Chapter 4695 — I Can't See It Either

At least, if she had been in Wei Zhao's place, Huo Yudie knew she did not possess such an unruffled temperament; even if she did not kill someone on the spot to establish her authority, she would absolutely have given the other party a taste of their own medicine.

To clearly possess overwhelming strength, yet after being mocked to one's face still trail along behind like a bystander as if nothing had happened—what kind of formidable temperament did that require?

Little did she know, there was a proper term for this sort of thing: playing the pig to eat the tiger. Wei Zhao had been an expert at it ever since he first set foot on the martial stage. A mere handful of self-important so-called geniuses—if something like that could make him hot-tempered and restless, then all his years of cultivation before this would have been wasted.

"All right, I really do have to hand it to you!" Wei Zhao laughed, glanced at the girl, and said, "Hurry along now. Aren't you embarrassed anymore?"

"You're still on about that!" Huo Yudie's pretty face flushed red. This fellow truly knew just where to poke. After that little episode earlier, she had barely managed to put the awkward, mortifying scene behind her, and now in the blink of an eye he had dragged it up again—infuriating!

Watching Huo Yudie stalk ahead in a huff, Wei Zhao could only shake his head speechlessly, feeling thoroughly baffled. What was going on here? Why did it feel as though this girl had suddenly grown a good deal more assertive?

A woman's heart is a needle at the bottom of the sea—that saying was not the least bit false. Men should never hope to figure out what women are thinking, because that is an unsolvable proposition in itself...

They pressed on, and Huo Yudie once again took the lead as she had at the very beginning. With her strength at the peak of the Nascent Soul stage, so long as she did not let her attention wander, clearing the way ahead was no problem at all—especially with Wei Zhao behind her, always standing guard. Even if some danger did appear up ahead, he would have casually snuffed it out before she could react. So it was, driven by her strength, that this stretch of road offered no real threat to speak of.

Several hours passed in this manner, and the sky gradually darkened once more. A crescent moon tinged with blood rose in the heavens, hazy and indistinct, giving one the feeling that the moon had grown fur.

Wei Zhao looked up, pinched his chin, smacked his lips, and muttered, "A furred moon? And carrying such a heavy reek of blood? That's not an auspicious sign at all!"

On second thought, however, the land beneath their feet was the ruins of an ancient battlefield—in plain terms, a top-grade mass grave dating back to antiquity, where killing intent, baleful energy, and corpse qi were all gathered into one. To call it the most sinister place under heaven would not be an exaggeration, so a so-called blood-tinged furred moon appearing here was only natural.

Wei Zhao himself did not take it to heart; folk legends of this sort were meant to frighten children. But Huo Yudie, walking ahead of him, heard his muttering and suddenly found her feet unwilling to move. Though she was an expert at the peak of the Nascent Soul stage, she was also a young woman, and no matter how formidable her strength, she was still afraid of such legends.

Especially the blood-tinged furred moon overhead at this moment—no matter how one looked at it, it was genuinely unnerving. She had been striding boldly ahead, opening a gap of at least five zhang between herself and Wei Zhao; but after he finished that muttered remark, as they walked, the girl suddenly fell back to just in front of him—less than half a zhang between them, close enough that a careless step would land on his heels.

Yet even so, Huo Yudie stubbornly insisted on staying in the lead. But after they had walked on a while longer, the light around them grew dimmer and dimmer, until even the blood moon hanging in midair flickered in and out of sight, and gradually vanished into the thick layers of cloud.

A moment more, and there was no light left around them at all. This was the darkness before dawn.

"You..." Huo Yudie truly could not hold out any longer, and said in a weak voice, "Can we rest a while before going on? I feel a little tired."

As she spoke, she had unconsciously fallen behind Wei Zhao. With pitch darkness all around and not a glimmer of light, she truly lacked the courage to keep walking in front and clearing the way; even following behind Wei Zhao now made her feel a little afraid.

With no light at all, unless she constantly employed her spiritual sense the way Wei Zhao did, she had no way of pinpointing his position—even though he was less than a zhang in front of her.

Unfortunately, she was not Wei Zhao. She had no endless supply of spiritual energy, and the strength of her spiritual sense was nowhere near as resilient and powerful as his. If she had to constantly employ her spiritual sense even for ordinary travel like this, then never mind whether they could find the Lei Xuan Vine—she would have her primordial spirit collapse halfway there.

Fortunately, compared with ordinary cultivators, Huo Yudie had one special gift: she could follow Wei Zhao by his scent. It was only that this method could determine a rough direction, not lock on with the precision of spiritual sense, so she could not help feeling somewhat tense.

"Tired?" Wei Zhao, walking ahead, was startled at the words. He did not turn around, but simply examined Huo Yudie with his spiritual sense. Seeing her trembling slightly, he understood at once, and could not help finding it rather amusing. "So you're scared?"

"You're the one who's scared! I've been through all sorts of trials before, plenty of them more dangerous than this—what's this supposed to be!" Huo Yudie stiffened her neck and protested stubbornly.

"Oh, then let's rest a while." Wei Zhao found it funny inside, but did not insist. Since Huo Yudie was afraid, they would stop and rest a bit; the darkness before dawn would not last long anyway—sunrise was imminent.

"Mm..." Only then did Huo Yudie breathe a sigh of relief, and she promptly sat down on the ground, hugging her knees. She was one of the Twin Beauties of Chenjiao, but not some pampered young miss; sitting on the ground in the wild was something she had long been accustomed to.

After a moment of silence, sensing that Wei Zhao was still standing beside her, looming over her, Huo Yudie frowned at once, pouted, and huffed, "What are you standing in front of me for? Trying to sneak a peek down my collar?"

"Pfft!" Wei Zhao nearly choked on his breath again. He did not know why, but after spending more time with this girl, she always managed to come out with the most unexpected remark at the strangest moments, leaving him torn between laughing and crying. "With the moon dark and the wind high like this, what could you possibly see?"

He could not even make out the figure right in front of him clearly—and she thought he could sneak a peek at her collar in this? What sort of bizarre logic was that?

"Hmph, others can't see, but maybe you can!" Huo Yudie retorted with a curl of her lip.

"Uh, you overestimate me far too much. My eyes haven't been specially trained like your nose. Rest easy—what you can't see, I can't see either." Wei Zhao spread his hands helplessly.

"That's just your word for it. I wouldn't dare trust it. What if you're only saying that and actually mean to stand there and peek without any scruples? I wouldn't even be able to notice—far too unsafe." Huo Yudie remained adamant. (To be continued..) I752