RIIDMDR chapter 66

 

He tried to let go of Ting Chuan but saw that he was standing unharmed in place. He himself was also standing steadily in the cold wind.

It was as if it weren’t because of Ting Chuan’s protection.

The strength of this wind was undeniable. If it were in the human world, it would definitely be rated as shocking.

Nan Xu had no one to answer his questions, and he could not think about these things in such a situation. Since the storm wasn’t blowing them into the air, much of the melancholy and worry in Nan Xu’s heart lessened.

After resting for two hours in a warm place and eating something, they did not find the cold wind too unbearable. Supporting each other, they continued on their way.

Honestly, the strong wind blew away much of the snow on the ground, making the road easier to walk on. If not for the wind occasionally splashing snow and ice on them, they could have walked faster.

Luo Yi had said that one kind of weather would last about a day if they kept moving and would then suddenly switch to another kind of weather. But they had already been there for a day and a night. Except for those two hours in the cabin, they had never stopped hurrying forward. Now that the sun had risen, it was morning, yet they still hadn’t walked out of this icy world.

Nan Xu raised the collar of his clothes to cover his mouth and nose. After being hit by wind and snow several times, he deeply regretted not spending a fortune in the marketplace to buy a motorcycle helmet. When he had browsed the marketplace, he had mocked the selection, thinking that in this demon realm, there wouldn’t be a car, let alone a motorcycle. Who would be foolish enough to buy that thing?

Now, he regretted it very much. At the very least, he shouldn’t have laughed at the system.

“Shouldn’t we be entering the next weather now?” Nan Xu asked.

Ting Chuan shook his head. “This is already the second weather.”

Without needing an explanation, Nan Xu understood at once. No wonder they still hadn’t gotten out. It turned out that the first weather wasn’t the cold but the blizzard that had almost buried them. After dawn this morning, it had silently switched to the second weather: the hurricane.

“That seems like good news, too,” Nan Xu said. “At least we’ve gotten used to the snowfield a bit, right?”

Ting Chuan responded with a sound. However, the blizzard had actually stopped by the time the sky turned completely dark. Combining this with his past experience and Luo Yi’s words, it seemed that the formation was different this time, giving them a chance to breathe.

Nan Xu had also heard them talk about all kinds of encounters in this formation. At that moment, he thought this little difference was contradictory. If this formation was treating him gently, then the earlier blizzard had almost buried him, and now the storm was endlessly slapping his face with no persuasive power at all.

Ting Chuan’s throat was hoarse, so Nan Xu didn’t talk to him. Their hands were held together in their sleeves anyway, so Nan Xu wasn’t worried about Ting Chuan getting lost.

From when the sun tilted east to when it tilted west, Nan Xu had at least fallen asleep on Ting Chuan’s back last night. However, Ting Chuan had barely rested for a whole day and night, dozing only for half an hour in the cabin. Nan Xu tilted his head to look. Thick winter clothes covered most of his face. His long eyelashes were still stained with ice shards. His eyes were deep and bright, giving the illusion of endless energy. Only after watching him for a long time could Nan Xu glimpse a little fatigue.

He stared for too long, and Ting Chuan turned his head to look back at him. Perhaps it was because, in this vast, snowy world, it was just the two of them. In such loneliness, companionship brought a strange sense of closeness. Nan Xu did not avoid his gaze at all. “Tired?”

Ting Chuan shook his head, then nodded. “You’re tired?”

Nan Xu nodded. “Walking against the wind like this is more tiring than when I first came to Zhuyu Mountain and opened the wasteland.”

Though he said so, he wasn’t truly complaining about how hard it was back then, his eyes were smiling. Ting Chuan smiled and said, “If you can’t walk anymore, just tell me.”

The fear of the storm in Nan Xu’s heart gradually faded step by step. His ears and face were frozen, numb to the pain of the wind’s blades. He felt like a dead pig not afraid of boiling water.

Amused by this thought, he hummed a little tune and was in a rather good mood.

Ting Chuan glanced at him sideways. He had never heard this tune before and wondered if Nan Xu had learned it from the human world. He had heard that many humans were good at music. Some tunes could be sung all over the land, everyone could hum a few lines. This was unlike the demon race, where only the Jiao clan understood music theory.

Accompanied by his faint singing, the sun gradually slanted westward. The storm that had carried snow everywhere seemed to lose its strength after a day’s work, it was no longer as ferocious as it had been in the morning.

This commotion gradually diminished without their noticing, so Nan Xu didn’t realize it. When his legs suddenly became too heavy to lift, he snapped back to awareness, looked around, and said, “The wind seems to have lessened.”

Nan Xu chose a spot and took the second chance to build a temporary shelter. The same small cabin appeared again. Because of their previous experience, the two went straight inside. The cabin hadn’t changed much. Familiar with it now, they quickly found firewood, lit a fire, took off their coats, and shook off the snow and ice that had attached to them. Nan Xu pulled out two sweet potatoes and tossed them into the fire. Then, he told Ting Chuan, “Hurry and get some sleep.”

Ting Chuan was indeed exhausted. He leaned against the hay and closed his eyes. Nan Xu took out the water gourd and found that there wasn’t much water left. He got up, went outside into the snow, grabbed some, and stuffed it into the gourd to replenish it.

He warmed the gourd by the fire, added some firewood, covered himself with his thick winter clothes, and lay down to sleep.

Having spent too much energy, Nan Xu fell straight into a deep sleep.

When Ting Chuan opened his eyes again, more than an hour had passed. The room was quiet, with only the sounds of crackling firewood and light breathing. Ting Chuan relaxed for a while, then got up and opened the door to look outside.

At some point, the wind outside had stopped, and no snow was falling. Amusingly enough, this was the second time the formation had given them a chance to breathe. Last time…

Ting Chuan froze, thinking of something, and turned back to look at the sleeping Nan Xu.

The last time the snow had completely stopped was when Nan Xu had fainted. This time, the wind had stopped again when Nan Xu was asleep. While this connection was far-fetched, it was still ridiculously coincidental.

Ting Chuan lowered his head and laughed. Indeed, this mountain belonged to him. Even though he was now human, the mountain’s formation would change with his will.

He closed the door, sat by the fire, picked up the gourd, drank some water, added some firewood, and waited quietly for Nan Xu to wake up.

Looking at Nan Xu, Ting Chuan recalled that when they first met, his brows and eyes bore no resemblance to the person Ting Chuan remembered. But after living together day after day, some silhouettes gradually overlapped and some words resounded in his ears again.

Ting Chuan had never believed in reincarnation. To demons, extinction meant extinction. Even after thousands of years of longing, it was still empty.

He had never wished for the other to return, but he firmly believed that if he did, he would be the first to recognize him.

He didn’t know how much time had passed when Nan Xu slowly woke up. A good sleep made his whole body feel comfortable. This kind of sleep, a race against time, was like the five minutes after the alarm rings—a sense of infinite happiness.

“Is it almost time?” Nan Xu saw Ting Chuan poking the fire and asked.

“Mm, almost.” Ting Chuan replied.

Hearing this, Nan Xu didn’t rush to look outside. After putting on his coat, he quickly pulled the roasted sweet potatoes from the fire — one for each of them — and ate them with hisses and puffs.

Just as he took the last bite of sweet potato, the cabin suddenly disappeared. Nan Xu and Ting Chuan were left sitting in the snow. One of Ting Chuan’s hands held a half-eaten sweet potato, the other, which had just been tending the fire, was stretched in the air. The fire was gone, and even the stick in his hand had vanished.

“The system is truly stingy as always!” Nan Xu sighed sincerely.

Looking at Ting Chuan’s actions and dazed expression, the scene was comical. Nan Xu couldn’t help but laugh. But halfway through, he choked on the sweet potato in his mouth. His face flushed red as he knelt in the snow, clutching his throat and trying to spit it out.

After a bout of chaos, he finally caught his breath. Hugging the gourd, he drank several gulps of water and gave Ting Chuan an embarrassed smile.

He had just laughed at Ting Chuan when retribution came swiftly. Ting Chuan was truly the son of Heaven!

Ting Chuan picked up the half-eaten sweet potato he had dropped and continued eating it slowly. Nan Xu filled the gourd with snow and tilted his head toward the sky, feeling a bit confused. They had only rested for two hours in the cabin, so why did the sky seem to be brightening?

Nan Xu thought it was his illusion, but when he looked down, he saw the snow at his feet melting rapidly. In just a few minutes, the snow on the ground had almost completely melted.

Nan Xu’s heart jumped as he realized something. He grabbed Ting Chuan’s hand and started running, taking big strides and leaving the half sweet potato behind.

His heart was anxious. Although his body had grown stronger in the mountains and he could run very fast, he still couldn’t match the speed of the melting snow.

When snow melts, it turns into water. They couldn’t stay in low-lying areas, they had to quickly run toward higher ground. However, there were no high slopes nearby in this area. In the distance, they could see the outlines of mountains. They were not close, but they had no other choice.

The temperature kept rising. They shifted from running in snow to running in water. Their winter clothes became a burden, slowing them down while also making them unbearably hot.

As they ran, they took off their winter clothes and, with nowhere to put them, held them in one arm. The water rose from their feet to their ankles and then to their calves. They were moving far faster than the blizzard had buried them. Nan Xu had never run so long or so fast. He had seen how thick the snow was before and knew the potential disaster of snowmelt, so he didn’t dare relax, running red-faced without stopping.

As he saw the mountain outlines a little closer, Nan Xu couldn’t smile because the sky that had just brightened was now covered by thick black clouds.

Misfortune never comes alone. Heavy rain was coming.

The food he had just eaten churned in his stomach. Nan Xu ran so hard that he almost vomited, yet he still couldn’t escape the rising water, which reached their thighs.

The water’s resistance slowed them down considerably. Nan Xu grew anxious, cursing the fact that this broken formation didn’t follow the rules and offered no safety guarantee. How was he supposed to develop it into a mountain tourism project in the future?

After thinking this, he hit his head. His life was about to end in this formation; what did tourism projects matter?

During critical moments, all sorts of messy thoughts flooded his brain uncontrollably. But this did have one benefit—it at least improved his mood, preventing him from being paralyzed by fear.

The mountain drew closer, and the water reached their waists and then their chests.

Nan Xu gazed into the distance, thinking of a saying often used by humans: “The horse dies from running toward the mountain it sees[mfn]望山跑死馬 (wàng shān pǎo sǐ mǎ) Figuratively, it means something appears near and easy, but in reality, it’s much harder and farther than expected.[/mfn].”

“Ting Chuan, do your foxes fear water?”