Chapter 113 — The White Fox
劍問蒼天 · Page 5 of 7
By the end, the white fox's voice was faintly trembling; plainly its heart was stirred.
Ming Li said nothing, his face calm as water.
The white fox looked at him. After a moment deep disappointment came into its eyes, and suddenly it gave a bitter laugh and said softly: "Do you regret it? Then forget it. In truth, in this world, who isn't like that?"
So saying, it seemed about to turn away again—but Ming Li suddenly moved.
He walked slowly forward, past the white fox's side. Behind him Little Grey raised its head, seeming to have taken a fresh interest in the situation, and with two or three bounds came over and leapt onto Ming Li's shoulder.
Ming Li passed the white fox's side, and the white fox turned with him. Its vast body kept pace alongside Ming Li, and somehow there seemed to be a strange light in its eyes.
"Young man, why would you help a demon beast?"
Ming Li did not look back, did not change expression, and the white fox, following behind him, could not even see his face. Only after a moment did it hear the man, walking alone in the darkness, murmur softly to himself: "In truth, in this world, who isn't like that..."
"Ten years ago, when I with my own hands set the two of them down into the magma; ten years ago, beneath the Immortal-Slaying Formation, when I watched helplessly as she fell from midair..."
The white fox halted. At the end of the Mystic Fire Crucible there was a most formidable binding upon demon beasts, and it could go no farther. Little Grey, too, seemed to sense something now; it jumped down from Ming Li's shoulder and stopped at the white fox's side.
And Ming Li did not halt.
The white fox watched in silence as the darkness of the deepest, gloomiest corner gently descended and swallowed the man's figure.
Suddenly it sighed!
After a moment it turned its great fox head and drew near Little Grey. Facing a demon beast a hundred times its own size, Little Grey showed no sign of fear; it gave two squeaks, its three eyes all fixed on the white fox.
"Is he a heartbroken man as well?" the white fox said faintly.
Little Grey blinked, squeaked, and scratched at its head with a paw.
The white fox smiled faintly, and in that smile there was much of vicissitude and desolation.
"Your cultivation is not enough; your spirit has only just awakened. How could you know the love of humans in this world?"
It murmured softly, its voice growing lower and fainter, and one could just make out: "It is because the world of men has such infatuated men that we, after a thousand years, still cling to it so deeply..."
At the entrance to the Burning Cloud Valley.
The atmosphere grew ever more grim; the whole place was silent. The fish-man clan glared furiously at Shangguan Lue and the others of the Burning Cloud Valley, while on the Burning Cloud Valley side, everyone was stricken with alarm.
Many disciples had already begun furtively glancing around. A cold wind blew past, branches and leaves swayed lightly, and somewhere in the night came a low, faint sound of ghostly weeping that chilled the heart to hear.
Shangguan Lue's brows were tightly knit, his expression grave. That the unknown murderer's cultivation was profound was one thing—with his own cultivation he would never fear that. But that a person of such cultivation should be so ruthless, and so plainly intent on provoking conflict between the Burning Cloud Valley and the fish-man savages, was truly cause for worry.
Could it be that the Burning Cloud Valley's grand plan, a hundred years in the plotting, had finally leaked out?
At that thought, even Shangguan Lue, for all his profound cultivation and firm mind, could not help but feel a stir of disquiet.