Chapter 49 — The Demon Fox

Zhang Qingyue froze for a moment, never having imagined he would see this woman again so soon. He was tempted to pretend he did not know her, yet after all they had faced death together in the Blooddrop Cave of the Dead Spirit Abyss, and some inexplicable feeling still lingered in his heart, so he could only give an awkward smile and say, "What brings you here?"

Shi Tou, standing nearby, saw something odd in Zhang Qingyue's manner and asked in surprise, "Xiaofan, who is this person?"

Zhang Qingyue blurted out, "She is—" Then he suddenly caught himself. If Bili's identity were known, and his own connection with her besides, it would mean no end of trouble; the words reached his lips and then drew back.

Shi Tou was puzzling over why Zhang Qingyue had stopped short when Bili laughed and said, "Don't ask him. He and I are but newly acquainted, we have met only once, and he does not know my origins."

Only then did Shi Tou understand, but catching the look on Zhang Qingyue's face, he suddenly grinned oddly, leaned close to his ear, and whispered, "Brother Zhang, you look flustered to me. Don't tell me you have taken a fancy to this young lady?"

Zhang Qingyue was thrown into no small alarm; his face went white, and he said urgently, "You must not talk nonsense! I—I have not the slightest connection with her!"

Bili, who had been standing there smiling at him, heard these two sentences and her face suddenly darkened. She gave a cold hum and said with a sneer, "Quite right. How could I have any connection with this shameless, contemptible fellow?"

Everyone was taken aback. They remembered how delighted she had looked when she first saw Zhang Qingyue; who would have thought she could turn faster than a page is turned, and with the words "shameless, contemptible" besides, for a moment every gaze turned strangely upon Zhang Qingyue.

Zhang Qingyue was deeply embarrassed but could not think how to defend himself. Yet to anyone watching, this looked like nothing so much as a pair of young lovers quarreling, and one after another they began to laugh.

Shi Tou glanced at the sky and said to Zhang Qingyue, "Brother Zhang, it is getting late. Let us go in."

Zhang Qingyue would have been glad to escape this awkward scene and hastily agreed. But just as they were speaking, Bili cried out from the side, "Old swindler, stop right where you are!"

The two of them turned. It seemed Zhou Yixuan and Xiaowan had been preparing to slip away while no one was watching, only to be spotted by Bili. Already the Heartbreak Flower in her hand was glowing white again, waves of cold air rising thick from it. Zhang Qingyue was startled and quickly halted, saying, "Wait—what have they done to offend you?"

Bili shot him a glance, clearly not yet appeased, and said coldly, "That is none of your business!"

Zhang Qingyue was rebuffed and felt sick at heart. But Zhou Yixuan had taken a severe drubbing from Bili a short while before, and now that someone had at last stepped forward on his behalf, he was not about to let the chance pass. He said hurriedly, "Young brother, you must save me! Just now in the town I was so kind as to read this young lady's fortune, and would you believe it, she cannot bear to hear the truth. The moment her wishes were not met, she fell to violence against me and my granddaughter—"

Bili said angrily, "Nonsense! You old swindler, your mouth is full of lies, cheating and deceiving and swindling people of their money, and now you dare to turn it around on me. You are asking for a beating!"

With that, her hand shaped a spell, and the Heartbreak Flower blazed white, bright enough to turn the surrounding ground into day. She was plainly about to strike. Zhang Qingyue said urgently, "Bili, wait!"

But Bili acted as though she had not heard, and spoke no further word. In an instant the Heartbreak Flower left her hand, flashing once, twice, and again in the air, and there came a soft "pop." In that same instant the white light dazzled the eyes, and the bright moon and clustered stars in the sky all lost their color together. Then there was only a sky full of flying petals, brilliant and blinding, their fragrance filling the nose, screaming as they came.

This was a spectacle rarely seen, yet to Zhou Yixuan's eyes it was as though he had glimpsed a ghost or demon. His face drained of color, and dragging Xiaowan by the hand he turned and ran, his right hand reaching into his robe to pull out a small yellow paper—from a distance it looked like the sort of talisman village Daoists use when they catch ghosts and work their rites.

Zhang Qingyue had seen the power of Bili's treasure down in the Dead Spirit Abyss, and seeing that Zhou Yixuan seemed to know nothing of Daoist arts, he could not bear it. In the end he stepped forward and stood before Zhou Yixuan and his granddaughter, summoning the Dark Iron Staff before him, ready to shield Zhou Yixuan from the blast.

But when Bili saw Zhang Qingyue suddenly leap out, her brows knit, and across her jade-like face there seemed to pass the faintest trace of a smile. The petals filling the sky halted abruptly in midair, hovering and dancing a zhang before Zhang Qingyue, yet advancing no further. Her face remained stern as she said coldly, "What are you doing?"

Zhang Qingyue looked at her, his confidence already three parts gone, and stammered, "They are not cultivators. Why must you make things hard for them? Let it go."

Bili gave a cold hum and waved her hand. The petals filling the sky suddenly drew back, and in their rushing, beneath the light of stars and moon, they gathered once more into a single white flower that flew back into her hand. "Then why don't you ask him what this is really about?"

Zhang Qingyue was wondering the same thing, so he turned and questioned Zhou Yixuan. Zhou Yixuan had hoped to muddy the waters, but Bili kept cutting in with cold questions, each one striking at the crux, and back and forth it went until Zhang Qingyue and Shi Tou both understood. It seemed that after Zhou Yixuan had smoothly made a profit off the plump woman, his greed was not satisfied; seeing the costly clothes Bili wore, he had ignored Xiaowan's warning glances and gone up to her.

But Bili was clever beyond measure, far beyond the reach of ordinary folk, and would never be taken in by a few glib phrases. At first, because Xiaowan read truly, she had told Bili's past aright in seven or eight parts of ten. But when Bili pressed her closely, Xiaowan could not very well tell Zhou Yixuan outright, and Zhou Yixuan, spinning lies without end, gave himself away on the spot. Bili flew into a rage and was set on teaching this old swindler and his young accomplice a lesson.

Zhou Yixuan saw that things were going badly and that he had landed himself in serious trouble. Of the cultivation arts he knew nothing at all, but he still possessed a few life-preserving tricks that Cang Lanzi had passed down in the days when he roamed the jianghu, among them the earth-escape art of Daoist talismans, and by this means he had escaped for the moment. But his cultivation was too shallow for the transfer, and he could not hold the direction, so it happened that he landed right near Zhang Qingyue and Shi Tou.

As for Bili, at first she had not been on guard against the old man having such a trick. But she was the only daughter of the master of the Underworld King Sect of the demon cult, and such petty jianghu tricks could hardly trouble her. She simply used her arts to sweep the whole surrounding country, found the old swindler's position at once, and came chasing after him in the blink of an eye.

Zhang Qingyue stood blank for a moment, then stared at Zhou Yixuan and said, "Then what you told me this afternoon, about the road ahead being fraught with danger—that was a lie too?"

Zhou Yixuan's eyes darted, and before he could speak, Bili's laughter rang out from the side; she could not help herself. "So you actually fell for his tricks!"