"Hey, are you asleep?"
A low, elegant voice with a hint of laughter rang beside her ear. She opened her eyes in surprise.
In front of her, Yuan Zhaoxu was clean and elegant, as if he had just stepped into a palace. His clothes were not wet despite the heavy rain. He stood in the middle of the greenery, as if a new moon had suddenly risen behind the cliff.
He stood so far away and looked so unhurried. Even if he wanted to save Fuyao, it would have been too late. However, the moment she saw him, she felt an inexplicable sense of peace. It was as if the crisis before her was no longer something to be afraid of. The corners of her mouth could not help but curl up.
Before she could smile, Yuan Zhaoxu, who had been as quiet as a virgin, smiled back at her.
Before his smile faded, he suddenly moved.
This movement was like a thunderbolt, like the collapse of a jade mountain or the avalanche of snow. A bright rolling wave spread out, stirring the night wind and rain majestically and fiercely. The grass and leaves on the ground were all uprooted by this incomparably swift and powerful Qi, standing upright to form a wall. As far as the eye could see, it was a verdant scene as it flew towards the direction of the giant net.
Yuan Zhaoxu's body was almost flying close to the ground. In a flash, he appeared in front of Fuyao and put her down. With one hand, he grabbed her body and continued flying close to the ground. With the other, he rolled up his sleeve and dispersed the 'grass wall'. The long grass and branches mixed with his vital Qi were like countless darts and arrows, whistling and spinning towards the giant net. Faint sounds of impact could be heard, and in the blink of an eye, the giant net was cut into pieces by the sharp blades of grass.
The last bit of the giant net, which was glowing with a dim light, fell right on the heel of Yuan Zhaoxu's boot. Behind him, it was instantly smashed into the ground.
With a smile, Yuan Zhaoxu calmly propped himself up with his arms and looked at the woman beneath him.
"How does it feel to see me?"
*****
'How does it feel?'
She blinked a few times and looked up.
Yuan Zhaoxu looked down from above, his smiling eyes deep and dark. The divine light in them was as intoxicating as wine.
A faint yet strange fragrance pervaded the air. Even the incessant torrential rain could not dilute it.
They stared at each other in silence. Yuan Zhaoxu stopped teasing and Fuyao forgot to retort. At this moment, the crisis had just been resolved and the rain had yet to stop. Enveloped in Yuan Zhaoxu's unique aura, she forgot to speak and did not know what to say.
This person, who seemed so far away, was right next to her from the moment they met. In just a few hours, he had saved her twice.
She didn't even understand why he was helping her.
She just looked at him, and a warm feeling welled up in her heart. Her body, which had been cold from a night of fighting and drenched in the rain, suddenly seemed to warm up a little.
It was only the moment they looked at each other.
There was a thin string at the bottom of her heart, a string that had long rusted because of the wind and frost, a string that was about to break because of that person's abandonment. Suddenly, when their gazes met, in this clamorous wind and rain and the silence of the embrace, it was gently plucked, slightly connected, emitting a subtle but soul-stirring tremor.
It was like listening to a clap of thunder in silence.
Fuyao shivered.
Her fingers suddenly tightened on the wet ground. The unknown thorny grass stabbed into her fingers, causing large, round beads of blood to roll out of her white fingertips. In an instant, they were washed away by the rain and soaked into the dark soil.
Fuyao sucked in a breath. The stinging pain from her fingertips instantly cleared her eyes. She subconsciously shrank back, but halfway through her action, Yuan Zhaoxu, who had been staring at her, suddenly looked away. He reached out and scooped her up, turning around and flying away.
She turned her head in his arms in shock. Yuan Zhaoxu was already laughing. "Are you trying to give yourself to me here? But I'm afraid of catching a cold. "
His tone was relaxed, and Fuyao couldn't see his expression from her angle. Seeing that he was fine, she felt at ease. But for some reason, when she heard his nonchalant tone, she suddenly felt a little melancholy.
She spat in her heart and scolded herself. 'What the hell? I'm an old bird whose mental age is almost 40, why am I still being conflicted?'
She turned her head and tried to get out of Yuan Zhaoxu's arms, but Yuan Zhaoxu pressed her down unexpectedly. "Don't move," he said in a low voice.
Before he could finish his sentence, countless black silhouettes appeared 15 meters in front of them. They were armed with bows and nocked arrows, ready for battle in the rain. The first person saw the silhouettes from afar and immediately pulled his bowstring, producing a long buzzing sound. In a flash of lightning, he rose from the ground. Then, a clump of grass and trees suddenly fell, revealing an empty space. Behind the empty space were dozens of trees, their upper halves still green, but their lower halves had been peeled off, revealing their pale white trunks.
Looking at the arrangement of the trees, Fuyao immediately thought of the White Wood Five Elements Formation that the dead Taoist had mentioned. Just as she was about to warn Yuan Zhaoxu to be careful, she saw that he didn't even stop. With a tap of his foot, he floated straight towards the heart of the formation.
Yuan Zhaoxu's Qinggong was so high that Fuyao had never seen anything like it. He carried a person without touching the ground, as light as a feather. He was so fast that even Fuyao couldn't stop him. In the blink of an eye, he had arrived at the heart of the formation.
Her heart sank. She closed her eyes and silently calculated her position. Based on what she had learned, she decided to destroy the tree three steps to the left first. The White Wood Five Elements Formation was ever-changing, and the Life Gate and the Death Gate alternated in an instant. She only had a 50% chance of escaping from the formation, and the possibility of being hit by hidden arrows and giant logs. But no matter what, it was still better than Yuan Zhaoxu heading straight to his death.
Just as he was about to make his move, Yuan Zhaoxu suddenly kicked out, breaking the giant tree in half. The huge tree was uprooted and flew away. Amidst the whistling sound of mechanical springs, there was a soft buzzing sound, as if a swarm of bees had suddenly flown up from underground, or a pile of leaves had been swept up by a hurricane, a dark mass sweeping towards the ground in an instant.
It was a dagger buried in the ground. It was iron-black and pierced through the air amidst the rain and mud that filled the sky. It rammed through the trees and kept hitting the trees at all angles. When it bounced back from the impact, it would instantly change its direction. It was previously aimed at the eyes, now it was aimed at the chest, then at the back of the heart, and now it was aimed at the top of the head.
Yuan Zhaoxu, however, paid no attention to the threatening killing blow. His robes fluttered in mid-air, like a strong gale sweeping up the floating clouds, or lightning flickering in and out of the clouds. He rose and fell in the dark sky again and again. Wherever he passed, the astral winds were like invisible blades, breaking trees that couldn't be hugged. His sleeves rumbled incessantly, and every time he moved, a tree would break. He weaved between the blades and the giant logs as fast as lightning and as light as a feather, dodging the tiniest gap by a hair's breadth. Even though he was clearly dealing with the most chaotic and irregular attacks, his movements were precise and exquisite, as if he had calculated them countless times in advance.
It was as if a deity with great magical powers had used the river as the thread and the lightning as the needle to tightly embroider a maze on the complicated Vast Sea of Eight Wilderness Brocade.
The giant trees fell one by one. They seemed to fall in a messy manner, but the position where each tree fell was slightly different. One tree was taller than the other, and the strength of the fall was also different. As a result, when each tree fell, it happened to be attached to the tree in front of it. As the trees fell like dominoes, not a single tree fell to the ground. In the end, all the trees fell into the shape of an undulating mountain range. As for those randomly shot daggers, they were accurately blocked by the trees that fell at different angles and fell to the ground.
Meng Fuyao sucked in a breath of cold air. She knew how to break the formation, but she had never imagined that there would be someone in this world who could do it in such a way. How precise and terrifying the calculations required to break the formation, which relied entirely on force to break the formation? The numerous trees, the countless flying daggers, and the changes in angle of each dagger had to be calculated to the point of perfection in order to bounce them all off without a scratch. Meng Fuyao felt that even a modern computer would need a few seconds to complete such calculations, let alone Yuan Zhaoxu, who was in the middle of the formation and facing the ferocious attacks.
'Is … is he even human?'
As the giant trees fell and the daggers fell, Yuan Zhaoxu shook his sleeves and flew straight up with Meng Fuyao. He walked in the air as if he was treading on clouds, and with one step, he reached the top of the tallest tree. Large patches of rainwater were stirred up by his flowing essential Qi, and he flew across the sky like an immortal.
Yuan Zhaoxu smiled with his hands clasped behind his back as he stared at the group of ambushers who were still holding their bows and arrows. They were frozen in place with their mouths agape as they stared at the god-like silhouette on the treetop. They watched him destroy the White Wood Formation that no one had been able to break for years with a wave of his hand. They watched him casually use the most bizarre and inconceivable method to break the formation. They watched him walk in and out of the formation as if there was no one there. His figure standing on the treetop was casual and casual. For a moment, they felt a sense of awe, as if they had seen a god. How could they still remember to use their bows and arrows?
With a faint smile, Yuan Zhaoxu raised his sleeves and tossed them away. The people below him jumped away, but they did not see anything. Then, they heard a long laugh in mid-air. Two black shadows shot out like lightning, drawing a black line of rain in the vast sky. Wherever they passed, leaves flew and trees parted. The accumulated soil on the ground was rolled up by a soft yet powerful force, scattering in all directions. With a series of cracking sounds, arrows were broken, the ground cracked, water surged, and fire extinguished. The remaining four formations behind the White Wood Formation — Black Water, Yellow Earth, Raging Fire, Green Gold — were all broken in an instant.
The chain mechanism of the four formations fired randomly, killing many of the Mystic Essence Sword Sect guards. Amidst the cries of alarm, the crowd scattered in disorder.
Running at high speed, the wind howled fiercely. Meng Fuyao barely peeked out from Yuan Zhaoxu's arms and looked at the deformed formation with pity. She knew how to break it, but the person above her was too valiant. Bored, she played with Yuan Zhaoxu's clothes and sighed.
She could hear Yuan Zhaoxu's low voice ringing above her head. His chest vibrated slightly as he spoke, bumping against her cheek that was pressed against his chest. That little bit of heat from the contact gradually spread throughout her body, so warm that she, who was already exhausted after a night of running, felt sleepy.
"This formation is too shabby. Why don't we change our escape method …"
'Alright, let's escape. I'll drag you along.'
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