Chapter 401: It Is Still Beautiful
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
How long more to Darkness Port?
Wrapping herself in a large animal pelt in mixed colors, Higan gazed further away through the black scarf that she wrapped around her head.
How long had it been since she left Starstay City? Seven days? Eight days? Higan was not sensitive towards numbers as her mind never remembered all the trivial details. All she knew was that she was traveling the correct direction and heading back to Darkness Port.
Although she was not good at communicating with others, no matter how difficult it was, she would never lose her direction towards Darkness Port. Therefore, in the past few days, Higan believed she had learned something different: to speak to a complete stranger.
As though to conserve material, the cart only had a crude-looking carriage made out of a thin layer of animal pelt, so it could not shelter her from the harsh winter wind.
As the wind blew at the simple carriage, the blinding light from the sky pierced through the tiny seam of the thin cover, casting a moment of brightness inside the dark carriage. Whenever the light came in, Higan tightened the animal pelt around her. After surviving the Wood Punishment Room, her core was slightly damaged.
She did not have the money to get regeneration serum, thus she purely relied on her own body to recover as much as she could. Furthermore, if she wanted to recover using her talent ability, there would be a price to pay.
Before reuniting with Tang Ling, Higan did not want to pay the price. She would have done so without a second thought before she knew Tang Ling, but after knowing him, she learned to cherish and value things, hence the calculative side of her.
Tang Ling seemed to love being calculative. Would she be closer to him if she shared his habit?
A smile appeared on her face under the black scarf.
However, relying on her body to recover was rather difficult. She grew scared of the cold as she started to tremble in such harsh weather. Would this be considered a kind of experience?
Higan was immersed in her own thoughts. She did not care about the people around her even though the crude-looking carriage had a dozen other passengers, more precisely, poor people who had to travel in winter.
All they could rely on was this kind of unrefined cart to transport them to the south. The south was relatively warmer. If they were lucky, they could settle down in a warm place and wait for winter to pass.
After the harsh winter, they would return to the north, where resources were much more sufficient so that they could continue fighting for their lives. However, in the Purple Moon era, poverty did not mean kindness. Sometimes, it represented danger.
Inside the dark carriage, there were at least three or more men who would, at times, look at Higan with a ferocious gaze.
Her attire was as hideous as it could get and her face was shielded behind the black scarf, but somehow her movements, her sitting posture and her silhouette under the mix-colored pelt seemed to draw a strange attraction to the men.
Why? They did not care. The men only cared about the girl’s companion, which was no one in this long journey. The young girl was either stupid or extremely powerful to travel such a long distance alone.
However, if she was powerful, why would she travel in this lousy bull cart in the winter?
After all, even though the choices of transportation in the Purple Moon era were not plentiful, they were not less by all means.
The thoughts riled up the men’s desires and urge. They wanted to rip off Higan’s scarf and have a look at her face as they hoped for her to be decent-looking.
However, they ought to hold that thought because the driver said if they could travel smoothly for the day, they would have to travel for at least 13 hours before reaching their next destination: a supply station built by a small Drifter group.
Their thoughts were eventually suppressed. The men were not worried about Higan, but as competitors, they were glancing at each other with grudgeful gazes. Some smarter ones in the carriage noticed the subtle tension in the atmosphere, but no one wanted to voice anything out. After all, the winter was tough on them, and they ought to spare themselves some unwanted troubles.
Only a mother of two children was a bit bolder than the others, maybe because her husband was beside her. She lay her hands on Higan subtly and hinted at her with her gaze.
Unfortunately, Higan was in her own world, so she did not notice the concerned hints from the mother.
The journey was rather smooth. The carriage departed at dawn and they had covered most of their journey by dusk. Other than the weather being colder than expected, they did not run into trouble at all.
The group would reach the supply station in another two hours.
One could imagine how shabby the supply station was, but it was still better than the carriage because the station provided wooden sheds as shelter from the wind as well as free fireplaces and warm water. The simple supplies were considered the biggest consolation for the poor people in such harsh weather.
However, they were two hours away from the warm fireplaces and they had to somehow find something to eat during dinner to cure their starving stomachs.
Higan did not have the appetite to eat.
Back in Starstay City, during the Mirage Fire season, she could sit at the peak of Sky Castle all day long without eating, but since she was injured, consuming food was necessary for her recovery.
Higan might not have any money and did not have the heart to get herself some nutritious food. Nevertheless, she was once the queen, after all, the queen with terrifying powers. She was not that broke to the point that she did not have anything to eat. She had some jerky and plain biscuits for dinner. Lifting her scarf a little, she started nibbling quietly.
All she showed was her chin and mouth, but it further aroused excitement in those vicious men’s dirty minds. Her mouth and chin were so beautiful that she was flawless.
It was still not the right moment. One of the men with a face full of beard chomped on a piece of frozen meat to ease the impatience in his heart.
The cries from the toddlers further thinned the men’s patience. The wailings were irritating. Not everyone prepared sufficient food for the journey. The kind mother with the two kids and her husband did not have enough food. All they could bring was a piece of bread that had to be split in four.
In such harsh weather, the bread could not even combat the cold, let alone fill their stomachs. The children were much more straightforward as they expressed their distress and hunger through their sobs.
Quietly, Higan handed over her jerky and biscuit.
“Miss, what is this?” The mother looked at Higan in doubt. People rarely shared food with others in this era.
“I got tired of eating,” said Higan and she shoved the food into the mother’s hands. She was not lying though as she really had gotten tired from eating. She was bored from chewing and had to spend more time digesting the icy cold rations.
The mother thought otherwise. She believed the kind young lady was trying to repay her kindness from earlier. Maybe the young lady did receive her friendly reminder. In turn, she thanked Higan who watched her quietly.
The children even hugged her to express their gratitude. For some reason, Higan did not reject the children’s hugs despite hating being close to others. However, after spending some time out in the harsh weather, she could no longer avoid body contact with others, especially in a packed carriage.
She was less resistant to children. Maybe in her blank memories, the tiny figure that she could not forget reminded her to be kind to children.
When the second child tried to hug her, the child’s shabby and thick coat somehow lifted Higan’s scarf and removed it from her face.
“I’m sorry, Miss! Ah, Miss, you are...you are so beautiful!” The child was a 4- to 5-year-old little girl. She did not have a rich vocabulary to describe Higan’s beauty, so she expressed her shock using the simplest words that she could find in her mind when she saw her.
Higan’s beauty quickly silenced the whole carriage while the winter wind blew, fluttering the cover in front of the carriage and messing around with the lighting in the dark environment. Everyone in the carriage was stunned by Higan’s beauty despite the source of light being unstable.
How should they describe her beauty? They could not find any appropriate words in their mind! They lived most of their lives in the harsh environment and were troubled by poverty, thus they were used to seeing an unhealthy worn-out face and could not accept the impact of Higan’s beauty.
Nevertheless, Higan was calm. She covered her face with the scarf again and brought all her food out for the mother who was also stunned by the girl’s beauty, so Higan put the food on her knees instead.
Higan sighed and stood up. Thankfully, the carriage was not too far from the next supply station. It should be straight ahead, so she should not get lost, would she?
She walked forward, intending to leave and save herself the unwanted attention.
“Missy, where do you think you’re going?” The bearded man finally lost his patience. He reached out and tried to grab Higan.
A beauty rivaling the looks of a deity, where else could he meet such otherworldly beauty? Never, it was impossible to find someone as beautiful as Higan!
‘Take her! Take her!’ Such thoughts filled the man’s head and his desires got the best of him. His other hand grabbed his own beard while he shouted at the other men, “F*ck off! This girl is mine!”
At that point, three more boorish and filthy men stood up, wanting to fight the bearded man for Higan.
Regardless, Higan was calm. Her icy cold gaze did not show a tinge of emotion as she uttered “Move.”
The men shifted their attention to Higan who averted their filthy gazes and softly lifted her right hand.
An instant later, the men went mad. They squealed madly and jumped off the carriage. They ripped their clothes apart in the snowy weather and fought each other like the most primitive animals, tearing each other apart with everything they had. They felt hot and cold, and funny and sad, but the fight did not stop.
Higan’s already pale face grew paler. She did not have the burden of killing people. She just wanted to save herself some trouble. However, because of her serious injuries, she ought to conserve her powers, but it seemed like the journey was much tougher than she expected.
Then, she calmly walked across the dumbstruck crowd and jumped off the cart. Under everyone’s silent and confused gazes, she walked to the side of the road and headed to the jungle covered in snow. She did not even spare a glance at the crazy men.
Tang Ling, what are you doing now?
The journey might be tiring and there are all kinds of disgusting things happening, but whenever I realize I’m getting closer and closer to you, everything seems fine. It is still beautiful out here.