Chapter 117 — Cold Night

Ming Li lay in his room a while. It had been a long time since he had stayed at an inn, and he found it somewhat hard to get used to. Unknowingly a long while passed; it was deep into the night, yet he still had no desire for sleep. A vague restlessness rose in his heart, and he stood up, walked slowly to the window, pushed it open, and looked out.

Unlike the daytime, at this hour the night sky over the southern frontier was gradually clearing; though clouds still lay thick, through a gap in them a thread of moonlight quietly showed itself.

The clear moonlight, like frost, like snow, spilled down in a hushed glow and fell upon him.

In the long, drifting world of dust, all living things lay asleep; the fields and wilds were silent, without a human sound. Only from some nameless corner of the street came the low chirping of insects, note upon note, mournful and chill.

Darkness shrouded the earth.

Leaning at the window and gazing far, he saw a thousand mountains and ten thousand li, and a night sky deep beyond measure.

Beneath such a desolate, lonely night in the southern frontier, suddenly the past surged up like a tide within his heart.

Once upon a time, the child of that remote village had sunk into the churning waves of the mortal world, drifting with the current. And when he chanced to look back, he found that there was not a single soul beside him.

Life is truly a lonely thing...

The man beneath the moon bowed his head and said nothing.

"Sss!"

From far off, a sound of something cleaving the air came drifting faint and long.

Ming Li raised his head, brows knitting slightly. He saw a faint streak of light at the horizon, like a meteor skimming across the night sky, cutting across the heavens, passing over Tianshui Stockade, and dropping toward the west.

And behind it, amazingly, there were three more streaks of light, in close pursuit.

Ming Li by now had such eyes and such experience that he saw at a glance that these four streaks of light were cultivators flying through the air. The four lights chased one another through the night clouds; though the three behind could never catch the one ahead, the one fleeing could not shake off the pursuit either.

After a moment, the leading light seemed to make a decision and descended from the sky. Judging by its position, it came down to the southwest of Tianshui Stockade.

Then the three pursuing lights descended as well.

Ming Li brooded a while. He only felt that his heart was ill at ease tonight, and he truly did not wish to stand here alone any longer. So with a wave of his right hand he soundlessly transformed into a beam of azure light and flew toward the place where the four lights had come down.

Just after his figure had dwindled into the distance, with a creak, the window of the room next to Ming Li's was pushed open as well. Xiaobai, holding Little Grey, gazed out toward the direction in which Ming Li had flown; after a moment, his figure vanished into the darkness.

Xiaobai's face was calm; on her fair features there was no expression, only the light in her eyes flickering strangely.

Ming Li flew on, silent all the way, and soon discovered that the place where those lights had descended was the site of Old Tianshui Stockade—that hilltop long since abandoned these many years.

Just as he entered the stockade, a muffled, stifled cry came from ahead, followed at once by a laugh—angry, and mingled with the familiar laugh of another.

Ming Li's brows drew together at once.

That laugh was tender and seductive to the bone, carrying a faint power to bewitch the heart. It was the voice of Jin Pingyue.

Ming Li hesitated, hid himself in a dark corner, and slowly crept forward.

In the street, originally still and deserted, lay broken walls and shattered tiles—a scene of desolation.

By now the sky had cleared a little more; the clouds were gradually dispersing, the moonlight growing brighter, casting a certain pale illumination over the ruined stockade.

Jin Pingyue still wore her never-changing smile. She stood smiling in the middle of the street, facing a young man before her who glared at her in fury. And this man, too, was someone Ming Li knew—Li Xun, an outstanding disciple of Fénxiá Valley.

And on the street behind him lay another Fénxiá Valley disciple, collapsed on the ground. By the look of it, he had just been wounded by Jin Pingyue: his clothes were slashed from the left chest straight down, a deep and gaping wound, and he was moaning weakly.

Yet Ming Li's gaze lingered on these three only a moment, and then, after a brief pause, settled entirely upon the last person.

In the desolate night, on the desolate street, upon the abandoned little tower that stood behind Jin Pingyue, a woman in white, a long sword slung across her back, stood on the eaves, facing the wind, her garments drifting slowly.

A woman of peerless beauty, her snow-like skin beneath the clear moonlight seeming almost to take on a pallid hue.

This night, this moonlight—was it because of her that they were so serene, so luminous?

Lu Xueling!

In those familiar bright eyes, whose shadow was reflected?

Ming Li was struck still.

In the darkness he quietly gazed at that woman who seemed to stand aloof from the dusty world. All the frost of the mortal realm, the ten years of years, seemed never to have touched her in the slightest. So that at first glance, all one saw was her figure in the moonlight, like a cool and ethereal immortal.

"Demoness!" Li Xun's handsome face was full of rage.

He and Lu Xueling had blocked Jin Pingyue from front and rear, but when they had just landed, this demon sect enchantress had suddenly struck: she had first bewitched the Fénxiá Valley junior behind him with her "art of ensnaring the mind," then wounded him with the Violet Radiance Blade. If not for Li Xun's intervention, the junior would likely have lost his life then and there.

Yet what concerned Li Xun more at this moment, besides his junior's wound, was something else: "What have you done with my junior sister Yan Fei? Hand her over at once!"

Jin Pingyue smiled faintly, but her gaze suddenly drifted, and whether by design or not, flicked toward the dark place behind Li Xun, where Ming Li was hidden. "You said it yourself—she's your junior sister, not mine. How would I know?"

"Bah!" Li Xun's face was full of fury; plainly he cared greatly for this junior sister. "If not for Uncle-Master Shangguan's sharp eyes, we'd still be in the dark, fooled by you, demoness. You deliberately slaughtered our Fénxiá disciples—this debt will be paid in full. If you have any sense, hand over junior sister Yan Fei, safe and sound, this instant!"

"Oh my! I'm so frightened!" Jin Pingyue patted her chest with one hand, but her face was all smiles—not a trace of fear in it. Rather, her seductive air deepened as she said softly, "You call yourselves orthodox cultivators—how can so many of you gang up on one weak woman like me?"

A cold snort came from Lu Xueling behind them.

Li Xun glanced at that beautiful figure standing on high, and his face darkened. To Jin Pingyue he said, "Demoness, if you remain stubborn and unrepentant, I won't hold back..."

Before the word "back" was out of his mouth, Jin Pingyue suddenly gave a bewitching laugh, and from beneath the sleeve of her right hand the violet radiance flared.

Li Xun at once gathered himself on guard. This demoness was full of tricks, and her Violet Radiance Blade was incomparably sharp—no small matter at all. Just now, with a single slash, his junior behind him—though affected by her mind-ensnaring art—had not been able to withstand even one exchange despite years of cultivation, which showed how high her powers ran.

But Li Xun had always been proud, and his own cultivation was high as well; wary though he was, he felt not the slightest fear.