Chapter 4: Child of Camity
When An Jing, covered in blood, returo the riders’ encampment, the surrounding refugees shrank ba terror. Meanwhile, the one-eyed leader and the white-robed schor—who had already heard the screams—both wore approving smiles.
“Not bad.”
An Jing saw the schor, whose eyes were narrowed like a Tibetan fox, eyeing him with a shrewd gleam. The man sized him up and said, “Your performance was better than we’d imagined.”
“You praise me too highly,” An Jing responded with a slight bow. The one-eyed leader gave a wave of his rge hand, and two riders led An Jing away to ge his clothes and wash up.
Not long after An Jiuro the riders’ camp in fresh attire, they had gathered enough children to meet their quota. The riders began shouting instrus, making ready to depart.
It was now dusk, the sun dipping below the western horizon. The pale, leaden snow clouds above grew ever dimmer, and the world was enveloped in a hazy blue-gray.
Standing on the road at the edge of the refugee camp, An Jing turned back. He looked across a vast stretch of snowy wilderness, at the seemingly endless, t mountain ranges, and at the great city that climbed from the foot of the mountain half its slope, encircled by a winding river.
The Northern Frontier was famed throughout Great for its grandeur, and Mingshan City was worthy of its title as the greatest metropolis of the north.
But now, struck by this Frost Camity and turmoil…
In An Jing’s eyes, the mountains—shrouded by the wind and snow—felt as if they had e to life. Their dark silhouettes resembled the bodies of demonic gods, arms raised to the sky, feet pnted on the earth, while the myriad lights iy below gleamed like tless indifferent eyes, gazing upon the masses of mortals.
He lowered his head. On both sides of the road, parents who had just sold their children stood waiting.
Some were numb, some were in tears, watg their sons and daughters. They were taking their final farewells.
Among them was An Shen Shi, who had recovered a measure of her strength thanks to medie and food. She waited for her child.
“Jing’er.”
Her eyes were dry from weeping. Separated by a road thick with drifting frost, An Shen Shi locked gazes with her son.
“Live,” she whispered in a hoarse voice—a final plea. At that moment, even An Jing, who had possessed precocious wisdom since childhood, could only force a smile. “Mother, you must also live.”
“If I make it out of this alive, I’ll head south—to the Linjiang region, Beirui, Broken Bde Mountain… Mother, live on. Wait for me.”
“Wait for me to return!”
An Jing boarded one of the horse-drawn carts the riders had prepared. He looked bae st time, meeting his maze.
The woman watched the wago, her lonely figure soon swallowed by the swirling snowfall.
Ihe wagon…
Parting from his mother, even with all his early-learned insight and posure, An Ji sorrow. He took a deep breath, f down his emotions, his eyes dark and deep.
His mother was a martial artist, and now that she had eaten and regained some strength, even if she could er Mingshan City, she could at least travel south past the Huai River checkpoints.
Broken Bde Mountain y far away. The surrounding nd was abundant enough that the Frost Camity might not have reached so far. She might even find a few retives and secure a foothold.
—Hmm, there was inse in the wagon? These people were truly wealthy.
Well, they had freely treated the refugees and given out medie, so they must have had plenty of supplies…
An Jing’s thoughts drifted far, then he refocused. He noticed there were eight people in the cart including himself—more spacious than he had expected.
A quice around showed children about his age, both boys and girls. Among them was the little girl who had been severely frostbitten but treated by the physis.
It seemed the children had been grouped by age.
They had all just left their parents. Where one might have expected hey instead sat with heads lowered, faces turned aside, mouths cmped shut.
These were not ordinary children. They were refugees from the Northern Frontier who had crossed mountains and wilderogether with their parents in the grip of the Frost Camity.
Those who would have made a ruckus had long since died—or worse, been taken aen.
Brutal though it sounded, when such horror actually occurred, what more could be said?
Recalling all of this, An Jing ched his fists. People had indeed sed children for food, but that was not all. Sees had even hunted and kidher people’s children, cooking them for food.
When someone’s hard-won child, protected along tless miles of deadly ground, was seized and devoured, no matter how strong the parents might be, they would be driven to colpse. Their anguished curses and sobs reverberated endlessly through the wind and snow.
At the time, An Jing had o look after his mother. If he had been alohout any ties, he would have drawn his bde and sughtered all those beasts in human skin—but many of them had fled too quickly, and he had only mao kill one.
Shaking off such memories, An Jing surveyed the others in the wagon. They had likely seen the same horrors.
After that, no matter how lively they might once have been, each child had turned silent.
Even leaving their parents, ohe initial sadness passed, their thoughts gravitated to something simpler:
—Will I get enough to eat ime? At least they wouldn’t be eaten themselves.
In that case, best to serve their strength, ready for whatever tests y ahead in this so-called “great household.”
Sav the faint woody fragran the wagon, An Jing listeo the wind outside and recalled how the cart itself looked oside.
It was not a typical wheeled vehicle; it was more like a sled-wagon equipped with skids for snow travel, with a rge enclosure that could hold far more people and supplies than normal. It was especially suited for traversing icy terrain.
Those horses were clearly no ordinary animals, likely the famed “Northwestern Frost Steeds” that did not fear snow or ice.
Such wagons were not made on short notice. They must have been prepared in advance. Perhaps these mysterious people had foreseen this Frost Camity? They had e so well equipped, waiting for nature to weed out those with insuffit Heavenly Fate, and then they purchased survivors of the catastrophe—“Children of Camity” like him.
As An Jing pohis, he found himself growing sleepy.
Although he had an excellent foundation and robust stitution, he had starved for a long time and had only retly eaten his fill. As his body set about digesting, he felt an irrepressible weariness…
“Huh? This doesn’t feel like normal drowsiness!” An Jing realized something was off. The st of inse in the wagon seemed strange. No matter how tired he was, he shouldn’t have felt this overwhelming heaviness, as though his thoughts were slipping away.
An Jing looked once more at the others. On closer iion, he saw the truth—the children were not simply silent. They had all fallen asleep. He alone had resisted the lo!
But even he could not keep his eyelids from drooping, sinking into deep slumber.
Outside the wagon…
One rider gnced back at it, astonished. “He finally went uhe Soul-Calming Inse usually puts an ordinary person under in two breaths, as if they were dead, but he held out for a full quarter of an hour!”
“Now I see why the higher-ups are so ied in recruiting new blood this time—these Children of Camity truly are something else!”
“Aren’t they?” said another rider. “I figured these refugees were all worthless scrap, but it seems we’ve found some worthwhile stock after all!”
“Quiet.” A more seasoned rider silehem with a stern rebuke. He shook his head, giving a faint, wry chuckle. “Those who ’t ehe ranks might end up as our fellow grunt soldiers. But those who do mao ‘ehe door’… heh.”
Clig his tohe older rider said no more. The threatening silence was enough to chill anyone’s blood.
“Y-Yes…” The rider who had spoken shuddered, snapping out of his excitement. He reverted to his earlier sileionless demeanor.
“Stay that way,” said the seasoned rider in a low voice. “Keep driving. serve your energy.”
After that, the snowbound night remained wordless.
For several days, apart from disembarking now and then to make camp a, An Jing and the other childrehrough the journey uhe inse’s effect.
Perhaps their captors wao prevent them from learning how far they had traveled or where they were going—or maybe it was just easier to hahem this way. Driving day and night was simpler than looking after a group of kids who might otherwise bee restless.
During the journey, many different voys verged from all dires. Some parted ways midway, and the white-robed schor also left at some point.
Overall, however, the group steadily grew rger. By the end, they had at least twenty carts traveling together.
An Jing tried on occasion to gauge where they were, but even he could only firm that they had been heading toward the southwest and had partially escaped the harshest zone of the Frost Camity. At some point, they repced their sled-wagons with regur wheeled carts.
He had no idea which province of Great they had reached.
“In my hometown, the forests were subarctiifer forests. The st woods I saw looked like a temperate mountain ifer forest,” An Jing mused. “Great is so vast. With Heaven’s Fate and martial power, wonders abound. It’s hard to guess where we are… Maybe we’re somewhere on the border between the Northern Frontier and the Northwest?”
He paused, mind drifting. “Then again, these terms—subarctic, temperate… In my past life, what was I?”
He could only guess about time and distance while cramped ihe wagon, his sense of both gradually blurring.
Roughly ten days ter, the wagons of these mysterious figures finally arrived at their destination: ae hidden deep in the mountains.
White fog bhe mountain slopes, while a branch of some nameless river wound along the side of the mountain road, its surface rippling with shimmering light.
As the steep roads tihey came upon vilges that appeared dipidated and loed.
Before long, any sign of human habitation disappeared, repced by dense foliage and looming crags.
Ridges stacked upes like a byrinth of forest, and patches of short yet lush greenery g to the steep rocks like the scales of serpents ons. These lofty mountains of the northwest seemed like the body of some enormous creature.
Finally, the mountain road ended.
Before reag the deepest part of the forest, all sembnce of a smooth path vanished. It looked as if those who built the road had given up upon this primeval woodnd, leaving only narrow trails that wove through the mountains like blood vessels—a final promise.
Here, all traces of humanity faded, leaving only wild, primordial vistas.
The carts jolted along the rugged mountain path.
Over the course of the jourhey realized their purchasers definitely were not ordinary retainers of a wealthy .
No “high and noble family” would transport them in such secreto a hidden mountaie. I , even a three-year-old knew: “Never erange mountains.”
The mountains harbored monsters, demons, devils, and a beasts. They hid tless mysterious pces where Feng Shui forces amassed, birthing strange powers.
Within the borders of Great , certain ranges had been cleared, leaving only minor upstart creatures. Great did not discriminate against these beings—so long as they followed the w, respected humanity, and spoke like people, they were treated the same as humans.
But on the bordernds… there were too many unknowns, too many malicious spirits. Far too many travelers who ventured in never returned.
Ohe children realized they were entering deep mountains, the sharper ones grew somber. Alohey could never leave this pce alive.
Anyone who built a mountaie here—whether righteous or heretical—had to be some destine group. They, the children, would find it impossible to return openly to normal society.
But what could they do? The reality was inescapable.
They were here now.
“Get down,” a rider ordered after hours more of jolting. “We’ve arrived at your ‘home.’”
An Jing exhaled deeply.
At st, the moment had e. He posed himself, preparing to face his new “home.”
He g the seven others in the wagon, all still groggy with the aftermath of the drugged inse, then turned and became the first to step out.
He was greeted by the sight of a ly structured mountaiate.
Before he could properly take in its details, he heard a familiar voice.
“Well done.”
Turning his head, An Jing saw the one-eyed leader of their varding him closely.
The burly man gave a gruff chuckle. “You’re the best among this batch of newers.”
(End of Chapter)