Chapter 221: Crying Forest

By the time Zhurige finished brewing the milk tea and brought it into the yurt, the group of outsiders was huddled together, examining a deerskin map. Ye Yuzhu was quite generous. Seeing that she lived without parents and had only a younger brother, he claimed they were merely renting a place to stay and insisted on pressing a large sum of money into her hands. Zhurige felt no fear; as she refilled their tea, she leaned in with curiosity to take a look.

Ye Yuzhu didn’t seem to mind her curiosity at all, openly allowing her to watch. In contrast, Old Monster Xiong, standing beside him, appeared ill at ease. He shot several meaningful looks at Ye Yuzhu, but the man simply fanned himself, eyes fixed on the map, ignoring him entirely.

However, once Zhurige saw the full extent of the deerskin map, she understood why Ye Yuzhu wasn’t the least bit nervous. The writing on the map looked like ghost talismans, dense clusters of symbols that were completely unintelligible.

After finishing the round of tea, Zhurige leaned toward Ye Yuzhu and asked curiously, “Guest, you don’t look like people from around here. Where are you from? Also, you should try not to travel at night in the future. My Amma says that if you travel at night, you’ll run into wolves.”

As soon as she spoke, Old Monster Xiong, who was stroking his beard nearby, burst into loud laughter. Ye Yuzhu also gave a small smile but said nothing.

Old Monster Xiong bellowed, “What’s there to fear from a few wild wolves! Girl, have you already forgotten how our Chief Chief sliced off that wolf’s ear just now? Hahaha, with Chief Chief Ye here, sister, there’s no need to fear! If wolves come, no matter how many, I’ll kill every last one for you!”

“Now, now,” Ye Yuzhu raised his fan slightly. “Why spend the whole day talking of nothing but killing? These prairie wolves are part of the grasslands too. They aren’t yours to kill whenever you please.”

Initially, Zhurige had been somewhat intimidated by a man like Old Monster Xiong, who drank liquor with his shoulders bared even in the depths of winter. Now, however, she saw him as somewhat heroic. She turned her gaze back to Ye Yuzhu, sensing an extraordinary aura about him. He spoke the official Mandarin tongue with a melodic grace, looking every bit the well-educated intellectual.

Yet she remembered when she had been surrounded by the wolf pack in the valley. The way he threw his blade, clean of blood yet so ruthless and decisive, seemed completely at odds with his refined demeanor.

As she was thinking, Ye Yuzhu folded his fan and turned to bow to her. “There was so much going on just now that I forgot to introduce myself. I am Ye Yuzhu of Linying. We are merely traveling merchants from the Central Plains, bartering goods just to earn a meager living.”

Zhurige didn’t believe a word of it. A meager living? Judging by the lavish way he handed out money, did he look like someone struggling for a meal? No ordinary traveling merchant buying wool could be this wealthy.

But after all, she would have lost her life if not for them. And then there was Galu; her dog’s recovery now depended entirely on that man called Nanshan Qiao, who was currently applying medicine. Seeing the weapons hanging off Old Monster Xiong and the others, she suspected they were either bandits or outlaws. Zhurige continued to play dumb, knowing well that exposing them would bring her no good.

She didn’t leave after serving the tea, hoping to overhear what this group was actually doing in these parts. Ye Yuzhu didn’t seem to mind her presence and made no move to send her out.

Just then, a man wearing a small cap entered from outside. He held a string of beads that clinked together as he walked. He sat down heavily next to Ye Yuzhu, clearly shivering from the cold. Rubbing his hands together, he poured himself a cup of goat’s milk and drank.

Old Monster Xiong grew impatient. “Chuanzi, is it near here or not? Did you go check? Speak up!”

“What’s the rush!” Qian Chuanzi took a large gulp of goat’s milk, pulled a handkerchief from his sleeve to wipe his mouth, and then took off his glasses to clean them.

After waiting for half the day, Old Monster Xiong’s face was red with frustration. “I’ve been waiting here half the day for you! Can you damn well do it or not? Give me a straight answer! What the hell are you pulling!”

Qian Chuanzi smiled. “It’s too dark. I can’t see clearly. We’ll go out and look again when it’s broad daylight.”

Feeling toyed with, Old Monster Xiong slammed the table and stood up. In an instant, he drew the Luzi^[1] from his waist. The sight of the dark muzzle made Zhurige instinctively flinch away. Old Monster Xiong cursed loudly, “Damn it, are you fucking playing me!”

Ye Yuzhu glanced sideways at Old Monster Xiong, then looked at Qian Chuanzi beside him and shook his head. “Look at you. You know he has a short fuse, yet you insist on keeping him in suspense. Enough. We are brothers who have broken bowls and sworn blood oaths together. Don’t go waving knives and guns around at your own kin.”

Ye Yuzhu’s words carried great weight. Though Old Monster Xiong still looked stifled with annoyance, he holstered his gun, sat back down, and resumed puffing on his tobacco pipe.

“Chief Chief, you really can’t blame me for this. This isn’t my specialty. It’s all flat ground out there. If Manager Gan hadn’t used his Star Map technique^[2] earlier, we wouldn’t have found this place so quickly.”

Ye Yuzhu’s brow furrowed slightly.

Old Monster Xiong caught the hint and quickly spoke up. “Stop your babbling! What, you think we can’t run this show without Gan Zhao? We’ve trekked across mountains and rivers to get here, and now, at the final hurdle, he says he’s quitting? Isn’t that a deliberate slap in our Chief Chief’s face? With all these brothers here, how are we supposed to explain going back empty-handed!”

These words were music to Ye Yuzhu’s ears. He had become a leader in the Central Plains underworld in his early twenties, commanding no fewer than two thousand fighters. Every one of them was a loyal man, and every stronghold had to answer to him. This time, as the leader of this expedition, he had recruited experts from across the land. For Gan Zhao to just walk away was a massive insult to his status as Chief Chief.

“Still, I think this whole thing was ill-advised,” Qian Chuanzi said. “Everyone knows you and Manager Gan are like the dragon and the phoenix. You should have talked it through with him back then. In the old days, they spoke of the dragon and phoenix bringing prosperity. Now that he’s left, we’re tied hand and foot in whatever we do. It’s wildly inconvenient!”

Old Monster Xiong cursed, “Phoenix my ass! What good is a phoenix? So in the whole greenwood world, all you know is Gan Zhao’s ‘Hundred Birds Paying Homage to the Phoenix’? I say that’s just a hollow title. If he really had skill, he would have kept following us. Without him, as long as we follow our Chief Chief, the Dragon, we’ll still dig up enough treasure to fill our pockets to the brim!”

Ye Yuzhu praised, “Old Monster, you’ve been reading up lately.”

“Heh, thank you for the praise, Chief Chief!”

Ye Yuzhu knew full well that Old Monster Xiong was flattering him, but he accepted it without hesitation. He fanned himself with a touch more flair, feeling quite pleased, and began to rely on Old Monster Xiong just a bit more.

Ye Yuzhu was proud of his talent and had enjoyed smooth sailing since birth. Given his temperament, there was no way he would return empty-handed. Although Gan Zhao’s ability to read the landscape was unmatched in their circle, they were currently dealing with nothing more than a Burial Bone Testament. Who was to say someone else couldn’t decipher it just as well?

Tracing the forest depicted on the deerskin map, he asked Zhurige, “Tell me, miss, is there anything unusual nearby? For instance, places where people or livestock go missing?”

Zhurige’s eyes flickered thoughtfully. “Are you looking for the Crying Forest?”

“What? What Bitter Forest?” Old Monster Xiong asked, ears pricking up.

Zhurige explained, “It’s a wild wood nearby. We rarely go there. Whenever we get close, the horses and sheep refuse to take another step, no matter how much you beat them. At night, people who pass by hear the sound of many people crying inside. None of us graze our sheep there. It’s terrifying.”

Old Monster Xiong grew excited upon hearing this, a wide grin spreading across his face. “This is it! Chief Chief! This place has potential! It must be the burial site of that ancient kingdom Gan Zhao mentioned. The little ghosts down there come out to cry every night!”

Ye Yuzhu snapped his fan open and asked, “Is it far?”

“A bit. Do you intend to go there?” Zhurige asked.

Qian Chuanzi chimed in from the side, “Miss, we can go on horseback. Could you lead us to the edge of the forest to take a look?”

Zhurige shook her head. “I can’t. It’s too far, and I still have to tend to my sheep!”

Ye Yuzhu unhooked a copper pendant from his waist and flipped it over in front of Zhurige. She was instantly captivated by the trinket, which was carved with two fish.

“Lead us to the Crying Forest, and I’ll give this to you. This piece is worth more than ten years of your wool sales. What do you say?” Ye Yuzhu asked.