing off all he knew. But he soon discovered that this little rascal regarded these unfamiliar things merely as stories to pass the time. He had no concept of what a “city-state” was, and he had never even heard of the “Beta”, the only currency commonly used on both the northern and southern continents.

“Then do you know what ‘pearl stones’ are?”

This time, Chang An looked enlightened. “Money? I know about that. When I was little, I saw Zhe Yan use some. You can exchange them for things.”

“What on earth did you grow up eating?” Hua Yi said as he took a Beta coin from inside his clothes. It looked somewhat like a seashell, but its surface shimmered with a lustrous, pearly glow.

It was said that these things had originally grown on the seabed. The creatures living beneath the sea offended a god, and in a fit of anger, the god drained the oceans. The continents rose above the water, while countless underwater creatures dried out in the sunlight and air, becoming ancient remains. The animals inside died, leaving behind dried shells that became Betas. They were remarkably uniform in shape, as though measured with a ruler: none was much larger or smaller than another. Their surfaces were harder than steel, and they were extremely wear resistant. They were also light and easy to carry.

It was said that gold and silver were also used for trade in the south. However, gold and silver were simply too heavy. In the north, people still recognised only Betas as currency.

Hua Yi explained, “‘Beta’ is money, just like ‘pearl stones’. One Beta is worth sixteen pearl stones.”

Chang An calculated silently for a while, trying to understand what it meant for one Beta to equal sixteen pearl stones. Unfortunately, even after a long time, he could not make sense of it. He took this “vast fortune” and turned it over in his hands for a while, fascinated by its novelty. But soon he lost interest. It was hard, and he could neither eat nor drink it. Without the slightest reluctance, he tossed it back to Hua Yi.

Zhe Yan still had a few pearl stones, while Bei Shi did not have even a single coin. Yet they were both living perfectly well, weren’t they? Clearly, this thing was not very useful.

Chang An listened carefully as Hua Yi described the “Exiled Travellers”. He gathered that these people risked being hunted down by countless others to carry out jobs for their employers, all just to obtain these useless little trinkets. He looked at Hua Yi with a hint of pity. Chang An thought he was rather stupid.

This young man was thoroughly solitary, so much so that Hua Yi sometimes had the strange illusion that Chang An was not really human at all, but an animal wearing human skin that had learned to speak.

The two of them continued to head east. Along the way, they experienced more than ten large and small attempts to hunt them down or ambush them. Chang An might have called his role an escort, but whenever trouble actually arose, he usually stood by and watched. Unless the situation became dangerous, he absolutely refused to intervene.

With such astonishing skill with a blade, and at the awkward age of seventeen or eighteen, when a young man was neither quite a child nor fully an adult, Hua Yi had assumed that Chang An would be extremely fond of fighting. Yet after more than half a month, he discovered that although Chang An behaved strangely, he had his own way of doing things and followed it without regard for what others thought.

As long as others did not provoke him, he did not provoke them. He even suggested that Hua Yi avoid the surrounding tribes to prevent unnecessary trouble.

He could even coexist peacefully with passing animals. Once, when they stopped to rest on the road, Chang An sat on the ground with his back against a tree and drank some water. Hua Yi saw with his own eyes a particularly bold young horned deer, apparently out of its mind, leap right over Chang An. Yet the boy merely paused in surprise for a moment. He did not even raise his head, behaving as though he could not care less.

When he hunted, he killed only as much as he needed to eat and never slaughtered animals indiscriminately.

And yet, through their strange companionship day after day, Hua Yi’s wariness, which he had kept on a very tight leash, gradually subsided.

Once he had grown accustomed to this extraordinary travelling companion, Hua Yi even began to find his peculiarities rather endearing. Chang An lived with complete simplicity, keeping nothing hidden away for himself and harbouring no secret designs. Of course, when Hua Yi was scrambling desperately to evade his pursuers, it would have been even better if this “adorable” little brother had not been sitting so peacefully on a tree branch, munching on pine nuts and watching the spectacle.

That day, the two of them passed through a stretch of woodland belonging to a tribe. They had intended to find a guest shelter and rest for a while. But as soon as they approached the shelter, they both stopped at almost exactly the same moment, one just ahead of the other.

“Fishing smell.” Chang An turned to Hua Yi and said, “There’s blood here.”

 

Translator : DarNan