My Journey to Immortality Begins with Hunting-Chapter 549 - Farewell, Four Maids; Where the Heart Finds Peace is Home; Evernight Approaches; The Immortal Domain Beckons - Part 1
Snow swirled in the Eternal Night.
Meng Xingxian leaned forward, riding her direwolf at full speed.
The other diredirewolf riders were still paralyzed with fear, haunted by the flame they had just witnessed. They were shaken, stunned, and unable to pull themselves together.
But Meng Xingxian, a woman among them, had already regained her composure. Her pale-blue direwolf sprinted across the frozen plains, its paws barely making a sound, until without warning, a sharp ridge of ice shot up directly in its path.
The direwolf reacted instantly, crouching to leap over it. But before it could spring, the icy ridge twisted and reformed into a hand that seized its foreleg mid-air.
The beast lost its balance and stumbled, crashing face-first into the snow with a strangled whimper. The sudden stop hurled Meng Xingxian forward. She spun through the air, cloak fluttering like wings.
But she wasn't just a warrior, she was the Khatun of the Nine Flames Tribe. Mid-fall, she twisted her body and landed gracefully on her feet. Straightening up, she locked eyes on the figure emerging from the snow and wind ahead.
A quiet girl made of snow and ice.
Who else could it be but Sheng'er?
Of the 36 Heaven Souls that participated in the battle between the Khagan and Human Emperor, only this one remained.
“Sister-in-law,” Meng Xingxian called out gently. Then, her eyes sharpened coldly. “Are you here to kill me?”
The ice-sculpted girl replied, “I’m not here to kill you.”
With that, the snow behind her shifted and formed a chair. She sat down, then didn’t move again.
Meng Xingxian understood immediately. Sheng’er was here to block her path, not to fight, but to stop her from advancing.
Realizing this, she stood in place for a long moment, silent. Then she spoke, “It’s only been three short years...and already the Evernight has consumed nearly half of Cloudpeak Province. And that’s only because the Underworld is still forming. It’s progressing slowly for now. But once the Yin energy fully settles, and the Yang begins to merge, the entire continent will be swallowed by this endless night!
“Yes, I wronged Naran. Yes, I had ill intentions toward you. But my intentions, my purpose, was never wrong. Whether for my own sake or for this land, I am not wrong. This time, entering the Deathless Tomb, I only meant to suppress you, to force you out of the tomb. I never planned to harm you. I never will.
“You’re a once-in-a-generation prodigy. Someone like you could change the fate of everything. If that’s true, why would I ever want you dead? If I wanted you dead, why would the god in the Deathless Tomb have taught you the Heaven Soul cultivation technique?”
Sheng'er replied flatly, “Because I’m still useful, that’s why.”
“...” Meng Xingxian fell silent. But after a pause, she tried again. “If the Evernight truly descends, there’ll be no turning back. That man, whoever he was, he clearly wields incredible power. Tell me, who is he?”
Sheng'er said, “I won’t tell you. And I won’t let you pass.”
“Why not?” Meng Xingxian asked.
“Because you killed my father!” Sheng'er shouted. “You think I’d ever work with you? Get that idea out of your head!”
Meng Xingxian held her ground, her voice cracking as she screamed, “This isn’t the time for personal grudges! The world is on the brink. All of the strongest among us must stand together. Even you must see that! At the very least, we can’t let the Evernight drown everything! When Yin and Yang finally merge into one...that’s the end. That’s the apocalypse!”
But Sheng’er shot back, her voice laced with equal raged, “You killed my father...”
Meng Xingxian opened her mouth again, trying to reason with her. But Shenger’s will was ironclad.
“You killed my father...!”
Meng Xingxian stood frozen in place, utterly helpless. Everything she had said, every argument, every plea, felt like a monologue delivered to the wind. She was pouring her heart out to a wall of silence. Frustration and sorrow tangled within her, and for once, she had no answers left.
˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙
Elsewhere, unbeknownst to her, every word Meng Xingxian spoke was being relayed, verbatim, to Li Yuan by none other than his human wiretap, Sheng'er.
“Papa,” she asked, tilting her head, “should we see her? Or maybe...ask what she really wants?”
Li Yuan thought for a moment, then shook his head. “She’s not telling the truth.”
He wasn’t wrong. On the way here, he had clearly seen that nearly half of Cloudpeak Province north of Sword Mountain was already shrouded in the Evernight.
That alone was enough to infer that as the Underworld continued to merge with the world, and with more and more meat fields appearing, the boundary of Evernight would keep pushing eastward.
And when that happened, the mortal world would fall into bitter cold and endless darkness.
Still, he was almost certain the Evernight would eventually hit a limit. Because the Evernight itself didn’t allow for any ghost domains. It couldn’t devour such a vast one such as the Underworld. So somewhere along the way, balance would be struck, an equilibrium between the two.
And yes, he believed the Deathless Tomb held some kind of solution, or at the very least, a proposed one. But the force behind the Deathless Tomb couldn’t be trusted.
To open it would be to open another can of worms.
More importantly, Li Yuan knew if he let Sheng'er leave the Deathless Tomb...he himself would never be able to return. Never again would he hold control over it. So his decision wasn’t to accept or to refuse. It was to avoid.
As long as he never met Meng Xingxian face to face, there would be no dialogue. No decisions to make. No traps to fall into.
That conversation would have to wait.
That was why he had sent Sheng'er to stop her.
As for him, he still had things to do.
With those thoughts sweeping through his mind, Li Yuan found himself once more at the entrance of the White Deer Tribe’s encampment.
The bonfire at the center of the camp burned hotter than ever, so much so that inside the tents, surrounded by snow, it felt like the heart of a desert.
Patrolling direwolf riders quickly noticed his arrival and began to surround the area, but they were quickly driven off by a small black crow.
The direwolf riders didn’t protest. They knew that earlier today, the Khatun had led an elite force to the Deathless Tomb to intercept the Khagan. And now...she hadn't returned. Yet this man had.
This could only mean that the Khatun had failed.
Suddenly, the proud, iron-blooded riders became cautious as cats. They kept their distance and quietly dispatched scouts to check for news from the Deathless Tomb.
Li Yuan walked into the tribe's grounds unbothered.
He had returned because, earlier when Naran departed, he had glimpsed a few familiar faces.
He’d thought they had long since passed away in the desolation of the Western Extremes. But surprisingly, they were still alive. Aged, yes, but not gone. And judging from their condition, they were being well taken care of.
The heat of the withered flame, combined with the harsh purity of the Western Extremes, seemed to have preserved them.
And being the attendants of the old Khagan, they had clearly been treated with honor, provided for in every way.
Li Yuan approached a particular tent, hesitated for a breath, then lifted the curtain and stepped inside.
Inside, four elderly women were already alert, each one clutching a blade, standing guard by the entrance. But when they saw the curtain rise and recognized the man entering, fear rippled through them. They instinctively backed away, eyes wide with alarm.
Li Yuan’s gaze passed over each of their faces.
Then he closed his eyes for a moment.
Because he still remembered what these old faces looked like when they were young.
And yet, Li Yuan’s connection with these women had only ever been that of master and servant, no deeper than that. Unlike Xue Ning, who had handled countless matters for him, who knew his many secrets and still chose to accept him, these four were part of a more distant past.
The four old women were startled when the man before them suddenly closed his eyes, as though caught in a memory.
Then the man spoke, “You four must be the maids, Mei, Lan, Zhu, and Ju, correct?”
One of the women, the bolder one, Xiao Zhu, nodded gently. “That’s us.”
Li Yuan’s voice softened. “An old friend sent me. They asked me to check...if any of you still have unfulfilled wishes.”
The four women fell silent for a long moment.
Then Xiao Zhu asked, “May we ask who this old friend is?”
Li Yuan didn’t answer. Instead, Snow stepped in through the flap behind him.
The four maids saw her and understood everything.
Old memories surged up like a wave, and tears streamed freely down their weathered faces.
Snow said simply, “Speak freely.”
Xiao Zhu choked back a sob. “Falling leaves return to their roots. We...we just want to go home, to Dragon Beam Mountain.”
Dragon Beam Mountain...Li Yuan had looked into that place once. It was in Scenic County in Silkfloss Province. Miraculously, it had survived the wars. It still existed.
He gave a small nod and said, “Pack your things. I’ll take you there.”
The four maids, Mei, Lan, Zhu, and Ju, began to gather their belongings. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮
But as they packed, more and more elders began appearing outside the tent.
Li Yuan glanced over them carefully and recognized many familiar faces.
They were once Xue Ning’s old attendants, people who had followed her faithfully from Gemhill County, through the Holy Tree Temple in Silkfloss Province, then the merchant guild, and later Dawn Manor, before finally ending up here in the Western Extremes.
Among them, Li Yuan even recognized Lin Silang—the man he’d once saved, who had been threatened by scoundrels and yet never revealed the wine recipe. His hair was now completely white, but perhaps thanks to the withered flame’s strange nourishment and the respectful treatment of the tribesmen, his spirit remained unbroken.
When they learned that Mei, Lan, Zhu, and Ju were returning to the Central Plains, the whole group of elders sank to their knees before Li Yuan like a dark tide.
War and chaos had driven them from their homeland. They had no place to return to. But now, in their twilight years, they longed for their souls to rest where they once belonged.
Falling leaves returning home, that was all they asked for.
A little over two hours later, more than a hundred people led by the four maids rode out of the White Deer Tribe atop pale direwolves, which had been summoned by the little black crow.
Alongside them rode Li Yuan and Snow.
Among this group of over a hundred were not only the elderly, but also the young—middle-aged men and women, children too. The next generations of those who had fled. They too would return.
Outside the tribe, the direwolf riders loomed in the distance, wary, growling silently, itching to attack yet hesitating all the same.
Letting this many people walk away would not go unnoticed. They would have to answer for it.
So, the commander gritted his teeth, then took a dozen riders and followed from afar.
As expected, they didn’t get far.
The little black crow intercepted them again.
The commander bowed with a sigh. “Crowmother.”
The black crow hovered in the sky, lazily flapping her wings. “Go back. If the Khatun wants someone to blame, she can come find me. It’s not like any of you can beat me. Whether she’s angry or not makes no difference.”
The commander gave a bitter smile. “Then...may I ask, what happened? At the entrance to the Deathless Tomb?”
The little black crow said casually, “Your Khatun lost.”
The commander’s eyes widened. “Impossible! She had 300 elite three-headed direwolf riders in reserve! I saw them myself, each one powerful enough to tear through the Central Plains on their own!”
“They’re all dead,” the crow cawed.
“No,” the commander insisted. “That’s impossible. Absolutely impossible!”
The crow couldn’t be bothered to argue. She scratched a line into the ground with her claw and said, “Don’t cross this line. Cross it, and I’ll kill you.”
With that, she flapped her wings and flew away.
The Crowmother was one of the two great totems of the Western Extremes, a figure of immense authority. And ever since the Khagan’s defeat, her influence along with that of the Wolfmother had only grown stronger. In just two or three short years, their power now eclipsed even the Khagan’s.
Even though the commander was one of Meng Xingxian’s trusted lieutenants, he no longer dared act with impunity.
