Chapter 219 — Sordid
The Sword Questions the Heavens · Page 3 of 5
Little Bai cried out in fury and drifted backward with incredible speed, while her sleeve flew up to shield her front, forming a wall of cloth. But this strike of Shangguan Lue's was the sum of his life's cultivation, and its power was no small thing. With a hissing burst, the sleeve was torn to shreds by the Nine-Cold Condensing Ice Spike's chill, and almost at once it turned to ice, shattered, and fell to the ground.
The silver-white light did not pause in the slightest but sped straight at Little Bai. She was still retreating, but a hurried retreat could never outpace Shangguan Lue's long-planned killing blow. The deathly light was about to catch her—her face was pale, yet she showed no panic. She suddenly clasped her hands before her chest, crossing and bending them in a strange gesture.
"Xiu."
A long, mysterious cry suddenly echoed from some unknown place—a howl desolate and proud, serene and self-possessed, carrying one into a realm of mystery: a night of the full moon, in the wilderness, a white fox crying to the moon.
In the next instant, the light of the Nine-Cold Condensing Ice Spike surged, and a blaze of silver light enveloped Little Bai's entire body.
Shangguan Lue's desperate counterattack had succeeded, yet there was no triumph on his face—only a bitter gnashing of teeth, as though deeply unwilling. But he was, after all, no ordinary man; after weighing matters in an instant, he wasted not a moment's hesitation. At once he flung himself backward, and with but a few bounds his gray figure had vanished into the vast wilderness beyond the mortuary.
The silver halo slowly receded. There were faint traces of blood on the ground—but Little Bai was gone.
In midair, the mysterious fox cry still lingered, long and drawn out, and only after a good while did it quietly fade. As though out of thin air, Little Bai's slender form appeared once more in the air and slowly descended.
She lowered her head and looked at the spots of blood on the ground, bit her lip with silver teeth, and her face was full of fury. A moment ago she had been careless, never expecting that Shangguan Lue, to save his life, would stoop to such sordidness and devise this trick—and she had fallen to his ambush, nearly losing her life.
Fortunately, though, she was no ordinary being. She was the Nine-Tailed Celestial Fox.
A fox has nine tails!
That cannot be counted against her!
The night wind blew cold from afar, striking her face with a real chill.
Little Bai stood in the courtyard, steadied herself, then slowly turned and looked toward that dark little room.
She walked slowly inside.
Within the mortuary, all was still silent and dark, as though that breathtaking, fierce battle of spells had never happened at all.
Her figure stood in the doorway of the room, and beneath the dim starlight of this night, her silhouette now seemed to grow faint and indistinct, taking on a touch of the eerie. But plainly Little Bai would not fear such an atmosphere as ordinary folk did—she was, after all, the ancestral matriarch of all such demonic spirits. When it came to playing ghost and goblin tricks, not to mention men, even if real ghosts did come, they might not compare to her—and who could say which of them would be the one frightened away?
At that moment, Xiao Bai's clear bright eyes swept once around the dark little room, lingering in particular over each of the several coffins within, and a flicker of puzzlement crossed her gaze. In the end, however, her attention settled upon the coffin resting in that secluded corner.
"Come out. I know you're in there." Xiao Bai did not walk over; she merely stood where she was and spoke these words lightly.
No one answered; there was only silence.