The Rise of Phoenixes

An hour slowly passed.

The moon watched tranquilly as those big eyes stared into the veil…

Two hours passed.

The cold wind hissed, and those big eyes stared…

…

That veil hadn’t moved the slightest in all this time, and that jade statue’s poster was just as perfect as it was in the beginning. Feng Zhiwei was already about to break – what is happening!

“What are you doing?”

The jade statue answered: “Waiting.”

“Waiting for whom?”

“Them”

Feng Zhiwei sighed, and she understood how pointless it would be to ask who “them” are. He would never be able to answer. “Why aren’t they here?”

It would be better if they came. A blade to the neck would be better than waiting around with this jade statue all night on the muddy spring ground.

For better or for worse, any person who came would at least be more normal, and if they were normal there was at least some possibility of negotiation. But if it was just this jade statue boulder, nothing was possible.

“Don’t know.”

As expected. Feng Zhiwei’s anger was wrestling with her will; no manner of good temper could suffer through this devilish test. She pushed down her outburst and looked around; the open country stretched on in monotonous sameness in every direction. She suddenly understood, “So you were supposed to meet in a field? Could you have mistaken the road to get here?”

There were only rocks and trees, and thousands of locations looked exactly the same. She had heard the Qing Ming Academy was also expanding, and they had been quarrying for stones and changing roads, and so the whole landscape must have been changed to some degree. This might have been this stone-brain’s first time to Dijing, and his companions had not explained clearly where they would meet, and so now he was lost.

The man slowly turned and looked around, and after a long moment he answered slowly, “Maybe.”

…

Alright… The heavens have ordained me to suffer and be tortured before I can get what I want… Feng Zhiwei ground her teeth together, and finally she squeezed out,”I know these roads. Unseal me and I can show you the way.”

“They asked me to wait.”

“You have to wait at the right place!” Feng Zhiwei exploded.

The man was imperturbable, and showed no hesitation. His reaction amounted to a short and firm: “Wait.”

…

“Then can you at least unseal me?” The defeated Feng Zhiwei pleaded, “They didn’t say you couldn’t unseal me, right?”

This finally worked. The jade statue thought for a moment before nodding and moving his hand.

Feng Zhiwei felt her body relax – this man could unseal her without touching her! This kind of Kong Fu, just judging from what she had learned from the robed figure, was incredible.

She stood up and brushed the dust off her clothes. Without giving the jade statue a glance, she smiled: “Hero, they didn’t tell you what to do with the person you caught, right?”

The jade statue was quiet, seemingly searching his memory for the answer to this question, and after a moment he shook his head.

“And they didn’t ask you to kill, right?’

“They said that they wanted to ask about something, like where that person is?”

The last sentence roller off her tongue, and Feng Zhiwei didn’t understand it herself nor did she care. She only grabbed at the important point, “And since they didn’t tell you what to do after you grabbed the person and just asked you to wait, then you can wait here and I’ll go my way… See you later.”

She would spend her whole life avoiding this statue blockhead.

She would definitely lose her mind around this person.

Feng Zhiwei turned and walked away, but when she was some distance away she finally couldn’t resist and took a good look around.

That man was still standing in the same place, his shadow stretched long in the moonlight. His sky cyan clothes was almost like wind, fluttering under the moons rays.

Feng Zhiwei snorted and continued walking.

Soon, Feng Zhiwei spotted in the distance a passing through a mountain ridge and Feng Zhiwei finally recognized the head of Mt. Song, some ten miles out from the city. This was a very remote place and rarely had visitors, but three miles from here was a Ying Ke¹ Pavilion.

If she wasn’t completely off, “they” had told him to meet at this easily recognizable place, but that man had run off to the wrong place and was still waiting there.

Feng Zhiwei snickered and thought, just wait patiently. When they find you, you’ll have long died from hunger.

She kept walking.

She was used to walking.

With a big sigh, she stopped. Aih…

She turned and walked back to that statue. The man was still standing, facing the same direction, indifferent to her coming and going.

Feng Zhiwei was certain that this person would just wait here until he died.

She reached for his hand, but the man pulled it away. “You are in the wrong place. They are waiting somewhere else.”

The man tilted his head, and Feng Zhiwei tugged on his sleeve and smiled, “Let’s go, I’ll take you.” (1)

And so the man followed.

Feng Zhiwei pulled him along happily, walking through the empty fields. She obviously didn’t head in the direction of the pavilion, and she was already lost in day dreams.

His clothes were very precious, so he would have some silver with him. She couldn’t go back to the city right now, and she didn’t have the three thousand silver ticket with her, so she could conveniently borrow some of his money for now.

His Kong Fu was so impressive and he was so easy to trick. Her safety was of some concern at the moment, and she could use him as a bodyguard.

On the third of February in the year Shen Geng, on a dark and windy night, the Feng Young Mistress Feng Zhiwei daydreamed about how she could take advantage of others as she dragged away a mysterious man…

Feng Zhiwei regretted!

She should’ve known not to grab some random man!

She had lead him around for the whole night through, and at first she had been very happy. Although he didn’t have any silver on him, he had some exquisitely fashioned skin masks, one of which she had already taken and put on. With the average teenage boy’s face fastened to her face, she had thought that she had gotten a pretty good deal. After a some more walking, she was tired and hungry so she asked, “Do you have rations?”

The books said that these errant heroes always carried rations and food wherever they went.

The man heard her and reacted very quickly this time, but with a rumbling stomach instead of an answer. Slowly and unhurriedly, he stretched out a hand towards her and demanded, “food.”

Feng Zhiwei blinked at him, and it took her a moment to realize this this fool was also hungry, and he was actually asking her for food!

The hand in front of her was snow white and perfect, nothing like a martial artist’s hand, but Feng Zhiwei was in no mood to appreciate it. All she wanted to do was smash the hand away from her face.

She swallowed her anger and forced a smile across her face. “Do you know how to hunt?”

“You hunt.”

!!!

He wasn’t a hero. This was a spoiled young master!!!

Feng Zhiwei began to regret her decision, and she thought to herself: whatever, I’ll just throw him away; he can just go starve.

She very gently let go of his cuff and turned him around. Smiling, she said, “look, they are in that direction. You go on first; I’ll help you hunt. See you later.”