Chapter 18: South Mountain

Upon arriving at Nanshan, Chu Danqing instructed the coachman to return first.

Remaining here served little purpose. Nanshan was quite expansive, and he had already gathered relevant information about it.

This Nanshan was essentially a deeply remote mountain with very little development. Aside from a temple at the peak bearing the name Nanshan, only hunters, herbalists, and similar folks would ever venture up.

Consequently, tigers, leopards, wolves, jackals, venomous snakes, and fierce beasts abounded. Apart from the path leading to Nanshan Temple, other areas were rarely frequented by people.

Uncertain of when he would descend the mountain, Chu Danqing saw no reason to keep the coachman waiting, and it was not as though he lacked legs to make his own way back.

His physical constitution rating of 6 made the mountain climb effortless, leaving him with the leisure to admire the scenery.

To speak of the ancient era, not everything fell short of modern times; the environment and air were genuinely far superior to the steel metropolis where Chu Danqing had lived.

"Person," Dabao suddenly said after about an hour of climbing, pointing at a snowdrift not far away.

"An ambush?" Chu Danqing instantly grew alert. Who would hide beneath a snowdrift for no reason? His immediate thought was of bandits lying in wait to attack travelers.

However, Dabao shook his head. "Passed out. Drag, out?"

"Drag him," Chu Danqing said upon hearing this, realizing they might have genuinely encountered an emergency.

He was not the sort to stand idly by and refuse to help someone on the verge of death.

Dabao quickly hauled a person out from the snow. It was a young man of around twenty-five or twenty-six, dressed in thick, lavish garments of considerable value.

Had it not been for such attire, he would have long since frozen to death by the roadside in the dead of this bitter winter.

Chu Danqing conducted a brief examination, finding no obvious trauma, and produced a flask of warm water to feed him.

Not being a professional medical practitioner, Chu Danqing had very limited means of rescue.

As for utilizing restorative consumables, the fellow did not appear to be on the brink of death, making such extravagance unnecessary for the time being.

After swallowing half a bowl of warm water, the man slowly regained consciousness.

"Th-Thank you, brother, for your aid," the man muttered in gratitude the moment he came to.

"Think nothing of it. How did you end up passing out in the roadside snow?" Chu Danqing asked curiously as he helped him up.

"That is a rather long story," the man replied with a bitter smile. "My name is Guo Ming, and I have come to Yangxian County on business."

"Hearing that Nanshan Temple is quite miraculous, I brought my servant along to pay a visit. Never did I imagine that a sudden gust of cold wind would blow me off balance."

"I lost consciousness while tumbling down the cliffside, and even my servant knows not where he has gone." Guo Ming clutched his garments tightly around himself in an effort to warm up.

"Oh, dear..." Chu Danqing glanced at the marks on Guo Ming's body, which confirmed he had indeed tumbled down, sustaining quite a few injuries in the process.

"What are your plans for now, then?" Chu Danqing asked.

He was willing to escort him down the mountain, but the foot of Nanshan still lay a considerable distance from Yangxian County; he certainly could not carry him all the way back into the city for medical treatment.

Chu Danqing still had to hunt down that lingering tiger.

"This place is not far from Nanshan Temple. I beg of you, brother, to escort me to Nanshan Temple so I may receive some rudimentary treatment."

"The monks in the temple surely possess balms and pills for treating bruises and fractures." Guo Ming knew well that the journey to Nanshan Temple was much shorter than the trek back into Yangxian County.

Hearing this, Chu Danqing found reason in it, but a question soon occurred to him. "What about your servant?"

"Even if you tumbled down from the mountain, shouldn't your servant have chased after you all the way down?"

"How is it that only you were left behind?"

At these words, Guo Ming also snapped to his senses, looking around in confusion. "This... I truly cannot say. Perhaps he failed to notice me?"

"How could that be? With injuries like yours, you couldn't possibly have rolled far." Chu Danqing flatly rejected the notion, looking him up and down. "Otherwise, you would have lost your little life long ago."

With that, he silently cast an appraisal skill.

His main concern was that the man's words contained contradictions.

Digitalized data materialized before him, revealing merely the attributes of an ordinary mortal.

This set Chu Danqing's mind at ease; he had momentarily suspected it might be the lingering tiger in disguise.

"That servant of mine is a family retainer, raised in my household since childhood, and is utterly loyal."

"It is entirely impossible for him to have fled."

"Besides, being a stranger in these parts, where could he possibly run?" Guo Ming immediately defended him, retaining deep trust in his servant.

Without pressing the argument further, Chu Danqing said, "Let us head up the mountain first, then. Surely a grown man cannot simply vanish into thin air."

Guo Ming wished to search for him, but his current injuries left him utterly powerless to do so.

Thus, he could only reply, "We shall follow your counsel, brother."

With that, Dabao supported Guo Ming, and the trio proceeded up the mountain together.

Along the way, Chu Danqing and Guo Ming chatted idly, probing each other's motives in the process.

"To think Brother Chu is a patron-retainer of the Lu family; truly extraordinary." Upon learning Chu Danqing's identity, Guo Ming's expression turned one of involuntary reverence.

"You've heard of the Lu family as well?" Chu Danqing asked with a hint of surprise, having assumed the Lu family only held clout within Yangxian.

"Who could be unaware? Though the Lu family keeps to a corner, their ancestors were..." Guo Ming rattled off the past glories of the Lu family like a connoisseur reciting treasures.

"So the Lu family's background is this grand." Chu Danqing went along with the conversation before casually asking, "What brings you to Yangxian County?"

It was not that he was deliberately prying, but rather that they had run out of topics to discuss.

"To speak the truth, this is not my first time visiting Nanshan Temple," Guo Ming smiled. "I am here to visit an old friend."

"Several years ago, my travels brought me here, and by a twist of fate, I became acquainted with a hunter named Liu Wu."

"I had originally intended to visit Liu Wu, but a sudden itch of curiosity moved me to tour Nanshan Temple in the snow first."

"Please forgive me for withholding this earlier, Brother Chu," Guo Ming said with a cupped-hand salute.

Chu Danqing did not mind; his explanation sounded plausible enough.

"You certainly have peculiar tastes, thinking of climbing a mountain in the depth of winter." Chu Danqing felt somewhat speechless. If he were not a dimensional apostle but an ordinary man, how comfortable it would be to sleep at home in such weather.

The snow had accumulated to disaster levels; only individuals of exceptional status and leisure could afford such refined fancies.

"The wind and snow are growing heavier," Dabao remarked abruptly.

Chu Danqing paused his steps. Prompted by Dabao's warning, he realized that the gale and snow were indeed far more severe now than when they had been at the foot of the mountain.

Because the intensification had been gradual, the process was not immediately obvious, and having been distracted by chatting with Guo Ming, Chu Danqing had overlooked it.

It was not particularly cold—the white-velvet long robe and silver-scaled brocade offered exceptional thermal insulation against both heat and cold.

Guo Ming's attire was likewise thick. While he was not freezing, their rate of ascent had been adversely affected.

"About two or three li to the north from here, there is a small cabin built by Liu Wu. We can go there to seek temporary shelter from the storm," Guo Ming suggested upon seeing the situation.

People who made a living in the mountains often built small cabins for supplies and shelter, and the hunter Liu Wu naturally had such refuges, numbering more than one.

Guo Ming had stayed in them before and knew their approximate locations.