Chapter 239 — Hope

Behind her, all was silent—until the heavy stone door closed once more, separating her from that chamber.

Xiaobai stood in silence, drew a deep breath, and walked slowly along the empty corridor. As she went, her body, which had been secretly tensed a moment before, relaxed little by little.

There was still a trace of that strange mockery in her eyes, and none could say what she was truly thinking. But as her gaze swept the empty corridor around her, it suddenly fell upon the rough, deep cracks that ran along the stone walls. Then another cold smile of confirmation crossed her face.

She now knew the cause of that wrongness she had first sensed in the Ghost King's chamber. Throughout the caves of the Ghost King Sect in Fox Crag Mountain, these strange, mysterious cracks appeared everywhere—only in the Ghost King's chamber just now, the stone walls had been different.

Unblemished and whole!

Ming Li descended from the high sky, the little monkey Xiaohui still clinging to his shoulder and peering about. For the restless Xiaohui, there seemed never to be a quiet moment, and in that monkey's body the word "weariness" was nowhere to be found.

But though the monkey never tired, its master's face looked somewhat grave. Ming Li landed on the ground. In the distance rose the desolate heights of Fox Crag Mountain, yet for some reason he did not, as in former days, descend directly at the entrance to the Ghost King Sect's caves. Instead he landed at the mountain's foot and began walking slowly up.

Ming Li's manner was plainly grave; his brows were tightly knit. Perhaps even he had forgotten how long it had been since he last truly smiled.

There was a faint, heavy weight against his chest. Ming Li did not need to reach for it to know what it was—that mysterious treasure, the Universe Reincarnation Disc!

Never before had he heard that such a wondrous treasure existed in this world, still less that a wandering fortune-teller of the jianghu named Zhou Yixuan should know a secret so closely guarded that even within the Temple of the Sanskrit Voice it was kept hidden. Yet after a glimmer of hope had come, more than anything, worry, anxiety, and confusion. Even now he still could not fathom this treasure. And small wonder—the Venerable Master Pude, one of the Temple of the Sanskrit Voice's four great divine monks, had pondered it for decades without penetrating its secrets. How could Ming Li unravel the mystery in a few short days?

But what of Bili?

Ming Li stopped in his tracks and drew a deep breath. His expression was that of a man crushed breathless beneath a weight of a thousand catties. After a long while he suddenly gave a bitter laugh, and once more set off up the mountain.

How many people say that life is a dream—never knowing that in this world, whatever the dream, one must always face it in the end.

Unawares, he had reached the entrance to the main hall caves of the Ghost King Sect. Several disciples on watch at the gate caught sight of him, and at first they started; then, as though something had occurred to them, looks of great joy broke across their faces, and they all came running over.

"Deputy Sect Master, you've returned."

"You came back a step too late. Miss Xiao Bai came looking for you and only just left."

"If you hadn't come back, we—we truly didn't know whether we'd live to see you again..."

The jumbled, overlapping clamor of their voices startled even Ming Li, and he said in astonishment, "What are you saying?"

These past days the disciples of the Infernal King Sect had truly felt themselves plunged into a mountain of blades and a sea of fire, in unbearable torment—and worse, under such circumstances those who ordinarily took charge had vanished one and all. The Four Holy Envoys had once commanded great prestige, but Azure Dragon had gone to the southern frontier and then fallen silent, missing for a long while; Vermilion Bird had long since departed Mount Huqi; and the Infernal King himself, the very heart and mainstay of the Infernal King Sect, had adopted an utterly unexpected and bizarre attitude of total indifference. Within the sect all was chaos. Had the Demon Cult's rules not been so severe, and the disciples so in fear of punishment that they dared not flee, Mount Huqi might well have become a deserted mountain.

Ming Li had once held lofty station within the Infernal King Sect. Though he usually wore a cold face, he had never bullied or humiliated the ordinary disciples, and in secret they held this taciturn deputy sect master in considerable respect. Now, in a time of peril, to see Ming Li appear all at once was like charcoal offered in the snow, a straw to a drowning man—small wonder they who had been drowning in fear were beside themselves with joy.

Hearing the disciples around him vie with one another, each cutting in on the last, Ming Li lowered his head impassively, reached up, and gently touched his chest. Through the black cloth, the Universe Reincarnation Disc gave off a faint, warm breath.

"Enough!" he said coldly, all at once.

The disciples of the Infernal King Sect around him fell silent, stunned.

Ming Li silently pushed the disciples aside with his hand and walked toward the heart of the mountain. Behind him someone shouted loudly, "Deputy—Deputy Sect Master, don't tell us that even you, even you won't look after us anymore?"

Ming Li's body paused for a moment. Then his low, pent-up voice came slowly: "Ten years. I exhausted every power I had and still could not save Bi Li. I cannot even look at myself with respect—what ability have I to save anyone else..."

He strode on forward, and seen from behind he seemed to carry a certain desolation, wholly lacking the youthful vigor that ought to have been his at this moment. Behind him the Infernal King Sect disciples exchanged glances, every face ashen, despair surging in like a tide from all unknowable quarters, sweeping over them and burying them.

Ming Li entered the passage into the mountain's belly. He had taken no more than two steps when the monkey Xiao Hui, which had been lying on his shoulder all along, suddenly shuddered. With a shriek of "Zhi!" it scrambled upright on its hind legs, and at the same time a faint golden light glimmered in the three eyes on its face—it looked for all the world like a creature facing a great enemy.

Ming Li frowned, reached up, and lifted Xiao Hui down. "Xiao Hui, what is it?" he asked in a low voice.

Xiao Hui gave a few cries of "zhi zhi, zhi zhi," its manner oddly tense, and waved its arms to either side. Ming Li's gaze sharpened; he followed the direction of Xiao Hui's pointing finger, and the expression on his face gradually turned ice-cold.

Where Xiao Hui pointed, there on the once-hard stone wall, were many strange, deep, mysterious cracks.

Ming Li slowly set Xiao Hui back on his shoulder and once more set his feet in motion, walking slowly forward. Xiao Hui lay on his shoulder, its three eyes wide open, watching its surroundings with the utmost vigilance. This passage, once thronged with people coming and going, now held only the figures of Ming Li and Xiao Hui; the Infernal King Sect disciples of ordinary days had all vanished.

Empty, desolate corridors, one branching junction after another; as Ming Li's figure advanced slowly, the mysterious cracks in the stone walls on either side grew ever denser and broader. An uncanny aura seemed to begin spreading through the passages around him, as if some invisible monster had opened its eyes in the dark and was watching them.

A blood-stench, now faint, now almost gone, drifted eerily through the empty passages.

Ming Li's steps grew slower and slower. As his gaze moved from one crack to the next, it too grew deeper and keener. Something had indeed happened here!