Chapter 43 — The Blood-Dripping Cave
The Sword Questions the Heavens · Page 1 of 6
Zhang Qingyue had not expected Bili to react so violently, and she startled him. Pointing at the cave ceiling, he said, "There are some red stones up there…"
Bili stepped close at once and peered carefully at the ceiling. Sure enough, through the film of water, seven red stones, each about half a palm in size, were embedded in the rock of the cave roof. Their grain and texture were exactly like the surrounding stone; only the color differed.
Seeing how tense Bili was, her whole attention fixed on the ceiling, Zhang Qingyue grew curious as well. He rose and looked where she was looking. The seven red stones were scattered crookedly across the cave roof, and together they looked rather like a strange ladle.
Their color especially—after who knew how many years of water washing through this cave, they were still a deep blood-red, so vivid that even the crystalline droplets sliding over them were tinted the red of fresh blood before they fell, like drops of blood dripping from the ceiling. Yet once the droplets had moved away from the red stones, they regained their original transparency.
As he watched, he suddenly heard Bili murmuring beside him: "The Blood-Dripping Cave, the Blood-Dripping Cave, blood-dripping… ha!" Her face lit up with delight, and she slapped Zhang Qingyue hard on the back with her right hand. His face went white for an instant—that blow had truly not been light.
Zhang Qingyue was furious, and was about to demand an explanation, when he saw the woman smiling radiantly, utterly unconcerned, her face alight with excitement. "You old black-hearted devil," she said, "fancy building the Blood-Dripping Cave in a place like this. No wonder we searched dozens of times over eight hundred years and never found it!" Zhang Qingyue was astonished; but turning it over in his mind, he recalled that at their very first meeting Bili had demanded to know about "the Blood-Dripping Cave," and understanding dawned on him at once. He gave a cold snort. "Demons and heretics!" Bili was in far too good a mood to take offense. Smiling brightly, she said, "A demon and a heretic I may be—so what? I ought to thank you for helping me find this place!" This only deepened Zhang Qingyue's annoyance. Looking at Bili's smile, lovelier by the moment, a nameless anger rose from somewhere deep within him. He felt that he had unwittingly done the demon cult's witch a great service, and that if his elders ever learned of it, he would surely be punished.
But no sooner had the thought crossed his mind than he remembered that he could not even get out of here, so why dream of the future? His spirit deflated at once, and he sat down without a word.
Bili, meanwhile, was overjoyed and paid no mind at all to Zhang Qingyue's inexplicable expression. The demon cult had a very long history, its ranks split into countless factions and schools, rising and falling with the years.
Eight hundred years ago, the Blood-Refining Hall, the faction to which the Old Man of the Black Heart belonged, was hailed as the foremost faction of the demon cult, mighty in strength and teeming with masters; and the Old Man of the Black Heart himself was an elder ancestor of the cultivation path. But as the years passed and the battles with the orthodox sects wore on, the Blood-Refining Hall waned, and other factions took its place.
In the present age, four great factions stood abreast within the demon cult: the Soul-Bewitching Sect, the Ten Thousand Poisons Gate, the Hall of Longevity, and the Netherworld King Sect. Yet for sheer renown, none could compare with the Blood-Refining Hall in its glory days.