Chapter 171 — Eleven
The Sword Questions the Heavens · Page 3 of 7
Yet overhead in the sky was the Slaying Immortals sword formation—ten years he had thought of it day and night without cease, and it was graven on his bones. Bili's figure swayed ceaselessly before his eyes, wounding both spirit and heart. And the man before him—now that his mind was clear, Ming Li remembered their friendship of many years, and this fury of his was mostly of his own making. Thinking of that old man in the Ancestral Master Hall a moment ago, Ming Li felt somewhat ashamed. Thus he gradually lost the will to fight.
With a long sigh, his heart in turmoil, Ming Li had no more heart for the entanglement. He felt only that here and now was unbearably painful, and wished to leave; and deeper still was a bitter longing, a wish to be back in the Foxqi Mountains in the blink of an eye, to see Bili's face and pour out his heart to her.
Just then, ahead of him, Lin Jinghong had already sent a sword leaping into empty air, screaming toward him, azure light like lightning piercing the vault of heaven. Ming Li's face darkened; he retreated three steps in succession, and the Soul-devouring Demon Staff came crashing down, striking squarely on the Slaying Dragon sword's blade.
Lin Jinghong's body shook violently. He felt a bizarre and utterly unnatural bloody malevolence pass from that black staff, shaped like a rod of dark iron, and at the same time a strange drawing force that seemed to pull at his very essence and blood, about to surge outward, so that he could scarcely contain himself.
Lin Jinghong paled with fright, certain it was the supremely evil and inauspicious treasure in Ming Li's hand; but his nature was unyielding, and he was utterly unafraid. Instead of retreating he pressed forward, the Slaying Dragon sword rising again like a dragon sporting beneath the blade, heedless of the wide opening at his own chest, driving straight at Ming Li's face.
Ming Li's gaze flickered. If he struck now, though he would not escape grave injury himself, he was wholly certain he could kill Lin Jinghong. Yet gazing at that familiar face, a vision flashed through Ming Li's mind like lightning—the two of them at play as boys—and then, Bili's face.
In this world, how many people are left that I might cherish, still living among the living?
As though mocking himself, he asked this with a faint bitter smile, drew back the Soul-devouring Demon Staff, and leaped into the air, evading the crisis of that critical instant. But his bitter smile, seen through Lin Jinghong's eyes, seemed like mockery itself, and inflamed his fury to the heavens.
At that very moment, Ming Li, suspended in midair, suddenly trembled and looked into the distance. A white figure came drifting toward them swift as lightning; and when that person had seen clearly what was happening here, the figure too seemed to shudder, and upon a face of peerless beauty appeared an expression mingled of joy and shock, of sorrow and delight beyond telling—even the voice trembling faintly:
"You... it really is you..."
It was Lu Xueling.
Upon her snow-white cheeks, no one knew when it had begun—for the first time in her life, before others, two tears slipped quietly down.
That man stared at her, astonished, as she descended slowly through the air—that face so familiar, the longing graven on her heart for how many years?
When she had thought him dead after all, what grief and anguish had been hers! Were there not others present now, she would have flung herself into his arms and wept her fill.
Who would choose a lifetime of lonely bitterness?
Who would choose to pass the days in solitude?
If love were not so deep it could not be restrained, how could a tender heart be turned a hundredfold and grow cold as frost!