Chapter 44
Murong Yunshu stood a few li¹three hundred (or three hundred sixty) paces away to observe the shape of the mountain from a distance. As she kept on looking, she still couldn't figure anything out. So she changed her strategy from viewing it from a distance to having a close up view. Mountain of Doom was not only bare without any sign of life, but also lifeless within five meters around the foot of the mountain, as there were no weeds or insects there. The ground was made of crushed stones of different shapes and sizes. If one's shoe soles were not thick enough, once one walked on them, they would prick one's feet.
Sponsored Content
The entrance was either a little protruding or a bit loose than other parts of the mechanism. So Murong Yunshu walked lightly around the foot of the mountain while watching and patting on the wall as she listened to anything particular. In short, her eyes watched six roads and her ears listened in all directions²Chinese idiom : be observant and alert with her repeatedly patting her hands on the wall up and down. However, she only walked a few dozens of meters when her feet started to ache and her hands started to hurt. As the sun slowly ascended, the temperature of the rock also became warmer, which made them too hot for her to touch.
Murong Yunshu retreated to the dirt ground beyond the crushed stone field, as she wiped her sweat with one of her sleeves while pondering what to do next. All of a sudden, from the corner of her eyes, she caught sight of an unknown dazzling thing, and a trace of queer feeling flashed through her mind, as if she had discovered something, though she didn't know what she had finally discovered.
Murong Yunshu hurriedly recalled the angle of the flash she had seen just now, and started over again, but somehow the feeling she had just now was nonexistence.
What on earth was that thing? Murong Yunshu stood in place with a puzzled face, while carefully observing the objects around her, not even a single stone was spared. Suddenly, a pure yellow button-sized stone caught her attention.
Sponsored Content
A melon seed face or a heart shaped face. It was one of the two face shapes most wanted in Chinese beauty. The other one was a goose shaped face or oval shaped face. Fan Binbing, a Chinese actress, has a melon seed face.
Image Credit
nincha via Ninchanese (Western vs Chinese beauty)
She crouched down and used her hands to clear the gravels around it, making it totally separated in front of her eyes. With just one glance, Murong Yunshu completely understood everything at once, as a hint of a smile appeared on her melon seed shaped face that was covered with beads of sweat. The stones on the ground were all milky white like a rough marble. Only this one was transparent and purely in yellow. Among the fine and glossy stony ground, it looked polished, clear and lucid. It felt smooth and delicate to the touch, just like a newborn baby's skin. If she wasn't mistaken, this was a Balin Fuhuang (fortune yellow) Stone.
Balin Fuhuang Stone Seal
Image Credit
文化 via Kkcnews (巴林福黃石的靈韻, July 1st, 2016)
She only did an in-depth research on one kind of stone, that was Balin Stone. It was because the imperial seal of the Daye Dynasty was carved with this type of stone, and so was her personal seal. As for the reason why her private seal was made from the same material as the imperial seal, naturally because — it was really good looking. Balin Stone was quite rare in the Daye Dynasty. So, it was no accident that it would appear here.
Sponsored Content
Murong Yunshu reached for the stone and pressed it hard, when the earth suddenly quaked, the mountain shook and the rock in front of her began to crack. Gradually, a stone door appeared, with odds looking figures were put in the middle of it. They were like a child doodles, without any prominent shapes. But her intuition told her that the key to open the stone door was in these figures. This noob translation was translated by a noob translator きつね. Please read this chapter at xin-shou.blogspot.com.
Murong Yunshu stared at those figures for a long time, but she couldn't find any clue. Thus, she stepped back, looked at them again, and found that there was a fist sized turntable raised in the middle of the figures. When she came closer and took a look again, the turntable had disappeared. "An illusion?" Once she muttered this question, she retreated a few more steps and she could see the turntable appeared one more time.
Murong Yunshu hesitated for a moment. When she reached out to grab it, surprisingly, she was able to catch it. After feeling a great joy, she hurriedly turned the turntable, only to hear the sound of a click and the stone door slid open upwards, revealing a black hole in front of her. As she went into the hole, the earlier section of the passage was unusually narrow, but as she went further back, the passage became wider, while the light grew brighter, until the passage came to an end, and where the heart of the cave was — there was a huge pool. A beam of light coming straight in over the pool, which illuminated the whole cave.
Suddenly, Murong Yunshu saw a figure lying on a stone platform in the middle of the pool. "Chu Changge!" With a cry of surprise, she rushed to the side of the pool and found that the water was only about knee-deep, so she resolutely rushed into the water and walked towards the stone platform. Due to her being so shocked and upset, she nearly fell in the water several times. After stumbling closer, she called out 'Chu Changge' again, and there was still no response from him. So she put her hand on his neck to check for a pulse.
When the faint beats could be felt from her fingertips, Murong Yunshu breathed out a sigh of relief that he was still alive. However, his body was very hot, as if he had a fever, and his clothes were still wet. It was estimated that he had climbed up from the water by himself.
How could he have fainted here when he went to the top of the mountain yesterday? Murong Yunshu raised her eyes to the direction where the light came in. She murmured, "Did he fall from above? But the mountain is so high and the water is so shallow. If he really fell, he would still be injured even if he didn't die. How did he still manage to be alive?"
Murong Yunshu couldn't figure it out, and she simply didn't want to. Using all her strength, she dragged him to the shore, and then, she found a few withered branches from the outside to light a fire.
Then.....he ran a fever. With the cave being cold and heavy, his wet clothes had to be changed.....but.....she couldn't change them for him, could she? However, there was no other 'living person' here except for her.
Looking at the half-dead Chu Changge, Murong Yunshu let out a long sigh. She should really let one of the four guardians be left behind. At least there would be someone to protect her, and secondly, she really needed a coolie around!
After a war between heaven and man³an internal struggle, Murong Yunshu finally perverse. She was still reluctant and yet, she peeled off his clothes layer by layer with an amazing speed, then she took off his outer shirt and draped it over him as a quilt. Although her eyes were deliberately closed, the touch in her hands still made her blush and her heart beat fast, while the roots of her ears seemed to be on fire. To make matters worse, curiosity had untimely set in, and her eyes couldn't help but glance up and down at him......
He was tall and big. The clothes she used to cover him, could only cover the top part, but not the bottom. So she put them in the middle, and the result was — she could see his bare chest and his bare long legs instead.
Murong Yunshu thought her face had gotten hotter, which made her secretly annoyed. She turned her back towards him, hugged her knees and curled up in front of the fire, as she gazed at the flames while her mind muttered —
Bones, they're all just bones.