Night without Borders

Chapter 69 Return to the Daytime World
The desert was "offended" again, and the whole world changed color, with flying sand and rocks, and surging night fog, like a raging wave hitting the shore, crashing into the towering mountains beside the rugged path.

Qin Ming was dumbfounded. What was this mountain master doing? With such great abilities, why couldn't he just take the ordinary path? The smell of this urine was too strong and irritating!
At this moment, Meng Xinghai used a secret method to send a message to him: "In a few days, you can go to Chixia City to find me to learn about the situation. A thousand-year-old family still has to maintain its reputation. If the Cui family changes its mind and does not kill you in this remote place, then the problem will not be so serious."

Qin Ming looked back in the sandstorm and expressed his gratitude to the new city lord.

Meng Xinghai, Li Qingyue and Cui Hong quickly rushed out of the desert, as the environment in this area was too harsh.

On the rugged road in the distance, Xu Sheng looked grim. Why did something happen again today? It was even more serious than yesterday!
He really wanted to quit his job. He felt that being a traveling merchant was too dangerous and that this industry had no future. Not to mention the team he led, even he himself was so scared that he wanted to shout.

"Don't panic, this is none of our business. We have always been in awe of the desert..." Before Xu Sheng finished his words, he felt a woman hanging on his back, whimpering, her sharp nails rubbing against his neck.

On the dark path, nothing could be seen. The woman's crying was very creepy: "Woo... I saw a lot of dark shadows. I was so scared."

Xu Sheng was no longer calm, thinking, "Aren't you an alien? What are you afraid of?" He was really scared now. The long nails on the hairy "slender hands" were like iron hooks, and he couldn't pry them open at all.

He made up his mind that if he could reach Chixia City safely this time, he would immediately change his career and no longer be a traveling merchant.

……

"You keep offending the desert like this, won't you be held against?" Qin Ming's mouth was full of sand as he spoke. Braving the strong wind and the raging sand, he quickly took out a gray robe and covered his head and face.

"It's okay. I'm a member of the secret cult. I have ceremonial instruments on me for some kind of ceremony in the desert. I can pass through smoothly." The wild boar swung its tail and walked lightly on the yellow sand.

Qin Ming was stunned. Is this a member of the secret cult?

"We don't have to be so intense." He couldn't help but ask.

The old boar said, "Beware of the white wolf secretly following you. If you move forward in the desert, anyone who has performed a blood sacrifice ceremony before will be afraid. If it dares to come, it will be scared to death."

Qin Ming learned about the situation. The white wolf was the new master of the mountain. It had performed some mysterious rituals in the mountains to worship the tomb of the beast god, and eventually its Taoism skills increased greatly.

"The Beast God... is dead?" He looked surprised.

The mini boar said, "It's just a powerful creature. Who knows if it's dead or not. That might be its fur grave, and the old white-haired wolf has found it. Otherwise, with the old skills of the old white-eyed wolf, he would have been left behind me. Now it's my turn to escape. Sigh, it's really a matter of time. I haven't had a good life in the past two years."

"There is something around!" Qin Ming said, holding the mutton-fat jade iron knife across his body.

All around, yellow sand was surging, fog was boiling, and dark shadows were looming. There were more than a dozen teams holding dark green torches, illuminating the nearby area with a murky green color, and approaching them.

The wild boar was very calm: "It's okay, it's nothing unusual, the monster will defeat itself, I have the ritual implements for offering sacrifices to the desert, they can't do anything to us."

Green torches were flying, and giant beasts tens of meters tall were walking, constantly passing by them, bringing with them the stench of decay and even the unpleasant smell of corpses burning in fire.

Qin Ming was on guard, and finally adapted. Although those strange omens were swaying nearby, they did not attack them, so he just ignored them.

"You come from a secret sect. Isn't it said that members of the sect are in awe of the desert, believing that it is a place related to gods?"

The old boar said, "It's not like there's only one kind of esoteric religion. Some organizations revere the gods, worship them, and visualize them in their hearts, hoping to use their power for their own benefit. Other esoteric religions are more ambitious, wanting to subdue those 'phenomena' or 'realms', turn them into their own use, and make themselves gods."

Qin Ming was surprised and gained a new understanding of the esoteric religion and the desert.

The old wild boar must have joined a secret sect with greater ambitions, otherwise he wouldn't have this attitude.

"I'm not leaving. My mouth is full of sand. Put up your tent. I'm going to take a nap here. By the way, have you really seen that one-armed sword master?"

Qin Ming responded: "I have seen him. He taught me swordsmanship through the fog. It was like a spiritual resonance, and also like a dream."

The old boar showed a solemn expression and said, "Could it be that he has changed his ways to become a person from the outside world?"

"Have you also met my master?" Qin Ming asked.

"My father has seen it. He once witnessed him chopping down the mountain master with a single blow. The blade's light tore through the night sky and cut off the heavy rain. It was extremely terrifying!"

Not long after, Qin Ming asked, "You said you wanted to repay a favor and settle a cause and effect in the mountains, but how come I don't know when I saved you?"

The old wild boar gritted his teeth and said, "That white wolf was really vicious and cruel. After injuring me severely, it did not kill me immediately, but instead shattered my spirituality, turning me, the master of the mountain, back into an ordinary mountain beast dominated by animal instincts. It wanted me to become blood food for other beasts in the mountains and die miserably. I was lost at that time. I was awake for very short periods of time every day, and most of the time I was in the state of an ordinary mountain beast. It was really like a pig in plain land being bullied by a dog. I remember that you even wanted to shoot me with a bow and arrow at that time."

Qin Ming was sure that it was indeed the giant wild boar weighing 1,500 to 1,600 kilograms that had chased him all the way.

"Luckily, I, the old pig, had a backup plan. As the saying goes, a cunning pig has three burrows. I reserved some very rare spiritual substances in advance and hid them in the second burrow, which is under the blood snake's nest. After you got rid of the blood snakes, I was nearby in my original beast state. After I sobered up a little, I rushed all the way in, recovered most of my vitality, and escaped from the mountain. Although you didn't intend to save me, it also brought me a turn for the better. Since we met by chance, let's end the cause and effect."

Qin Ming never imagined that there were no triple-mutated blood snakes in the blood snake nest as Old Man Liu suspected, and there was actually a pig nest below.

Soon, a deafening snoring sound was heard from the tent buried in the yellow sand. It looked like the Palm Pig, but the noise it made was so loud that the large dark shadows nearby seemed unable to bear it and retreated to a distance.

Of course, it is also possible that the terrifying blood and energy flowing through the old wild boar's body when he was sleeping was too masculine, blurring out those strange signs.

It took a nap and it went straight to the next day.

Now the desert is calm, the strange omens and fog have all dissipated, leaving only absolute darkness.

"Let's go!" It leads the way.

Qin Ming was reluctant to leave immediately, fearing that Cui Hong would block him outside. "We'll keep going along the edge of the desert. I don't want to go out either," said the old boar, fearing that the white wolf had not given up and would kill him outside.

Occasionally, it would come to the rugged mountain roads and imitate the strange sounds of birds. Then Qin Ming saw several chirping birds flying from the nearby mountains and reporting the situation to it.

Qin Ming was jealous and discussed with the old wild boar, asking it if it could do him a favor and release a talking bird to Chixia City and enter the City Lord's Mansion.

Cui Hong searched the entire road but couldn't find Qin Ming. Then he went on to look for Cui Chongyi without stopping. He was really tired.

"Will-o'-the-wisp!" Qin Ming whispered at the edge of the desert, and discovered that there seemed to be a hazy area in the desert.

"Hey, what a great place! That's the Fire Spring, which is usually covered up, but now it's accidentally exposed. It's mainly because we are close to it. If we were a little further away, the darkness of the desert would drown everything and we wouldn't be able to see anything."

The old wild boar was surprised. This desert oasis was its ideal hiding place and it did not want to leave the desert at this stage.

"Meng Xinghai comes from a thousand-year-old family, so he must be more powerful than Ling Xu. Since he has destroyed Jinjiling, I guess this stronghold is not safe either. Let's not stay here, and withdraw early."

As soon as Qin Ming approached here, he heard a group of people talking. This was another place where the gold thieves occasionally stayed. Usually, only some ordinary bandits were here.

"Let's go to Maple Leaf City. Meng is too difficult to deal with. Even the big men of the Golden Bandits don't want to fight him."

"Get ready to go. This place has been howling with winds and full of ghosts for the past two days. Although we are used to it, it still feels creepy."

"Head count, one, two, three... ten?!"

The bandit leader was immediately panicked. This place was really just a resting place. Unlike Jinjiling where a large number of people gathered, there were only nine people left guarding it. Why was there one more person now?
"One, two... ten!" He did not give up and counted again, and suddenly his hair stood on end.

The other bandits were also panicking. You looked at me, I looked at you, and we all felt that something was wrong with each other. They had just covered the fire spring with stone slabs, and there was almost no light here.

"Run!" They fled in panic.

……

Five days later, a talking bird flew back from Chixia City and brought a page of letter. The new lord of Chixia City, Meng Xinghai, told Qin Ming that the Cui family had softened their attitude.

"In the next few years, I cannot go to Qinghe City where the Cui family is, nor can I go to Qianxing City. I cannot use the name Cui Chonghe. For the time being, I cannot call myself a member of the Cui family. I may return to the Cui family in a few years."

Qin Ming looked at the letter. The words on it were not the original words of the Cui family. They were a subtle reminder given to him by Meng Xinghai after he interpreted them.

"What is Thousand Star City?" He pondered, and soon a hazy figure of a young girl appeared in his mind. She seemed to love to laugh and was related to Thousand Star City.

He rubbed his aching temple and stopped thinking about it. He hoped that he would be reborn for the fourth time as soon as possible and fully recover his memory, and then everything would be clear.

Qin Ming originally wanted to give up Chixia City and go somewhere farther away, but when he discovered Meng Xinghai's kindness, he thought it might be safer there.

Qin Ming knew that the reason why Meng Xinghai helped him was probably not out of appreciation for his talent. After all, this was just their first meeting, and there was no need for him to intervene in the Cui family's internal affairs.

"Thank you, Li Qingyue." Qin Ming stood by the fire spring in the desert, looking at the dark night in the distance.

At the same time, in the City Lord's Mansion of Chixia City, Li Qingyue was talking with Meng Xinghai and talked about Qin Ming.

"In his current situation, those of us who are familiar with him should not get too close to him. Otherwise, his situation may get worse. However, after he leaves the Cui family, those familiar people, some so-called 'friends', will probably avoid him as much as possible and completely cut off ties with him, and become strangers from then on."

……

Qin Ming stayed in this desert oasis for eleven days before preparing to set off for Chixia City.

Cui Hong did take Cui Chongyi wandering outside the desert for several days, hoping to see Qin Ming again, but in the end he never got to see him.

"Take care. I hope you can regain the position of the master of Black and White Mountain in the future." Qin Ming said goodbye to the old wild boar.

"Forget it. I've seen through it. Black and White Mountain can't be suppressed without earth-shattering power. After all, it once suffocated all parties. Although it has collapsed, it is not something that ordinary creatures can take over. Almost all the mountain masters in the past have had a bad end."

The old boar shook his head, looking enlightened, and said, "This place is not bad either. I will hide in the dark desert. No one can do anything to me. It is never too late for a gentleman to take revenge."

Qin Ming set out on the journey and approached Chixia City two days later. Looking from afar, he saw a brilliant scene. He guessed that the fire springs in the city were of a high level, which could ensure that it would be as bright as day at dawn.

As he approached the city, Qin Ming's emotions were in turmoil. Although he had just arrived here, he did not feel the slightest bit of strangeness.

Many vague scenes emerged in his mind, which were his previous experiences in the huge city of Qinghe.

After lying dormant in a dark and remote place for two years, he returned to the city with "daylight" again.

Qin Ming's thoughts were in turmoil. In recent days, the broken memories in his mind had been constantly reorganizing, and some people and things were slowly being remembered.

"When I was still Cui Chonghe, I had many old friends in Qinghe City. I knew many important members of the big families, and even got to know some outsiders. I also had connections with the direct descendants of several thousand-year-old families. I was surrounded by a large number of friends, and there were friends everywhere."

With a sigh, he returned to the world of "daylight" as Qin Ming. If he met his old acquaintances, how many of them would be left? How many of them would be willing to say hello to him? I'm afraid that even if they met, they would no longer recognize each other.

(End of this chapter)