Chapter Forty: The Vulture King

Things having come to this, the two of them could only take the child and head toward Torin Town. The child was still very young, after all, and unable to withstand the bitter cold of the Tibetan night.

They had barely emerged from the valley when two thunderous booms sounded behind them. The earth trembled twice in succession, as though an earthquake of magnitude five or greater had struck.

They wheeled around and gazed into the valley. The darkness obscured everything, but the smell of gunpowder and dust drifted through the air.

“It must be the Mirror Labyrinth,” Ding Jun said. “With so many venomous creatures in there, I hope the explosion destroyed every last one. Otherwise, Torin Town will be in danger.”

That was the truth. The Tibetans had no experience dealing with poisonous creatures. If they had survived and emerged in force, Torin Town would immediately face the calamity of a massacre.

The Snow Maiden hugged the child tightly and suddenly shuddered, scanning their surroundings.

“What is it?” Ding Jun asked.

“I feel as though we are being watched by some enormous beast,” she replied in a low voice.

At that instant, Ding Jun sensed it too. They were standing at the northwestern edge of Torin Town. The town lay to the southeast, while at the foot of the mountain on their right stood a low, dark pine forest covering nearly a thousand square meters. It was probably a windbreak and sandbreak planted by the Tibetans.

“The enemy is in the pine forest, watching us and waiting for his chance. His aura is immensely powerful—strong enough to cover almost the entire valley. He has the ferocity of a lion, the cunning of a fox, and the mobility of a vulture... I can sense that he isn’t standing in one place. He keeps changing position—”

Ding Jun drew a deep breath and clenched both fists.

When he had carried the Divine Healer Shi out of the labyrinth, he had discarded the cumbersome long spear. If he had still had a weapon, he might at least have been able to fight. Of course, his opponent’s constant minute movements were precisely the evasive technique used to guard against a sniper’s long-range shot. Ding Jun therefore felt no regret over abandoning the spear. A sniper rifle had less than a thirty-percent chance of hitting a moving target, especially one as unfathomable as this.

“I’m going back to take a look,” Ding Jun said, having made up his mind.

The Snow Maiden frowned. “It’s too dangerous.”

Ding Jun gave a bitter smile. “Some problems have to be dealt with. If not here in Torin Town, then somewhere else. Unless we understand this enormous threat, none of us will ever have peaceful days again.”

In the face of a powerful enemy, constant retreat was no solution. One had to seize the initiative during the drawn-out struggle and strike back when the enemy least expected it.

The two continued toward town, then turned left outside the first courtyard and temporarily concealed themselves in a blind spot beyond the enemy’s view.

“Snow Maiden, we were enemies before, locked in mortal opposition. Now that Shi Miaoshou is dead, can you spare Si Qin and the baby?” Ding Jun asked.

The Snow Maiden shook her head firmly. “No. I have no authority to decide that. I can only carry out orders.”

Ding Jun asked again, “If the High Priest withdraws the order, would you let them go?”

The Snow Maiden sighed deeply. “Of course. But I believe that once the Death Warrant has been issued, it will never be withdrawn or altered—not even if the wrong person is killed. The High Priest’s power is beyond measure. You need not waste your effort.”

Ding Jun thought of Old Jin of the Ten Eagles. From his words, the man had revered the High Priest utterly and submitted to him from the bottom of his heart. To make the heroes who ruled Western Asia bow their heads, the High Priest could hardly be an ordinary man.

“No matter how difficult something is, I must at least try—just as I am doing now.” Ding Jun smiled faintly.

“Not everything can be resolved. I admire your courage, but courage is not a universal key capable of opening every lock,” the Snow Maiden said.

The courtyard wall blocked the northwest wind, and its howling diminished somewhat, but the danger had not lessened.

“That’s true. Courage without strategy cannot solve a problem. But if a man has no courage at all, can he still be called a man?” Ding Jun murmured.

“Then all I can say is that we remain enemies.” The Snow Maiden instinctively retreated a step. Her eyes flickered, their warmth turning cold.

One of them intended to kill Si Qin and the baby; the other intended to protect the mother and child. It was indeed a conflict with no solution.

“Anyone who wants to kill them will have to step over my dead body.” There was still a trace of laughter in Ding Jun’s eyes, but his lips were pressed into a hard line, the muscles along his cheeks taut. His expression was as solemn and still as a dark, unyielding rock.

“The mission comes before everything else. If you want to stop me, you will have to turn me into another Snow Red Chamber,” the Snow Maiden said coldly.

“Excellent. I’ll deal with the first conflict now. If I return alive, we can settle the matter between us afterward,” Ding Jun said.

“Good luck,” said the Snow Maiden.

Ding Jun moved stealthily to the right, taking a wide detour before slipping into the low ground at the southeastern corner of the pine forest. Crouching low, he hurried forward and soon reached the heart of the woods.

The forest was utterly still. Dry pine branches kept breaking loose in the wind and striking his back.

He could see no one. He could only smell the murderous intent hanging in the air.

At the center of the black pine forest lay a small clearing, roughly fifteen meters square. A thin layer of snow covered the ground.

There was no one there, but words had been written in the snow:

“None but I shall possess the Heavenly Kingdom’s treasure; who else but I shall wield the power of Ancient Guge? Those who covet it shall die; those who touch it shall perish. Above the snow mountains, I alone shall reign supreme.”

The inscription was signed with the image of a vulture gliding through the sky, its wings spread wide.

Both the words and the drawing faced Ding Jun. Clearly, his opponent had already discovered him and deliberately left the message for him to see.

“Senior, would you come out and allow this junior to pay his respects?” Ding Jun called toward the far side of the clearing.

Only boundless killing intent answered him in the darkness. It seemed that the person who had left the message had deliberately set a trap and was waiting for Ding Jun to walk into it. It was a moonless night made for murder, a windblown night made for arson. In this remote frontier, the restraints of the law had grown faint, and the world had returned entirely to the primitive order of survival of the fittest.

Ding Jun clenched his fists and waited in silence. He had faced the threat of death countless times on the battlefield in Afghanistan, but never before had he encountered an enemy as immovable and impossible to exploit as this one.

Suddenly, the snow was swept up by the violent wind. It rose in swirling clouds and unexpectedly took the shape of a vulture with outstretched wings, circling above the clearing.

Ding Jun abruptly remembered a great figure of the Himalayas. No one knew his true name; everyone called him the Vulture King.

“Are you Senior Vulture King?” Ding Jun asked, bowing respectfully.

No one answered. The snow vulture flew faster and higher, rising more than ten meters above the pine forest before suddenly exploding into snowflakes that scattered through the air and settled upon Ding Jun’s shoulders.

At the same time, the murderous aura filling the forest vanished without a trace.

Ding Jun stood there for a while, making certain that his opponent had truly departed, before turning back with a bitter smile. The man had neither appeared nor spoken, merely leaving behind a warning in writing. It gave Ding Jun an enormous headache.

After rejoining the Snow Maiden, Ding Jun briefly recounted what had happened in the pine forest.

“No one can take away the power of Ancient Guge,” the Snow Maiden said indifferently. “The High Priest once said that the Vulture King has always coveted it. He has invaded repeatedly and ambushed the outer sentries of Guge, yet he has never obtained its innermost secret.”