When the Wind Stops: This Escort Mission to Beiluo and Nanzhi Feels Off

I’d just arrived in the beginner village when I accepted a job no one else would touch: escorting a bride.

Five hundred taels of gold. Enough to last me a lifetime.

I thought it was money falling from the sky.

Then on the second day, a serpent mother thicker than my waist burst out of the swamp, coming for her.

On the third day, the Ironback Demon blocked our way in the barren hills and smashed Iron Bull’s shield with one punch. It was after her too.

On the fourth night, a Shadow Nightmare that devoured dreams wormed into everyone’s minds and demanded her by name.

I hacked my way forward until my sword was ruined and I was nearly dead.

But she always stood calmly behind me, quiet and composed, occasionally glancing at me with bright eyes.

I thought this job was worth it.

Until she knocked on my door in the middle of the night and said, “Young Master Yin is going to kill me tonight.”

I froze.

Isn’t Young Master Yin your fiancé?

She lowered her head. A deep red streak of blood had appeared on her wrist.

“Don’t ask,” she said. “Take me to Beiluonan, and you’ll understand.”

I tightened my grip on my sword and nodded.

But I didn’t know that what awaited me in Beiluonan wasn’t five hundred taels of gold…

It was a truth I had never imagined.

(There’s no romance, and it has a bad ending. Read with caution if you’re sensitive to angst.)