Chapter 117 — Cold Night

And besides, at a distance stood a peerless beauty watching coldly. Ever since he had first laid eyes on Lu Xueling ten years ago, he had admired her long since, and he absolutely could not afford to lose face before her.

He was just gathering his mind to face the foe when, unexpectedly, the crafty Jin Pingyue had only feinted. Suddenly her figure paused, then became a streak of violet radiance, and—man and blade as one—she attacked Lu Xueling behind him.

In the blink of an eye the violet radiance closed in. Lu Xueling's face was like frost. With a sharp ringing note, immortal qi in ten thousand strands and blue light scattering on all sides, the Celestial Dipper Divine Sword flashed from its sheath and lay across her breast. Li Xun, watching from behind, felt an inexplicable pang of alarm and urged his sword in pursuit.

To his surprise, no sooner had Jin Pingyue's Violet Radiance Blade touched the Celestial Dipper than she used the impact to retreat, flashing back as swift as lightning—retreating right beneath Li Xun's body. Li Xun was startled and for a moment could not stop himself from giving chase, while Lu Xueling, about to pursue, found her way blocked by Li Xun and could only check her descent.

Both looked at once, and saw that the direction in which Jin Pingyue had flown was exactly where Li Xun had been standing a moment before—where another Fénxiá Valley disciple lay wounded on the ground, panicked and helpless. Li Xun went pale with fright. Just now, bent on showing off before Lu Xueling, he had forgotten that the junior behind him had not the slightest strength left to resist. Filled with remorse, he gave a great roar, his body swift as lightning, and gave chase with all his might.

Lu Xueling followed behind him in pursuit of Jin Pingyue.

In an instant Jin Pingyue had reached the side of that Fénxiá Valley disciple. Suddenly she flicked him up with the tip of her foot, kicking his whole body into the air to fly backward. Li Xun hurried to catch him, only to find his hands covered in blood—in a moment his robes were dyed red.

That kick of Jin Pingyue's had already taken the young disciple's life.

Li Xun's eyes seemed to spit fire, but in that brief moment of delay, Lu Xueling had already darted past him in pursuit of Jin Pingyue. And Jin Pingyue's figure at that instant happened to sweep past that dark corner.

Low and quick, in that single instant, Jin Pingyue's voice came stealing to his ear: "Help me hold off that woman."

From the darkness, the man gave a cold snort, his contempt plain for all to see, and his body stirred as though he meant to move—clearly he had no wish to be drawn into this affair.

Yet in that instant, swift as a lightning flash, Jin Pingyue suddenly spoke three words, urgent yet loud and clear: "Seven-Li Cave!" (Note 1)

Those three words struck like lightning, hammering Ming Li's body—already poised to spring into flight—straight back down to earth. Jin Pingyue's eyes and face were filled with a mysterious smile, and in a flash she had swept past him.

And a moment later, Lu Xueling's white figure came in pursuit, and was there before his eyes.

Who can say whose image it was that flashed through his mind in that instant?

A blue light floated up, and Lu Xueling's face, ever cold as frost and snow, was in an instant transformed—something of doubt, something of bewilderment, something of delight, and something too of anger!

Clang...

Tianxuan and Blood-devourer, blue and red glare, shone out against each other in the night, drifting far away.

Li Xun swept past Lu Xueling and gave chase to Jin Pingyue, for after all Jin Pingyue was the more important quarry—especially now that she had slain the junior brother who had come this way with them. Yet even as he flew through the air, he quietly turned his head back to look at the man and woman standing silently face to face on that deserted street, and the flame that flickered deep in his eyes was fiercely hot.

Far off in the distance came Jin Pingyue's laughter, soft and beguiling, tinged with a note of mockery. Ming Li heard it, and said nothing.

Moonlight, like water, spilled over this desolate hilltop and the silent street.

The woman before him, white-robed as snow, the long sword in her hand bright as autumn water.

And in those bright eyes, gazing so deeply—at whom?

Note 1: Seven-Li Cave was, in history, the largest settlement of the Miao people, named for the legend that it stretched seven li wide and broad. When it was first opened up can no longer be verified; it was destroyed when government troops besieged and suppressed it at the end of the Yuan and the beginning of the Ming. Legend holds that the place was easy to defend and hard to attack, joined to the outside world by a single narrow passage, and it was long the spiritual mainstay of the Miao world.

Today its exact location is hard to verify, but according to the records, it seems that in 1983 a "Daping Township" was discovered in Heyang, Guangxi (Heyang??), where the surrounding terrain is extremely similar, and, led by the Miao people, there is on a nearby hilltop a "Dog-God Cave" containing a great rock shaped like the dog-god worshipped by the Miao—so it is suspected that the place must be here.

Another note: The dog-god. According to Miao legend, government troops advanced by night while the Miao all slept, when suddenly a stone dog on the mountaintop gave loud bark, rousing the clansmen, who then joined forces to resist the enemy, and the whole clan was saved. From that time on the dog-god has been worshipped, with incense never ceasing year after year.