Zhan Zhao Adventures - Chapter Four (Part I)

Chapter Four: Partridge Sky (Part I)

Upon the boy's freckle-covered face, there was not a single shred of expression. What revealed itself, was a heaviness unsuited to his apparent age.

 

As for the words Zhan Rifei spoke, it was also unknown whether he heard them or not.

 

Only, he was after all too young. His countenance, after all, could not cover up his gaze, and his gaze, however, could not conceal his heart.

 

──His eyes were filled with wariness; perhaps his heart was also full of defensiveness?

 

Only now did Zhan Rifei notice his eyes. Although his eyes were thin and small, yet growing upon this lean face, they were actually somewhat moving. When he looked at this boy's eyes, his feeling was exactly the same as Young Master Huo's thought at that time──contradiction.

 

At this moment within that pair of eyes, it was both filled with wariness, yet also vaguely, as if there were a thread of indifference.

 

Only, Zhan Rifei was after all not Young Master Huo. Having seen his eyes, a thought stirred within his mind, and the subsequent words he originally intended to speak were, after all, not spoken out.

 

Zhan Rifei's gaze remained very calm, but this boy actually let out a shiver nevertheless. Only because under Zhan Rifei's gaze, he felt as if he were suddenly stripped completely bare, already looked straight through by him to the bottom of his heart. No matter how he struggled, he could not escape the other party's dark eyes that saw through everything.

 

Thus he turned his head, staring at the darkness within the misty drizzle as if with great interest.

 

──Within the bottom of his heart, could it be that there were already too many secrets?

 

──Since he had already escaped from the demonic grasp of the Cold Water Palace, and Zhan Rifei right now did not even possess the strength to stand up his body, why did he still not leave? Whom was he waiting for?

 

Zhan Rifei lightly tapped several acupoints upon his own body, halting the bleeding upon his back. While gathering and lifting his internal breath, he simultaneously considered what should be done with this boy.

 

──The place on his back where he took the move, for some unknown reason, seemed to have an object embedded within it; the internal breath receded the moment it surged up, unable to flow smoothly. That number one divine weapon of the Cold Water Palace for the past hundred years indeed possessed a mysterious unpredictability unknown to people. His own internal breath was obstructed; if they were to encounter a powerful enemy again, wanting to protect this child, he truly did not know how many tenths of assurance he could possess.

 

Inexplicably, at this moment he suddenly wished for Young Master Huo to arrive quickly.

 

Young Master Huo, when dealing with this category of matters, always seemed to have many ways.

 

Speaking of Cao Cao, Cao Cao actually arrived.

 

Only, this person of Cao Cao had not yet arrived, but his clear and bright voice traveled over first.

 

──"I truly never expected, when did the brothers of the Hua family become so useless."

 

──"The Black Demon Fox of Xiangyang Mansion, how is he this time as slow as a black snail? Only, if it were changed to the 'Thousand-Transformation Black Snail,' if Little Shao found out, he would mostly be halfway vexed to death."

 

Lightly and softly, "Cao Cao" dressed in a yellow shirt was already standing before them.

 

Zhan Rifei raised his head, and not out of his expectations, what he saw first were naturally Young Master Huo's two shining, bouncing-and-leaping rabbit teeth, and then his Cao Cao-style enthusiastic round face.

 

Young Master Huo was immensely proud of himself, the way his small mouth skewed was just like a little fox that had just stolen eight chickens.

 

The moment he entered the woods, he saw at a single glance the two people within the woods, one sitting and one standing.

 

Two people familiar to him.

 

What he saw immediately following that, was precisely Zhan Rifei's face. His heart actually sank.

 

──That face of Zhan Rifei, beneath the twilight, had already become as pale as a dead man's. Upon his face and upon his body, there still remained faint bloodstains. The misty drizzle that had already washed these bloodstains faint still continued to soak through his black outer garment.

 

His hand still gripped his sword. The sword was already into its scabbard.

 

This scabbard was old; the moment "Zhanlu" entered it, its brilliance was instantly restrained within, its refined energy suddenly withdrawn. No matter who it was, none could ever think that within this ancient and old scabbard, what was treasured was actually a peerless divine weapon.

 

──Ever since Young Master Huo associated with him, he had actually never paid attention to his sword.

 

The only thing that had not changed was his smile. Except this smile, also because of seeing him, revealed weariness.

 

Young Master Huo frowned.

 

Young Master Huo's large eyes finally turned to the center of their sockets, and he also finally opened his mouth. Only, Zhan Rifei did not expect that his first sentence would actually be: "Is it that you never want people to help you? It seems wanting you to open your mouth to beg someone is probably more difficult than ascending to heaven."

 

Without waiting for Zhan Rifei to answer, he had already begun to put on airs to count on his fingers: "I merely helped you peel off a few plasters of the Prince of Xiangyang's mansion, yet you not only dealt with the people of the Cold Water Palace for me, but also rescued this child back. You must not forget, what we originally agreed upon was that neither side owes the other."

 

He elongated his voice, saying slowly and unhurriedly: "I, Young Master Huo, am never willing to owe other people favors."

 

Then he stood there with a beaming smile to wait!

 

Zhan Rifei could not help but sigh: "Is it that you truly like it very much when others owe you favors?"

 

Young Master Huo's nose also seemed to be shining brightly. He actually tacitly admitted it.

 

Zhan Rifei followed by letting out another sigh: "The calculation of favors of your Linglong Villa is indeed very special. It seems that this time, even if I do not wish to owe you a favor again, it will not do."

 

A sentence within his heart that was not spoken out, however, was, "You and he, how can you be so alike?"

 

The rain was still finely and densely soaking through the earth. The air was filled with a fresh yet damp scent of earth.

 

Young Master Huo's yellow shirt with sleeves short by half a section drifted along with the breeze beneath the dark color of the flowing clouds.

 

He was just waiting!

 

Within the night color, he looked at Zhan Rifei without speaking a single word.

 

His expression was very resolute.

 

He was still waiting!

 

From the far-off valley, there suddenly traveled a burst of muffled thunder, as if pressed out beneath the flowing clouds.

 

"Dong──Dong──"

 

"Dong──Dong──"

 

──No, that was not the sound of thunder; it was the sound of a drum!

 

One strike, one beat, one broken heart. The slow and muffled drumbeat echoed for a long time within the valley.

 

The drumbeat remained very distant, yet was very clear.

 

──Whose drumbeat?

 

──Or the drumbeat of which route of pursuing troops?

 

The faces of the three people by the edge of the woods all changed.

 

Zhan Rifei cast a glance at that boy, hesitated for a moment, and finally said with a smile that single sentence Young Master Huo wished to hear.

"Can I trouble you to help me with another favor?"