Chapter 30

Chapter 30: Clinging On

Granny Gu’s expression dimmed for a heartbeat as she studied Gu Shi Yi. “Where are you from? And how did you end up falling off that mountaintop?”

Gu Shi Yi answered carefully, “My hometown is in the northwest, in Chen Prefecture… but I left when I was little. My family… there isn’t really anyone left.”

She only mentioned her hometown, neatly dodging the real reason for the fall. Instead of pressing, Granny Gu’s eyes lit up even more, like the heavens had just handed her a gift.

“Chen Prefecture? Then that really is fate.” She leaned in, delighted. “Our escort bureau is from Chen Prefecture too—the Dragon-Tiger Escort Bureau. Have you heard of it?”

“Ah…” Gu Shi Yi’s mouth fell open. She blinked hard. “I left home when I was only a few years old. I honestly haven’t heard of the Dragon-Tiger Escort Bureau.”

“That’s fine.” Granny Gu waved it off with a warm smile. “If you haven’t heard of it, you haven’t heard of it. We’re heading back to the northwest right now. Come with us to Chen Prefecture and you’ll know soon enough.”

“Chen… Chen Prefecture…” Gu Shi Yi repeated, still struggling to believe the coincidence. “This escort team is going back to Chen Prefecture?”

Twin Sages City sat in White Horse Prefecture. Chen Prefecture was separated from here by Great Western Province, White Horse Prefecture, and the dragon-breaking ridge. Their business reached this far?

Granny Gu nodded so hard her bun almost shook loose. “This run our Sixth Master took a big job. Just look at the size of the convoy—three, four hundred people. Even an old servant woman like me who only cooks got dragged along…”

Gu Shi Yi stared, dazed. “That’s such a long road. How did you even get here?”

Granny Gu chuckled. “Oh, we were tossed around the whole way. Boat, carriage, boat again—pure misery. In one more day we’ll enter Du Mo Prefecture. Then we can take a boat west the whole way, straight to Chen Prefecture. Traveling by water is far more comfortable than by cart—less shaking. Your injuries will heal faster too.”

Gu Shi Yi could only give a bitter little smile.

That night, after Granny Gu finally fell asleep, Gu Shi Yi couldn’t hold it in anymore. She called Li Yan Er out.

This convoy was enormous—too many eyes, too many ears, and walls that might as well have grown ears of their own. Gu Shi Yi couldn’t move well right now, and she had no way to protect herself. She’d never dared bring Yan Er out to talk. But tonight, she truly couldn’t stand it another second. While Granny Gu’s snores rolled like thunder, Gu Shi Yi quietly called Yan Er out from the cloth pouch against her chest.

Li Yan Er poked her head out and drew a long, relieved breath. “Shi Yi, these past few days nearly suffocated me.”

When Gu Shi Yi tumbled off the mountain, Li Yan Er had gone down with her. Luckily, Shi Yi was… generously padded. Reliable shock absorption. Li Yan Er had been protected well enough that she didn’t take much damage at all.

Later, when Shi Yi was rescued, Li Yan Er heard every word as people tried to save her. And for the next several days, Gu Shi Yi drifted in and out of sleep with Granny Gu constantly at her side. Li Yan Er didn’t dare show herself. Tonight, Gu Shi Yi was finally clearer, and the two best friends could whisper at last.

“Shi Yi,” Li Yan Er asked softly, “how bad is it?”

Gu Shi Yi gave a helpless, pained smile. “I protected my head when I rolled down, so at least my skull is intact. But I broke a rib. Even taking a breath hurts. They say injuries to bone take a hundred days—if I don’t rest properly, I’ll regret it forever. Looks like we’re really going to Chen Prefecture…”

All her silver had been in that bundle, and the horse had carried it off. Now she was injured and penniless. Shameless or not, she had no choice but to cling to this escort team, recover first, and think of a plan later.

Li Yan Er’s voice tightened. “Then what about Great King?”

Money could be earned again. But Great King—Great King had been left behind in that little town.

Gu Shi Yi thought for a moment. “It’s a wood spirit that gained intelligence. It’s hiding in the forests outside the town. As long as it doesn’t come out to cause trouble or draw attention, it won’t be in danger.”

A spirit creature born from trees was best at earth escape. Once it dove underground, even a Nascent Soul Stage cultivator would need time and effort to catch it.

Li Yan Er let out a slow sigh. “Right now we can barely keep ourselves safe. We can only hope it’s clever.”

“It’ll be fine,” Gu Shi Yi said, though her voice softened. “When I’m better, we’ll come back for it.”

It was the only comfort she had to offer. But Li Yan Er’s guilt only sank deeper.

“Shi Yi… I’m useless. All I do is drag you down. I can’t help you at all.”

No one could understand what it felt like, watching Shi Yi tumble down the mountain with blood all over her face—terror hammering her chest, grief and rage twisting her stomach until it felt like she might split apart.

“This world really isn’t like the one I came from.”

Before, she had only heard Shi Yi talk about it: how ordinary mortals here lived like weeds, cheap and easily crushed, not so different from the feudal dynasties in her old world. Since arriving, Li Yan Er had mostly seen strange landscapes and new customs. She hadn’t truly felt danger.

Now she had.

This world had birdsong and flowers and spiritual qi so thick it practically shimmered in the air. It also had the law of the jungle—strong devouring weak, crowds bullying the few, power pressing down like a boot. Those men had come at them with dirty, killing tricks, and not one of them treated a human life as something worth weighing.

Shi Yi had survived because she was lucky. If she hadn’t been…

Li Yan Er, a wisp of a ghost from a peaceful world, felt like her whole worldview had been slapped into pieces.

Shi Yi had almost died.

And she herself—she was nothing but a drifting spirit now, clinging to a little clay body, able to watch and scream and do absolutely nothing.

“Shi Yi,” Li Yan Er blurted, desperate, “what if I stop using corpse-borrowing soul return technique? I’ll cultivate the ghost path instead. Make me a vengeful ghost. Next time something like this happens, I can help you!”

Gu Shi Yi jolted like she’d been doused in ice water. “Buddy, don’t say things like that. Don’t go thinking yourself into a dead end. I’m not dead, am I? I’ll rest and I’ll be fine. But if you switch to the ghost path, you won’t be human in this life—and the next, and the one after that. You’ll never be human again.”

Li Yan Er’s voice cracked. “If it weren’t for me, why would you have even left the mountain? Why would you have gone through this?”

Gu Shi Yi grimaced, trying not to inhale too deeply. “I’m thirty. Even without you, I would’ve left the mountain. If I don’t find a man to marry soon, I’ll be so dried up I won’t even be able to lay a single egg!”

She delivered it with such smooth, shameless confidence that Li Yan Er couldn’t help laughing. Some of the choking guilt in her chest finally loosened.

“Whether you’re thirty or not,” Li Yan Er said, snickering, “you still can’t lay eggs.”

Gu Shi Yi laughed too—and instantly regretted it. The motion yanked her broken rib so sharply she bared her teeth and clutched her side.

That was enough to wake Granny Gu. She rolled over, squinting in the dark. “Shi Yi? Are you hurting?”

Gu Shi Yi forced her voice steady. “Aunt, I’m fine. I just pressed on it by accident.”

Granny Gu sat up, suddenly wide awake. “Be careful. That bone needs to heal properly. If it doesn’t, it’ll be a lifetime of trouble.”

Gu Shi Yi nodded, shifted carefully into a position that didn’t make her see stars, and sank back into sleep.

After the carriage jolted along for days, Gu Shi Yi followed the escort team into Du Mo Prefecture. Four more days brought them to a place called Xi Yuan City. The convoy settled there, and Gu Shi Yi finally met the Sixth Master Granny Gu kept talking about.

His surname was Huang. No one under him dared mention his given name. Everyone simply called him Sixth Master, and Gu Shi Yi followed the crowd.

Master Huang Liu looked to be around forty. He was refined and handsome, dressed in a long robe. At first glance, he didn’t look like an escort who roamed the martial world at all—more like a teacher who belonged in an academy. But the faint gray at his temples and the weathered calm in his eyes hinted at years spent outside, soaked in wind and dust and hard roads. It gave him that mature, dangerous kind of charm.

Gu Shi Yi’s eyes practically lit up. “Huang… Master Huang Liu!”

He wasn’t exactly her usual type, but a mature man like this? That was a flavor everyone could appreciate.

Master Huang Liu looked her over, then nodded with a gentle smile. “It seems you’ve been recovering well these past few days, young lady. You can already walk around.”

Gu Shi Yi quickly clasped her fists. “Sixth Master, I’ve been injured, so I never had a chance to thank you properly for saving my life…”

She paused, then managed a deep bow—both hands clasped—though the movement clearly cost her. “For Master Huang Liu’s life-saving grace, Gu Shi Yi will remember it and repay it someday. Thank you, Sixth Master.”

Watching her rough-and-ready martial style, Master Huang Liu sighed inwardly.

[No wonder Liu Two and the others couldn’t tell she was a daughter. With that manner, even knowing she’s a woman, I still keep seeing her as a man.]

After Granny Gu helped Gu Shi Yi back upright, Master Huang Liu smiled and asked, “I haven’t asked yet, young lady. What do you do for a living? What injured you? And why did you fall from that mountaintop?”

Gu Shi Yi laughed boldly. “Sixth Master, no need to be so polite. Just call me Shi Yi.”

She paused, then continued, “To be honest, I’m a Daoist broker. I left my mountain to travel the martial world. As for that fall—it was bandits. With my skills, a few petty thieves should’ve been nothing. But they fought dirty. They fed poison to their arrows. I didn’t guard well enough and got hit. I had no choice but to run. Then, up on the mountaintop, the poison flared. I couldn’t steady myself in time and went right over the edge…”

Seven parts true, three parts false. Master Huang Liu didn’t doubt her for a second. The cultivation world was chaotic, and the mortal martial world was no safer. On any long trip, he’d run into something like this two or three times. The only unusual part was that he usually rescued men. Rescuing a young lady was new.

He cupped his hands, smiling. “So you’re an expert from the Daoist sects. Forgive my disrespect.”

Gu Shi Yi waved it off. “You flatter me, Sixth Master. What expert? I’m just an unworthy junior, stumbling around outside and shaming my founding patriarch. It’s embarrassing, really.”

“Roads are dangerous,” Master Huang Liu said. “Everyone missteps sometimes. Daoist, don’t take it to heart. If you don’t mind, you can recuperate with our escort team. Later we’ll take a ship to Chen Prefecture. If you’re traveling the same way, you can come with us. If you don’t wish to go, I’ll arrange a proper place for you to stay and hire someone to care for you until your injuries heal…”

Granny Gu immediately cut in, pleased as if she’d found a lost coin. “Sixth Master, what a coincidence—Shi Yi young lady’s hometown is Chen Prefecture!”

“Oh?” Master Huang Liu’s brows lifted. “Daoist, you’re actually from the same hometown as us?”

Gu Shi Yi smiled. “I left home young and came back as an Old Boss. It’s been twenty-five years since I last returned. This time really is fate—meeting Sixth Master. I wander everywhere anyway. I might as well follow Sixth Master back and take a look at my hometown.”

In truth, she would’ve preferred to stay behind, recover, then return to find Great King. But she had pursuers. If she stayed in one place for two or three months to heal, she might be found before she ever got back on her feet.

Better to hide inside the escort team, travel west with them, and disappear into distance. Chen Prefecture was thousands of li away. Even if those people could track her, it would take time to reach that far. Time was exactly what she needed.

With her mind made up to cling to the escort team, Master Huang Liu didn’t argue. He simply instructed Granny Gu to take good care of Gu Shi Yi. Later, he heard that Gu Ten and Granny Gu were from the same clan, and that Gu Ten even addressed Granny Gu as aunt. Master Huang Liu noted it quietly.

[Granny Gu is only an attendant who cooks. Yet this woman comes from the Daoist sects and still treats servants with respect. She’s not the type to stand on ceremony.]

Master Huang Liu was a man of the martial world. He liked making friends—high nobles, low beggar peddlers, anyone with a bold spirit. Gu Shi Yi’s easy, straightforward manner suited his taste.

He smiled. “If that’s the case, then you’re no outsider.”

So Gu Shi Yi stayed with the escort team. They remained in Xi Yuan City for six days, then boarded a large ship bound for Chen Prefecture.

No one knew if the waterways of this continent were tangled because immortals had once fought here, but rivers and channels crisscrossed everywhere, thick as veins. The waterway from Du Mo Prefecture to Chen Prefecture was said to be a deep land gorge split open by an immortal long ago. Later—ten thousand years ago—an enormous earthquake struck. Somehow it connected underground water veins, and the gorge flooded until it became a river.

And the water didn’t run clear. It shimmered in five distinct colors. Nobody knew what it carried up from the depths, only that it looked like a ribbon of painted light. The world called it the Five-Colored River.

The Five-Colored River had monsters.

There was a great fish known as a fish-kui beast. Its head was as large as a cart, its body like a small hill, its scales flashing in five colors. Under its belly grew limbs—sometimes sixteen pairs, sometimes only two—shaped like human hands. Its cry sounded like an ox.

Most days it hid beneath the surface. But when prey passed, it would burst from the water and unleash a roar that slammed straight into the listener’s spirit. People would go dizzy and weak, collapsing where they stood. Then the fish-kui beast would surge closer and swallow them whole.

Because of creatures like that, ships traveling the Five-Colored River couldn’t be ordinary wooden boats. They had to be magical vessels, reinforced and empowered by cultivators using secret arts.

A thousand years ago, mortals didn’t even dare approach the Five-Colored River. Later, cultivation sects built their mountain gates along its banks. When mortals needed a way across, the sects refined magical vessels for them to use.

Of course, those sects didn’t do charity. They set up halls to collect mortal money at every crossing. A thousand years of monopoly later, the wealth they’d scraped together was so vast it was almost impossible to imagine.

Li Yan Er whispered, “What do these cultivation sects even want with worldly silver?”