Chapter 7: Chance Encounter

Chapter 7: Chance Encounter

Right as Fang Che and Ye Meng were making their way up a hill, the former began to feel his pulse rapidly quicken, and he immediately tugged on his reins, stopping his horse cold in its tracks as he cast a wary gaze ahead.

His survival instincts had been honed to a heightened level of sensitivity through the countless battles of life and death he had endured in his past life, and at the moment, they were screaming at him that there was danger afoot.

He felt pressure from all directions, as if all of the snow falling from the sky were weighing down upon him at once.

It was as if the entire world had transformed into a massive cage, and this sense of dread reminded him of the spear strike that had put an end to his past life.

It was as if heaven and earth were rejecting him, condemning him to a fate of certain death!

He finally realized why he had felt so uneasy and distracted this entire way.

"Ye Meng!" he called out in a quiet yet urgent voice.

"What's wrong, Ye Meng?"

Ye Meng could tell that something was very wrong.

"Leave! Now! Go that way," Fang Che ordered as he pointed in a certain direction. "If I recall correctly, there's a cliff over there. That was where I killed those Blood Tooth Demon Wolves during the entrance examination. Go and hide under that cliff, and do not come out unless I call for you. If something happens, that's where I'll go to meet you."

Fang Che's expression was very stiff, and his entire body was tensed up in dread.

"What's going on, Young Master?"

"Go!" Fang Che snapped.

Ye Meng was startled by his intensity, and she hurriedly galloped away.

She could sense the urgency of the situation, and as she raced along on horseback, she made a sweeping motion with her hand behind her, smoothing out the tracks that the hooves of her horse left in the snow behind her.

She plunged straight down the cliff on horseback, silently apologizing to her horse before killing it with a blow to the head so it wouldn't have to suffer the agony of a fall from such great heights.

After that, she gently drifted down onto the ground before burying the body of her horse under a blanket of snow with a sweep of her hand, further covering her tracks.

After taking a moment to survey the surrounding terrain, she flew onto a mountain across from the cliff, making a crude snow trap in an obscure spot as she passed through, then quickly concealed herself.

From her hiding spot, she cast her gaze toward a tall mountain in the distance, holding several explosive pellets in her hands.

She was hoping that if worse came to worst, she would at least be able to detonate the explosive pellets and cause an avalanche to slow down whatever enemies were afoot.

***

Fang Che remained on top of the hill on horseback, looking directly ahead. He could sense that was the direction where the suffocating pressure was coming from.

He wanted to run, but his instincts told him that doing so would only lead him to an even swifter demise.

𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

Hence, he decided to confront his fate head-on. In any case, barely anyone knew him, and only a tiny handful of people were aware of his identity as Night Demon.

Even if he were to flee, he had to identify the enemy and gauge their cultivation bases first.

His heart was filled with apprehension as he channeled his Cool as Ice mental technique to disguise his own aura, posing as a Great Grandmaster.

He then put on a hat and slightly altered the shape of his face before completely covering his mouth and nose with a large scarf, leaving only his eyes exposed.

After that, he took a deep breath and continued onward with a calm expression, as if he were completely oblivious to what was up ahead.

***

Sun Yuan and the others were traveling through the snow from the opposite direction, and the two guards were able to detect Fang Che's presence well before he sensed them.

"Looks like we're not the only ones traveling through the snow. There's someone else not far up ahead, and from the looks of it, our paths should be crossing soon."

With the heavy snowfall severely limiting visibility, the two guards had been relying on their spirit sense to scour their surroundings, and that was why they had detected Fang Che's presence so quickly.

Everyone else that they had encountered up to this point was already dead and buried.

Traveling through the snow like this was a massive pain, so they were eager to take a few lives here and there to vent their frustrations.

Whoever it was that was coming toward them was about to be their next victim.

"Oh? It seems like they're not actually together. One of them went another way at a crossroads, and there's only one coming toward us now."

Only after traveling for a while longer did Sun Yuan detect the approaching figure up ahead, and he couldn't help but be alarmed by just how powerful the spirit sense of the two guards were.

"That's very impressive! I'm only just now getting a vague sense that someone's up ahead," Sun Yuan praised, and the two guards merely brushed off his praise with a faint smile.

They wouldn't even be sparing someone of Sun Yuan's status and cultivation base a second glance if it weren't for the fact that he was useful to them.

"How exactly are you related to Night Demon, Brother Sun? I can't help but feel like you two are closer than you're letting on."

The two guards had already asked similar questions on countless occasions during their journey, trying to get as much information out of Sun Yuan as possible, but Sun Yuan was always able to weasel his way out with some ambiguous answer.

"I really don't know him very well at all," Sun Yuan sighed. "I'm just an elder, while he's the pope's disciple. I haven't even met him that many times!"

"Oh? Does that mean you've met him on more than one occasion?"

Sun Yuan knew that he had misspoken, and he hurriedly tried to make amends, replying, "I have, but it's really only been on very few occasions. I..."

All of a sudden, his voice trailed off into silence.

As the figure up ahead drew closer, he was struck by the sense that their aura was extremely familiar, and his eyes widened in shock as he realized who it was.

Surely not! Surely we wouldn't run into him in the middle of nowhere like this!

"What's wrong, Brother Sun?"

"Nothing. It's just that whoever's coming toward us feels a little familiar to me," Sun Yuan explained, knowing that he couldn't completely hide the truth.

Once Fang Che spotted him, there was no way the former would know to contain his surprise and pretend that they were strangers. Furthermore, if he were to insist that Fang Che was just a stranger to him, then the two guards would kill Fang Che for sport. Essentially, his hand was forced.

"Someone familiar? Could it be Night Demon?" one of the guards jibed.

"Of course not," Sun Yuan replied, doing his best to feign an expression of amusement.

Right at this moment, a young man on a black horse came into view.

Sun Yuan felt as if all of his blood had frozen solid in his veins. His worst fear had just been realized.

Fang Che was very surprised to see Sun Yuan, and at the same time, he was overcome by a sense of relief. Surely, if these people were with Sun Yuan, then he wasn't in any true danger.

With that in mind, he approached Sun Yuan on horseback as he exclaimed, "Master! What are you doing here?"

However, even for all of Fang Che's guile and cunning, he could've never anticipated the situation that Sun Yuan was in.

"What am

I

doing here? I should be asking you that!" Sun Yuan reprimanded as he hurriedly gave Fang Che a subtle look of warning. "Didn't I tell you to stay home and cultivate? Why've you come out in the middle of a snowstorm?"

"Turns out it was my disciple all along. What a coincidence!" Sun Yuan chuckled as he addressed the two guards.

He then turned his gaze back to Fang Che as he urged, "Hurry up and pay your respects! These are Young Mistress Wang from the main church and her two personal guards, Senior Li Changbo and Senior Li Changhe!"

Sun Yuan's subtle look had not slipped Fang Che's notice, and he hurriedly put on an overawed expression as he paid his respects to Wang Yun'er and her two guards. "Where are you going, Master? Should I accompany you?"

"None of your business!" Sun Yuan snapped. "Go home and cultivate! All you do is slack off all day!"

The two were putting on an act with the objective of diverting Fang Che away, but Wang Yun'er and her two guards weren't fooled.

"Brother Sun, you told us earlier that you felt someone familiar approaching, but you never said it was your disciple," one of the guards said with a cold smile. "How has an Emperor like yourself failed to identify the aura of your own disciple from such close proximity?"

"Of course my disciple feels familiar to me! What's wrong with that?" Sun Yuan protested.

"Sun Yuan! You've been lying to us this entire time! What are you trying to hide?"

"What's the meaning of this, Li Changbo?" Sun Yuan asked in an enraged manner. "What could I possibly be hiding?"

"I don't know what you're hiding, but did you really think you could play us for a fool like this and get away with it?" Li Changbo sneered. "You think we don't know that your original plan was to travel to the White Cloud Prefecture? You think we don't know that's where you came from? So why is it that you're trying to lead us to the White Apple Prefecture? You've led us on a wild goose chase all this time, isn't there anything you want to tell us?"