Ji Mian passing out was a minor matter, but the next moment, her body began to spasm unconsciously, convulsing all over as her lips instantly turned black.
Lin Qingye’s brow twitched. She reached out to touch Ji Mian’s pulse, the shock in her eyes nearly impossible to contain, and scooped Ji Mian up into her arms to fly away on her flying sword.
This place was not too far from the Qingxuan Sect; traveling by sword flight would take roughly half a day’s journey. While channeling her internal energy to protect Ji Mian’s heart meridian, she kept her alive using medicinal pills.
Qingxuan Sect, Yunshen Valley.
Her master was nowhere to be found. Anxious, Lin Qingye knocked on the door regardless of etiquette.
Shen Jing finally walked out, a trace of incomprehension flickering across her brows.
“Why are you in such a hurry?”
“Disciple begs Master to save Ji Mian’s life.”
Shen Jing cast a glance at Ji Mian, her expression cold and indifferent, looking as though she had no desire to interfere. Each and every word fell upon the tip of Lin Qingye’s heart like needles.
“Her life was already coming to an end, and now she is suffering from a potent poison. Although you have used medicine to sustain her for a long time, the depletion of her foundation means she has no more life left in her.”
“Though the Reposing Pill is a powerful medicine, giving her that many pills will kill someone.”
Lin Qingye’s body trembled. She gently lowered Ji Mian, letting her lie flat by her side.
Ji Mian’s lips were currently a bruised blue, and her exhalations were weaker than her inhalations. Seeing that she was about to not make it, her eyes closed tightly, coughing intermittently and spitting out dark, bloody foam that stained Lin Qingye’s white robes red.
Lin Qingye had inadvertently worsened her condition; how could she not panic now?
The sticky blood trickled down the luxurious lapels, landing within Lin Qingye’s field of vision with startling vividness. She bit down hard on her lower lip, a trace of blood oozing out as she endured.
She bent forward, bowing into a kneeling posture.
“Disciple begs Master…”
Lin Qingye had never experienced such an intense urge before. Her mind was entirely in chaos, with only a single, crystal-clear thought remaining:
Ji Mian could not die.
“Such a person is heinously wicked and has murdered countless people. Do you not know this?”
Ji Mian’s infamous reputation was no secret to the people of the world, though her whereabouts were erratic and few had ever seen her.
“Disciple understands.”
“Yet the surname of the Canglu royal family is Ji. Do you not think she is related to Canglu? Disciple only feels that she looks familiar, as if I used to know her.”
More than that, it felt as though they had grown up together and lived together.
Shen Jing shook her head with a solemn expression.
“Canglu must be very important to you as well.”
Lin Qingye spoke up preemptively.
“I never wanted you to get involved in this matter. Have you truly figured out why you are saving her today?”
Lin Qingye was instantly choked into silence. Thinking back and forth, her mind was a tangled mess.
Unclear or not, she had to figure it out.
“Disciple is willing to bear the consequences.”
“The Twin Gu you carry has its mother worm residing within her body, and I have a way to help you. As long as she dies, you will no longer be bound.”
No one wanted to be controlled by others for no reason. Furthermore, if the relationship between the two of them were to ever come to light, it would be an undeserved disaster for Lin Qingye.
“So since you are saving her today, do not regret it in the future.”
“I will walk this path straight to the dark end.”
It seemed to happen in every near-death moment, at the exact instant when the cold permeating her entire body invaded and the terror of death enshrouded her heart.
Ji Mian feared this expanse of the unknown, and she feared the bone-deep pain as well.
Adrift in a blur, she seemed to be dreaming again.
She could never clearly hear the sound of her own voice; she could only struggle to make out the scene before her.
There was the sound of water.
She was submerged in water, which provoked a bone-deep agony throughout her body. The ice-cold water seeped into her robes, soaking them through.
There were chains.
She was bound; heavy, thick chains tied her down, her arms bent backward as she was half-suspended, unable to leverage any strength. Her wrists were chafed raw and red, completely losing sensation.
A light rose within the pitch-black darkness. She adjusted the focus of her eyes, gazing toward the figure walking out of the radiance.
In white, treading across the water like a ghostly shadow, her form ethereal and untainted by the dust of the world.
It was Lin Qingye. At the moment the original owner’s body recognized the newcomer, a fire abruptly ignited within her, her body turning burning hot as her line of sight was overtaken by desire.
“We… have lost each other.”
A faint sorrow showed in Lin Qingye’s blue eyes, a complex emotion surging within her gaze. Looking at the original owner’s ghost-like state, she frowned tightly and wanted to take a step closer, only to be scared back by the original owner’s deep resentment.
She stopped just a few paces away, close enough to clearly make out the original owner’s face.
“On your body, what on earth has happened?”
“How did you end up…”
Becoming like this.
Lin Qingye stopped herself mid-sentence, swallowing the second half of her words as she looked at the original owner for a long time before taking them back.
“You clearly knew that the path you walked was evil, so why did you still come to see me?”
Knowing full well that righteousness and evil stood opposed, knowing full well what Lin Qingye would do, why still come?
Ji Mian couldn’t figure it out either, why the original owner had come to see her.
The original owner had come willingly, bound and imprisoned yet without a shred of resentment.
Why?
Ji Mian wanted to know the answer.
Lin Qingye stepped closer, blocking out the light, and the original owner seemed to close her eyes. The blood all over her body was being drained away, and agonizing screams echoed.
Ji Mian bolted straight up from the bed. Lin Qingye was guarding her, holding a strange box, and was startled by her sudden movement.
Just as she tried to approach, Ji Mian flinched away.
Ji Mian’s pupils were redder than usual; the closer Lin Qingye stepped, the further Ji Mian scooted back.
Her forehead was drenched in sweat from the nightmare, and the scene from just moments ago still seemed right before her eyes.
Biological instinct made her feel a sense of dread toward Lin Qingye’s existence; she could not forget the original owner’s heart-rending screams, which still seemed to be echoing right now.
Ji Mian stared at Lin Qingye. The other woman was frowning, her gaze clear and bright, showing no intent to kill. Only then did she feel slightly more at ease.
It was only a dream.
Lin Qingye took another step forward, backing her into a corner with nowhere left to retreat. Though perplexed, she very neatly took Ji Mian’s wrist and proceeded to check her pulse.
“I saved your life, at the very least. Why aren’t you even saying thank you?”
From somewhere, Ji Mian sensed a hint of grievance in Lin Qingye’s tone. Only then did she snap back to her senses and look around at her surroundings.
“Where is this?”
“I just…”
She had scanned the place hastily in a daze; the interior decoration actually looked quite similar to Lin Qingye’s room.
“Yunshen Valley.”
“This is the guest room in my master’s courtyard.”
“How are you feeling right now?”
Faced with Lin Qingye’s concern, Ji Mian felt rather like she was hanging upside down; the heavy stone in her heart could not settle, making it hard to find peace of mind no matter what.
This was her master’s room, had her master seen her?
Did her master save her?
Instead of answering Lin Qingye’s question first, she simply asked, “Your master didn’t want to kill me, did she?”
“With me here, you can rest easy. Master has a soft heart.”
Shen Jing walked in from behind the screen at that moment, casting a slightly disgruntled glance at Lin Qingye for a moment.
“This is still my room, yet you are already being this bold.”
Shen Jing and Ji Mian exchanged no meaningful glances, simply attending to her duties by writing out a prescription.
“Your body is depleted to this extent, and you’ve relied on another substance for years to drag things out, hanging in limbo like this is no long-term solution.”
“I haven’t figured out the medicine prescription Qingye brought back yet. After some time passes, I will give you the results.”
“Thank you.”
Lin Qingye was also feeling at a loss because of Shen Jing’s remarks. Roughly two hours after Shen Jing administered treatment, Ji Mian had woken up, and during that entire period, Lin Qingye had been pondering this very question.
She had grown up following her master since childhood, day after day practicing martial arts, accompanying her master to the martial arts conference where she made a name for herself in a single battle, seizing the championship and looking down to the admiration of all.
Yet like her master, she disdained the position of Wulin Alliance Leader; that position had long existed in name only, and who held it was completely irrelevant.
Later.
Later, her master had gone away for a period of time. It was precisely during this period that Lin Qingye discovered her own concealed madness. Every time it flared up, it was agonizingly difficult to endure, with fragments of the past constantly welling up before her eyes.
In the beginning, she could clearly sense this missing piece, much like an ink painting where one corner had been soaked through by ink, blurring the strokes so she couldn’t make out the scenery underneath. That period of memory was like a blotch; she had desperately tried to find it back, yet remained entirely helpless.
Her master had taken her in at the age of ten, so she only possessed memories from after turning ten. As for her childhood, she remembered nothing at all.
She did not know where she came from, nor what kind of person she was, nor why such a terrifying bloodline existed within her body.
The Asura bloodline was passed down continuously, yet its inheritors were extremely secretive and basically never seen. In recent years, rumors claimed their numbers had become exceedingly rare, primarily because most inheritors of the Asura bloodline possessed violent dispositions, killed without blinking, and could be utilized to fight a hundred men single-handedly.
She had once been bloodthirsty to a bizarre degree, feeling exhilarated whenever she saw blood splashing. At those moments, only a single thought filled her mind:
Kill, no matter the method.
It seemed that only memories allowed her to find her own existence and recover her perceptions.
Yet being close to Ji Mian seemed to allow her to brush against a few clues, though only a few, they were enough to offer solace.
Quietly, Lin Qingye pushed the small box hidden in her sleeve a bit further in.
Both Ji Mian and Lin Qingye harbored their own thoughts, feeling somewhat absent-minded and weighed down by matters. Until the journey back to Huaxi City, the two of them exchanged very little conversation.
Shen Jing still had matters to entrust to Lin Qingye, so Ji Mian departed a step ahead. Heitan carried her as they flew out, returning to the city before long.
No sooner had she returned than she was intercepted by Jian Xiyan’s personal guards.
Looking displeased, Jian Xiyan had people bring Ji Mian directly in.
“Where did you go? Are your injuries heavy? How are you doing now?”
At any rate, she had vanished under Jian Xiyan’s nose for four hours; she owed her an explanation one way or another.
“There were no reliable medical clinics in the city, so I went outside the city. I’ve pretty much recovered now.”
She gave a light cough, leaving the truth unsaid.
On the way back, she had tried to circulate the internal energy within her dantian, only to find that the area was entirely empty, and the overbearing energy that usually pulsed and flowed had completely vanished.
She had forgotten to ask about it.
She knew her own body best: at the very moment that girl’s palm-force struck her, amidst the pain of cracking bones came a trace of stinging numbness, and a silver needle laced with poison had entered her body.
What kind of poison it was, she did not know, but at the very last moment when her mind was clear, she had clearly perceived the signal of her body tearing apart?
If not for Lin Qingye, she definitely would have died.
“The person who tried to assassinate you has been caught. I’m going in right now to interrogate her.”
Looking visibly relieved, Jian Xiyan stood up. However, someone rushed in from outside the door, glanced at Ji Mian, and whispered something into Jian Xiyan’s ear.
Upon hearing it, Jian Xiyan’s expression changed drastically. She offered a salute to Ji Mian.
“I need to go handle a matter concerning Zhang Wannian first. I will take you to interrogate that girl shortly.”