Chapter 463 — When Will the Locust Blossoms Bloom

Dragon Qilin cautiously picked his way across the streets strewn with poisonous flowers and leaves, looked up at the young man and woman still standing at the window, and muttered softly: "This is how the Patriarch fell in the Western Lands back then. That old reprobate abandons me every year to make a trip to the Western Lands..."

Shen Mu finally roused himself from the land of tender passion and said: "Sister Mu, we still have proper business to attend to."

Mu Yingxue's face flushed slightly. She pinched the hem of her garment and said: "Nighttime is when the walking marriage happens—why are you in such a hurry? Can't you hold it in? Though if you really are in a hurry... even if you're in a hurry, it won't do! I can't accommodate you. Here, women are exalted and men are lowly—men must accommodate women!"

Shen Mu blinked and patiently waited for her to finish, then said: "Sister, the reason I came to the Western Lands this time is to help Xiong Xiyu and Xiong Qi'er, mother and daughter, reclaim the position of Lord of the True Heaven Palace. That is why I stirred up such a commotion. This should have been your Western Lands' internal affair—I shouldn't have interfered. But back when Xiong Xiyu was overthrown by the Yu family, so many of the Xiong family died, and you were deeply entangled in it as well."

Mu Yingxue nodded. She ordered someone to invite Dragon Qilin and Xiong Qi'er up, and continued to cling to his side, saying: "When the Yu family moved against the Xiong family, I did indeed play a significant role. The Yu family had a Bagou whose origins were terrifying beyond words. I too was forced beyond choice before I agreed to poison the Xiong family for the Yu family. But the poison I used was not one that takes lives—you know this."

Shen Mu nodded. The poison Mu Yingxue had used was the Entangling Silk Toxin—a poison that cripples cultivation but does not harm life. When Shen Mu first encountered Xiong Xiyu, she had been afflicted by the Entangling Silk Toxin, her cultivation severely damaged, pursued by Yu Bochuan and his followers, utterly bedraggled.

Mu Yingxue's expression darkened: "I never imagined the Yu family would be so ruthless—to pull the Xiong family up by the roots, to cut the grass and tear out its roots... But even if I had known the Yu family would strike to kill, I still could only have poisoned the Xiong family."

Shen Mu looked perplexed.

Mu Yingxue sighed: "The lives of my Mu family and Thunder Mountain City rested on my shoulders alone. If I had refused, the Yu family would have moved against my Mu family and Thunder Mountain City. As a Poison Master, I had to consider my Mu family. Nai Kui hates me bitterly, doesn't she?"

Guilt flashed across her face, but she quickly masked it and restored her usual cold expression: "It doesn't matter if she hates me. I could not gamble my family's lives for her sake."

Shen Mu said: "Sister, you should know what my purpose is in coming here?"

Mu Yingxue was, after all, the matriarch of the Mu family, well-connected and well-informed. She nodded: "I know. From the moment you set foot in the Western Lands and the True Heaven Palace issued a warrant for your arrest, I knew your purpose. The Dark Demon Cult Leader, ambitious and far-sighted, would not risk mortal danger to travel all the way to the Western Lands for the sake of romantic entanglements. You did not come for me, nor for a walking marriage—you came to accomplish a great undertaking."

Her bearing abruptly shifted, turning sharp and fierce: "You intend to turn the Western Lands upside down, to give the Western Lands a new sky! Your ambition is to bring the Western Lands under the rule of Jingping Kingdom! And the fastest shortcut to that goal is to elevate Xiong Xiyu to Lord of the True Heaven Palace! Xiong Xiyu has nothing, and she bears a blood feud of boundless depth—she has no choice but to agree to you, to agree to the conditions of your Emperor of Jingping. Once she becomes Lord again, the True Heaven Palace will announce its merger into Jingping."

Shen Mu could not help but sigh inwardly. Since arriving in the Western Lands, he had encountered so many extraordinary women—there was He Yiyi, gracious and magnanimous yet deep in cunning and strategy, and the sly Liu mother and daughter. All of them were outstanding, their vision and knowledge far beyond the ordinary.

And Mu Yingxue before him was just as exceptional.

Mu Yingxue said: "I do indeed owe the Xiong family a great deal. But I absolutely cannot owe them so much that I stake the lives of my entire Mu family! You have never seen Bagou—you do not know how formidable he is. But I do. I know how terrifying he is. I also know that the True Heaven Palace has living deities. No matter how powerful you are, no matter how many Western Lands experts you gather, you cannot win—it is certain death!"

Shen Mu rose, disheartened: "I should not have come here."

Mu Yingxue's heart trembled. She stood and said: "I want you to stay. There's no need to go to your death. But if you insist on leaving, I won't stop you. The women of my Western Lands will not hold back a man who is determined to leave!"

Shen Mu bowed: "Sister Mu, farewell." With that, he turned and walked toward the stairs.

"You—!"

Mu Yingxue clenched her teeth and called out loudly: "You will die, do you know that?"

Shen Mu turned back with a smile: "When I first saved that mother and daughter, I already knew that acting rashly to save them might mean my death. But I acted anyway. Sister, I will not hold you hostage, will not make you do anything for me."

Mu Yingxue grew frantic, stamping her foot: "Even if you die, I won't miss you!"

Shen Mu laughed heartily, meeting Dragon Qilin and Xiong Qi'er as they came up the stairs.

"This land of tender passion—I have visited it. Fatty Long, let's go!"

Dragon Qilin was baffled, but still rushed downstairs and carried them toward the city outskirts.

"Brother-in-law?" A girl by the street looked up, staring blankly at Shen Mu's departing figure.

Shen Mu tossed a sachet to the girl and loudly intoned: "Three thousand merits must benefit all beings; when the nine cycles of elixir return, then ascension comes. In the midst of busy years, dispatched in busy years—I was born foolish, and my nature does not change! Sister, let it be as if I never came!" Note ②

Mu Yingxue watched him walk out of Thunder Mountain City, dazed, until his figure vanished.

She walked downstairs. Thunder Mountain City was in disarray, traces of the morning's celebration everywhere. Toad spirits were tidying the debris in the streets, dragging away residents drunk on wine.

At the street corner, several girls looked toward her. One girl, gathering her courage, said: "Sister, brother-in-law, he..."

"He's gone."

Mu Yingxue heard herself speak in a strange tone: "He probably won't come back..."

She touched her own face. At some point, her cheeks had grown wet.

"Brother-in-law just gave me this—it should be Sister's." The girl Shen Mu had encountered walked over, holding in her hands a sachet embroidered with mandarin ducks in gold thread.

Mu Yingxue opened the sachet. A handful of love-red beans, bright and crimson.