Phoniex Requiem
Chapter 26: We Meet Again

Chapter 26: We Meet Again

Zhuo Yifeng looked at the medicine before returning to Yun Ruoyan, her face expressionless but her eyes brightened.

"It's okay," he said, "Even if you're not a besieged person, I'll still help."

Zhuo Yifeng's glowing eyes made Yun Ruoyan feel as if she was not an actual human being, but rather a magical beast.

"Did you just get a cut on that face?" Zhuo Yifeng asked, suddenly.

Unknowingly, Yun Ruoyan felt her face. There was indeed a blood scar, since his birthmark received the incision wound, it never fully healed, and sometimes even expelled pus.

Lin Zainan claimed that the pus was actually a toxic residue, and the leaking pus was actually a good thing for her. He did not give her the medicine for her wound because she wanted to heal naturally.

But the wound looked so frightening that Yun Ruoyan specifically left behind a strand of hair covering the injured part of her face. In a fierce battle, the half-healed wound once again split open, and his hair was tangled with pus.

"No problem, it's just a superficial wound." Lin Qingchen handed the handkerchief to Yun Ruoyan, whom she received with gratitude. 

"Are you two also following the scent of magical beasts here?" Yun Ruoyan did not try to hide her vigilance.

Lin Qingxue walked over and pulled on Yun Ruoyan's sleeves, but she didn't care about it.

Naturally, he would repay kindness with kindness, but he would not sacrifice his safety to do so.

Zhuo Yifeng looked at Yun Ruoyan, not saying anything. Instead, he knelt down and helped his sister get onto his back. "See you later, maybe."

He turned around and was just about to leave when Lin Qingxue quickly called from behind, “Wait, Brother Zhuo! It's almost nighttime, so how about we all rest together tonight? Can't we split up in the morning?”

This final question was addressed to Yun Ruoyan.

Zhuo Yifeng stood still, not turning around, seemingly waiting for Yun Ruoyan's response.

In the end, he finally spoke up. “It's true we'll be safer with more people at night. And we do have to take care of the bodies of these dogs; after all, you killed quite a number of them, and we can't take your spoils for granted"

Although the long-manned fire dogs were low-level magical beasts, their core was still quite valuable, and they immediately began to dig it up.

As they were at work, Qiuqiu spoke once more. "Madam, there's a group of people heading here."

"Group of people?" Yun Ruoyan stopped what she was doing. "I wonder which family they came from?"

In his past life, Yun Ruoyan had heard some whispers about what happened during the opening of the imperial territory.

Some evil families, in order to get rid of their competitors or to obtain more treasures for themselves, would target other cultivators rather than magical beasts.

In some cases, not only would they snatch away their valuables, they would even kill the victims to make sure the news did not spread.

"How strong is this group?"

"According to their breathing, there are two rank four blademasters and two rank five."

The other party had four members, as well as them. He did not feel they were too scared, but Zhuo Yifeng was indeed an unknown amount.

Yun Ruoyan could not help but look at him. Seemingly having detected his gaze, Zhuo Yifeng also turned to look towards him.

As the gazes of the two met, a booming female voice sounded from afar.

“Why is this place so crowded?”

When everyone looked to the source of the voice, they were surprised to find that the one who spoke was none other than the third miss of the Yun family, Yun Ruoyu.

With him, of course, there was Yun Ruoyao and Yi Qianying, but the other young man was more unexpected: Pei Ziao.

Upon seeing Yun Ruoyan, Pei Ziao quickly walked forward, her face beaming. “Ruoyan, I thought it took us quite a long time to find you, but who knew we would meet here?”

Yun Ruoyan frowned when she saw him. Does this person have amnesia? Didn't he explain his feelings towards her clearly that day at Pei's residence? Why is she still clinging to him ?!

"Why are you here?" Lin Qingxue stepped forward and asked, "We are walking in opposite directions, so how can we meet again ?!"

Yun Ruoyu also stepped forward. “I was just about to ask you the same question! We parted ways from the beginning!”

"What do you mean?" Lin Qingxue looked at him strangely. “Are you implying that we will follow you? Absolutely joke!”

“That's obviously what you did!” Yun Ruoyu glared at him. "We followed that trail in front of us, and surely your trail didn't lead anywhere well, so you retreated twice and instead followed us!"

The two girls started fighting, no one could talk past the others.

Yun Ruoyan frowned, after all, even though Yun Ruoyu was brash and arrogant, she was straightforward and would not lie so blatantly.

"At that time, I really didn't follow behind you, but we also met again." Zhuo Yifeng muttered softly, having walked over to Yun Ruoyan's side before she realized it.

There were such arrays in the imperial territory, but they were quite unusual that one was truly unlucky to enter such an array out of nowhere.

“We may be stuck in an order of misdirection,” Pei Ziao spoke up. Yun Ruoyan was not surprised, after all, she had obtained all the information about this place from him in the past.

“Once we get stuck in an arrangement like this, no matter which direction we head, we'll all end up in the same place, like how, in a comedy swivel, we will finally return to the same place where we started.”

“Then, then what should we do?” Yi Qianying curled up beside Pei Ziao, tugging at his sleeves, acting like a frightened little girl. "Sister Ziao, are we going to die here?"

Yi Qianying had a slender and petite body. When he spoke in such a soft voice, he could easily arouse the sympathy of the crowd.

"No, of course not! All such arrangements have a way out, and we'll be able to get out once we find them."

"And if we can't?" Zhuo Yifeng was the one who asked this question, his eyes almost shining in the darkness.

Pei Ziao was a little confused by his gaze and only responded after a short pause. “Even if we can't, when the expedition ends ten days later, someone will naturally come to our rescue. We just have to survive these ten days.

“Then, can't we attend Kongming Academy?!” Yun Ruoyao, who had been silent all this time, spoke in a hoarse voice. It would be a shame to admit that he had failed the entrance exam, and even more so his candidacy was only due to his family's recommendation.

After all, he should be the most talented; it was fine if others did not succeed, but he had to!

Now that everyone realized that they were stuck in line, their expressions became gloomy and their attitudes were gloomy.

“It is too late to think at this time. We'll start looking for a way out tomorrow. Given how many of us there are, I am sure we will succeed. Pei Ziao suddenly felt optimistic."

They build a campfire together before swarming around it, and the carcass of a long-bodied fire dog naturally becomes their dinner. 

The two groups each began roasting the carcasses of hunting dogs.

Yun Ruoyan, along with sister Lin and brother Zhuo, began to split the core of the fire dog, all twenty-four small clay-red spheres.

"The dogs are very scary, but their core looks very cute, right?" Lin Qingxue looked at the core on the ground, smiling happily, and the others all started laughing upon seeing his face.

If they continued to get stuck in the array, then they would lose the opportunity to enter Kongming Academy. In that case, gathering cores and herbs was even more important than before.

While Yun Ruoyan and her group were happily dividing their loot, Yun Ruoyao and the others could only look on with envy.

They had also met a flock of low-level magical beasts, but they were too many!

Of the three Yun sisters, only Yun Ruoyao had a cultivation high enough to be able to defend themselves from their onslaught. 

Yun Ruoyu gnashed her teeth and pulled it with a few small wounds. As for Yi Qianying, she was so frightened that she shouted until her throat became hoarse.

But fortunately, his screams were shrill enough to make Pei Ziao approach. With his help, Yun Ruoyao managed to scare away the ferocious beasts, but they were unable to kill all of them and take their cores because of their two useless teammates.

The foursome party thus ended the day without showing anything for their efforts.

"There are twenty-four cores here." Yun Ruoyan counted each of them hard, before handing ten of them over to Zhuo Yifeng. "It's yours, and the rest is ours."

This time, Zhuo Yifeng did not resist, and he carefully kept the point.

“Look at how close Ruoyan and the two Lin sisters are! Are we even family to him again ?! ” Yun Ruoyu started grumbling once again.

Yun Ruoyao did not speak, but an ice-cold smile hung on her lips. Once they all came out of the territory, he would definitely report to their father that Yun Ruoyan refused to cooperate with all of them.

His mother told him that, although their father seemed to think better about Yun Ruoyan, he was still a little worried Yun Ruoyan would hate him.

After all, despite being the only daughter born to a wife, she had been neglected by her family and not loved by her father, so it was not strange for her to hate.

Yun Ruoyan was so skilled in deception that, while she was weak, she pretended to be a useless person to make the other sisters take down their guards.

Now that he had recovered some of his talent, he immediately threw it away. If his father found out about this, he was sure Yun Ruoyan was no longer welcome at home!

Seeing Yun Ruoyao's cold smile, Yi Qianying could guess what Yun Ruoyao had planned on her head. 

But he did not expose her, and instead began to comfort Yun Ruoyu. “After all, they are Ruoyan's cousins. It is no wonder that they are so close to each other, so don't worry too much about that, Ruoyu.”

On Yun Ruoyan's side, the entire fire dog carcass glittered and gleamed with oil, and the thick aroma of roast meat seeped into the air.

Zhuo Yifeng had spread the spice medley from who-know-where to the meat, and soon the scent of the meat was accentuated by the smell of spices.

Everyone by Yun Ruoyao's side seemed to be fascinated by the fragrance.

Meanwhile, the others were not so lucky — after all, their group consisted of three youngsters and one young master, whose servants would do everything for them. 

To be honest, the fact that the meat was not charred was quite impressive.

Yun Ruoyu scowled at the meat skewer she finally received, half raw inside and blackened outside. Exasperated, he threw it into the fire pit, grumbling, "What kind of flesh is this ?!" And he looked at Yun Ruoyan's group with anger and annoyance.