Chapter 140 — Killing Intent
The Sword Questions the Heavens · Page 6 of 6
Zhou Yixuan and his two companions, together with the newly joined Ming Li and the monkey Xiao Hui, had been traveling along the old road, and this day they came to the foot of Mount Kongsang. As night had fallen, they built a fire in this sheltered spot and prepared to camp out in the wild.
Though long accustomed to such things from years on the road, Zhou Yixuan no sooner sat down than he began crying out loudly in pain, pounding his back and waist with his hands as though he had nearly worn his spine through. But since none of the others paid him any mind, his clamor soon grew tiresome, and he gradually fell silent.
Little Wan crouched by the fire and held her hands out to warm them, while the Wild Wolf Daoist set down Mingli, whom he had been carrying on his back, along with all the bundles, then walked over to the fire and only then truly began to gasp for breath. Among the whole party, it was the monkey Little Grey who was the liveliest; the moment it touched the ground it was looking this way and that, leaping hither and thither.
Ever since Little Wan had decided to take Mingli with them, he had remained in this drunken stupor for a very long time, only occasionally waking once, glancing at the people around him as though they were not there at all, summoning Little Grey, opening the wineskin on its back and drinking without pause—and in no time at all he had fallen drunk again. Truly, he lived in a stupor of wine and dreamed of death.
All along the road, the Wild Wolf Daoist had, besides the bundles, taken on the added task of carrying Mingli, and more often than not the monkey Little Grey would leap onto Mingli as well, adding weight upon weight; had he not cultivated the Daoist arts for some years, an ordinary man could never have borne it.
This time the Wild Wolf Daoist panted for a long while, then looked about him: Zhou Yixuan had been muttering to himself for ages, and now was probably tired too, for he had lain down on one side and gone to sleep in his clothes; Little Wan lay not far from the fire.
As for the slumbering Mingli, because the Wild Wolf Daoist had just now, whether by design or not, set him down some distance away, the firelight could not reach that spot, and only a blurred shadow could be made out; and the three-eyed monkey beside him had now run off somewhere—most likely it had gone to look for wild fruit to eat, as Little Grey so often did along the road.
The wild dog sat in silence before the fire, and all around gradually fell quiet; Zhou Yixuan's snoring slowly rose, and Little Wan's body rose and fell faintly—she seemed to have fallen asleep too.
The firelight was mirrored on the wild dog's face, throwing his expression into shifting light and shadow, and setting off the strange, restless gleam that turned in his eyes.
After a long while, he suddenly raised his head and gazed into the night at Mount Kongsang—tall and perilous, its crags jutting like a night demon baring fangs and claws. There lay the holy ground of his own lineage, the Blood Refining Hall. But now the Blood Refining Hall had long since been reduced to ashes and scattered to the winds, leaving only him behind, a lone ghost of the wild.
Slowly he turned his head back. The man, sunk in drunken slumber within the shadows of the night, lay motionless in the distance.
The Wild Wolf Daoist drew a deep breath, and his hand instinctively went to his waist, closing around his beast-fang talisman.
Then he rose slowly and walked toward Mingli. The firelight shone on his back and stretched his shadow longer and longer, until gradually it swallowed the man lying on the ground.
The next moment, he stood before Mingli.