Chapter 10

Chapter 10

I slipped into the shadow of the bushes with practiced ease.

Ever since entering the Northern Plains, we had been skulking around like this.

Senior Brother said it was not that we could not beat anyone. It was just that the situation was special right now, and we could not cause trouble for Master while he was being interrogated in Dongze.

Two people were approaching. They seemed to be a brother and sister.

Their footsteps were light as they searched along the edge of the woods.

“Brother, I really did see that Illusion Beast run this way.”

The young girl’s voice was full of grievance. She bent down and circled through the waist-high grass a few times, then straightened in disappointment.

“How can we still not find it? Did I see wrong? Did we lose it?”

Her words came out in a rush, and the end of her sentence was already tinged with tears. The person beside her spoke at once.

“Don’t panic. I trust your Pupil Art.”

The young man who answered looked a few years older than her, and much steadier as well. He stepped forward and squeezed his sister’s hand, comforting her gently.

“Illusion Beasts are unique to West Ridge. They can bypass a person’s Five Senses and confuse the Mind-Spirit. Only when you calm down can you perceive them.

“We went through so much to lure this Illusion Beast out of West Ridge, and we were able to track it all the way here thanks to Xiao Ying’s Pupil Art. We can’t give up now. Elder Sister is still waiting for us.”

The Elder Sister he mentioned must have been someone extremely important to the siblings, because the girl called Xiao Ying immediately held back her tears.

“Right. We still have to use the Confusion Beast Horn to wake Elder Sister!”

She wiped away her tears. Encouraged by the young man, she straightened up as if bracing herself, then slowly closed her eyes.

The night wind blew, taking shape among the swaying treetops. But as the girl fell silent, even the sound of the wind abruptly faded, leaving everything deathly still.

Senior Brother and I unconsciously held our breath as well.

Unfortunately, hiding in the dark only concealed our shapes, not our sounds. The slightest heaviness in our footsteps was enough to give us away.

The young man reacted quickly. The moment the girl’s gaze swept toward us, he had already leaped into the air and flung out a Plum Blossom Fan.

The fan spun through the air, flying straight for Senior Brother’s neck, only to strike Shanting’s blade instead. With a sharp clang, it whirled back into the young man’s hand.

Out and back, all in the blink of an eye.

Senior Brother frowned and stepped out from beneath the trees. He was just about to say something when the girl beat him to it and exposed his identity.

“Brother! I saw his face clearly. He’s Nan Wenji!”

Senior Brother: “?”

The young man instantly grew wary and raised his fan into position. “Nan Wenji, what exactly are you trying to do?!”

Senior Brother: “?”

Seeing this, the girl hurried to her brother’s side as well and declared resolutely, “We won’t say anything! And we definitely won’t let you steal the Confusion Beast Horn!”

Senior Brother: “…No, you two-”

Before he could finish, a violent wind suddenly rose. In the last instant before I closed my eyes, I saw the young man sweeping his fan to stir up the gale, while the girl stared sharply at us, her hand forming an intricate gesture before she tapped twice in our direction.

Once at me, and once at Senior Brother.

Before I could react, a force slammed into me and knocked me down. I heard Senior Brother shout, “Dodge!”

I let the momentum carry me to the ground and tried hard to sense the movement around me.

But all I could feel was darkness sinking deeper and deeper, along with the rustling by my ears and the wind growing more and more violent.

After some unknown length of time, Senior Brother poked my shoulder with Shanting.

“Get up. They’re gone.”

“Gone?”

I slowly climbed to my feet by holding onto a tree trunk, still unable to make sense of what those siblings had just done.

“I was planning to remind them that Illusion Beasts like water, so they could lie in ambush by a nearby water source. Who knew they would somehow take me for a villain?”

Senior Brother spoke unhappily. His voice sounded as if it were drifting over from very far away.

“That girl’s Five Senses are exceptional, and she is proficient in Pupil Art. She should be from South Desert.

“If West Ridge finds out their precious Illusion Beast was abducted, those two domains will absolutely end up fighting.”

Senior Brother had explained to me before that while innate Blessed Power randomly granted one of the Four Paths, there were still patterns across the Four Domains.

Blessed Cultivators from Dongze were mostly strong in Inner Force, while the Northern Plains prized Body Arts above all.

West Ridge excelled at Mind-Spirit illusions, and South Desert mastered the Five Senses.

An Illusion Beast was a horned strange beast that existed only within West Ridge. Because its horn could destroy illusions to a certain extent, West Ridge controlled them extremely strictly, afraid that someone might seize on that weakness.

“If I hadn’t heard them say they were trying to save someone, I wouldn’t have bothered sticking my nose into this.

“Forget it. Those two managed to bring an Illusion Beast out of West Ridge, so they must have some ability.”

The sound of fabric rubbing reached my ears. Senior Brother was wiping the marks off Shanting.

He muttered a few more things as he walked, then turned back and urged me, “What are you still standing there for? We need to find somewhere else to stay tonight.”

At that, I shook my head hard and looked into the endless darkness around me. Only then did I recognize reality and stop struggling.

“Senior Brother, I don’t think I can walk anymore.” Holding onto the tree trunk, I forced a smile in the direction where I suspected someone was standing. “I can’t see you.”

That girl must have used a method unique to South Desert to temporarily blind me.

Senior Brother was helpless too.

“I was careless. I thought you had dodged as well.” He gritted his teeth, then awkwardly comforted me, “Don’t worry too much. She only wanted to delay us long enough to escape. She didn’t actually want to blind you. You’ll be fine in a few days.”

“I know. They’re not bad people.” I nodded in understanding.

If she had truly meant to hurt me, the Silver Light from my protective charm would have blocked that move for me.

Senior Brother said nothing more and simply pulled me forward.

But after losing my sight, I realized I could not even stand steadily. Every few steps, I had to crouch down, cover my eyes, and recover for a while.

After several rounds of this, it seemed we were still circling around in the woods.

In the end, Senior Brother was the first to run out of patience.

He stopped in front of me, crouched down, and pulled my hands onto his shoulders.

“Get on.”

“Ah, that doesn’t seem right.”

I said that while climbing onto Senior Brother’s back.