Chapter (13): A Journey No Longer Alone (Part 3)
Yan Tangtang hadn't even grasped the fading threads of her dream before the scream jolted her upright. She stood up instinctively, her eyes darting around the room with sharp alertness.
"What happened? What happened!"
The sleepiness in the eyes of the others vanished instantly. Everyone turned their gaze toward Mu Yanchan. Chen Zhao, his temper flaring, barked, "Mu Yanchan! Have you lost your damn mind?!"
Mu Yanchan didn't have the luxury of worrying about Chen Zhao's anger. He thrust the book in his hands toward Cheng Zhao, his voice trembling with excitement.
"Chen-ge, look at this! The author of this book was the son of a merchant family. Because of some internal family dispute, he was ousted from the main caravan during a trade journey. He and his small personal entourage took a wrong turn and got lost. He wrote this book after overcoming countless hardships to return to his hometown. I know the backstory isn't the main point, but in the epilogue, he mentions how far he drifted from home. He says he ended up in a city that he heard was not far at all from the border of the cultivators' realms!"
Upon hearing this, Chen Zhao snatched the book from Mu Yanchan's hands and began to read feverishly.
The book was exactly as Mu Yanchan had described.
A massive merchant caravan, seemingly organized by a powerful clan, had set out with the author—who appeared to be a promising younger generation member—among them. As is common in large families, deep-seated conflicts simmered beneath the surface. While the author didn't detail the specifics of the family drama, he explicitly stated that he had been the victim of a betrayal and an assassination attempt orchestrated by his own kin.
The author and a few of his loyal followers were cast out of the caravan mid-journey. Not a soul in the large group had been willing to help them. Once abandoned and having lost sight of the main party, the author intended to rely on his map to return to the estate and report this treachery to the elders. However, they were stranded in a small desert, and though the caravan had hired a local guide, that guide remained with the main group. They struggled through the desert only to realize too late that their map had been tampered with or swapped. The further they traveled, the further they drifted from home. By the time they realized the error, they had no idea what region they had entered.
The names of the places they reached were entirely foreign to them, and the locals there had never heard of their hometown. Even the cities and territories marked on the local maps were completely alien. At one point, they couldn't even determine which cardinal direction—North, South, East, or West—would lead them back to their birthplace. Their spirits had nearly collapsed.
However, the author was both shrewd and courageous. Refusing to surrender, he spent three years desperately searching for a way back. Finally, in a sprawling metropolis, he found a map so comprehensive and detailed that it included some of the distant cities his family had once traded with. Of course, those cities were still far from his home, but once he reached familiar territory, the path back was no longer a mystery. No longer forced to wander blindly, it took him another two years to finally reach home. Naturally, the hardships, bitterness, and dangers they faced along the way were beyond counting.
This book, titled as a travelogue, focused heavily on their wrong turns, the dangers of the road, the cultural differences between regions, and the specific details of their return journey. In his concluding remarks, the author noted that as a merchant, he had always enjoyed recording the conditions of the places he visited, which was why he kept such meticulous notes. Later, feeling his life experience was as dramatic as a novel, he decided to publish it.
It was on that final page that he mentioned his wanderings had taken him to a city that knew of the cultivators' borderlands. That city—the same massive metropolis where he had found the map to save his life—was described as being far larger and more magnificent than any city he had ever seen.
The author concluded by mentioning he had even caught glimpses of actual cultivators in that city, and for an ordinary mortal like himself, simply having visited such a place was enough to satisfy him for a lifetime.
Yan Tangtang, Mu R.Yanxing, Su Min, and Mu Yanchan were huddled close to Chen Zhao, reading along. As they reached the final word, a collective, shaky breath escaped them. Yan Tangtang was perhaps the most stunned of all. She had only suggested this as a "maybe"—a desperate experiment to see if it was possible. She hadn't expected it to actually bear fruit.
As Chen Zhao set the book down, he took a deep, heavy breath. He looked as though he wanted to say something, but the words wouldn't come.
He seemed to have a thousand things to say, yet remained speechless. One thing was certain: he was ecstatic. He had been away from home for over three months, yet in all that time, he hadn't heard so much as the name of the cultivation border from anyone. Those who claimed to know were all charlatans, liars trying to swindle them out of their gold bars.
But now... finally... he had found a lead. He had finally found the beginning of the path.