Overdraw the future and become a peerless martial god

Chapter 131 Re-entering the Journey

The old village chief was now squatting beside the remains, his hand holding the cane trembling slightly, his eyes fixed on the black nail.

"This nail...this rune..."

His fingers gently caressed the intricate runes on his body, as if trying to recall images buried deep in his memory.

After a long while, he murmured:

"Thirty years ago, my father brought back a broken sword from Cangque Mountain. He found it on the edge of a cliff; the blood was still wet, and the blade was cracked like a dragon's tendon being torn apart."

"And the sword also has these runes on it."

Chu Ning frowned slightly and listened quietly.

The old village chief slowly raised his head, the turbidity in his eyes receding slightly, revealing a cold and clear-headed quality only an elder possesses.

"After that year, the mountains outside Yaya Village were sealed off by the Zhenwu Division... for a full ten years."

"Anyone who dares to approach will be told it's a 'land of beast plague,' but in reality... it's a place where evil creatures have appeared."

He turned to look at Chu Ning, speaking each word clearly:
"We people don't know any martial arts techniques or understand the political situation. The only thing we believe in is the ancestral precept of 'Don't mess with the mountain god'."

"But now it seems that what was sealed off was not the mountain."

"It's the past."

Those around fell silent upon hearing this. The wind and snow fell silently on the remains of the corpse, and on the black nail that Chu Ning had already stored in his Soul-Sealing Pouch.

They looked at each other, their eyes devoid of any remaining hope, as if from that moment on, they realized:

Those old disasters they thought were long gone are returning in another form.

He turned to look at Chu Ning, his gaze heavy, his eyes filled with a mixture of awe, shock, and a rare, almost pleading look:

"Young hero, I dare not ask who you are."

"I just want to know one thing—"

"Is this... thing... really eyeing our snowfield?"

Chu Ning did not answer immediately.

He looked down at the black nail in his hand, twirled it with his fingertips, and the nail was sealed by a lightning talisman before being put into a small pouch in his sleeve.

Then he stood up and looked towards the far north, at the white line on the horizon shrouded in snow and mist.

"They're probably eyeing more than just this snowfield."

The old village chief's body trembled slightly.

He wanted to say something, but in the end he only exhaled a long breath of white air, which turned into mist in the cold night and lingered for a long time.

His voice deepened, becoming almost inaudible:

"We... just want to survive."

Chu Ning glanced back at him, her tone calm, yet her words were like frost striking stone, each sentence chilling:

"But they aren't."

"What they're thinking about is—whether enough people have died, and whether their souls have been collected enough."

Leng Feng stood to the side and couldn't help but whisper:

"We are not afraid of death."

"We're afraid of dying without even a trace."

“Last year, the entire village of Crampaw was swallowed up by an avalanche, leaving not even a tombstone.”

The three of them were silent.

The wind and snow rose again, sweeping across the mountain pass like a tide, engulfing the heavens and the earth.

Chu Ning stood in the wind, lightning and fire quietly moving in his palm, the light dim, yet outlining a barely visible dark silhouette in the night.

The snowfield was not yet still, and the sky was not yet bright.

The next morning, the wind and snow had just stopped, the sky was a grayish blue, and a ray of pale sunlight pierced through the broken clouds, illuminating the snow-covered rooftops.

Chu Ning stood at the village entrance, wearing the rough leather cloak that the hunter had given him the day before, quietly gazing at the distant broken ridge and white plain.

The village behind us was quiet and somber, as if still immersed in the shock and unease of the black nail from the previous night.

He didn't sleep all night, his consciousness sinking into the Thunder Bone and Sea of ​​Consciousness within his body, carefully examining the flow of energy and meridians.

He knew that although his injuries had stabilized, he had not yet recovered half of his true energy. What Tun Yuan had said upon waking last night made him understand even more clearly:
His situation wasn't simply one of being hunted down. He needed to reach the far north as quickly as possible to see what was happening there; reviving Qingli was of utmost urgency.

Therefore, he could not stay long.

The old village chief already knew his intentions.

Standing at the village entrance at this moment is him personally seeing them off.

"Young hero, are you really leaving?"

Chu Ning nodded: "I still need to rescue people, I can't stay here any longer."

The old village chief, leaning on his wooden cane, looked at the pale-faced but resolute young man before him, and his expression darkened:
"So where in the far north are you planning to go?"

“Cangque”.

Chu Ning spoke softly, yet his words were like a knife falling in the wind and snow.

The old village chief's eyelids twitched slightly, and after a moment, he sighed softly:
"Fine... I can't persuade you otherwise."

"But remember, snow in Cangque doesn't stop often, and when it stops, it's actually more dangerous."

"Legend has it that this is the place where the snow fox sleeps... No one has returned for three hundred years."

Chu Ning clasped his hands in a respectful bow:
"Thank you for your guidance."

He stood at the village entrance and glanced back.

As dawn broke through the snow, the village was shrouded in a thin mist and icy light, a scene of serene beauty.

Beside the village gate, several children were peeking out from behind the fence. Two of them were the brother and sister he had saved by slaying the beast the night before. The brother's face was dirty, but he was tightly gripping a wooden stick carved with a snow fox totem. The little sister had bright eyes, a half-eaten steamed bun in her mouth, and tears welled up in her eyes, but she stubbornly refused to let them fall.

Not far away, an elderly woman with a hunched back stood in front of the stove, her hands trembling as she bowed to Chu Ning. Her grandson was the boy who had been trapped in the cellar last night and was only able to escape thanks to Chu Ning clearing the snowdrift in time.

She didn't speak, but stood trembling in the wind, head bowed, that bow as heavy as a lifetime.

Leng Feng arrived, panting, clutching a leather bag and a bundle of dry rations tightly wrapped in oilcloth. He shoved the items into Chu Ning's hands, trying to suppress his nasal voice:

“These are the people you saved, each family contributing a little grain and a mouthful of boiled water.”

"We know you don't plan to stay, so we'll wrap it up before dawn."

He paused, then said in a low voice:
"You saved our lives...we have no other way to repay you."

He wanted to say "take care," but the words stuck in his throat, so he could only smile and add:
"Don't freeze to death on the way."

Chu Ning glanced at him, said nothing more, simply took the package, and nodded.
"It won't freeze."

He turned and stepped out of the village gate, his footsteps landing in the snow, each step leaving a mark, steady and firm.

The wind rises, and the snow falls.

His cloak billowed in the snow like a tattered flag about to embark on a distant expedition.

The village entrance was quiet; no one spoke.

Just as his figure was about to disappear into the white mist, a childish shout suddenly rang out:

"Big brother!"

That was the little boy from before, waving the wooden stick in his hand, his voice trembling with tears, yet shouting loudly:

"When you came back, I sculpted it to look even more like you!"

Chu Ning paused, but didn't turn around. She simply raised her hand in response.

He couldn't hear anything more in the wind.

But he knew that some things didn't need to be confirmed.

……

On a ridge not far from the village entrance, an elderly hunter stood on a watchtower, carrying a bow, his expression slightly serious.

His gaze went beyond the direction where Chu Ning had disappeared, looking towards the edge of the distant snowfield.

There, several wild birds took flight in fright, swirling and soaring into the sky.

He whispered to himself:
"Is someone checking up on us again?"

The voice was too low for the villagers to hear.

But his brows were furrowed, his fingers slowly tightened around his bow, and a hint of unease appeared in his eyes.

(End of this chapter)