劍問蒼天 - 第116章 天水寨 - 翰墨軒

With the realm in turmoil and demons running rampant, with the Fénxiá Valley ever mysterious and equivocal, and with the valley having conspicuously sat out the Battle of Qingyun in years past, one could not help but draw certain inferences. Thus an act—Ming Li's unwitting release of the Nine-Tailed Celestial Fox, imprisoned for three hundred years—set the great currents of the world churning beneath the surface, and gathered the winds and clouds over the southern borderlands.

Because the Fénxiá Valley had dispatched countless disciples to track and interrogate all comers, Ming Li and Xiaobai, given their cultivation, had no fear of such disciples. But the thought that their trail might be discovered and bring endless trouble, and that should the great personages of the valley be alerted and come in force, they might well be hard put to withstand them—for the Fénxiá Valley was a sect a thousand years old, its depths unfathomable—gave them pause.

Ming Li reflected that the foremost task now was still to track down the Black Sorcerer clan, who might save Bilu.

So after descending from that little hill, at Xiaobai's suggestion, Ming Li found a remote village and bought with money and goods two sets of local clothing, one for a man and one for a woman, and he and Xiaobai changed into them.

The customs of these far southern borderlands differed from those of the Central Plains; even ordinary garments had a flavor all their own compared with the robes and coats of the Central Plains folk.

Since the clothes were bought from a remote village, their coarse workmanship was only to be expected. Beyond the difference in cut, the greatest difference from Central Plains garb was their relatively vivid colors: the man's garment was of deep blue, while the woman's was of intricate and dazzling hues.

To evade the eyes and ears of the Fénxiá Valley, Ming Li and his companion could not travel by air. Anxious as Ming Li was, Xiaobai reasoned with him: they had waited ten years—could they not wait a few days more when the matter was so close at hand? If haste drew pursuers from the valley, the confusion would only delay them further, and who knew how long they would have to wait then.

Anxious as he was, Ming Li could not deny that Xiaobai had the right of it, and the two proceeded at a slow pace.

Clad in southern border garb, they walked on at an easy pace. Along the way they encountered several bands of Fénxiá Valley disciples searching the roads, yet were not recognized—at most, a few glanced twice at Xiaohui for its strange appearance.

The crucial point was that on that night, neither Ming Li nor Xiaohui had shown themselves, so the men of the Fénxiá Valley did not know their faces; they merely interrogated suspicious strangers, and thus overlooked them.

By now, Ming Li and Xiaobai were walking an ancient road some three hundred li from the Fénxiá Valley, deep in the wilds, with not a soul in sight. Only half an hour before, they had swaggered past a band of Fénxiá Valley disciples.

The sky was overcast, dark clouds drifting slowly. Ming Li walked on, his brows slightly knit. Beside him, by contrast, Xiaobai wore a constant smile, in high spirits, gazing this way and that along the road, taking in the southern border scenery; even the bleak, desolate hills and ancient road seemed to her the most beautiful of vistas.

Ming Li glanced at her. The monkey Xiaohui sat on Xiaobai's shoulder, wholly at ease. Perhaps because both were rare spirit creatures in this world, Xiaohui had taken a great liking to Xiaobai, the Nine-Tailed Celestial Fox in human form, and in recent days had spent more time clinging to her than not.

Watching Xiaohui and Xiaobai at their games, the monkey chirping with laughter, Ming Li suddenly thought: if his old friend on Mount Canglan, Zeng Shuyan, could see this, he would surely be envious.