Chapter 417: The Yellow Spring Market

"I don't want money."

The young girl shook her head, her bright, quick eyes fixed directly on Li Musheng, "I will guide you free of charge. I only ask one thing in return. During the journey to White Emperor City, you must guarantee my safety."

At those words, Cao Gaoshan glanced at the young girl. As their guide, protecting her safety was naturally the most basic of conditions.

After all, if something happened to her, who would lead them?

But the fact that she was asking for this as her price for the work meant the matter deserved careful thought. It was probably not as simple as it seemed.

Even so, while Cao Gaoshan was still weighing the pros and cons, Li Musheng said to the young girl, "No problem. But you have to stay close to us. If you go running off and get yourself lost, that's no longer my concern."

"Deal."

The young girl agreed without the slightest hesitation. Li Musheng waved a hand, telling her to pack up quickly and get moving.

Seeing this, Cao Gaoshan had nothing further to say. Only the large black cat kept eyeing the young girl with suspicious looks, convinced this person was definitely up to no good.

Before long, the young girl left the inn and was gone for about the time it takes to burn one stick of incense, then returned to the inn.

"Going forward, you won't be needing the carriage. You'll need to switch to camels."

The young girl had brought along five tall, sturdy camels from somewhere, and the animals were already laden with provisions and waterskins.

Seeing this, Cao Gaoshan and the others felt a little more favorably toward the young girl. The large black cat was the first to leap onto the largest camel and settle down, and the group then mounted their camels and headed out of the town.

As the clear sound of camel bells faded into the distance, more than a few people in the small town finally let out a long breath of relief.

People had been watching the inn the entire previous night, and the fact that nearly every one of the town's most powerful martial world experts had perished overnight had not escaped anyone's notice.

As a result, the entire town had been on edge, and it was only with relief that they saw Li Musheng's group had not lingered, allowing them to finally let their guard down.

...

A few days later, with the young girl leading the way, Li Musheng's group of four and the cat crossed a stretch of lifeless yellow sand desert.

During this time, the value of the young girl's guidance became fully apparent. She led the group through several harrowing near-misses with sandstorms.

The desert's weather was wildly unpredictable, often clear and sunny one moment, then engulfed in blowing sand and roaring wind the next, like a dragon coiling through the sky.

When the sky and ground blurred together into a single sheet of obscured yellow, even Cao Gaoshan found himself powerless. Had it not been for the young girl, they would likely have lost their way entirely in the vast desert of endless yellow sand.

With the blazing sun overhead, the five swaying, bell-ringing camels slowly climbed the great ridge of a sand dune, where light and shadow split sharply. From that vantage point looking down, the scene below opened up dramatically.

Far below the dune lay a dense stretch of camel-thorn vegetation, and beyond the edge of that vegetation rose a tall earthen-yellow wall, indistinguishable in color from the dunes themselves.

The young girl, her face wrapped in a cloth, pointed toward the impressive cluster of buildings beyond the wall, "This is the Yellow Spring Market, one of the six great powers of the Western Desert. If you intend to reach White Emperor City, this place is unavoidable along the way."

Cao Gaoshan and the others followed her gaze. The Yellow Spring Market was unlike the cities of Great Li or Great Xuan. Beyond the single tall wall visible before them, the other three sides were bordered by massive dunes that rose like mountain ranges.

The entire Yellow Spring Market was tinted earthen yellow throughout, with hardly a hint of the gray walls and black tiles one might expect. Only at the city's center was there a crescent-shaped lake, glowing golden under the blazing sun, with a touch of green vegetation scattered around its edges.

"My lord, shall we rest here for a day before continuing?"

Cang Yinyue and Shen Anran both looked at Li Musheng at the same time, hope evident on their faces.

After days of travel through the desert, the two beautiful young women had not had a proper bath in days. Though they had used true qi to cleanse themselves, they still looked travel-worn, as though coated in a thin layer of dust.

And as young women, they naturally cared about cleanliness. Right now, all they wanted was to enter the market below for a comfortable hot soak and a change into clean clothes.

The large black cat also looked at Li Musheng with eager anticipation. Its formerly glossy black coat was now covered head to toe in sand, leaving it looking like a dirt-brown cat no matter how much it shook itself, which meant Li Musheng had not been able to pet it properly in quite some time.

"Of course, no problem."

Li Musheng nodded. He had spent days staring at sand and was beginning to feel a little sick of it himself.

Even if Cang Yinyue and the others had said nothing, he had no intention of pressing on right away. After all, the Yellow Spring Market was only a few more days from White Emperor City, so there was no need to rush.

At those words, Cang Yinyue and Shen Anran both lit up with delight, while Cao Gaoshan, being a rougher sort of fellow, did not particularly mind either way.

The young girl beside them, her face still wrapped in cloth, narrowed her eyes slightly and stole a sideways glance at Li Musheng, a flicker of cunning quietly surfacing in her gaze.

After several days traveling together with Li Musheng's group, the young girl, while still unaware of their true identities, could sense that none of them was an ordinary person.

Li Musheng in particular, though he appeared to be a young man of about twenty, was clearly the central figure among them based on how Cao Gaoshan and the others treated him.

This led the young girl to suspect that her own earlier encounter at the inn, and the deaths of the town's experts, had very likely been his doing.

"Retrieving that item from the Yellow Spring Tribe carries no small risk. If something unexpected happens along the way, perhaps I could call on his help."

Thoughts turned through the young girl's mind. Her labor these past days guiding Li Musheng's group had naturally not been out of pure kindness or boredom.

It was that she had taken an interest in Li Musheng's strength, believing he might be of use to her. After all, the Yellow Spring Tribe was the dominant power controlling the entire Yellow Spring Market, and having an extra hand to draw on would only improve her odds.

With that thought, the young girl patted the camel beneath her and led the group down the dune toward the Yellow Spring Market ahead.

Before long, the group crossed through the sandy ground thick with camel-thorn and arrived before the tall wall built from packed clay and reeds.

The young girl, seated atop her camel, took a specially crafted token from her waist and presented it to the guards at the entrance.

The lead guard's expression shifted with surprise the moment he caught sight of the token. He looked the young girl over carefully and asked cautiously, "Are you from the Mirage Tower?"

The young girl gave an expressionless nod, then extended a hand to point toward Cao Gaoshan and the others behind her, "They are with me. If the token is in order, let us through without delay."

At those words, the lead guard nodded respectfully at once and immediately had the gate opened to let the young girl's group pass.

Watching the group ride off on their camels, one of the subordinate guards turned to the lead guard with a puzzled expression, "Boss, why were you so careful with that one from the Mirage Tower?"

At those words, the lead guard withdrew his gaze and shook his head, "It's understandable that you don't know, given how little you've seen. The Mirage Tower is the most mysterious of the six great powers, and its people almost never venture out beyond it."

"But anyone who crosses them, without exception, dies without a sound. There is no way to guard against it. It is something no one wants to provoke."