Embers Ad Infinitum

The next morning, Shang Jianyao shared the dream with the other Old Task Force members.

“Xiaochong lives there?” Jiang Baimian was rather surprised.

That street came under the Red Wolf Zone. It was near the Golden Apple Zone and was very far from the Green Olive Zone.

This didn’t match Jiang Baimian’s previous speculations. Of course, the premise of her guess was that the Heartless disease outbreak in the Green Olive Zone was related to Xiaochong. However, this was only a hypothesis.

“Maybe he just moved there recently.” Bai Chen gave another possibility.

Jiang Baimian nodded slightly. “We’ll talk about it when the time comes.”

She then smiled and said, “We’ve completed one of the three missions to the North Shore Mountains. We can already see hope for one of the remaining two.”

She meant that the mission of finding the Nightmare Horse and figuring out Xiaochong’s whereabouts was considered completed. For the mission of capturing the white wolf to pay off their debt, although they had failed to capture the white wolf, Wasteland Ruin 13—a ‘rich mine’—allowed them to accumulate a lot of valuable supplies and books quickly. Their debt could be resolved via a second exploration. At most, they could use a portion of their company-approved funds to pay off the debt. Since they could pay off their debt, it didn’t matter if they captured the white wolf or not.

In any case, such Hunter missions with no restrictions on the number of people taking on the mission wouldn’t affect their credit even if they failed.

The only mission that didn’t have any hope was to find Ferrington, the Ruin Hunter who knew about the Mirror Church. This could be combined into the third exploration of Wasteland Ruin 13 because Ferrington might’ve accidentally entered the city ruin.

In short, if everything went smoothly and they explored that place again, the Old Task Force would be able to return to First City and participate in the subsequent gladiator matches.

At night, Pangu Biology replied with a telegram: “The current plan is very safe. You just have to pay attention to one thing: Don’t go within a kilometer of that radio station…”

“One kilometer?” Jiang Baimian couldn’t help but grumble. “Seriously, it’s like pulling teeth from the company to get things out of it. We only managed to squeeze a bit of new information from each exploration.”

At this moment, Genava found a contradiction. “If it’s just staying one kilometer away from the Dao and Electrical Appliance Repairs radio station, First City’s army wouldn’t just guard the outside and not explore Wasteland Ruin 13.”

“Maybe they just didn’t explore the area we went to.” Bai Chen helped come up with a reason.

At this moment, Jiang Baimian exhaled and said, “I haven’t finished translating.”

“…” Bai Chen felt a rare moment of embarrassment.

This almost made Long Yuehong laugh. Fortunately, he held back, and Shang Jianyao didn’t applaud.

Jiang Baimian continued translating. “Don’t exceed the area designated by the exploration plan.”

After reading it, she smiled. “So…”

The answer was obvious: There were other dangers elsewhere in Wasteland Ruin 13.

…

The next day, eight humans from the two teams arrived at the metal door that swung open.

Looking at the overgrown park beyond the door, Jiang Baimian deliberated for a moment and said, “Everyone should know of the things to take note of. I’ll only emphasize one thing: No matter what the harvest is or if there are still target areas that haven’t been explored, we have to return once we spend more than 90 minutes in the ruins. I believe everyone doesn’t want to commit suicide in all kinds of ways like the Ruin Hunters brought here by the white wolf, right?”

The 90-minute time limit was set because they had stayed for a total of 90 minutes during the last exploration without suffering any influence. Therefore, they could extend the time limit slightly for their return.

“Alright.” Waite immediately replied as if Jiang Baimian was the leader of their Hunter team and not Wang Fugui.

Gray, Fars, and Wang Fugui looked at each other and expressed that they shared the same thoughts.

The Old Task Force had naturally talked about this long ago, so they had no objections.

The two teams walked out the metal door and entered the park. They changed directions for this expedition.

Jiang Baimian and the others didn’t ignore their surroundings as they searched for any traces of human activity. Those would likely belong to their target Hunter, Ferrington.

As the armed group walked, Jiang Baimian—who had the best eyesight—stopped. She pointed the muzzle to the side. “Someone has walked past there.”

Shang Jianyao and the others followed her gaze and saw the flattened weeds.

This continued forward, forming a ‘path.’ But due to the hot summer and the recent lack of rain, the soil was relatively dry. There were no obvious footprints on the ‘path.’

“I don’t know when it was left behind… but it can’t be too long.” Bai Chen made a judgment based on her experience.

Jiang Baimian nodded and looked at Wang Fugui and the others. “Shall we follow it and take a look? In any case, it’s headed for a destination relatively close to our target area.”

At the same time, she prayed inwardly. I hope it’s Ferrington.

Wang Fugui and the others had no objections and were willing to respect the Old Task Force’s choice.

The two teams slightly changed directions and walked out of the park and onto the street along the flattened weeds.

The leaves here had rotten in a pile. Some places were covered, preventing them from being exposed to the sun. Therefore, the roads on both sides weren’t that dry—they even looked soft and mushy.

This allowed Jiang Baimian and the others to find some footprints.

After comparing the footprints, Jiang Baimian did a simple calculation and gave a preliminary judgment. “The shoe soles have ordinary patterns… He’s about 1.7 meters tall… He’s relatively lightweight… These footprints should’ve been left here today…”

She was a little disappointed about this because it was unlikely to be Ferrington.

“It was only left behind today…” Wang Fugui frowned and said, “Does anyone else know that the cave leads here? I’ve warned Roen and Harrison not to leak the information. Normally speaking, they wouldn’t dare to sell this information before we leave.”

Roen was the Old Task Force’s guide from before, and Harrison was from the lone Hunter team.

“Let’s go take a look,” Shang Jianyao suggested enthusiastically.

Just as he said that, Long Yuehong pointed somewhere not too far away. “There’s smoke there.”

The others looked over one after another and saw bluish-gray smoke curling up from a spot in front of them that was blocked by a few buildings. It wasn’t dense and was rather sparse.

“About a kilometer from here.” Jiang Baimian gave a rough estimate.

“Could it be a spontaneous combustion caused by the hot weather and dry air?” Lone Hunter Gray guessed.

The weather had been rather hot the past two days, and it comforted him greatly. Although he was still wrapped in a leather coat, he no longer trembled.

“It might also be from the person who came in today.” Bai Chen looked at the footprints by the roadside.

“Let’s go take a look.” Shang Jianyao encouraged everyone again.

Nobody objected. To them, going there to take a look didn’t affect their search for supplies since there were plenty of things along the way.

As they searched, they turned into another street and circled around the buildings. Their eyes suddenly lit up.

In front of them was a small square with a pool. In the middle of the square stood a slender obelisk with a cross atop it—this was a relatively common Old World item in the Red River Zone.

Beside the obelisk, a large cluster of thick incense sticks was erected on the pool’s railing. The bluish-gray smoke was created by them.

Facing the incense was a woman in a grayish-blue Daoist robe. She had blonde hair and green eyes.

She was beautiful.

“Daoist Galoran!” Shang Jianyao shouted, having the excitement of meeting an old friend in a foreign land.

The woman was none other than Eternal Time Church’s Daoist Galoran, who the Old Task Force had encountered in the Blackmarsh Wilderness.

She was of Red River ethnicity and was born a noble in First City.

Galoran didn’t immediately respond and slowly bowed in a certain direction. She then calmly turned around and looked at Shang Jianyao and the others.

A faint smile appeared on her face as she hugged her right hand with her left hand and raised it to her eyebrows. As she bent down, she said, “The Celestial Worthy of Immeasurable for Blessings. We meet again. This is fate’s arrangement, and this is where the Dao lies.”

When chanting the title, she spoke Ashlandic. But because of the Red River people, she later switched to the Red River language.

Upon seeing that Wang Fugui and the others were a little stunned, Jiang Baimian took a few steps forward and smiled. “Daoist, why are you here?”

Galoran turned to the side and looked at a certain area. She didn’t feel that there was anything to hide. “My master’s master—the former Celestial Master—helped First City seal a powerful monster here. For this, he sacrificed himself. Every time I pass by, I’ll come in to pay my respects to him.”

Uh… Despite Galoran speaking clearly, Long Yuehong found it ridiculous—wrecked by the sudden change in development.

This was just like how Nanke Convent’s Abbot Zhou Yue had previously used talisman water and the Eight Trigrams Mirror to deal with the Superior Heartless. What happened subsequently was essentially targeting the price paid by the Awakened.

Jiang Baimian raised her eyebrows and thoughtfully asked, “Wu Meng?”