Nightfall

The rain had stopped and the light of the early morning sun gradually appeared. The beasts looking for food were walking among the hardy woods, with the snow on the trees shook off. The original yellowish black of the trees added some color and vitality to the vast snowfield. However, looking at the thick bloodstain which was gradually covered by snow outside the tent, the young girl’s face was still pale.

Mo Shanshan in the Mogan Mountain never killed a person before arriving at the snowfield. Later she began killing some people in the snowfield. Even so, she didn’t kill a fellow before last night. For a person who believed in Haotian, the men from the Divine Hall were, of course, her fellows.

Her master was a visiting professor of the Divine Hall and she believed in Haotian too. This time, she was ordered by the Divine Hall to investigate enemy’s situation in the snowfield. However, she unexpectedly had killed three deacons of the Judicial Department of the Divine Hall last night.

Mo Shanshan wasn’t scared but felt a little confused. It was hard for her to mentally accept this fact. After thinking of it for the half night, she still couldn’t figure it out. Why had the situation back then developed into the current one? Why had she naturally burnt that deacon of the Judicial Department into flying light ash by her incineration talisman without any hesitation, when Ning Que began fighting against them?

Holding a bowl of broth, Ning Que were squatting on the door of the tent and enjoyable drinking it. Obviously, the corpses of those deacons in black, which were not far away from him, didn’t make any influence on his appetite.

His eyes fell on Mo Shanshan’s pale face. When he noticed her loosely indifferent eyes became a little frustrated and helpless, he knew what was wrong with her. He stood up and consoled her, “If you regret what you have done, you will achieve nothing except for adding more burdens to your mentality.”

Mo Shanshan slowly shook her head, with her beautiful eyebrows gently blinking. She looked at his eyes and seriously said, “Introspection can prevent us from making more mistakes, or you think introspection is unnecessary?”

“If you are talking about the inexplicable battle last night…”

Ning Que shrugged his shoulder and drank out the last mouth of broth left in the bowl. He said, “There’s certainly no need to introspect. I won’t consider whether they are bigwigs of the Judicial Department of the Divine Hall. All I know is they want to kill me. Therefore, it’s natural for me to fight against them.”

Later he seriously added, “The three deacons were weaker than us, but they intended to kill us. As a result, they were killed by us. In general, they made the mistake due to their low intelligence quotient. However, if we were killed by them in that situation, it was about the emotional quotient. In the former situation, it was called stupidity, which still could be cured by medicine. But in the latter situation, it was named simpleton, which was incorrigible.”

Listening to such vulgar words, Mo Shanshan couldn’t help frowning. After recalling the battle process last night, she seriously argued for the dead, “The Confinement of Taoists Law is a kind of passive means like the Qi of Heaven and Earth or the Encircling Array Tactical. Yesterday that three deacons just wanted to subdue you, but not to kill you right away.”

“But later that man would like to disable my ability.”

Ning Que smilingly said, “I’m not used to reasoning with others after being disabled. As I mentioned before, such kind of simpleton in emotional quotient can’t be cured.”

Mo Shanshan said carefully, “Since I was there, of course, I wouldn’t let you be beaten to disability.”

The ordinary words showed a kind of merited confidence. The young girl’s killing three deacons of the Judicial Department of the Divine Hall made her a little absent-minded, but it didn’t represent that, in her mind, three deacons were more powerful than her.

The word, which meant protecting someone more or less, might displease many hot-blooded young boys. However, when Ning Que listened to it and looked at her eyes, he was moved and then somehow felt a little nervous.

In order to get rid of the nervousness immediately, he shook his head and said, “Even if these deacons were unable to defeat us, what should that Desolate mother and her son do? If the three deacons wanted to kill them, would you stop it or not?”

Ning Que looked at the young girl and smilingly said, “You have a warm heart, so it is impossible for you to be a bystander when they were bullied. Moreover, considering that we were offered so much dried meat by them, won’t you feel embarrassed if you don’t help them?”

Mo Shanshan slightly lowered and looked at her tiptoes below the fringe of her thick cotton skirt. She absolutely had no idea what she should say to this lad. In her view, though both of them weren’t afraid of the men from the Divine Hall, yet the way Ning Que talked about killing the deacons of the Judicial Department was very casual, as if they just incidentally killed two sheep on the way.

The young girl said in a low voice, “But they are the men from the Divine Hall.”

When dealing with the dead bodies last night, Ning Que found a piece of ID token from a deacon in black, who was killed into two halves by him. Mo Shanshan confirmed the identity of that deacon in black. It seemed that he was from the family of a very important figure of the Divine Hall. However, Ning Que didn’t fear it because no one could blame him if there was no evidence for his killing.

Like many people in the world, he believed in Haotian too. However, after experiencing a homeless and miserable life on the bottom of the society from an early age and witnessing the ugliness of the world, Ning Que didn’t have too much respect to such a kind of legendary place as the Divine Hall. What was more, since he returned to Chang’an and was accepted by the Academy, he was long and deeply influenced by the pride and narcissism in the back of the mountain of the Academy. Thus, his reverence for Haotian and the Divine Hall became weaker and weaker.

In addition, his handmaiden once admired the beauty of Prince Long Qing whom Ning Que had two battles within Chang’an. Though he seemed very calm when his handmaiden showed her admiration to that prince, he actually had felt very uncomfortable about it for a long time. Furthermore, the two young lads had a bloody fight on the meadow not long ago. As a result, Ning Que’s respect to the Divine Hall totally faded away and even generated a deep hatred.

In such a situation, there was little difference for him between killing three deacons of the Judicial Department of the Divine Hall and butchering three sheep. Thus, it didn’t cause any trouble or confusion to him in psychology and mind, and he even had the mood to admire the beautiful face of the young girl.

When Ning Que was looking at Mo Shanshan’s innocent and helpless facial expression, he subconsciously wanted to touch her lovely plump cheeks. Suddenly, her identity as Calligraphy Addict crossed his mind. He forcibly calmed down and considerately said, “I will deal with the dead bodies later. No one will know about it as I am very good at covering it.”

It was a pity that there was only one Academy in the world, and only the Academy had the ability to teach such a student as Ning Que. Though Mo Shanshan was the well-known Calligraphy Addict, she still couldn’t ignore those figures of the Divine Hall with a casual smile as Ning Que did.

Looking at the young girl who still kept silent with her head lowered, Ning Que shook his head and then smilingly said, “Don’t forget what happened on the meadow. In fact, your Younger Brother was killed by the men of the Judicial Department of the Divine Hall, though they didn’t do it in person. Therefore, from the simplest emotional perspective, you shouldn’t be on their side.”

“If one is against you, you should be against him or her. Now, the Divine Hall has done something harmful to you, so you don’t have to consider their death. In the past, you hadn’t met any Desolate Man, so you actually don’t have to help the Divine Hall kill the Desolate Man, who came southward for a thousand miles. That woman from the Desolate Man tribe didn’t hew you with a knife at her first sight of you. Instead, she offered you a piece of meat and now she is making broth for you…Do you know what the piece of ‘one-thousand-year’ meat represents? It is a kind of predestined relationship!”

Ning Que raised his arm and gently patted her on her shoulder. He turned his head and smilingly said, “Thank you very much, elder sister.”

The curtains were pulled open. The woman from the Desolate Man tribe walked towards them with a bowl of broth and several pieces of whole-grain bread in her hands. She nodded at Ning Que and smilingly said, “Actually, we should thank you for what you did for us last night.”

The body of the Desolate Man was very special and their muscles were very strong. Last night, the woman’s shoulder was hurt by the Taoist Sword of that deacon in black. However, she could recover quickly after Mo Shanshan used her talisman to remove the force of Haotian Divine light left on the woman’s wound.

Hiding behind the curtains, the boy from the Desolate Man tribe curiously looked at the young lad and girl from Central Plains and then asked, “You are from Central Plains, but why would you help us kill those Central Plains men?”

With eyebrows slightly raised, Ning Que inspiringly said, “Because we are two good Central Plains people.”

The boy confusedly scratched his head and didn’t know what the good Central Plains person meant. Before their tribe marched southward, their senior statesmen held a tribe meeting, but such a kind of noun wasn’t mentioned.

Suddenly, he recalled one thing that a senior statesman said before and then patted on his forehead, as if he had figured out what was going on. He looked at Ning Que and said, “The senior statesman said you Central Plains people like internal strife most. Is it an internal strife?”

Listening to the word, Mo Shanshan felt a little hot on her cheeks and didn’t know how to respond.

Ning Que didn’t feel surprised at what the boy said, and he just smilingly patted the boy on his head.

…

…

Through his strong demand and persistence, Ning Que finally managed to persuade the girl to join the clearing of the dead bodies with him. It wasn’t because he wanted to see a pale young girl trembling when she faced dead bodies. Instead, he really felt that Mo Shanshan was an innocent and inexperienced girl. Though she was well-known in the world, yet she was still like a quiet floret beside the Ink Lake, who couldn’t resist heavy wind and rain. If Ning Que didn’t help her grow up soon, he’d better not expect her help during the journey, and she even might be a burden to him.

According to his life experience, dealing with dead bodies was the second fastest way to help an innocent and inexperienced young girl growing up. As for the best way, he hoped it wouldn’t occur to him anymore.

Angrily dragging the heavy load and luggage, the Big Black Horse walked towards the forest deep in the snowfield with the young lad and girl. Behind the tight leather, there was a complete dead body and two incomplete yet bloodless ones on the ground and a large bunch of stone grass which covered traces.

Mo Shanshan silently walked in front of them. Her cotton skirt’s hemline had been wet by snow, but she didn’t realize it because she was still trapped in that kind of complicated yet confused emotion. Since her childhood, she had absolutely admired Haotian, so how could it be possible to erase her respect to Haotian by several simple sentences? She still felt something wrong on this thing, although she thought what Ning Que said before did make sense.

For an innocent young girl who had peacefully lived by the Ink Lake for over ten years, the difficulty degree of transforming her worldview was only simpler than that of transforming her love view. Looking at her back, Ning Que felt a little helpless and tired.

While walking on the bleak snowfield, his thought suddenly flew to distant Chang’an, to that shop in the alley and to that little black handmaiden. He thought that if Sangsang was beside him, the whole thing would be much easier. Because Sangsang wouldn’t doubt anything he said.

Of course, Sangsang’s views on the world, life, love, money, food, and death were just his views.

…

…

Several stout tree mice warily looked at the scene below the tree. Both that natural pit stacking several parts of human bodies and the fresh bloody smell made them a little intranquil.

Ning Que threw a large bunch of stone grass into the pit and looked at that pale and serious face of the deacon in black beside his right feet. After a short silence, he seriously said, “The Divine Hall needs to be revered, so does the Academy. The back of the mountain of the Academy always rejects entering the human realm for a long time. Since I entered the Wilderness this time, I represented the face of the Academy. However, during the journey, it seems that the other people didn’t respect me so much.”

He looked at Mo Shanshan and smilingly said, “If my Second Brother were threatened by the Judicial Department of the Divine Hall, could you guess what he would do? He mustn’t have just killed several people as I did.”

Slightly frowning and thinking of Second Brother of the Academy, who was extremely proud according to rumors, Mo Shanshan said, “What will he do? Will he directly kill Tao Addict or Prince Long Qing?”

“Second Brother certainly won’t do that, because such kind of people as Tao Addict and Long Qing are too weak in his eyes.”

Ning Que smilingly shook his head and said, “I guess he may directly rush to the Peach Mountain and fight against that Great Divine Priest of the Judicial Department. His idol is Youngest Uncle. If my master isn’t strict with him, I’m afraid he has fought against other people everywhere long before. If there is an excuse like this to fight, how could he let it slip?”

Looking at him in surprise, Mo Shanshan thought what kinds of eccentrics were living on the Second floor of the Academy?

“I’m not so strong and mighty, but glory is my life. If who dare ignore the existence of my Academy, I will fight against him with my life.”

Ning Que looked at the sky in silence. There was a kind of mixed emotion and determination in his tone. If a drop of tear ran down from his eye or a piece of snowflake flown to his eyebrow now, the picture must be more wonderful.

After accompanying with him along the journey, Mo Shanshan knew Ning Que’s shameless disposition more or less, though they weren’t familiar with each other like old friends. When she suddenly heard his determined words at this time, she couldn’t help feeling moved.

She seriously stared at his side face and kept silent for a long time, but she still couldn’t believe her judge. She unconfidently asked in an extremely low voice, “Are you telling a lie or telling a joke?”

Ning Que laughed and said to her, “Since I don’t have to cheat you, it’s certainly a joke.”

Mo Shanshan seemed very unsatisfied, with her eyebrows slightly frowning, as if a rare and precious brush was heavily carving on paper.

Ning Que stopped laughing like before. He looked at her eyes and seriously said, “But seriously, I never think the Divine Hall has the qualification to represent Haotian. Who can prove that Haotian allows the Divine Hall to represent it? Maybe it is we who are chosen by Haotian and the justice and righteousness of the world need to be maintained by us. Therefore, if the Divine Hall does that sort of disgusting thing again in the future, we must reject indifference and fight against them if necessary.”

Ning Que’s word still sounded inspiring, but this time Mo Shanshan wasn’t puzzled by him. Instead, she looked at his eyes and thought for a long time again. Later she tried to make it sure and asked, “It should be…a joke?”

Looking at her slightly-wrinkled but lovely nasal tip and the confusion and nervousness in her dull eyes, Ning Que couldn’t help laughing happily. He drew out a piece of Fu paper and said, “It also could be called a lie.”

Mo Shanshan looked at his back and suddenly asked, “Why are you fond of telling lies?”

Without turning around, Ning Que just said, “The habit was formed at my very young age, because sometimes it was impossible for me to survive if I didn’t tell lies.”

Mo Shanshan continued asking, “What on earth is your purpose of coming to the Wilderness? Why do you teach me those gloomy things? Why do you teach me how to kill people? Why do you ask me to get used to these things?”

The questions asked by a simple and innocent person were all very simple. They were direct due to simpleness, so they could directly reach the inner heart by piercing countless hidden silk cotton armors, such as lies and jokes.

These questions were hard to answer. After silently thinking for a moment by a snow pit, Ning Que decided to tell the truth. He looked at her and peacefully said, “I need to grab an important thing in the Wilderness. As you mentioned before, no one would care about my background of the Academy at a critical time. At that time, I may be bullied by others like a dog, not to mention grabbing the thing from them.”

Mo Shanshan looked at him in silence and let him finish his talk.

Ning Que flipped that piece of Fu paper into the snow pit and then said in a very serious tone, “So I need your help.”

Mo Shanshan slightly lowered her head and looked at somewhere on the snowfield. After a short silence, she asked in a low voice, “What do you want to grab?”

“One of seven volumes of Tomes of Arcane.”

Looking at her long slightly-blinking eyelashes and sensing her emotional change now, Ning Que said, “You agree to go with me, and I wonder whether it’s relevant to this thing.”

Mo Shanshan slowly raised her head and kept silent for a long time. Later she gently said, “My master told me the thing after he heard about it. I don’t expect to succeed in grabbing it, but I’m very curious and that’s why I’m here.”

Ning Que laughed and said, “You’re curious about the Tomes of Arcane and those mighty figures who may capable of grabbing it?”

Mo Shanshan just smiled and felt easy and relaxed when talking with him, because it seemed that he could correctly hear what she thought in her mind.

Ning Que still intended to say something.

Mo Shanshan gently shook her head and seriously asked as she looked at his eyes, “I didn’t tell you before and neither did you, so is it a tie, rather than a kind of mutual cheating?”

Usually, this kind of simple way of thinking only existed in the innocent children world, but the young girl just naturally and directly expressed it. Ning Que just naturally accepted it and seriously nodded. He even felt relieved a lot, because he had few friends and didn’t want to lose one out of no reason.

Later Ning Que looked at her and seriously said, “But your mindset should be corrected. Since we are in the Wilderness, we shouldn’t let the chance slip if we get one, so don’t say any expectation. If we daren’t think about it, we will really get nothing in the end.”

Mo Shanshan looked at him and seriously asked, “Is it also a kind of education to me?”

Ning Que embarrassedly laughed and said, “Anyway, I have counted about the thing. If both of us can cooperate well, even Prince Long Qing may not be our rival. Why don’t we have a try?”

Mo Shanshan smiled and said, “Let’s have a try, but how to share if we succeed?”

“At that time we can write copies. You bring one back to the Ink Lake and I bring the other back to the Academy. In fact, I haven’t met the Headmaster of Academy so far. If I can give him one volume of Tomes of Arcane as a present for the first meeting, it will be very exciting…”

Ning Que became more and more excited.

A blob of shyness suddenly flashed over Mo Shanshan’s eyes and then she said, “I want the one you wrote.”

Ning Que waved his hand and generously said, “You pick first.”

Standing on the snowfield, both of them laughed happily and simply when imagining the nearly-impossible bright future.