My Journey to Immortality Begins with Hunting

The tall girl gave the boots in Li Yuan's hand a quick once-over, wariness flashing in her eyes. "I don't know you well enough to wear your shoes."

"But the pair you're wearing—"

"They're ruined, yes. But your father gave them to me, and he saved my life. I trust him."

"Actually, those shoes used to be mine," Li Yuan ad-libbed with a grin. "So if you can wear my old ones, why not my new ones?"

Snow blinked, caught in his logic, and found herself in a silent staring match with him.

"Fine, give them back after we buy you some embroidered ones," Li Yuan said.

She hesitated. Her snow-white feet padded over the springy grass while he crouched to set the boots in front of her.

The air hung quiet.

Then she strode past him. "I said I'm not wearing your shoes. We only met yesterday!"

Li Yuan could tell she'd almost given in, which made her all the more entertaining. He kept the boots in hand and fell in beside her.

Barefoot, they walked until mud covered their feet. Snow glanced at his filthy toes but held her tongue.

Reaching the market town, the couple drew curious stares—a striking, fair-skinned girl and a plainly dressed boy whose confidence warned people not to test him.

In places like this where law and order were weak, petty gangs swaggered about as though every pretty girl belonged to them.

One such bully tried to hassle Snow, and Li Yuan flattened him without a word.

She stared at the crumpled thug. "That's it? So weak?"

No sooner had she spoken than a whole pack of ruffians charged from an alley. Their leader barely opened his mouth before Li Yuan knocked him flying. Weapons flashed as the rest rushed in, and Snow finally acted.

Her first lazy punch produced a sickening crack. Oblivious to her own strength, she caved in a thug's chest and sent him sailing over a dozen metres, blood spraying as he hit the ground.

"So weak, pathetically weak!" she muttered, stunned.

The remaining hoodlums screamed, "Murder! Bandits in town!"

Panic rippled through the street.

While she was still blinking, Li Yuan yanked her wrist and bolted. As the two rounded a corner, she jerked free.

"I don't get it. Why are we running?"

"Because the bailiffs will show up any minute."

The local authorities still wore the uniforms of the Great Zhou, useful symbols even if every one of them answered to a clan.

"But we're not bandits."

"You know what a bandit is?"

"Of course. Neighboring tribes steal from us, people in our tribe steal too. But we stole nothing."

"You killed someone. Ring any bells?"

"Killed? He came at me with a knife. I nudged him and he died. How's that my fault? Oh... You mean their wholetribewill swarm us, and there are too many to fight. The guys we thumped were weaklings; the strong ones are still coming."

Realisation lit her eyes, the wild gleam of someone raised on the frontier. "Then let them come!"

"..." Li Yuan fell speechless.

The long-legged girl calmed in an instant. "We'll need weapons."

She darted into a bamboo grove, snapped off a stalk and started whittling a point. "No ice here. How am I supposed to make a spear?"

Li Yuan half laughed, half sighed. "Our weapons are iron and steel, like my father's longbow, spear, and axe."

She spread her hands. "And we have none of those. Maybe running really is smarter."

The naive girl had no sense of her own power; a crowd alone made her think flight was wiser.

"Back home, we could call for backup..." she trailed off, realizing there was no one left to call. The old hunter who'd saved her was Baatar but weak.

Lost, she looked to Li Yuan.

"Find my father," he said. "He'll know what to do."

"Alright!" Snow agreed at once.

Li Yuan and Snow were perched on a boulder when he suddenly caught her foot and wiped it with the corner of his coat.

The mud vanished, revealing skin so pale it seemed to hold a shimmer of ice—smooth, flawless, and even free of the usual foot smell. Warm and satin-soft, it felt like sun-warmed jade in his grasp.

Flushing bright red, she jerked free. "We barely know each other. Don't touch me!"

Li Yuan slipped the boot onto her foot anyway. "Go find my father. Shoes will get you there faster."

Still reeling from the contact, the silly girl dashed off in a daze and didn't stop for a few kilometers. Only then did she whirl around and shout, "Woody!"

—No answer.

"Woody!" she called again, stamping her foot. "Great, now I've lost him..."

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

Li Yuan watched her disappear, thoughtful. Ever since meeting her, the living key to the Deathless Tomb, he'd kept a close eye on the girl.

Footsteps pounded from across the road, the bailiffs and the same street hoodlums.

Before the mob could shout something he didn't care to hear, Li Yuan moved like the wind—one punch per man, dropping them cold.

He left the leader of the constables conscious long enough to explain, politely, that interruptions annoyed him and that the thug with the crushed chest had actually succumbed to a suddenheart conditionbrought on by vigorous exercise.

Once certain the fellow understood, he waved them off.

The battered group was limping away when Snow reappeared, hefting a boulder so huge it would take five grown men to lift it.

The bailiffs and thugs screamed and sprinted.

Arms drawn back like a siege engine, she was about to hurl the rock when Li Yuan blocked her. "It's over. They've surrendered."

"You handled it yourself?" she asked.

"They were too weak," he said.

"Where are their strong ones, then?"

"They never showed."

Her eyes lit up. "In that case, why don't we raid their tribe?"

"..." Li Yuan was once again struck speechless.

"If they're really that helpless, let's just take their stuff!" she pressed.

He studied her. Her worldview was straight out of the wild. The strong ate the weak, end of story. Whether she punched or ran was pure instinct; no sign she'd ever trained in martial arts. And she never wondered why he was strong while others weren't. Strength was strength, weakness was weakness. Simple as that.

With that body, that raw power, and her utterly primitive logic, Li Yuan was now certain that Snow hailed from the Ice Folk.

She caught him staring. "What are you looking at?"

"First, let's get you those embroidered shoes," he said.