Chapter 1

The Capital City’s Yushan was famous throughout the world. People said it was the number one mountain under heaven; its ranges coiled like giant dragons, and mist shrouded it like a celestial paradise. Yushan stayed green all year round, everything there seemed full of spirit, and the snow on its peaks never melted. Mist lingered around its slopes, and from afar it looked like the gates to heaven; up close, it felt like the secluded dwelling place of immortals.

Ye Rui had never heard any of that. If she had, she would have thought it was complete nonsense. Immortals? Yushan had a few families who lived by gathering wild vegetables and hunting game, and she was one of them.

Today, with her bow and arrows on her back, she had gone out again, searching along the stream three li from home. She wandered through the mountains where beasts usually roamed and found a plant tucked between the rocks, its leaf tips tinged red and its leaves shaped like flames, growing especially lush. She immediately asked in delight, “Hutu Hutu, is it this one?”

A faint electronic buzz sounded in Ye Rui’s head, and then a girl’s voice came through: 【Ah, this is Yushan’s Colortail Leaf. Dry it, grind it into powder, and sprinkle it on roasted rabbit meat; it’s ridiculously delicious!】

Ye Rui’s smile froze. She nearly crushed the leaf in her hand, and the sand under her straw shoes sank a little deeper as she ground her feet into it. Gnashing her teeth, she said, “I’m asking whether this is the thing the task wants.”

Hu Tu let out an awkward laugh, then said sheepishly, 【Oh, you meant that. No, it isn’t.】

Ye Rui sighed and sat down on the ground in low spirits, not caring at all that her coarse hemp clothes would get dirty. By now, she had been transmigrated here for a month. From her initial panic, she had gradually figured out where the prey in the forest were distributed and learned how to set traps, so she could be considered well adapted. And yet none of the System’s tasks had been completed.

Because when Hu Tu transmigrated over with her, the task library’s data had been damaged. It still hadn’t been repaired, and all they knew was that the first task was to pick something up; they just didn’t know what to pick up…

The moment Ye Rui heard that the System was called Hu Tu, she had a bad feeling. As it turned out, her intuition had been right. She had been led around these Yushan mountains by Hu Tu for a full month.

Still, she had to admit she was beginning to accept the role of a hunter.

The body she’d come into had skin with only a slight wheat tone, but her features were still fresh and lovely, with some resemblance to her former self. More importantly, she was healthier and more agile than she had been in her previous life.

After sitting down, Ye Rui casually pulled a few blades of grass and slowly tore them apart. She liked to keep her hands busy when she was thinking. Looking at the stream flowing out from Yushan, the swaying tree shadows over the barren grassland, and the fresh scent of grass and earth in the air, along with the vigorous stands of sun-loving trees scattered through the forest, she had never imagined she would one day live in the mountains, let alone become a hunter.

Thinking of her previous life, after the mother she had rarely seen for years passed away, Ye Rui threw herself even more into work in that cold, indifferent city, hoping to use it to erase the faint emotions buried deep in her heart.

What was that feeling? Ye Rui thought. Most likely it was still sadness. She understood very well that all her efforts up to now had really only been for her mother’s approval. Just how deep that unwillingness ran, Ye Rui did not even dare to examine too carefully.

It was like struggling all the way to the end of a maze, only to discover there was no reward, and no one waiting for you there; all that remained was a death certificate.

She had relied on nothing but burying her head in work, eating and sleeping less and less, to fill that bone-deep emptiness. In the end, she had collapsed at her desk, and then, in a blur, Hu Tu had brought her to this world.

Hu Tu: 【Hey, who told you to die so suddenly? I hadn’t even finished preparing before I had to rush you over, which messed up all my data!】

Ye Rui’s face stiffened. “And now you’re blaming me?”

Sometimes Ye Rui really had a temper, but she couldn’t even get it out. Hu Tu was a System, intangible and bodiless; if she wanted to hit it, she couldn’t. If she wanted to argue, she couldn’t even do that properly!

Hu Tu: 【Aiya, how could I blame you? Life and death are unpredictable things…】

Ye Rui: “…You’ve even learned to moralize now?”

Sometimes Ye Rui truly did not know whether to laugh or get angry. Now it was even trying to be considerate.

Although Ye Rui complained about Hu Tu eight hundred times a day, in this deserted Yushan, it was still good to have Hu Tu keeping her company, which was why she’d adapted so quickly. She knew there were other hunters in these mountains because once, when she had gone farther out, she saw someone else’s beast trap. But the trap had clearly been set for quite a while; she just didn’t know whether the hunter was still alive.

She had also followed the small path cleared by the original owner of the body to the nearest town at the foot of Yushan, and there she was horrified to discover she couldn’t recognize the writing of this world. The signboards hanging all over the streets were covered in unfamiliar characters, and it made her feel like a foolish intruder; every sound around her seemed to turn into cold mockery and derision. That realization terrified her, as helpless as being stripped naked and thrown into a crowd.

She couldn’t understand the characters, but fortunately she could still understand the spoken language. Although the accent was somewhat different, she could generally make out what the townspeople were saying, and she pieced together some information about this world.

This country was called Great Yan. It was now the sixteenth year of the Taiyuan reign of the Great Yan Dynasty. The mountain she lived on was Yushan, the most famous mountain in Great Yan. The town was called Sanyuan Town, and it was only ten li from the Capital City. Thanks to the Capital City’s development, Sanyuan Town was also quite prosperous.

In the town, Ye Rui also kept hearing the townspeople mention a treacherous minister named Xie the Wolf. After hearing it enough, she naturally remembered the name. However, whether he was Xie the Wolf or Xie the Fox, Ye Rui didn’t care. Right now, she just wanted to figure out the country’s currency as quickly as possible so she could do some trading.

After sitting there blankly for a long while, Ye Rui stopped dawdling and prepared to see whether any prey had triggered her traps today, harvest whatever she could, and go home.

However, just as she walked downstream along the stream, she caught a faint smell of blood.

Blood?

She hadn’t set any traps around here, so how could there be…

An uneasy feeling rose in Ye Rui’s heart. A hunter’s instinct told her there was something unusual ahead. She moved forward cautiously, only heading toward the direction of the blood after confirming there was no other movement. The path ahead was rough, with jagged boulders blocking the way. Ye Rui stepped over the slippery grass, went around the boulder, and only then saw a woman behind it.

The lower half of the woman’s body was soaked in the shallow stream. Her lips were bloodless, and one hand was gripping the edge of a boulder by the stream with desperate force as she panted raggedly. Her pale-yellow dress was stained with a great deal of blood, especially at the collar, where a large tear had been cut into the fabric, and bright red blood had spread outward.

Ye Rui had been to town and had seen how the young ladies there dressed, but none of them looked as noble and beautiful as the woman before her. Ye Rui couldn’t even name the fabric she was wearing, but instinct told her this woman’s identity was no simple matter.

Ye Rui watched the surroundings warily. Only after confirming no one else was nearby did she cautiously approach.

“Hey.”

When Ye Rui appeared in front of the woman, she realized that in the woman’s other hand was a glittering silver knife, gripped tightly. But even sharper than the knife was her gaze. Despite her pale face and serious injuries, her bearing was that of a lone wolf, not some ordinary family’s daughter.

Ye Rui held both hands high to show she had no weapon. “I’m a hunter. I mean you no harm. I just want to help.”

A dozen thoughts had already flashed through Ye Rui’s mind. She had considered whether she should just leave the woman here to die, or whether her companions would soon come to fetch her and she shouldn’t meddle.

But if she really died… digging a grave would be a pain.

In the end, Ye Rui made a decision that let her conscience off the hook while also saving her the trouble of digging a pit.

The woman’s sharp gaze swept over Ye Rui. She studied her carefully, then closed her eyes in exhaustion, and the knife she had just raised lowered as well.

Seeing that, Ye Rui tiptoed closer. The smell of blood grew stronger, all of it coming from the wound at the woman’s collar. Ye Rui knelt on one knee and said softly, “Let me look at your wound. Don’t hurt me.”

She glanced at the silver knife, feeling somewhat uneasy. A hunter’s instinct told her that thing could easily slice through her bones.

While keeping half an eye on the knife, Ye Rui carefully examined the injury at the woman’s collar. It was a knife wound, cut right into the clavicle. It wasn’t deep and hadn’t injured any organs, but there had been a lot of blood loss, and the clavicle was probably fractured.

Only then did Ye Rui turn to look at the woman. The woman’s gaze had been fixed on her the entire time, as though any suspicious movement would send her to her death. Now Ye Rui could finally make out her face. Her skin was as pale and translucent as jade, her features were too beautiful, and there was a hidden edge in her brows and eyes. She was beautiful in a way that was almost too sharp, like a rose in a thicket of thorns.

Ye Rui also noticed that the woman had quite a lot of white hair. She didn’t look very old, so why were there so many strands of white among the black?

“Save me, and I’ll reward you handsomely afterward.”

The woman forced those words out with all her strength. Her voice trembled slightly from the injury, but her tone still carried the unquestionable authority of someone used to power. Ye Rui’s heart jolted, and a chill ran down her spine. She felt that this woman must not be offended. If she didn’t save her, she would definitely drag her down with her.

This woman had that kind of ruthlessness.

Ye Rui wasn’t trying to get anything from her reward. She simply didn’t want to get tangled up with such a complicated person. For now, she only wanted to tend the woman’s injuries and send her away.

First, she carefully pulled the woman out of the river. Seeing the cold sweat on her face from pain, Ye Rui asked, “Are there any other injuries?”

“My leg; it may be broken.”

After hearing that, Ye Rui immediately lifted the woman’s skirt, revealing her long, pale leg. The woman’s expression changed, as if she were about to say something, but Ye Rui had already let the skirt fall back into place. “There’s a large bruise. I’ll check it again when we get back.”

Because she often walked in the mountains, she carried some hemostatic herbs on her at all times. She applied some to the wound on the woman’s clavicle first. She had even warned the woman in advance that it might hurt a little, but who would have thought that after the dried herbs were applied, even she felt phantom pain? The woman, with her lips tightly bitten, didn’t make a sound.

Ye Rui hadn’t misread her. This woman was definitely ruthless.

After that, Ye Rui carried the woman in her arms and walked toward her tiny thatched hut. Only after holding her did Ye Rui realize that the woman’s body was soft and faintly fragrant; the scent was like the roses blooming in a desolate wasteland, very much like the woman’s temperament.

Full of thorns, and poisonous too.

Along the way, the woman’s eyes were clearly somewhat unfocused, yet she still remained alert, as though afraid Ye Rui might do something untoward to her.

“What’s your name?”

The woman’s voice had also grown weak, but her gaze swept over Ye Rui’s sharp, spirited brows and eyes again and again.

“Ye Rui.”

Ye Rui paused, looking at the woman’s increasingly pale face, and said with some worry, “Hang in there; we’re almost there.”

The woman said nothing more. She still forced herself to stay conscious while watching Ye Rui, the small knife in her hand held tightly all the same, as if she were gripping the line between life and death.

Author’s note:

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The book is finally starting!

It’s been over half a month since we last met; did you miss me!! [let me see][let me see]

As usual, updates will follow the rankings before V, and after V it’ll be daily updates, posted at 9 a.m.!

There’ll be more tomorrow too! [heart][heart]