Ran Qingmo looked at the handsome, serious face before her. Her eyes revealed nothing of what she was thinking.
Xu Yuan did not press her. He simply waited quietly for her reply. No one wanted to die, and he was no exception.
The Third Young Master might have come from a family whose power overshadowed the entire Great Flame Empire, but distant water could not quench present thirst.
In his current situation, isolated and with no one to rely on, the only person Xu Yuan could count on was the very woman who had kidnapped him, Ran Qingmo. Everyone else wanted him dead. She, at least, had only kidnapped him.
After the Flame Spirit Python died, blood poured from its corpse in thick streams. It was hot as lava, sending up waves of mist into the cold winter rain and sealing off the bleakness outside the cave.
Silence lingered.
Then Ran Qingmo’s cool voice slowly sounded through the quiet cave. “All right. Speak.”
Xu Yuan let out a small breath of relief. He really had been a little afraid that at a moment like this, she might decide to knock him with another stick.
Choosing his words carefully, he looked at her and said softly, “Miss Ran, what I want to say is simple. For the sake of my life, and yours, the two of us would be better off cooperating.”
Ran Qingmo looked at him quietly, waiting for him to continue.
Seeing that, Xu Yuan went on in the same calm, measured tone. “I know that, given my current status as a hostage, saying this may be a bit presumptuous. But you saw what just happened. If you hadn’t stepped in, I’d already be dead.”
He paused, then curled his lips into a self-mocking smile.
“I know that because of my father, a great many people in this world want me dead. But I don’t think a demonic beast living deep in the Myriad Ascents Mountain Range should have anything to do with this.”
As he said this, Xu Yuan looked straight into Ran Qingmo’s eyes.
“And yet that python wanted to kill me. A Flame Spirit Python, a creature that fears death more than anything, still tried to take my life even after you had already pierced its vital point. Miss Ran, don’t you think that’s strange?”
The endless sound of rain drifted faintly into the cave. Inside, everything was silent.
A faint glimmer stirred in Ran Qingmo’s clear eyes, and she gave a slight nod.
“Someone wants me to die on the way while I’m being taken by you. If I die here, my father will naturally assume that you killed me.” Xu Yuan drew in a deep breath, then said each word with deliberate force. “And you will die too.”
The woman before him, always dressed in black, always calm as still water, was truly strong. But she was not the only strong person in this world. The moment Xu Changtian’s son died after being taken by her, that would be the beginning of her own end.
In Azure Point, Xu Yuan had actually liked Ran Qingmo quite a lot as a character. She counted as half a heroine. Only half, because every time, she died before any real feelings could develop between her and the player. She would die in haste, never even removing the veil from her face.
Out of Azure Point’s 25 endings, Ran Qingmo had only one official bonus ending where she fled overseas. And the prerequisite for unlocking that ending was for the player to blatantly cheat. Only by maxing out your stats and forcibly defeating a boss that no player at that stage could possibly beat could you save her.
Xu Yuan had once thought that hidden ending was pretty interesting. A character’s fate could be changed by the choices a player made, but only to a point… unless you cheated. But now, thinking about it again, he suddenly felt that she and the Third Young Master really were a matched pair in some absurd way. Across 25 storylines, they had managed to die 25 times.
Ran Qingmo said nothing. The pair of eyes visible above her veil did not ripple in the slightest.
Xu Yuan’s warning of death had not shaken her at all. He realized that this line of argument probably would not work on a woman like Ran Qingmo. Taking a slow breath, he changed tack.
“You captured me for the sake of the Sword Sect’s 40,000 disciples, didn’t you?”
Something flickered in Ran Qingmo’s gaze. Even the warm air in the cave seemed to cool a little.
Seeing her reaction, Xu Yuan understood. He continued in a low voice, “You don’t need to look at me like that. I won’t ask where your information came from, and you don’t need to investigate how a useless cripple like me learned about it. We’re on the same boat now. Digging deeper serves no purpose.”
The tension in Ran Qingmo’s eyes eased for a brief moment.
Xu Yuan glanced at the python’s corpse outside and said slowly, “Even though I still don’t agree with your judgment that capturing me would let you threaten my father, if you do want to threaten him, then surely you can’t do it with a corpse.”
Ran Qingmo fell silent for two seconds. Then from beneath the black veil covering her face came her clear voice. “But you have no qi.”
Xu Yuan froze for a moment. After thinking it through, he understood what she meant. In this supernatural world, having no qi meant being nothing more than an ordinary person. And in the eyes of a cultivator at Ran Qingmo’s level, an ordinary person was hardly any different from an ant.
If there really was a third party that dared to make a move on Xu Yuan right in front of her, then their strength naturally would not be weak. Once she started fighting them, the aftershocks alone would be enough to kill Xu Yuan a hundred times over. She already had to protect him as it was. Whether they cooperated or not made no real difference.
Xu Yuan had never intended to involve himself in battle anyway. Smiling, he asked in a low voice, “Do you have a map of the Myriad Ascents Mountain Range?”
Ran Qingmo blinked, then turned and walked to the bundle at the very back of the cave. After rummaging through it for a moment, she came back holding a rolled sheepskin map and handed it to him.
Xu Yuan sat down cross-legged, spread the sheepskin open beside the campfire, and scanned the map by the flickering light.
The moment he saw it, he quietly let out a breath of relief. There were some minor differences in the details, but overall, this map matched the Myriad Ascents Mountain Range map from Azure Point almost exactly.
After a pause, Xu Yuan beckoned to Ran Qingmo, signaling for her to sit down too.
“As long as you can figure out where we are, I can give you a place to hide.”
Ran Qingmo slowly lifted the hem of her black robe and sat down beside him, though there was still a trace of caution in the way she looked at him.
Xu Yuan noticed the problem with what he had just said. She might be a little airheaded when it came to doing things, but Ran Qingmo was definitely not stupid.
Lowering his eyes to the map, he considered his words for a moment.
“I know there are definitely my father’s people searching for me in the Myriad Ascents Mountain Range right now, but you really do not need to worry too much. I can’t contact them, and in front of a cultivator like you, anything I do is obvious. You do not have to worry about me leaving marks behind. On the contrary, if you keep dragging me all over the Myriad Ascents Mountain Range, there’s a much better chance we’ll be discovered.”
Xu Yuan turned his gaze to meet her clear, tranquil eyes. His voice was still a little hoarse.
“You can hide your aura. I can’t.”
Like many supernatural worlds, cultivators here could track people through their aura.
Ran Qingmo’s eyes showed a long moment of thought. In the end, she gave a slight nod and said very seriously, “I’ll keep watching you.”
“As you like.” Xu Yuan smiled faintly. Then he lowered his eyes to the map spread open before them and said softly, “When I was little, my father brought me and my two older brothers to the Myriad Ascents Mountain Range once. He has a cave dwelling here. There are a lot of cultivation resources inside, enough for the two of us to live there for quite a long time.”
Xu Yuan made all of that up. His old man had no idea this treasure spot even existed, but that did not stop him from shoving the blame onto him.
After all, there was no way Ran Qingmo could go confront the man in person.
Ran Qingmo’s brows drew together slightly, and her voice turned cool. “Your father knows too?”
Xu Yuan had already prepared an answer for that. He replied without the slightest concern.
“My father has to remain in the Imperial Capital right now. It’s impossible for him to come look for me personally, and his subordinates wouldn’t know about that place. And even if they did know that cave estate existed, Miss Ran, what are the chances they’d actually think to look for me there?”
Ran Qingmo fell silent.
Xu Yuan lightly tapped a spot on the sheepskin map.
“All right. Point out where we are first, then we leave as soon as possible.”
Ran Qingmo gave a small nod at his words, her beautiful eyes lowering slightly. But after staring at the map for quite a while, she hesitantly stretched out one slender finger and tapped a spot.
Xu Yuan narrowed his long eyes slightly when he saw it.
Pretty close. He had not even had time to feel pleased when, the next moment, he saw that delicate finger move again and tap another place on the other side. Then it tapped a third, then a fourth…
Xu Yuan silently raised his head, wanting to speak but stopping himself.
The glow of the campfire flickered between them.
In the silent stare that followed, Ran Qingmo looked away and said in a small voice, “I... I don’t know.”