Chapter 140 — Killing Intent

With that she set the matter aside and walked a few steps off, but she had gone only a short way when she suddenly stopped, and when she turned back her delicate brows were faintly knit, as though something had occurred to her. "By the way, when you saw that Li Xun of the Burning Cloud Valley today, did you not think something was off about what followed?"

Tian Buhui said mildly, "You mean the Sect Master having Little Zhu Peak's Lu Xueling go and receive him?"

Su Wan nodded. "So you noticed something off as well?"

Tian Buhui snorted. "There's nothing off about it. If there were really a problem, that senior sister of yours would have turned him away with a few cold words long ago. But you saw how she said not a word about it—which shows that the Sect Master at least spoke with her about the matter, and that senior sister of yours agreed to it."

Su Wan was taken aback, then nodded. "Mm, you're right. I hadn't thought of that. But my senior sister has always doted on Lu Xueling above all her pupils—how could she..."

Tian Buhui said coldly, "Is that Li Xun so very inferior? In her eyes, I daresay he's far better than the pupils of our own sect."

Su Wan said in surprise, "Whatever made you drag that into it?"

The corner of Tian Buhui's mouth twitched, and he said offhandedly, "That year on Flowing Wave Mountain in the East Sea, on that stormy night, when I punished Old Seven—did she not..." Here he suddenly caught himself and broke off, and for some reason shook his head and gave a sigh.

Su Wan frowned. "The more you talk, the stranger you get—now you're even dragging Xiaofan into it. What's going on?"

Tian Buhui seemed to have suddenly lost all interest, his spirits flagging. He shook his head. "Don't ask."

Su Wan knew her husband's temper and said no more, but her heart had been stirred, and she could not help sighing as well. "Ten years now. I wonder how Xiaofan is doing these days?"

Tian Buhui was silent a long while, then slowly rose and said coldly, "Haven't you heard? He's now the Vice-Sect Master of the Nether King Sect, renamed Ming Li, called the Blood Young Master—formidable indeed!"

Su Wan lowered her head and slowly sank into a chair beside her, and only after a long while did she say in a low voice, "Ah, when he first came to our sect, he seemed a bit slow and clumsy, but..." She did not go on, and after a long silence added softly, "He was such a good boy—so respectful and dutiful to you and to me alike. And now... to end up driven out of the sect like that!"

A flash of anger crossed Tian Buhui's face, and he suddenly cried out, "If they wanted to expel him, then expel him they would—but I never said I wanted to expel this pupil of—"

Su Wan rose to her feet at once, cutting her husband off. "Buhui!"

Tian Buhui glanced at his wife and swallowed the rest of his words, saying no more, though his face grew all the more indignant. Suddenly he stamped his foot, gave a heavy "Ai!", and strode off into the rear of the Hall of Guarded Stillness.

Su Wan watched her husband's retreating back in silence, then quietly sighed, turned, and looked out.

Through the great doors of the Hall of Guarded Stillness, the genial sunlight fell warm upon Great Zhu Peak, and in the distance, faintly visible behind the shadows of the trees, the secluded kitchen showed the corner of a roofline.

The house remained, but the man was gone.

Su Wan gazed at it a while, shook her head, and turned to go into the rear hall of the Hall of Guarded Stillness as well.

Night deepened, and layers of dark clouds pressed low in the sky, heavy enough to make a person gasp for breath.

In such weather, with neither star nor moon, there was only a single campfire burning on the lee side of a hill at the foot of the desolate mountain.

Zhou Yixuan and his two companions, together with the newly joined Ming Li and the monkey Xiao Hui, had been traveling along the old road, and this day they came to the foot of Mount Kongsang. As night had fallen, they built a fire in this sheltered spot and prepared to camp out in the wild.

Though long accustomed to such things from years on the road, Zhou Yixuan no sooner sat down than he began crying out loudly in pain, pounding his back and waist with his hands as though he had nearly worn his spine through. But since none of the others paid him any mind, his clamor soon grew tiresome, and he gradually fell silent.

Little Wan crouched by the fire and held her hands out to warm them, while the Wild Wolf Daoist set down Mingli, whom he had been carrying on his back, along with all the bundles, then walked over to the fire and only then truly began to gasp for breath. Among the whole party, it was the monkey Little Grey who was the liveliest; the moment it touched the ground it was looking this way and that, leaping hither and thither.

Ever since Little Wan had decided to take Mingli with them, he had remained in this drunken stupor for a very long time, only occasionally waking once, glancing at the people around him as though they were not there at all, summoning Little Grey, opening the wineskin on its back and drinking without pause—and in no time at all he had fallen drunk again. Truly, he lived in a stupor of wine and dreamed of death.

All along the road, the Wild Wolf Daoist had, besides the bundles, taken on the added task of carrying Mingli, and more often than not the monkey Little Grey would leap onto Mingli as well, adding weight upon weight; had he not cultivated the Daoist arts for some years, an ordinary man could never have borne it.

This time the Wild Wolf Daoist panted for a long while, then looked about him: Zhou Yixuan had been muttering to himself for ages, and now was probably tired too, for he had lain down on one side and gone to sleep in his clothes; Little Wan lay not far from the fire.

As for the slumbering Mingli, because the Wild Wolf Daoist had just now, whether by design or not, set him down some distance away, the firelight could not reach that spot, and only a blurred shadow could be made out; and the three-eyed monkey beside him had now run off somewhere—most likely it had gone to look for wild fruit to eat, as Little Grey so often did along the road.

The wild dog sat in silence before the fire, and all around gradually fell quiet; Zhou Yixuan's snoring slowly rose, and Little Wan's body rose and fell faintly—she seemed to have fallen asleep too.

The firelight was mirrored on the wild dog's face, throwing his expression into shifting light and shadow, and setting off the strange, restless gleam that turned in his eyes.

After a long while, he suddenly raised his head and gazed into the night at Mount Kongsang—tall and perilous, its crags jutting like a night demon baring fangs and claws. There lay the holy ground of his own lineage, the Blood Refining Hall. But now the Blood Refining Hall had long since been reduced to ashes and scattered to the winds, leaving only him behind, a lone ghost of the wild.

Slowly he turned his head back. The man, sunk in drunken slumber within the shadows of the night, lay motionless in the distance.

The Wild Wolf Daoist drew a deep breath, and his hand instinctively went to his waist, closing around his beast-fang talisman.

Then he rose slowly and walked toward Mingli. The firelight shone on his back and stretched his shadow longer and longer, until gradually it swallowed the man lying on the ground.

The next moment, he stood before Mingli.