劍問蒼天 - 第104章 問訊 - 翰墨軒

Zhou Yixuan was silent a moment. "That is so."

Ming Li cupped his hands in salute. "Might I ask whether the senior knows anything more of this Fish People tribe?"

Zhou Yixuan looked at him. "Why have you suddenly taken an interest in this?"

Ming Li was silent a moment, then nodded. "Since I am asking the senior, there is no need to hide the rest from you. After you left, my subordinates were ambushed, it seems, by a pack of monsters like that fish-man, and suffered grievous losses. So I wished to learn what I could from the senior."

Zhou Yixuan's brows knit. He slowly straightened, a thoughtful look coming into his eyes, but said nothing. Ming Li was in no hurry and stood quietly to one side. After a long while Zhou Yixuan said suddenly, "Those men of yours who died—were their deaths cruel, their bodies mostly hacked into several pieces, too horrible to look upon?"

"Ah!" This soft cry came from Xiaowan; her face was full of horror, plainly much shocked.

Ming Li nodded slowly, gazing deeply at the old man before him. "That is so. Exactly so."

Zhou Yixuan nodded. "Then there's no mistake. It must be the work of the Fish People, one of the sixty-three strange tribes of the hundred thousand wild mountains of the southern border. This tribe is strange in appearance, born with the head of a fish and the body of a man. By their own legends, they are the offspring of an ancient fish god and a human woman, and so they have always styled themselves the descendants of the fish god. This tribe has always been cruel and bloodthirsty, and they believe that whether beast or man, only by hacking the corpse to pieces after slaughter can the spirit be cut to pieces and slain as well, and all future trouble averted. So under their hands, beast or man, few are left with an intact corpse."

Suddenly a strange sound came. The two looked over and saw that Xiaowan had gone pale, her brows tightly knit, somewhat nauseated.

Zhou Yixuan shook his head slightly and, looking at Xiaowan, sighed. "The world is vast, and there are still how many crueler and more savage things you have yet to know!"

Ming Li, being nothing like Xiaowan, still knitted his brows slightly and said, "How is it that such a savage, brutish race has never been heard of before?"

Zhou Yixuan said coolly, "You have always dwelt in the Central Plains, so naturally you know nothing of such barbarous tribes. In the hundred thousand wild mountains of the Southern Frontier, there is nothing but foul waters and barren peaks. The people there eat raw flesh and drink blood, utterly unlike the civilized folk of the Central Plains. Yet those tribes have always kept to the haunts where their ancestors gathered, and moreover, the road that must be taken to reach the Central Plains from the Southern Frontier passes precisely through the Flaming Cloud Valley, one of the three great orthodox sects under heaven. The occasional barbarian who strays through is usually cut down by the Flaming Cloud Valley disciples with their immortal arts, and so the Central Plains has never known the particulars of the Southern Frontier tribes. It was only in my younger days, when I wandered the world and came to the vicinity of those hundred thousand wild mountains, that I learned a thing or two of them."

Ming Li nodded slowly, but the keen light in his eyes was gradually kindling. He said, "Then by your account, it is understandable that a stray tribesman might slip in now and again, but for so great a horde to enter the Central Plains without a whisper, and to reach the Death Marsh—no less than ten thousand li from the Southern Frontier—that is simply impossible. Unless something has gone wrong at the Flaming Cloud Valley, which guards the Southern Frontier..."

Zhou Yixuan suddenly stretched and said lazily, "That is your affair. I cannot be bothered."

Ming Li mused a moment, then nodded and said, "Thank you, Senior."