Beginning with the Ubume Bird

Chapter 69: Chapter 23: The Descent!

Peony Peak was covered in immaculate snow, and Li Yan had moved away from the camp. Leaning on an old locust tree that looked like a ghost’s claw, he saw the collapsed fort of the Japanese pirates, from which wisps of black smoke were rising.

In addition to unlocking the skill “Cold Killer,” the Yan Fu event for Li Yan had also officially commenced due to the killing of Goto Kagi, a Warring States Great General.

You have killed a Warring States daimyo.

You have officially commenced this Yan Fu event!

The event requirements are as follows:

Kill Konishi Yukinaga, the commander of the first army corps of Hideyoshi’s forces.

The Ming Army will intercept the fleeing Japanese pirates along the Datong River as they retreat from Pyongyang, which presents your best opportunity.

The content of this Yan Fu event far exceeds the limit of your walking ability!

The content of this Yan Fu event far exceeds the limit of your walking ability!

You may choose to give up this Yan Fu event and obtain one month of free action time. Upon giving up, 30% of your purchase rights and assessment will be deducted, but the points and items you have gained through this event will not be erased.

You have gained one conversation, transferring connection…

Li Yan heard a rustling sound by his ear, like the tearing of the air, yet heavy and soul-stirring. Just hearing it gave an indescribable sense of vastness.

A thick male voice spoke.

“You, the one walking the Scatter tier of Scale·Ding Yin’s Twenty-Four Fruits, listen carefully, immediately…”

What followed was a chaotic and shrill noise. The man’s voice came through intermittently.

“Immediately… must… accept…”

Li Yan hesitated no longer.

“Accept!”

“You have accepted this Yan Fu event!”

“Verifying…”

“Due to an error in the assignment of this Yan Fu event, ‘Hou Tu’ will offer compensation to the walker.”

“You will obtain a Comrade of the ‘Ten Cities’ level to assist you.”

“Yan Fu Fruit location secured! Content transmission for this Yan Fu event is complete! Deploy Comrade!”

Comrades: Other walkers whose interests fully align with the person undertaking the walk.

When Comrades fight together, all basic attributes (including but not limited to attack, attack speed, recovery, defense, and burst strength) increase by 30%, stacking with the enhancements provided by their heritage.

If one Comrade dies, all remaining Comrades will have their heritage awakening level forcefully reduced by 10%!

Deduct 5000 Yan Fu points.

“The relationship with your Comrades will last until the end of this Yan Fu event.”

A warmth filled Li Yan’s eyes, and he let out a stifled grunt as his black pupils uncontrollably flickered with purple-black sparks. A profound black hole slowly peeled away from Li Yan’s pupils, a surreal and bizarre spectacle.

Li Yan stepped back a few paces and hammered his fist onto the trunk of the old locust tree. Its withered branches trembled as the black hole expanded from the size of a pearl, to the size of a human head, and then to the size of a basin. The face of a young man appeared on the other side of the black hole.

The young man looked around expressionlessly, and when the black hole was big enough to fit half of his body, he sighed, ready to step through.

A slender, pale hand rested on the man’s shoulder.

A woman’s face emerged from the darkness behind the young man…

Her pale face was dotted with bloodspots, and her hair, which fell straight to her waist, made her seem much more demure.

“Excuse me, coming through.”

The young man turned his head in disbelief. When he saw the face before him, the surprise in his eyes quickly turned to fear.

“Taishuai?”

The man gripped the edge of the black hole, struggling to lunge forward, but Yu Shu was pulling his shoulder tightly.

With a stern face, Li Yan walked over.

The panicked young man’s eyes were filled with hope.

“Save me! Save me! She’s a defec…”

Li Yan lifted his foot with mud-caked military boots and kicked the terrified young man’s face, again and again!

“Bang!”

“Bang!”

“Bang!”

…

Time rewound to before the first Yan Fu event when Li Yan had set out to find Xiu’s mother.

Fuyi Building.

“Ha~ha~”

Li Yan sat on the ground, blood leaking from the corner of his mouth, his body wet and bedraggled as if he had been fished out of the water, yet his eyes were fiercely sharp and excited.

Yu Shu walked step by step towards Li Yan, the long ponytail swinging left and right behind her.

“Your fire has died down quite a bit, hasn’t it, Wanderer?”

“Is it you?”

Li Yan’s eyes were filled with disbelief.

“You mean that Predator who has been spying on you but hasn’t had the guts to make a move? I’m not that stupid.”

Yu Shu bent down, her nose almost touching Li Yan’s face.

“I need you to do me a favor.”

“What if I refuse?”

“Then I will kill you.”

“Fine, I agree.”

“… Every year, Wanderers are born in Nanyan Futi by the hundreds, but less than half survive more than six Yan Fu incidents, and more than ninety percent struggle in vain in this drifting cycle, like that poor Predator, who got scared out of his wits early on, because Yan Fu doesn’t annihilate any Wanderers, so he chose to drift on like this. After three Yan Fu incidents, he didn’t even touch the threshold of the ‘Ten Cities,’ such scum…”

She stared at Li Yan: “The favor I need, I will let you touch a higher threshold much sooner.”

…

Under the withered and wrinkled old locust tree, a man and a woman leaned on the tree, their backs to each other.

“Silence them.”

“You don’t need to tell me.”

Li Yan’s gaze shifted: “Your injury isn’t light, huh?”

“Probably only the strength of ‘Ten Cities’ left, or else I wouldn’t have been able to fool Hou Tu.”

“Was it Mo who was chasing after you?”

Li Yan asked, his mouth questioning, but his eyes were surreptitiously sizing up Yu Shu.

“That fatso slacked off; I owe him a favor. Next time we meet, I’ll leave him a whole corpse.”

The woman squinted as if she were dozing off, her black jacket saturated with bloodstains. Her fingers clutched at the collar, almost crushing the dried blood clots on the windbreaker.

“How high is the standard of ‘Ten Cities’?”

Li Yan asked as if it were nothing.

“Twice as strong as you are now,”

Yu Shu answered.

She stood up and asked Li Yan behind her: “So, have you decided? Make a move? Or hold back?”

Li Yan remained silent. Yu Shu sneered and turned around, reaching out toward Li Yan’s chest.

A flaming arrow burst through the sky, heading straight for Yu Shu.n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

Li Yan’s Ring Dragon exploded into action, flipping and striking upwards.

“Ding~”

The arrow was knocked away by Li Yan, and Yu Shu’s hand halted in front of him.

The sound of warhorses’ long neighs rumbled, and nearly a hundred cavalrymen surrounded Yu Shu and Li Yan, their bowmen with red tassels and black tops pulling their longbows, arrows wrapped with Heavenly Master Tao’s demon-banishing talismans, the tips smeared with poison.

Dozens of Bird Guns aimed at Yu Shu, while Deng Tianxiong, Wang Sheng, Diao Xiayan led more than two hundred soldiers of the Ming Army, staring at the oddly dressed Yu Shu with malevolence in their eyes.

“Lord of the Banner!”

“Everyone, step back!” Li Yan ordered coldly.

Deng Tianxiong inhaled sharply and tightened the reins, relaxing the encirclement slightly.

Li Yan stared at the bloody jacket in Yu Shu’s hands for a long time before asking: “Is Red Ghost dead?”

Yu Shu did not speak, a flash of fierceness crossing her face that remained calm even in the face of two hundred Ming soldiers.

Li Yan’s expression darkened momentarily, almost imperceptibly, before he recovered.

His voice deep, he said: “This time, it’s my turn to say, do me a favor…”

Yu Shu didn’t move at all; her fingers touched the bloodstain on the jacket, her long eyelashes trembled once, and she slowly said,

“You should first consider how to explain my origins to Li Rusong and the others~”

“That’s none of your concern.”

“All right then.”

Yu Shu shook her long, brisk hair and threw the leather jacket over her shoulder, revealing a white short-sleeved shirt on her upper body and form-fitting blue jeans on her long legs. She stepped forward into the midst of the Ming Army, casting a glance at Deng Tianxiong.

“What are you looking at? Back to camp.”