FW (Eng)

Chapter 68: Letting Go

After walking for a stretch of time, Cao Weining realized that Gu Xiang was being quiet. She had been, ever since that scene of turmoil from the start of the night.

Gao Xiaolian, a reserved young woman, was not especially familiar with them, and was just fine with not speaking on her own initiative, merely following behind them distantly while she carefully helped Zhang Chengling with leading the reins; the little guy was holding his new Great Famine sword in his arms while dozing off on the horse's back. His drool was flowing onto its neck, dampening its hair and causing the little horse to shake its head the whole time.

Cao Weining gathered in close to Gu Xiang, leaned down, then tilted his head to take a careful measure of her expression. "What's wrong?" he asked. "Did you not sleep well, either?"

She looked at him listlessly, then lowered her head, the spitting image of a young wife. That only frightened him, though. Believing that she had eaten something spoiled, he quickly reached out to feel her forehead, thinking to himself, This woman that always jumps around and all about is being very docile... she couldn't have fallen ill, right?

She leaned backwards, flung his hand away, then turned to look back at the pair that was a good bit away from them. "It's a... you've always thought that honesty was a bit foolish, and normally, three kicks wouldn't get one fart out of you. What anyone else said would just be whatever," she said, sullen. "How did someone that's apparently never grown a brain end up turning into a major devil that plots behind everyone's backs?"

He chewed on her words a couple of times, then made a weird face. "Ah-Xiang, have you... misunderstood something about Xiao Zhang?"

Gu Xiang went mute for a short moment. "You who is surnamed Cao," she started, sinister, "can go ahead and die."

She then raised her hand and went to hit him.

Cao Weining smiled mischievously as he dodged her. "Ah, don't. Won't you be a widow if I die? To be widowed at a young age would be very pitiful."

After thinking about that, she felt it to be true; she still didn't yet hold the two-and-half streets of dowry her Master had promised, so doing this would be a loss. Glaring at Cao Weining, she took her raised hand back, deciding to fight with language, not fists.

She knew herself to not be any sort of highly capable. Many times, she couldn't understand what her Master was saying, simply following beside him in ignorance, occasionally flapping her trap to entertain him in addition to her everyday life of attending to him. She, and he... and they... were not people going the same path. She couldn't be considered a flower of considerate words, nor a close confidante of rosy cheeks.

Like a child, she had only a smidgen of deviousness and cunning, where she could approach benefits whilst shunning disadvantages. Even though all the people she had seen below Fengya Mountain had been nothing good, her Master had been there, and none of them had ever gotten the idea to dare strike her. Thus, extraordinarily uncommonly, she was able to preserve her naïveté; she wasn't that great at fathoming peoples' intentions, and in spite of knowing what evil was, she had no idea what genuine evil looked like.

Lao Meng, the Ghost of Impermanence, had been wearing old-farmer-esque clothes at Lake Tai when she had temporarily nabbed him. He had dug a hole in the ground to drag those two sorry-looking men out of it, and then, because of one word from their Master, specifically sought out the clothes of a butcher to wear, smiling happily at everyone. She had even heard people talking behind his back, saying that he was a dog raised by their Master.

Even dogs would have a bit of a dog's temper, but he didn't even have one of those.

Did he steal the key? Did he betray Ghost Valley? Where was the Hanged Ghost, Xue Fang?