"..."
Chen Fan returned Dayu's gaze, furrowed his brow, and signaled for Crippled Monkey and the others, who were ascending the wall, to wait for now. Only then did he take a good look at Dayu, sizing him up from head to toe. "You're a girl?"
"Yeah."
Dayu gave a slight nod.
...
Rainy night.
Chen Fan stood on the city wall, knitting his brows as he looked at Dayu. He had lived with these people for many days now, but it wasn't like he was going to pull down everyone's pants to check if they had that thing down there.
How was he supposed to know there was a girl in the camp?
And she seemed... not quite right.
"Night Watcher."
This was the first special cultivator he had encountered.
He tilted his head to look at the gray fog outside the camp, which looked still for the time being. Shifting his gaze back to Dayu, he could indeed see some traces of a girl—like her shorter stature, slender limbs, and more feminine facial features.
But...
Flat-chested like a little girl.
She was nothing like a beauty, more like a naive village girl from next door.
"I'm quite curious about what abilities a Night Watcher has. Can you talk about it?"
"I can."
For some reason,
Dayu seemed to trust him a great deal. She took a deep breath, suppressing the fear that had welled up in her eyes once more. Then, her faint voice mingled with the sound of rain as it rose over the wall.
"My father wasn't a fisherman before."
"He was probably in the same line of work as you."
"What do you mean, 'the same line of work as me'..."
Chen Fan frowned again. For some reason, he felt particularly unsettled tonight—as if he had been on the verge of learning something, yet still a step short of it. It was like dropping a key into a crack and trying to pinch it out with your fingers, always falling just short.
That incredibly irritating feeling.
"His associates were all important guys. There were many structures like Arrow Forts, lots of people, and it was very lively over there."
"Your father was an Architect?"
"No, he was just a leader in that camp. The lord valued him greatly. My memories are a bit hazy; that was from when I was ninety-nine."
"..."
Chen Fan expressionlessly reached for his pocket.
He needed a cigarette right then.
Desperately.
Only swirling smoke could suppress the damn feeling in his heart.
"So how old are you this year?"
"18."
"So you grow younger with age?"
"Yeah."
Dayu lowered her head, her expression hidden from view, and her voice grew softer. If Chen Fan hadn't been listening intently and if they hadn't been close enough, he wouldn't have been able to hear what Dayu was saying.
"Night Watchers are born, not made."
"I was born a Night Watcher. When I was born, I was 100 years old, appearing as a decaying old woman, crawling out from my mother's womb."
"My mother died from the difficult birth because of that. And to protect me from others' gossip, my father took me away from our hometown and joined a camp, telling everyone outside that I was his senile, confused old mother."
"The lord of that camp valued my father greatly. My father thought he had earned the lord's appreciation and worked hard. Only later did he realize that the lord actually valued me."
"The lord knew I was a Night Watcher."
"During a crisis that threatened to wipe out the camp, when an Eerie Tide surged toward it like a flood, when wall after wall was breached and Archery Tower after Archery Tower was destroyed, and the camp was on the verge of annihilation, the lord activated me."
"Before that,"
"Neither my father nor I knew about my identity or abilities."
"After being activated,"
"I destroyed the Eerie Tide as well as that camp."
"..."
Chen Fan looked at Dayu with an odd expression, trying to figure out if she was talking nonsense. "How did that camp compare to mine?"
"Much larger."
"Be specific."
Dayu glanced around and pointed at a Level 4 Arrow Fort on the city wall. "That camp had over twenty stone Arrow Forts like this one."
"How intense was the Eerie Tide?"
"..."
After thinking carefully, Dayu spoke again. "Just those as strong as that naked female Eerie Creature from the other day—there were probably over a dozen of them."
"You wiped them all out by yourself?"
"Yeah."
"What level cultivator were you back then?"
"I didn't know I was a cultivator back then, and I didn't know I was a Night Watcher either."
"So, Level 1."
"I guess so."
"Level 1 can do that? Pure game cheater, huh?"
"What does 'game cheater' mean?"
"It means admiration. Tell me, how did he activate you? Is there some switch on your body?" Chen Fan looked Dayu up and down, trying to find something like a button or a switch on her.
"No."
Dayu shook her head, carefully choosing her words. "A Night Watcher's activation stems from their own will to protect. When I'm in despair and want to protect something, I erupt with immense power."
"And put an end to the immediate crisis."
"It consumes my lifespan, and... sweeps everything up indiscriminately."
"I saw my father was about to die at the hands of an Eerie Creature on the city wall. In a panic and despair, everything went black. I don't know what happened. When I regained consciousness, it was dawn."
"The camp had been flattened."
"Corpses were everywhere."
"Only my father was left, sitting beside me, saying he'd take me home."
"After regaining consciousness, my body was no longer that of an old woman. I had become a young woman. I also learned about the Night Watcher. I knew clearly that I was 27 years old at that time."
"So later, you returned to that seaside village in the northern wastelands." Chen Fan, roughly guessing what came next, continued his questions.
"Yes."
Dayu lowered her head again. "I didn't know why I didn't kill my father during that first activation. At the time, I secretly rejoiced for a long time, grateful that I hadn't killed my father."
"Then I lived in the village for several years."
"Those years were very happy and peaceful."
"Though I worried during the rainy season, we always got through it safely."
"Until one rainy season, Eerie Creatures fell into the village from the surrounding cliffs. Countless villagers died, and my father was also in mortal danger. I was activated again."
"When dawn came, and I regained consciousness, everyone was dead."
"Father was dead too."
"When I woke up, I was 19 years old."
"After that, I drifted from place to place, met Brother Wang, and joined the Rivernorth Chen Clan Station 36."
"I wanted to protect the people around me."
"But I ended up killing them with my own hands."
"It was also after the second activation that some information surfaced in my mind again, like part of my memories. If I didn't want to be forced into activation, I had to carry ten Eerie Stones to suppress myself."
"That night, I wasn't deliberately hiding the Eerie Stones."
"Rather..."
"If I handed over the Eerie Stones..."
Dayu didn't finish the rest.
But the implication was clear.
The camp he had painstakingly built would be instantly flattened after Dayu's third activation.