Free Web NovelThe Longxiang Army Armored Soldiers' send-off ceremony lasted for nearly an hour.
Although at such a critical moment, with war imminent and every second counting, spending an hour on this ceremony might seem a bit wasteful, people often live for a certain sentiment.
Clearly, Dragon Xiang, in order to protect the sentiments of his subordinates as much as possible, specifically allocated enough time and did not rush them.
Everything proceeded in an orderly fashion.
Under the deep night sky shrouded in dark clouds, the wind-eroded earth forests, shaped by millions of years of wind and sand, stood silently, watching figures in black armor move back and forth across the open ground.
During this time, Lu Yibei initially continued to tell Shen Baiwei about the stories of the Longxiang Army Armored Soldiers she had observed—those who seemed like a whole, yet each had distinct differences.
However, although she had observed very carefully, there were over a thousand Armored Soldiers in this large camp, and each was a completely different individual. In the limited time she had, she could only observe a small portion of them.
So, by the latter half of the ceremony, Lu Yibei, who could no longer tell any more stories,
fell into a rare silence, simply staring intently as one armored man after another, whether silently, joking, or sighing sadly, walked towards the iron box placed at the front of the formation, placed their tokens inside, and then turned to leave without a trace of reluctance.
They carried with them a resolute, unwavering determination to never look back.
While Lu Yibei was recounting the story of the square-faced strong man's rattle-drum, the tall, thin man's hairpin, and the refined youth's essay, Shen Baiwei had some verbal exchanges with her, but soon fell silent.
It was either because the stories Lu Yibei told came one after another, making it difficult for her to interject, or because she sensed an invisible, intangible, yet exceptionally powerful force emanating from the Longxiang Army Armored Soldiers through Lu Yibei's narration, filling her with awe and making her hesitant to disturb them.
In silence, she took out her small notebook and began to record their stories, as well as the heroic figures of what might be the last brief moments of their lives.
Later, Lu Yibei also fell silent. Shen Baiwei, with a quill in one hand and her small notebook in the other, watched with her as figures continuously approached the iron box in the main camp's open ground and then quickly departed, lost in thought.
“......”
They are about to die...
Judging from the tragic state of Yumen Pass a thousand years later, the vast majority of them will likely not survive this war.
When they die in battle, and those tokens, carefully preserved in the iron boxes, are delivered to their families and friends, those people will surely be very sad, right? Shen Baiwei thought foolishly, involuntarily picturing scene after scene.
There were younger siblings silently wiping their older brother's belongings.
There was a wife holding her husband's family letter, as if she couldn't believe it was real, reading it repeatedly, tears in her eyes and sweat on her palms drying and wetting, wetting and drying on the paper.
And a mother, in a dream, saw her child's soul return, gently caressing his cheek for a long, long time, unable to speak, finally just asking softly, with tears in her eyes,
“My child... does it hurt?”
After a long while, Shen Baiwei, as if startled awake from a dream, let out a very faint gasp, withdrew her gaze, and refocused her attention on her small notebook.
“Rustle... rustle...”
The quill continuously glided across the lined pages of the notebook, emitting a reassuring rustling sound. Every short while, this sound would briefly pause as Shen Baiwei looked up at Lu Yibei’s profile.
Thus, a dozen minutes later, a quick sketch of a Calamity's bust, with slightly messy but exceptionally vivid lines, appeared in the notebook.
She seems like a pretty good person?
Shen Baiwei looked at Lu Yibei, and for a moment, such a thought arose, but the next second she snapped back to reality, shaking her head vigorously.
Are you crazy, Shen Baiwei?
If it weren't for this guy's recklessness, would you be here now?
If it weren't for her, you would have already achieved your wish, escaped the threat of the Spirit Mark power, and walked freely!
Shen Baiwei thought, lowering her head to look at the small notebook in her hand. After clearly seeing the content on it, her pupils suddenly trembled slightly.
She saw that on the portrait sketch she had just completed, a line of small text had appeared at some point—"She seems like a pretty good person?"—hidden among the messy lines.
Why are there words? I only thought about it... Shen Baiwei frowned slightly.
She was a bit confused. That line of small text, she didn't know if her hand was guided by her thoughts and wrote it down when she was spacing out, or if this notebook, which had developed a subtle connection with her power and become a Spiritual Energy item, sensed her thoughts and added it on its own accord.
In any case, she herself would absolutely not have actively written such words, and she had never encountered this situation before.
How strange!
If it was merely writing that line of text unconsciously, that would be fine, but if the small notebook added it itself... wouldn't it mean that the Spirit Mark power might have undergone some subtle change that she herself wasn't aware of?
“Shall we go?”
Just as Shen Baiwei was looking at the inexplicably appearing small text in her notebook, bewildered, Lu Yibei's voice suddenly entered her ears. She immediately felt as if she had been caught red-handed, her mind flustered, her cheeks slightly warm, and after a flurry of fumbling, she finally snapped the notebook shut with a “thud.”
“Ah? Oh... wait!” She tilted her head, looking at Lu Yibei, and asked, confused, “Go where?”
She always felt that the Calamity's tone of voice was a bit off; it didn't sound like she intended to return to the tent they had been in earlier.
“To sneak away, of course!” Lu Yibei said earnestly. “This send-off ceremony is over. I estimate it won't be long before they clash with the Shaman King's army. If we stay here then, won't it be very dangerous? We might even lose our lives!”
Although the situation around Yumen Pass is tense now, and leaving the Longxiang Army Camp means there's a constant risk of encountering the Shaman King's army wandering the Gobi Desert, which is like escaping one danger only to face another...
If we can escape the first danger, can't we survive for fifteen more days?!
I didn't really want to come here in the first place; that old man named Long forcibly abducted me...
If we slip away now, he probably won't have time to bother with us, right? Lu Yibei thought seriously.
“But...” Shen Baiwei turned her head to look at the Longxiang Army Armored Soldiers, who had already reorganized their formations in the distance, and hesitated to speak.
She really wanted to say, “Can’t we find a way to help them?”
But the words caught in her throat, as if she had been subjected to a silencing Spell, and she couldn't utter a single syllable.
She was the one who had been preventing the Calamity from influencing the past.
She was the one who would be most harmed if the past were influenced.
Now, she actually had the thought of wanting to help those Longxiang Army Armored Soldiers...
If she spoke out and the Calamity, in a moment of hot-headedness, went to help those Longxiang Army Armored Soldiers, regardless of success or failure, there would be no good outcome.
Shen Baiwei dared not imagine what would happen if many people who should have died in the already established past suddenly survived.
If one or two more people appeared, time might still correct it, but if an entire army appeared...
As Shen Baiwei thought of this, the Longxiang Army Armored Soldiers in the camp below had already begun to move, organizing their armor and leading warhorses from the stables, and the entire camp suddenly became "chaotic."
Order in chaos.
A series of noisy sounds entered Shen Baiwei's ears, interrupting her thoughts.
Just then, Lu Yibei suddenly urged, “Quickly, quickly, before that old man notices! We can’t do anything by staying here, just watching, it’s useless!”
“Perhaps, if the Long Xiang Army is no match for the Shaman King’s army and falls into a difficult situation, that old man will have to divert his attention to protect us! Wouldn’t that make us a burden? I reckon that would have an even greater impact on the past, wouldn’t it?” freeweɓnovel.cøm
“Why are you dazed? If you drag this out any longer, it’ll be too late!”
Upon hearing this, Shen Baiwei nodded thoughtfully.
She felt that the Calamity's words made a bit of sense.
It was indeed time to go.
She wasn't worried about being a burden or getting caught in the war and losing her life; she was mainly worried that if she continued to stay here and watch those Longxiang Army Armored Soldiers fall one after another, she would eventually be unable to resist helping them.
“Too late for what?”
Just as Shen Baiwei hesitated briefly, a magnetic male voice came. She and Lu Yibei, who were about to get up, suddenly froze in unison.
Turning around, they saw Dragon Xiang, who had appeared at some point, squinting at them, a meaningful smile on his lips.
Seeing this, Lu Yibei frowned, moved closer to Shen Baiwei, grabbed her sleeve, and tugged hard twice, as if blaming her for being so slow in escaping that she waited for this plague god to arrive, making it impossible to leave now.
Shen Baiwei, “......”
Seeing that the two of them weren't speaking, Dragon Xiang continued, ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) “You two aren’t thinking of leaving, are you?”
Upon hearing this, Lu Yibei's mind raced, and in less than a second, she replied, “No, no! The Prince misunderstands. We are your invited guests. How can we just leave without our host speaking first?”
“I told her it was too late because I saw the soldiers below were already moving, and they should be breaking camp soon, so I urged her to hurry back!”
“Oh? Is that so?” Dragon Xiang smiled at Lu Yibei. “However, Miss Shen might be disappointed!”
He paused, then added, “I, as the host, have come to ask you to leave, and also to ask the two Miss Shen for a small favor...”
Every move of the two Miss Shen since entering the camp could not escape the Spiritual Energy perception of him, a genuine Calamity Psychic.
Although Hong Bian had warned him to be wary of these two, saying they possessed similar traits to the Shaman King, after a period of secret observation, he felt that there was no longer any need to restrict their movements.
In fact, could he even use them a little?
If it weren't for the intention of using them, he could have simply turned a blind eye and let the two Miss Shen sneak away.
Thinking of this, Dragon Xiang stated his purpose for being there, “I have dispatched two subordinates to send the Armored Soldiers' tokens back to Yumen City Pass. If it is convenient for the two of you, could you escort them for a while?”
Lu Yibei, “......”
