Chapter 357: The Trail
357 The Trail
Soujin was moving at high speed, which Lou almost couldn't keep up. Inside his heart, he vowed to train harder after this. If he couldn't keep up with Soujin, what was the use of him as a guard?
The road was still the same and with the fog all over the place, Lou couldn't see anything in front of him clearly. Even with Soujin in front of him, he barely saw the other person's silhouette. They traveled for hours without speaking until Lou could hear the sound of water nearby.
The river! The old lady, Jun Miao, said that they needed to find the river and followed it to reach their destination. Since they have reached the river, it meant they have gone halfway through. This was truly a piece of good news for them.
Soujin stopped near the river. He looked towards the wide and deep river with frown. Jun Miao said that the Jun Tribe came from beyond the river, but this area was incredibly wide and violent. There should be a different way from what she told them.
Soujin looked towards the sky with a grim expression. This was already night and they might move at a faster speed since they were more familiar with the road. He looked around but chose to not to think too much as he started running again.
After a while, Soujin stopped for a moment. He turned to the side and saw a small road mark, pointing to the side telling that there was a village nearby.
"Let's go there first," Soujin decided. If he was too anxious, he wouldn't be able to reach the place in time and retrieved Jun Hua back. Besides, he was not sure about the dangers inside this foggy forest.
The village here was not much different from the one they encountered previously. The only difference would be the gate, this one was not guarded that heavily and they could enter easily. The number of people was smaller, and they seemed indifferent to the arrival of Soujin and Lou.
Entering an inn, they were nearly knocked by a man who was being thrown outside. Soujin moved to the side and Lou hurriedly evaded the person. In front of them, a burly man looked towards the man he had just thrown with a cold expression.
"You're not accepted here, don't come back again."
The man stuck out his tongue as he brushed the dust off from his clothes. The burly man scoffed and return inside while the young man stared at the two people in front of him.
"What are you looking at? Have you never seen a man being thrown out?"
Lou wanted to give a lesson to this man, but Soujin raised his hand to stop him. He looked at the young man up and down before asking, "Are you also from the Jun Family?"
The young man's eyebrows arched, "I was, but I get thrown out from the family."
"Why?"
"I was accused of killing my stepsister," the young man shrugged.
Lou didn't understand why Soujin wasted his time talking to this annoying young man. However, when he looked at the other party's countenance, his jaw almost dropped. Because of the fog, he didn't see it clearly, but this young man face was clearly similar to Jun Qing, Jun Hua's uncle.
Soujin pointed to a different inn, "Care to tell us more?"
The young man was about to lash out when Soujin flicked a gold coin to him. Seeing the coin in his hand, the young man stopped momentarily.
"This is not enough."
"I will give you more after you tell us the story."
The young man shrugged and headed towards the different inn. The owner of the inn was about to throw him out if not for Soujin giving him money to let this man stayed.
"So, what happened?"
"My stepsister name is Jun Hua, she has the special power of the Jun Family. Her position in the family is high, and no one can get close to her," the young man started, "Not even me, her younger brother."
Lou has the feeling that everyone he met today has the surname of Jun or they would be talking about Jun Hua. This name would surely plague him to his dream tonight…
"We went to war with the Pan Kingdom, but their general is quite strong. And then, my stepsister said that if the war continued, our loss would be too big and we need to stop. So, we negotiate and in the process, my stepsister falls in love with the leader.
She blurts out the secret of the Jun Family, and the man killed her. In the process, I'm the one who's accused to kill her," the young man answered. He told the story as if it was someone else story, not him.
"Why he killed her?" Soujin asked.
"Not really clear, but if you kill someone with the name of Jun Hua, you can get the power to see the future. At least, that is what was written in our family ancient tablet," the young man stopped talking because he noticed the atmosphere seemed to change drastically.
Soujin genuinely wanted to kill Ye Jiu even more. If previously he only wanted to take Jun Hua back and gave Ye Jiu a lifelong lesson, now he wanted to kill Ye Jiu using the cruelest method he knew.
Lou held his breath with murderous eyes. With the suppression from Soujin on the side, his killing intent was not clear, but he was certainly not feeling calm at all. He knew that he wouldn't be able to forgive Ye Jiu for taking his Master wife.
Soujin took a few seconds to calm himself down a little in order to continue speaking with the man before him.
"Is it really possible?"
"I don't know that well," the young man answered, "After all, the women in Jun Family are mostly outsider. Somehow, they rarely have a female descendant and every time they had, they would name her Jun Hua."
Soujin put a pouch of gold in front of him. He stood up as his gaze was still full of hatred. If that Ye Jiu dared to hurt even a strand of hair of Jun Hua, he will not hesitate to bury the other party alive.
The young man looked towards the pouch, "Do you want to go to the ancient altar?"
Soujin stopped in his step.
"I can take you there if you want," the young man added as he looked towards the pouch. However, Lou could see that the young man didn't really care about the money that much. He seemed to be staring to something behind the pouch. His gaze was filled with rage and hatred that the young man was concealing deeply.
"I only have to follow the river, right?" Soujin asked.
"No, there is a key to get inside, which is not something ordinary people know," the young man said.
"Why do you want to help us?"
"Who knew?" the young man shrugged.
Soujin nodded his head, "Then guide us. Can you keep up with high speed?"
"You can carry me if it's needed," the young man was a martial artist, but he was not that powerful.
"Lou."
"Yes Young Master."