Cheng Jiao led Chi Ji to walk briskly in the yard. As soon as she turned the corner from the porch, she ran into two apprentices, and as soon as she came out of the side courtyard where the warehouse was located, she collided head-on with two patrolling guards. She pre-designed, as she had pre-designed, as she looked like she had something important to do, and hurried past them without squinting. She expected that no one would dare to stop her for questioning, except for her housekeeper, Mother-in-law Ulanda, and her mother's personal bodyguard, Torona. If she met Granny Ulanda, she also thought of a statement - she would go to the Bodhi tree in front of the hot spring hall to get the shoes that were hidden there yesterday. She did plan to pick up her shoes under the tree when she returned from Myofa Mountain, and that was true. When asked, try to be as honest as possible, the least likely to make mistakes, she understands this. But it would be bad if she ran into Torona, and she would have noticed the suspicion right away—the red horse's hooves were wrapped in cloth, and the dragon had a knife on his body.

Blessed by the gods, she made it to the back door without much trouble.

In the narrow alley behind the house, she did not dare to remove the cloth from the horse's hooves, lest the echo amplified by the walls would alarm the guards in the house. Thankfully, with the exception of an owl that flew up, she and the horses in the alley did not cause any other reaction. After arriving at the bluestone avenue on the shore of the Flame Lake, she let go of her heart and untied the cloth tied to Chiji's four hooves.

At night, the lake of flames is as flat as a mirror, and the moon reflected in the lake water sways and changes, and with the slight undulation of the lake, a circle of shining light ripples outward, forming a bright water surface. The wide lakeside road is empty, and you can't see the tens of thousands of people who walk by here on a busy morning, and you can't hear their noisy bargaining. The devout people of the five islands of Kmiryu rarely go out late at night, believing that after the death of the moon goddess Armis, the night will be left unguarded, and hunters and beasts will descend on the dark night.

Except for the soft, stealthy sound of the waves lapping on the shore, the lakeside road in the night is shrouded in dream-like silence, and Cheng Jiao and her Chiji are running in this still dream. At this time, the heaven and earth seemed to echo with the crisp and rhythmic sound of the horse's hooves stepping on the bluestone slab. The horse is as fearless as its owner who leans over its back. The horses in Hot Spring City usually only travel with their owners during the day, but Chiji, who comes from the Isle of War, obviously enjoys the feeling of running wild in the night wind without people. When they passed through the gate of Miaofa Mountain and reached the climbing stone steps at the foot of the mountain, Cheng Jiao clearly felt that Chi Ji's heart was still unfinished. She rolled over and dismounted, and tied the reins tightly to the stone-carved stakes, and her front hooves trampled impatiently on the road. Cheng Jiao tiptoed around Chiji's neck and whispered to it, "Wait for me here, I'll be back soon." Chiji shook his head and snorted in response.

Cheng Jiao walked briskly up the stone steps, crickets chirping in the grass beside her, and from time to time the sound of "fluttering" came from the trees overhead, which were bats or black-backed yellow-eyed birds that prey at night. The rain that had fallen for two days in a row had cooled the soil in the woods and spewed out a fragrant mist, and the road ahead began to blur. However, before the Chengjiao reached the dense part of the mountain forest, the moon could still shine through the gaps in the canopy.

Cheng Jiao looked up as she climbed, and the moon was close to full tonight, and she could see faint black spots on the huge lunar disk.

According to the Book of Light History, the moon goddess Almis also has a scar on her face. Since she was a child, she has been jealous of her glorious and beautiful sister, and after marrying with death, she is always uneasy about her husband's tall and fit, so she wants to give birth to a perfect child, pinning her hopes on her husband and tying her husband's heart. The goddess's sensitivity and inferiority weakness caused both husband and wife to die in the war between humans and gods, but she used her life to bring a new guardian god to the god land.

Mars, God of War!

Cheng Jiao whispered out the name of the god, not because she was disturbed by walking into the depths of the dark forest, but because she remembered the relevant passages in the "Book of Bright History".

Cheng Jiao left the narrow stone steps that had begun to deteriorate and turned onto a winding dirt road, which was the shortcut to the side gate of Myoboyama Wanji Temple. After a moment of walking through the grass and stones, a lilac light began to come from the dark forest, and Cheng Jiao, who had grown up on this mountain with his grandparents since childhood, knew that it was a glowing insect. They appear in abundance on nights after the early autumn rains, and people love this insect that glows with a lilac glow because it is the same color as the eyes of the legendary gods. But the similarity here only refers to the similarity of colors, because the light of God's eye is a radiant purple, which is not the light that humans can bear, and those who have seen it may die in happiness. And now, the flickering pale purple glimmer beside Cheng Jiao is safe, although it is not enough to light the way forward for her, but it gives her a sense of peace of mind that she has company.

Cheng Jiao's eyesight was excellent, and she could see clearly in the dark forest, but even so, the constantly branching dirt road under her feet began to blur, and she continued to move forward according to her childhood memories.

Push aside the weeds that stand in your way and climb over the falling rocks. The forest at night is completely different from the daytime, the sound of the wind blowing through the treetops is like the moaning and sighing of the trees, and the stones and dirt seem to whisper ill-intentioned.

In the sound of natural fragmentation, Cheng Jiao suddenly stopped.

When I stopped and looked closely, the woods in front of me had not changed, the trees, rocks, and grass were motionless, and the glowing insects flickered irregularly. However, her senses are more acute to the unseen, and she is sure she has noticed something different. Carefully retreating to a large tree, she bent over the grass, controlling her breathing and searching vigilantly. At first she thought it was the sound of leaves falling to the ground or insects jumping, but as she focused, she realized, or rather felt, that the sounds were alien to the sounds of nature. It was extremely slight, and it was far away, but she was sure it was the sound of barefoot carefully stepping on the damp dirt, and there was more than one person!