Stranger Danger

“What about you guys?” Ye Qing asked while looking at Leng Tianjue, Gu Mingfei and Tan Tao.

“We’ll be fine, warrior. We have Wingride,” Leng Tianjue answered while making a hand gesture and summoning a white feather from his sleeve.

The feather was three inches long and white as snow. Flawless and perfectly white, it floated in the air and emanated waves of air of Dao.

“Is that the feather of a Wind Rider?” Ye Qing asked after examining the feather for a moment.

“You have a discerning eye, warrior Ye. That’s right. Wingride is a Strange Artifact created from the tail feather of a Wind Rider.”

Leng Tianjue was surprised. He did not expect Ye Qing to identify Wingride’s origin at first glance.

Wind Rider was a Disaster-class Stranger with a dragon’s head and a bird’s body. It excelled at flying[1] and enjoyed flying high, high up in the sky. Its wings could supposedly blot out the sun or moon when they were fully expanded, and a single flap of its wing could kick up quite the powerful wind. It was said to be capable of flying thousands and thousands of kilometers in a single day, and it could fly higher than even the nine heavens.

“One sunny day, a bird rode the winds and flew. Fifty thousand kilometers it climbed, and still it would not stop.” That was how they described the Wind Rider in the books.

Wingride was created from the tail feather of a Wind Rider. A flying-type Strange Artifact, it could expand or shrink in size and even turn invisible. So long as there was a single gust of wind in the air, Wingride could carry its passengers into the sky. Not only that, it did not cost any true qi or spiritual energy to pilot.

But of course, Wingride wasn’t without its flaws. For one, Wingride was wind-reliant. If there was no wind, then it wouldn’t be able to take flight. Its flight speed was directly impacted by the strength of the wind as well. If the wind was strong, then Wingride would move quickly. If not, then it would be slow.

Besides that, Wingride did not possess any shielding abilities whatsoever. Those riding Wingride must endure the beating of the elements such as the wind, snow, sun, and rain. It wasn’t a relaxing or comfortable ride by any means.

Take the current weather for example. A snowstorm was happening, so Wingride would be moving very swiftly. However, that also meant that the frigid wind and snow would be so much harder to bear. Even for warriors at their level, riding Wingride for an extended period of time was a bitter experience to say the least.

This was why Cang Qingmei and Fei Fei had run into the horse carriage like their lives depended on it. If not for the fact that the horse carriage had turned into an all-female space, they would’ve chosen to ride it as well.

Ye Qing glanced at the horse carriage once before turning back to Leng Tianjue. “You don’t mind me joining you on your ride, do you?”

“Of course not. I cannot say that it will be as comfortable as riding your horse carriage though. I hope you don’t mind,” Leng Tianjue replied apologetically.

“It’s no problem at all. We jianghu warriors are used to hardships, aren’t we?” Ye Qing chuckled.

“Thank you for your understanding, warrior.”

Leng Tianjue pointed at Wingride, and it grew to the size of a boat. After everyone had gotten on the feather, Leng Tianjue made another hand gesture. Wingride immediately soared into the sky and shot toward the horizon at high speed.

……

Goddess City was located next to a mountain. Spanning just tens of kilometers, it was not as tall, grand, or comfortable as the cities built through the blood, sweat and tears of the people of Yan. That wasn’t to say it didn’t have its own charm, of course. It exuded a kind of ancientness and antiquity worthy of veneration.

Goddess City had one gate and one gate only. It was named the Goddess Gate, and it was guarded by the elite disciples of Goddess City. As the Goddess Festival was about to begin, the Goddess Gate was currently jam-packed with traveling merchants, warriors and more.

Despite the natural rowdiness of jianghu warriors, the elite disciples—all of them Spirit Purifiers—were able to maintain law and order. In fact, Ye Qing could sense two late-stage Spirit Masters manning the towers close to the gate. Their presence indirectly proved that Goddess City was a sect to be reckoned with.

The procedure to enter Goddess City was pretty simple. All they needed to do was to pay one silver and register their identity.

Goddess City did not care if the registrant registered a fake name. It wasn’t something they could control even if they wanted to. Nearly everyone who came to Goddess City were jianghu warriors, and nearly all jianghu warriors were temperamental and hid multiple skeletons in their closet. To force them to give up their real names was to create unnecessary conflict, which was why Goddess City chose to turn a blind eye. So long as they didn’t cause trouble, Goddess City was fine with it.

The number of people who wanted to enter the city was massive, but thanks to how simple the procedure was, it wasn’t take long before it was Ye Qing’s turn to register his identity.

Ye Qing was stepping through the gate when suddenly, he sensed something and touched a finger against his forehead. Then, he turned to look at a certain tower while a dark glint flashed through his eyes.

A man and a woman were sitting in the loft of the tower. The man looked to be in his twenties, and he wore a moon white shirt and a moon white hairpin in his hair. He looked handsome and elegant like the scion of one’s wildest dreams.

As for the woman, her hair was dirty white, and her face were full of wrinkles. She looked to be in her fifties or sixties. Despite this, she was wearing a set of youthful, colorful clothes that did not fit her age at all. It felt both tacky and odd.

Even odder was the fact that the woman was currently lying on the man’s lap and blushing like a maiden in love.

There was a table in front of the couple, and sitting on the table was a snow white mirror. It was crystalline and pure like it was forged from ice and snow. The fact that it was giving off waves of cold air and surrounded by snowflakes gave credence to that theory.

The mirror was showing the people lining up to enter or leave the city. Each time someone entered the city, a snowflake would land on the person’s forehead and slowly disappear. It was almost as if the snowflake had sunk into their head.

When Ye Qing stepped inside the city, he had appeared inside the mirror just like everyone else. Then, a single snowflake descended and landed right on his forehead.

However, right before the snowflake would melt into his forehead, Ye Qing seemed to notice something and touched his own forehead. Then, he turned to look straight at the loft where the mirror was.

Bang!

Out of nowhere, the mirror suddenly exploded into a million pieces. At the same time, the old lady lying on the man’s lap let out a bloodcurdling scream and spewed blood from both her mouth and her nose. Her breathing immediately turned shallow and erratic.

“Young Snow! What happened?”

Completely caught off guard, the man cried out in surprise and hugged the old woman with deep concern. However, Young Snow—who should really be called Old Snow—pushed him away and stared at the shattered mirror on the table, shrieking, “My precious! My precious!”

The next moment, Young Snow grabbed the broken shards and shoved them down her throat like she was insane.

The mirror might look like it was made from ice and snow, but they were incredibly tough to say the least, not to mention that some of the shards were quite big. Despite this, Young Snow kept devouring the broken shards like her life depended on it. She did not stop even when her tongue were sliced into ribbons, and blood was pouring profusely out of her mouth.

It was a horrible scene to look at, but Young Snow neither cared nor seemed to feel the pain at all. It wasn’t long before she had swallowed all of the shards, and her cheeks were stuffed as big as a hamster’s. She chewed slowly.

Maybe it was because she swallowed too many shards at once, but bits and pieces of the mirror were poking out of her lips, her cheeks, and her throat. Young Snow didn’t care though. She wore a blissful expression on her face despite the fact that she was bleeding like a pig.

Ten or so breaths later, Young Snow finally finished chewing up the mirror and swallowing it into her stomach. As if on cue, her dirty white hair slowly began to turn black, and her wrinkly face and skin began to smoothen out like magic.

In just the blink of an eye, the ugly, old lady had turned into a young, beautiful girl.

After Old Snow literally turned into Young Snow, her wounds disappeared like magic, and her erratic breathing returned to normal as well.

1.... I suppose it makes sense since there are birds who can’t fly, but still… ☜

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