Chapter 54: Lake Is No Lake Part Three

While walking, Fang Jie drew out his saber and looked determined.

Da Quan sped up and walked in the front while saying, “Let me walk in the front. I’m better at finding people than you. Xiaoyao is carrying warning fireworks. Unless she encountered a master who moved before she could react, she would have warned us.”

Fang Jie nodded, but he grew more and more concerned.

Fangu was in the territory of Great Sui, but it was a small border city that was less than two kilometers in length and width. However, there were hidden masters like the crippled old man and Yun’s owner’s wife.

On the other hand, Great Sui was huge; it was easy to imagine how many hermits and hidden masters there were.

After walking forward for a few hundred meters, Fang Jie’s pupils suddenly contracted.

They had come to the end of this forest that seemed endless from the outside.

Da Quan squatted down, looked at the fallen leaves on the ground, and said lightly, “She did come here. Let’s be careful.”

Fang Jie nodded and took a deep breath before slowly walking out of the forest. His body was slightly tilting forward, and he paid close attention to the outside of the forest. His leg muscles were tightly contracted; he could react quickly if he saw blades of grass behaving strangely.

Perhaps he didn’t even notice that his body became much stronger and his senses became more acute since he left Fangu.

With full concentration, Fang Jie felt like he could even hear the subtle sounds outside the forest.

…

There was no danger outside the forest; there was only a lake.

Also, it wasn’t that the forest came to an end; there was a small lake that had a diameter of about a kilometer in this forest.

The surface of the lake was as calm as the surface of a bronze mirror. Perhaps the trees were too dense, no ripples could be seen on the lake.

It was tranquil in the forest, and the lake was calm. It felt like this place didn’t belong in the mortal world. If it did, then it was definitely a paradise.

Fang Jie instantly saw Mu Xiaoyao when he got to this point.

She was standing by the lake and staring at it. About 20 meters away from Mu Xiaoyao, the three warhorses of Northern Liao were drinking water.

Although animals like these horses weren’t as intelligent as humans, their survival abilities were much stronger. Perhaps they already realized that there was a lake when they entered the forest.

Fang Jie didn’t walk over to Mu Xiaoyao carelessly.

After looking around cautiously and making sure that there was no ambush, Fang Jie quickly dashed toward Mu Xiaoyao followed by Da Quan.

While looking around, Fang Jie got to Mu Xiaoyao’s side and guarded her with Da Quan before asking, “Sister Xiaoyao, how come you came here without telling us? Did you encounter an enemy?”

Mu Xiaoyao slowly shook her head. Although her voice was light, it was filled with fear. “I don’t know… When I was in the forest, I suddenly lost control and walked here. However, the feeling of being constrained and pulled disappeared when I got to the lake. I looked around carefully already; there is no one here.”

Fang Jie was no longer a pure atheist in this world; his rebirth in this world wasn’t something that science could explain.

“Could it be that… there are ghosts?” he almost said this subconsciously.

“It is so quiet here; how can there be such dirty things? Besides, it is during the day. Those things don’t dare to come out at this hour, right?” Da Quan didn’t sound confident since it was too strange.

“Quiet…” Fang Jie repeated this word and suddenly realized something. He said, “This place is strange. Quiet! It is too quiet! The water in the lake isn’t even moving, and there aren’t even any birds. This is impossible… unless…”

Before Fang Jie could finish, a series of clip-clop noises sounded from behind.

Fang Jie quickly looked back and saw hundreds of royal guards in dark-red flying-fish robes charging out of the forest on horses.

Seeing Fang Jie and the other two, these royal guards instantly shouted and spread out, surrounding them in a cone-shaped formation.

With the noises made by the horse hooves breaking the tranquility of this place, the scene drastically changed!

There was no lake! There was only a large stretch of grassland.

Not far away from these three, there was a middle-aged man in grey clothes who sat on the grass cross-legged. He was holding a wooden scoop, and he used it to hold water coming from a small spring on the side. After the scoop was full, he fed the red horse standing beside him. After this horse drank, the second horse walked up to drink, and then the third.

After feeding these three horses, the man in grey patted the red horse that lowered its head and praised, “Good, you know more rules than most humans.”