3 Ch. 3: Poachers

At dawn precisely, Meifeng's eyes fluttered open and she rose from the base of the tree she had curled up in with a single motion. The young system user moved with a gracefulness that even the most talented dancer would envy, the snow beneath her feet not shifting with her movement.

Weak streams of sunlight illuminated the once dark woods and bird's song echoed overhead, creating a pleasant scenery. Meifeng was quite fond of this forest, enjoying the solitude and shelter the towering trees had afforded her for the past few days.

Gently nudging the fallen snow resting on the pine needles within her arms' reach, Meifeng warmed the frozen ice in her hands, rubbing the watery residue on her face and neck to refresh herself in the morning.

"Can you tell me where I am?" Meifeng asked curiously, wanting to fully understand the limits she was placed under.

"I cannot," System said sadly, as its' hands were tied. Even it didn't have all the information about this world.

"Hmmm," Meifeng rubbed her chin and looked at System with an expression that was neither happy nor sad. "Then tell me about how systems usually work."

System instantly brightened, eager to tell Meifeng the information she wanted. For this is how people work; if you give them an impossible task, they will gratefully complete anything else as an alternative.

"As system users, you are placed in a new world and given prior information about it and your target. There are stats for health points, levels, tools that help you perform well. With the use of points from succeeding throughout your mission, you can buy more perks. Side missions are also available as an extra boost of points to help you with your main mission."

Meifeng chuckled internally, although she kept her face calm. Hearing the benefits that come with a regular world made her realize how whoever had brought her here truly intended to leave her without any aid or benefits. She would thank them well someday.

"Can you give warnings about incoming danger?" she asked, moving to her next question.

"Erm, nope. I cannot," System replied regretfully.

"Can you at least sense incoming danger?"

"Yes!" System said proudly. As a professional sidekick, System considered itself very good at aiding system users complete their mission.

Meifeng's full lips tugged into a half-grin, one that System was beginning to recognize meant trouble. If was even more frightening with the dry, flaking blood around her mouth.

"Then how," she asked dangerously in her silky soft voice, "haven't you noticed that we have been followed for the past 2 days?"

Meifeng crossed her arms over her bare chest as she glared at the flickering blue screen. Her new pet, System was rather unruly and cowardly. It couldn't do much besides talk her little ears off and act like a frightened cat every time she ate. Her patience for this kind of pet was rather thin.

System, who had an inflated sense of self, did not know that its' master thought of it as more of a pet rather than a loyal companion. But even if it knew, just from a few days with its' Master, it knew there was nothing it could do about its' title.

"Master, I am incompetent!" System cried as it checked its data for approaching dangers. It could not officially warn its' Master of incoming danger, but using a code or hint was not an impossible alternative.

Sure enough, just as Meifeng had said, there were approaching men from a nearby village. Meifeng had moved at a neck-breaking pace for the past few days, only resting from midnight to dawn. The woods had changed with their journey as well, slowly revealing more signs of human life. An abandoned campfire that still contained smoldering embers. More traps.

Meifeng had already expected to be met with an encounter. However, no matter how quickly she moved through the forest as if she were truly born there, Meifeng was on foot and a teenage girl of small stature barely over 15. It was no matter how capable she was at surviving and venturing through the woods, she could not outrun grown men with a horse.

The woods that had been a sanctuary suddenly became a trap. Every creak of a branch and slight movement between the trees felt threatening. The oppressive stillness that had accompanied seemed to hide something threatening that was ready to pounce. With dense forestry on either side, if it wasn't for System's inbuilt compass, it would've sworn that Meifeng had been going in the wrong direction all along.

System suffered another shock as Meifeng stopped walking, her natural, gazelle-like gait coming to a halt.

"M-Master? This is the time to run!" it yelled. Since Meifeng was already aware of the incoming danger, System wasn't infringing any rules by warning her to run. Perhaps if she shifted her course and hid, she could evade the incoming men.

Just the thought of burly men approaching the very naked Meifeng made System's little heart quake. Even if it was frightened half to death by its' Master, it didn't wish ill on her.

"No point. They are already too close," Meifeng replied, closing her eyes and tilting her head back to bask in the weak afternoon sunlight. Looking at the lovely countenance of a young woman basking in the winter sun, one would not know she was in danger of losing her virtue. However, Meifeng was not worried.

Something told her that this kind of situation was not a threat to her at all.

And it was this scene two men riding an ox cart tugged by a sturdy horse happened upon a few minutes later. A beautiful girl standing within the sole sliver of sunlight that managed to burrow its way through the overhanging branches. The sight was something that would move even the most celibate of men, let alone these poachers who had thought they were tracking a large game rather than a deity-like woman.

"Xiao Peng, Xiao Peng, tell me am I seeing things?" one of the men asked incredulously. He dramatically rubbed his eyes with his rough hands, his eyes not believing the view before him. On either side, his weary companions who had followed him out for the past few days to hunt game in the woods were suspended in similar disbelief, unsure if they were seeing things due to sleep deprivation.

Xiao Peng, a comically large fellow with a thick nose and extremely hooded eyes, traced his lascivious eyes across the girl's visible backside and licked his lips disgustingly. He was 28 years old and still unmarried as his size and temperament had frightened away all the eligible women in his village. Even the old maids over 20 would rather remain unwedded than allow their parents to form a match with him, to the point that Xiao Peng had concluded he would have to steal a bride for himself. And it seemed Heaven had heard his prayers by delivering such a stunning maiden before his eyes.

"I saw her first," he argued gruffly, even though as he was seated at the back of the cart with his legs dangling over the open back, he was the last to see the woman. But the feelings surging in his heart could not be ignored.

"Little lady, are you lost?" he called as if concerned as he dragged his eyes generously across her pale skin. He was delighted beyond measure, for he knew that women who were seen unclothed by a man had to wed him to preserve their chastity.

"Hey Xiao Peng, I saw her first!" one of the men who had followed cried in an aggrieved manner.

Xiao Peng snorted. "Don't tell me you plan to take her in as your concubine when you still have the old hag in your house?"

"My wife is not an old hag!" the man argued, annoyed with his large friend. He was a little brighter than Xiao Peng and realized that for any woman with an ounce of good lucks, death was probably a preferable option rather than marrying his friend. However, Xiao Peng's fist did not discriminate between friend or foe and he was not keen on telling his wife exactly why he was returning home with a black eye.

But the man's misgivings multiplied as the woman finally turned around, revealing a peerless beauty of the likes he had never seen before. Her face was in a perfect oval shape that tapered off to a small chin. Her eyes were watery and large, staring at them as curiously as they stared at her. And her lips were cherry red, as if she had eaten some red fruit and forgotten to wipe off her full lips, bringing out the pinky blush of her cheeks. An old fable from his youth brushed at the edge of his conscious, but the man could not remember it for the life of him.

Xiao Peng was similarly enthralled without any of the trepidation of his friend. He felt as if he had been blind all his life and now suddenly he could see.

"Beautiful woman!" Xiao Peng cried, his voice cracking slightly in his excitement. "Are you alone?"

Meifeng looked at the two men before her, peeking up at them through her long lashes with cold eyes. "I am," she responded quietly, so quiet the two men struggled to hear her. But her lovely voice only served to hook Xiao Peng further as he disembarked from the cart and approached her with large steps.

"Master!" System squeaked in fear. But its' Master was either mad or far more clever than it had ever given her credit for, as Meifeng stood her ground upon Xiao Peng's greedy onslaught.

The bear of a man was swathed in coarse clothing made of different animal furs, her fur covered boots coming to a stop before Meifeng. The height difference between them comical as she scarcely reached the middle of his chest.

"Would you care to join us?" he asked. But it wasn't really a question. His massive feet were planted on either side of Meifeng, ensuring that if she ran she would still be within his grasp. His grazing, greedy eyes ate up the view of a naked Meifeng unabashedly, to the point that any other self-respecting girl would knock her head on one of the many trees to preserve her chastity.

Meifeng smiled her agreement widely, dazzling Xiao Peng to the point that he hadn't noticed she had moved until she was halfway to the cart, nimbly jumping over a gnarled tree root that Xiao Peng promptly tripped over. He shambled over to the beautiful girl with a slight limp from the painful bump on his toe in order to block her path from running, but XIao Peng was overeager.

Meifeng had long paused in front of the ox cart and waited for him, as she was too short to climb on without a boost of some sort. Xiao Peng chuckled foolishly to himself, getting down on a knee and boosting her up before they carried on with their journey. And thus, Meifeng found herself in the company of two strange men in the middle of the woods.

The low hanging branches scraping across his back did little to distract the other man from the fact a naked woman was sitting with him on the ox cart that had only ever carried himself, Xiao Peng, and the wild game they hunted. There was a sudden bump, as the ox cart rode over rock hidden just beneath the surface of the snow. The man did not want to peek too often, for his wife, who was indeed older than him and much fiercer, had senses like a dog and might somehow figure out his covert actions.

However, his friend Xiao Peng did not have the same drawbacks, staring at the beautiful girl to the point that even he as a man would blush. The cart riding over the rock made everything within the cart and as the girl's body shook as well, he heard his friend make an embarrassing sound in the back of his throat like an animal. But even more strangely, the entire while she had sat with them in the cart, the girl did not seem shy at all.

She hadn't moved to cover herself or ask them for anything, but it wasn't as if she were attempting to seduce him. The young maiden only sitting on the cart with the same calmness of a clothed individual, a pleasant expression making her seem like a little girl as she looked around in delight. He wondered to himself if she was a little foolish in the head, as no other woman in the world would act the way she did. And as a rural villager raised by his superstitious mother, strange things and people naturally made him feel uneasy.

The first person who had made him feel that way he had met not long before, roughly a moon ago when the snow was piled higher and the New Year's decorations had just been put away. A traveling monk had taken one look at his palm and gravely told him that he was going to die very soon.