Chapter 216 — The Blood Array

Mr. Ghost, standing to one side, took in every shift of his expression. With his experience and eye, he could not help but start, and said in some surprise, "You have traded blows with someone—who was it, to have such cultivation?" Hades drew a deep breath; his features had now fully returned to normal. He closed his eyes for a moment, then slowly opened them, and cold, icy light flashed within. In a chilling voice he said, "The Great Brahma Prajna and the Supreme Purity Mystic Way... truly peerless techniques, each without equal in this world. Their edge may not match our Demonic Sect's divine arts, but their staying power is long and abundant—fearsome indeed." Mr. Ghost frowned, a strange light flickering in his eyes. "Him? Why on earth would you cross blades with him..." Here he paused, as though something had occurred to him, and said, "Could it be over Taotie?" Hades gave a cold snort and did not answer; he only said mildly, "That boy's cultivation advances at a pace that truly exceeds all expectation. I fear that in days to come... he may well prove a root of disaster." Mr. Ghost looked at Hades deeply, then shifted his gaze away and said slowly, "For the present, the matter of greatest urgency is still the Four Spirits Blood Array; other things should be avoided where possible." Hades nodded slightly. "True. I know what matters and what does not—set your mind at ease." Mr. Ghost pondered a moment, then said, "But with Ming Li's cultivation now so unfathomable, and with the blood-reeking anomalies bound to grow harder to conceal as the array draws in more spiritual power in the days ahead, his presence here will only add a few more variables. To guard against mishaps, you had best find some pretext and send him away." Hades was silent a moment, then said, "You are right." With that, he frowned slightly, turned, clasped his hands behind his back, and slowly walked out of the blood pool chamber. Only after Hades's figure had gradually vanished did Mr. Ghost slowly turn and walk to one side of the platform, looking down.

He saw that Taotie, which had been struggling desperately, seemed at last to have lost the will to resist under the twofold suppression of the blood pool and the strange light of the Dragon-Subduing Cauldron; it now lay limply in the blood, panting without cease. Watching this scene, Mr. Ghost, from beneath his black veil, slowly gave a cold laugh devoid of all feeling.

"Heh heh... the gates of Shura, is it..." Footsteps sounded outside the stone door, quick and urgent; plainly the newcomer had come running, in great haste. In no time a figure appeared outside the door of Ming Li's stone chamber, dropped to one knee, and called out loudly, "Vice Sect Master, the Sect Master Hades sends word: he bids you come to him." The voice was loud enough that a few faint echoes came back within the stone chamber—but there was no answer. The newcomer started, yet did not raise his head at once; within the Hades Sect, Ming Li had long borne a name for slaughter, and ordinary disciples scarcely dared approach him, let alone be disrespectful.

Mustering his courage, the man raised his voice and repeated himself, but still no one responded. Only then did he lift his head to look into the stone chamber, and what met his eyes was a scene of chaos—but where were Ming Li and the monkey Little Gray, ever at his side?

The man cursed his ill luck, shook his head, and ran off with great strides.

At that moment Ming Li was walking along the long corridors of the Hades Sect, the monkey Little Gray resting quietly on his shoulder. Ming Li gazed ahead; though he could not see the end of the path, he knew well enough that these corridors led to where Hades dwelt.

"No matter what, I can't just sit here doing nothing, can I, Little Gray?" He seemed to be murmuring to himself, but Little Gray was itself lost in a daze and did not notice its master's words at all—and Ming Li did not much care. "Several times now, hope has appeared right before my eyes, and at the very last moment it all comes to nothing. But so long as Bi Li still lies there, I cannot give up hope—is that not so?" He gave a low, rueful laugh.

"I know what you are worried about. Don't fret—once I find a way to cure Bi Li, I will naturally demand your friend back from him." The monkey Little Gray's ears suddenly pricked up, and it gave two squeaks of "zhizhi." Ming Li smiled faintly, but the smile did not linger long on his face before it vanished again.

He stood at the door of Hades's stone chamber.

Beyond the heavy stone door sounded that voice he had come to know well. Hades sat upright in his chair, and for some reason his daughter's figure flitted through his mind.

A most complex tide of feeling was rising and falling in his breast.

The stone door opened, revealing Ming Li's figure.

"You've come," Hades said mildly.

"Yes," Ming Li said with a slow nod, his voice equally flat.

The two men fell silent, as though nothing ought ever to have happened between them.

After a moment Ming Li said, "There is a matter I wish to speak with you about." "Say it." Ming Li said calmly, "You have brought the sect's followers back here, and I have brought Taotie back to you. If there is nothing else of late, I wish to go out again, to see whether I can find a way to save Bi Li." Hades frowned and glanced at Ming Li. Just then, hurried footsteps sounded outside the door; the disciple who served as messenger came running up, and was about to speak in urgent haste when he suddenly saw Ming Li and Hades talking face to face, and could not help but start.

Hades quietly waved a hand at the man. The man hesitated a moment, bowed, and quietly withdrew. Hades's gaze slowly turned back to Ming Li; the young man still stood there quietly, and anywhere in the Demonic Sect, whoever it was, standing before Hades would surely be trembling with fear—only he seemed never to have been afraid.

Was this the man his daughter had given her heart to?

"Go, then," Hades said, and suddenly there seemed to be a note of weariness in his voice.

Ming Li nodded silently. Though both of them pretended that the exchange of blows not long ago had never happened, it was plain that the relations between them, never warm to begin with, had grown more distant still. He turned and walked out, but just as he was about to step over the threshold, his body suddenly paused.

An inexplicable, uncanny aura came from nowhere, as though he had of a sudden been plunged into an abyss filled with fathomless blood, where breath came hard and would not come at all; or as though a giant wave had in an instant swept over him, the reek of gore a disaster that drowned all, roaring violently in his ears.

Ming Li's expression changed!

But this uncanny aura, like a fleeting dream, vanished in an instant, and all around was quiet again, as it had been.

Hades's voice sounded slowly from behind him, flat and without a trace of feeling. "What is it?" Ming Li stood with his back to him for a moment, then said mildly, "Nothing." With that, he slowly walked away.

The stone door slowly closed behind him. When its teeth had meshed fully with the stone wall, Ming Li suddenly wheeled about with extraordinary speed, a gleam of keen light flashing in his eyes as he stared deeply at the stone door behind which Hades had vanished. His gaze was profound and unreadable, and in it there seemed to linger a trace of bewilderment.

And within the stone chamber, Hades too stood gazing at the door for a long while, his face expressionless, as though pondering something. At last, however, he shook his head, turned, and walked to the far end of the chamber. He struck the stone wall in a certain spot several times, and moments later the wall—which had appeared a seamless whole—slid aside, revealing a secret passage just wide enough for one person. A thick stench of blood wafted out from within.