Seeking Truth with a Sword-Chapter 588 - 530 Escape
Lu Yunan’s fingers swiftly traced along Li Ang’s spine, not out of nervousness or fear, but as part of a plan they had devised earlier. If they were attacked and there was no time for verbal communication, they would use this method to indicate to Li Ang a route for climbing. Centered on the sixth thoracic vertebra, spots her fingertips touched lightly indicated handholds Li Ang could grasp. Spots she pressed harder indicated footholds.
Leap, climb.
Li Ang exerted all his strength to accelerate, while Lu Yunan marked the path with one hand and raised the Radiant Crossbow with the other. Her eyes squinted, locked onto the approaching horde of spiders below; she completed her calculations in a flash and then pulled the trigger.
SWOOSH—
The fine steel arrow, twisted from remnants of a talisman plate, shot through the gaps in the spider web at a precise angle. It avoided the thick armor on the forehead of the foremost giant spider, striking its legs directly.
CRACK! The car-sized giant spider had three of its legs cleanly severed, causing it to lurch and roll off the web, dragging countless smaller spiders with it as it plummeted downward.
Without a moment to observe the results of her shot, Lu Yunan bit the bowstring with her canines to reset it, nocked another arrow, and fired again.
The second arrow, flat and broad-headed, tore through the layers of webbing, causing the spiders to crash and press against each other, buying them a bit more time.
The third, the fourth...
Lu Yunan methodically fired arrow after arrow, using her foreknowledge to contain and halt the pursuit of the spider swarm.
However, the CLACK-CLACK of spider legs rapidly approached from all directions.
When she ran out of arrows, Lu Yunan’s arm, still holding the Radiant Crossbow, drooped in despair. No matter how she calculated, there seemed to be no escape from this fate.
Was it the influence of the Li Yuan environment?
The damp air, combined with the cloth over her face, made breathing difficult and her thoughts sluggish. As a result, she had missed so many obvious clues. Like the sudden decrease in wildlife around them, the oppressive weight of accumulated spider silk...
"Hold me tight," Li Ang suddenly said.
"What?" Lu Yunan was momentarily stunned, but instinctively tightened her grip around him.
Li Ang abruptly released his hands, letting himself fall downwards.
The wind howled past their ears. A strong sense of weightlessness engulfed them, and Lu Yunan clenched her mouth shut, fighting the instinct to close her eyes. But remembering their predicament, she resisted and forced her eyes open to look down.
Together, they fell along the cliff face, narrowly avoiding the spider horde and plummeting straight through the thick fog.
CLANG!
Once the spiders above had turned into tiny specks, Li Ang gathered all his strength and plunged the Triangular Spear into the cliff.
The spear blade pierced through earth and stone, embedding deeply into the mountain rock. The momentum of their fall slowed sharply.
Li Ang gripped the Triangular Spear, his hands so strained that his knuckles whitened.
The Triangular Spear carved a nearly two-meter-long gash into the mountain rock before their descent finally halted.
Li Ang was panting, recovering some strength, when he finally turned to ask, "Are you all right?"
"I’m fine." Lu Yunan, pale-faced and gritting her teeth, said, "We need to move immediately. It’s unclear if those spiders will follow us."
"Okay."
Li Ang, carrying Lu Yunan, shifted to the side and climbed until they reached a protruding stone platform. Only after ensuring that the spider horde had not followed did he finally breathe a sigh of relief.
"Let’s rest for a moment." Li Ang gently set Lu Yunan down and then lay on the ground himself, rubbing his sore shoulders.
In that moment between life and death, he had leaped without considering the risk, and now, the aftershock of fear surged through him.
It was so close...
Her warm, soft hand cradled Li Ang’s head and placed it on her thigh.
Lu Yunan silently watched the young man, gently massaging his shoulders and brushing the wispy spider silk, which had begun to condense into tiny droplets, from his hair.
In the aftermath of their harrowing experience, neither of them spoke. They just sat like that for fifteen minutes.
"Are you thirsty?" Li Ang asked casually, climbing up from Lu Yunan’s lap.
"A bit." Lu Yunan nodded. They had planned to stretch out a cloth to collect moisture from the air, but now knowing the fog contained spider silk, they naturally couldn’t drink water obtained that way.
So, Li Ang went to cut some bamboo. This type of bamboo, common in the Southern regions, stored small amounts of water in its joints. Gathered little by little, it was enough for both of them to drink.
Having solved the drinking water problem, the two, exhausted in body and mind, barely mustered the energy to carve out holes in the stone platform’s wall. Using these holes, they set up a tent and placed some bamboo in front of it for concealment, preparing to spend the night there.
After a day of climbing the cliff, Li Ang was so tired that his whole body ached. He thought he would fall asleep quickly, but as he lay in the tent, sleep strangely eluded him.
This was the closest he had ever come to death in his life. He had faced life-and-death situations before, but none as perilous as this.
When he first arrived in Chang’an and was threatened by Jiao Cheng with a crossbow arrow to help him explore the Sword Immortal Palace, he had poison as a fallback. At the Jialan Sect ruins, when facing the Demon Buddha, he had Mo Si as his trump card. Even the last time in Xingzhou, facing the maddened Jianquan Monk, he could still summon Mo Si and walk away.
But this time, his Qi Sea was sealed, he couldn’t sense Mo Si, and Mutated Objects like the Ten Thousand Spirit Book and the Bitter Realm Lotus were all useless. It was as if he had returned to the time before he had set foot on the Cultivation Path.
Lu Yunan, responsible for keeping watch, heard Li Ang’s restless movements in the pitch-black tent and gently asked, "Can’t sleep?"
"Yeah." Li Ang shifted to a more comfortable position. "Tell me, what do you think caused our traversal? Why did we cross over?"
This question had troubled him all day. Granted, he had gained precious kinship, friendship, and perhaps even love in this world, but he still couldn’t understand why all this had happened. Why me, of all people?
"Um..." Lu Yunan pondered for a moment. "Are you asking about the cause or the meaning? If you’re talking about the cause of crossing over, I’m not a scientist, an astronaut, or someone like Major General Chu from the Hidden Dragon Base. I’m just an ordinary homebody. The one who brought me to this world might be a deity, a Buddha, an alien, or an entity beyond my understanding. Based on Occam’s Razor—entities should not be multiplied without necessity. There are too many possibilities and too little information, so there’s no need to delve too deeply.
As for the meaning... It’s a bit different for me. I clearly knew that I had died of illness in my previous life before I crossed over. For me, crossing over was tantamount to being reborn after death."
"Is that so?" Li Ang was somewhat disappointed with the answer. If he knew for certain that his crossing over was the work of some mischievous god or Buddha, he would feel a bit more at ease.
"That’s how it is." Lu Yunan nodded, smiling. "It’s really a pity that the memories from your life before the traversal are incomplete. Considering you were a doctor, it’s possible that we met in a past life, like maybe I visited the hospital you worked at or something."
