Chapter 128 — Tracking

When they reached Qili Tong, the Miao they encountered all regarded them with resentment and hatred in their eyes. Some of them, having seen Ming Li the night before in his blood-soaked, demon-mad state, now wore expressions of sheer terror.

Seeing how hard Ming Li was struggling to walk, Xiao Bai quickened her steps and took hold of him. Just as Ming Li was about to pull free, she whispered, "I'm afraid these Miao won't let us go see the Great Wizard."

Ming Li, unaccustomed to being supported by Xiao Bai, was about to shake her off and walk on his own when he heard this. He paused, startled, and said, "Why?"

Xiao Bai glanced ahead. Ming Li followed her gaze—they were heading toward the mountain where the Miao sacrificial altar stood, but at its foot dozens of sturdy Miao men were now gathered, blocking the only path up. And when they saw the two outlanders approaching, it was as though every one of them faced a mortal enemy; some warriors had already raised their blades and spears, leveling them at Ming Li and Xiao Bai.

Ming Li said nothing, but his steps did not falter; he kept walking toward the crowd. Xiao Bai, at his side, stole a glance at him and said, "If they won't let us up, what then?"

Ming Li did not answer.

Xiao Hui, still perched on Ming Li's shoulder, was looking around in all directions with an expression of great astonishment, evidently unable to comprehend how the world could have been turned upside down after a single night's sleep.

They drew near, and sure enough, just as Xiao Bai had guessed, not a single Miao warrior gave way. Every eye was hostile; they thronged the path leading up to the altar halfway up the mountain, blades drawn and leveled at Ming Li and Xiao Bai.

The corner of Ming Li's mouth twitched, and a flicker of irritation passed through his eyes. Yet at such a moment he knew well enough that this was no time to force matters. Dealing with these Miao warriors would be easy enough, but once a Miao was injured, then even if the Great Wizard were safe and sound, he would likely refuse to heal Bi Li for him.

He drew a deep breath and said humbly, "We wish to request an audience with the Great Wizard."

Whether they could not understand his words or simply had no intention of paying him any mind, the Miao warriors' expressions did not change in the slightest. Even Xiao Bai was frowning now, finding the situation decidedly thorny.

Just then, from behind the crowd came the voice of the Miao chieftain, Tu Magu: "The Great Wizard is gravely injured and cannot receive visitors. You had best go back!"

The crowd parted, and Tu Magu slowly stepped forward from behind. His face was cold, and his clothes still bore bloodstains—plainly his night had not been an easy one either. The look he now turned on Ming Li and Xiao Bai was utterly different from the day before.

Ming Li was silent for a moment, then said, "Is the Great Wizard all right?"

Tu Magu gave a cold laugh. "Thanks to the two of you, the old man is not yet dead."

Ming Li breathed a sigh of relief, but Xiao Bai could not let that pass. She said coolly, "The Great Wizard's injury has nothing to do with the two of us. Even if you are angry, Chieftain, you cannot vent it on our heads."

Tu Magu had been nursing a bellyful of fury since the night before. The only reason he still deigned to speak with these two outlanders was that they had not killed any Miao the previous night, and Ming Li had even saved a child. But now, hearing Xiao Bai's cold words, his temper flared at once; his brows shot up and he was about to erupt.

Suddenly, hurried footsteps sounded again from behind the crowd. A young Miao who looked like a wizard came running down from the mountain, sized up Ming Li and the others with a few glances, then leaned close to Tu Magu's ear and whispered a few words.

Tu Magu was clearly taken aback, scarcely able to believe it. He asked again in a low voice in the Miao tongue, and the young wizard nodded firmly.

Tu Magu gave a long sigh, turned, and said, "The Great Wizard wishes to see you. Follow this wizard up."

Ming Li and Xiao Bai were both startled. Xiao Bai frowned, wondering how the Great Wizard could possibly know they had arrived at the foot of the mountain; Ming Li, meanwhile, felt a surge of joy—if the Great Wizard was willing to see him, surely he would most likely also be willing to heal Bi Li.

They followed the young wizard through the crowd and up the mountain. The Miao all wore expressions of incomprehension and anger, but the Great Wizard's lingering authority was evidently still potent; not one person present stepped forward to bar their way. Not long after they had gone, however, some Miao began chattering to Tu Magu in a flood of words, and many others quickly chimed in—plainly the people did not wish to see the wicked outlanders enter the altar again.

Tu Magu barked a few stern rebukes, glancing toward the altar halfway up the mountain as he did so, and only then did the voices of the Miao gradually subside.

Ming Li and Xiao Bai followed the wizard leading the way onto the platform before the altar. Almost at the same moment, both noticed that at the front edge of the platform, the ground originally paved with huge slabs of rock had cracked into countless fine fissures radiating out in all directions from the spot where the Great Wizard had stood the night before; and at the very center, the rock had been shattered to powder.

The two exchanged a glance. Xiao Bai's expression betrayed no change, but Ming Li was shaken inwardly.

This region of the southern border lay in a remote frontier, and had never been deemed worthy of notice by the cultivation sects of the Central Plains. Not only did the orthodox schools look down on it; even among the demonic cult there was much contempt for it. Yet now, seeing it with his own eyes, Ming Li realized that the uncanny, unfathomable sorcery of the southern border was truly not to be underestimated.

"Hu hu lu lu..." The wizard ahead urged them on in an odd, obscure Miao dialect, and Ming Li and Xiao Bai turned and followed.

The altar was deep, its gloom like an endless tunnel that swallowed their figures whole.

Far to the south of Qili Tong, where the Miao of the southern border made their home, a range of towering, precipitous, rolling mountains was known to the southern border folk, who paled at its very name, as the Ten Thousand Great Wastelands.

Here the sun seemed never to shine; dark clouds coiled about the peaks and black winds howled. Now and then a bold hunter, in a year of famine, would venture into the mountains to hunt—and never come back.

And among the five tribes of the southern border, a warning handed down from their forebears since ages past had always been kept: never venture into that wicked mountain range, for there dwelt the Demon King whom all the peoples of the southern border dreaded, and the terrifying barbarian tribes that served him.

For countless years this common prohibition had been passed from generation to generation, enduring among the five tribes of the southern border. As time flowed on, the Ten Thousand Great Wastelands, shrouded in black clouds, only grew more mysterious.

And the sole passage into that terrifying, mysterious world still stood quietly at the foot of the mountain even now—within a dark, sinister cave from which strange shrieks issued from time to time, setting the teeth on edge and chilling the body. In the legends of the southern border, those were the furious roars of the mysterious and terrifying Demon King.

A witch-fiend clad all in black appeared suddenly beside the cave like a ghost. Though dawn had already broken, darkness seemed still to shroud his surroundings.