Not long after Ji Mian left, Lin Qingye came to the old woman’s courtyard once again. This place was remote to begin with, so even if a huge commotion broke out, it probably would not become known to anyone. She flipped over the wall, landed in the courtyard, and headed straight for the locked room.
Lin Qingye drew Shuangjiang from its scabbard and forcefully slashed at the ordinary door lock. The moment the blade touched the metal, sparks flew in all directions, and Lin Qingye was even knocked flying backward by an inexplicable force.
She retreated slowly, channeled her internal energy into the tip of the sword, turned to deliver a side slash, and sent that sword qi flying outward.
The frost-laden sword qi left a trail of ice in its path. The air stagnated for a split second before slamming into the lock. The sound of shattering followed closely behind, and the double doors were blasted wide open by the residual force.
Looking at the scene before her, Lin Qingye found it rather hard to believe. Positioned directly opposite the door was a bizarre candelabra.
This candelabra had three tiers and six corners. At the base sat six blood-red candles arranged in the pattern of a hexagram, in the middle were three gold-gilded candles, and at the very top rested a bronze bowl with intricate patterns filled with an oily liquid. Directly above it floated a piece of paper with a drawn Taiji Yin-Yang symbol.
Lin Qingye recognized this Yin-Yang Pact at a glance. She raised her hand and drew her sword, intending to destroy this formation. However, an evil gale immediately struck from behind her. The moonlight in the sky was covered by rolling dark clouds, losing its brilliance for an instant, and when it revealed itself once again, it had evidently been dyed blood-red.
Everything within the field of vision seemed to be covered by a layer of blood-red shadow. Standing in this eerie moonlight was a monster with a human face and a beast’s body.
Lin Qingye was not unfamiliar with this human face; this was the face of the young girl they had saved.
And naturally so. How could ordinary humans possibly have survived in such a ghost-infested place for so long?
This creature stood directly in front of Lin Qingye, towering at a height of at least eight feet. It had to lower its head to look at Lin Qingye, and its pale face was covered in red and purple patterns that even crawled slowly across its face following the rhythm of its breathing.
The grievances between humans and the demon clan have been passed down for generations, and Lin Qingye ought to share the hatred of the enemy and launch a full-scale slaughter against this demon.
Lin Qingye simply withdrew the Shuangjiang in her hand and looked at the girl.
“Are you going to protect this thing?”
The girl’s face was slightly immature. She opened her mouth to reveal a pair of exceptionally long fangs, making a hissing sound from her throat to intimidate her enemy.
Seeming to have no desire to waste words with Lin Qingye, her fur-covered hands instantly whipped out a section of sharp, long claws. Brandishing a foul-smelling wind of blood with her hands, she charged straight in Lin Qingye’s direction.
Lin Qingye’s expression turned stern. She retreated a few steps, leaned backward to dodge a wave of palm strikes, and intentionally guided the attack toward the candelabra.
True to expectation, the demon stopped its hand in front of the candelabra, changed its attack, and rolled forward to strike Lin Qingye’s legs.
Taking advantage of the demon’s lapse in attention, Lin Qingye took a brocade pouch from her waist. She quickly poured out its contents, holding the vermilion sand particles in her palm. While the opponent was not paying attention to her hand movements, she swept them into mid-air.
The tiny particles immediately filled the entire space, fluttering and scattering in the air to form a blood-red barrier.
Inhaling a significant dose of Throat-Severing Sand, the demon immediately covered its throat and headed toward the direction of the underground palace.
The old woman stepped forward, ignoring Ji Mian, and reached out to pull the woman over, only to be met with fierce resistance from the other person.
Amidst the shoving, the woman seemed to touch the wrinkled, aged skin hidden beneath the old woman’s heavy robe hems.
She suddenly looked terrified, pushed the old woman’s hand away, and began blindly and frantically feeling the other’s face.
Her hands groped upward from the arm, inch by inch, touching the sagging skin of the neck, and all the way up until they touched the other’s face.
Ji Mian also felt something was amiss and focused all her attention on the elderly person. Her skin was not sagging and aging due to ordinary aging; her face was covered in mottled patterns, and the gullies between her brows were like unvisited mountain ravines deep in the mountains, full of the accumulation of years.
Yet that wasn’t entirely it. It was as if she had walked through the raging fires of hell for years, slowly turning into this.
The woman’s hands were trembling, and her entire body spasmed uncontrollably. She stroked the elder’s brows and eyes, gently caressing the wrinkles at the corners of the other’s eyes, yet she could not stop herself from bursting into tears.
“Fu Ling, tell me, what is this? What is going on with these things on your body?”
Desperate for an answer, she stepped closer and pressed for answers.
“If you haven’t come for so long, was it because of this? Why are you hiding from me? Why must you hide from me like this?”
The woman’s tears mixed with blood, streaming down her cheeks and carving two bloody trails.
Her voice turned hoarse, and her emotions walked the edge of collapse.
Ji Mian’s heart ached sharply, as if she could empathize with the scene before her. Something at the bottom of her heart began to burn.
“Speak to me, speak!”
The elderly person called Fu Ling revealed a look of helplessness, reached out to stroke the woman’s face, and a glimmer of light entered her turbid pupils. Using a face full of wrinkles, she made a doting smile and wiped the tear stains from the woman’s face with the utmost tenderness.
“Your Highness’s eyes have always been poor, so do not cry. I am fine, it is just a small accident and will not endanger my life, Your Highness, rest assured.”
“Fu Ling, stop your hands. Do not commit evil anymore. I already know; that girl told me, she told me everything, you cannot deceive me…”
“Day and night, how could I not know what condition I am in? There is a wound behind me shot by a stray arrow, so large, how hideous it must be.”
“I have only been waiting for you, Fu Ling. I do not want to live like this.”
Hearing this, the elder called Fu Ling lost all color in her face and could only shake her head continuously. Wrapping her arms around the other, she gently patted her back and softly pacified her.
Suddenly, the stone door behind the three of them collapsed. Ji Mian hoisted Black Salt to block in front of her and found that Xiao Qin had been thrown forward. The beast-transformed body had receded halfway, and she fell a few steps away, bathed in blood. Turning her head, she vomited another mouthful of toxic blood and passed out cold.
Ji Mian felt gratified; sure enough, holding the cracked version was different. The Throat-Severing Sand she had prepared in advance really came in handy.
Lin Qingye appeared under the light, wielding that ghastly white sword. Her body was also stained with some blood, her expression cold and detached, staring at Fu Ling as if looking at a dead object.
Yet when she looked closely, she surprisingly saw no mark of the signed contract on Fu Ling’s body.
Lin Qingye exuded a frosty chill throughout her body, as if angered. Her eye rims were slightly red, and the air pressure surrounding her was terrifyingly low.
She glanced at Ji Mian, forcefully suppressing the trembling of her body, and sternly interrogated her.
“I wondered why you went through such great pains to separate the two of us; it turns out you wanted to use my blood as a catalyst. Having killed so many people, do you still refuse to repent?”
“And what about now? Do you still want my blood?”
Lin Qingye raised Shuangjiang.
“Blood used for a living sacrifice. Secret arts of the demon clan, burning candles as catalysts, drinking blood to extend life. The forbidden art, the Yin-Yang Pact.”
“Truly despicable!”
Lin Qingye glanced indifferently at Ji Mian and spoke again.
“Ji Shuangchi…”
“Do you know how many people she killed for your sake?”
Hearing this name, Ji Mian felt unsteady on her feet.
Surnamed Ji? This woman is surnamed Ji?
She only felt dizzy, feeling as though the face of the woman before her lingered in distant memories.
Who on earth was she?
Why did Lin Qingye recognize her? What relationship did she have with herself, and what relationship did she have with her biological mother, Ji Zhaoxue?
Upon hearing the woman’s name, a thousand words seemed to rest on the tip of her tongue, and many unsolved mysteries lingered in her heart. She eagerly wanted an answer.
“Ever since the destruction of the Canglu Kingdom, the High Priest and Her Royal Highness the Eldest Princess have been fleeing to this day. It would be fine if you lived in peace. But now, having committed such evil deeds, don’t you feel a guilty conscience?”
Fu Ling tossed her scabbard aside, drew a rusted sword, and said sternly,
“I shall bear this matter entirely by myself; it has nothing to do with her. Whether you want to kill or carve us up, I will submit to your disposal.”
“You two are already neither human nor demon, what is the distinction of who is ahead or behind?”
Fu Ling trembled all over with anger, as if extremely infuriated.
“This matter has nothing to do with Her Highness! It was entirely my own doing.”
As the two of them argued, the restless stirring in Ji Mian’s chest grew increasingly intense. Unable to move, she could only raise her head to look at Lin Qingye. Seeing Lin Qingye frown with tightly pressed lips, Ji Mian realized that Lin Qingye’s complexion didn’t look too good either.
Fu Ling wanted to say a few more words, but Ji Shuangchi tugged at the hem of her clothes.
“Fu Ling, right and wrong, I can distinguish them. I eat human flesh raw and drink human essence and blood, and a life extended this way is not the appearance I desire.”
“Let me go, will you?”
The woman had stubbornly taken Ji Mian away precisely because she didn’t want her to become the next victim.
“They are all innocent people.”
As the Princess of the Canglu Kingdom, born incomparably noble, how could she tolerate such humiliating things happening to herself?
Fu Ling’s body rose and fell as she breathed heavily. Ji Shuangchi seemed to be asking for her consent, but in reality, she had long since made up her mind. Knowing she could not persuade Fu Ling, she resolved to use her own life to bring a conclusion.
The woman pulled out a short dagger from somewhere. Without a shred of hesitation, she had already let go of the past, and this rotten life did not need to be kept.
Such a frail woman poured all her strength into using this dagger that would take her life, a deep cut, almost reaching the bone. Her blood was not as warm as an ordinary person’s; cold blood spurted out, splashing all over Fu Ling’s face before she could react.
In her eyes were fear, helplessness, and pain.
Ji Shuangchi’s blood flowed down Fu Ling’s face, droplets of blood falling like rain onto Fu Ling’s visage.
The aged skin, which had almost lost its micro-sensation, felt the passage of life at this very moment as the liquid flowed through the gullies.
Fu Ling knelt down and caught the woman’s limp body. The latter slumped weakly against her, her lead-gray pupils seeming to bloom with light in an instant.
The woman’s tears mixed with bloody water, making her look exceptionally bewitching. The corners of her lips curved upward, as if she felt no pain, and she smiled with all her might.
“You are no longer pretty, Fu Ling. Doing wrong things means you have to pay a price after all.”
Frightened by the gushing blood, Ji Mian instinctively wanted to vomit, but her body was clamoring. She felt something throbbing at her temples, and her heartbeat was driving her actions.
Those crimson pupils seemed to glow, though it was unclear whether the blood before her eyes was more vividly red or if this color was even more brilliant.
It seemed she was about to go mad.