Chapter 220 — Convergence
The Sword Questions the Heavens · Page 4 of 6
A trace of a smile appeared at the corner of his mouth, a mild and guileless smile, as though he were the boy of all those years ago, shouting and laughing aloud in this village that once was, running with all his might!
The night wind sighed; somewhere far off someone seemed to be murmuring softly. Grass and trees stirred with the wind, and the wind carried the fragrance of green grass.
He closed his eyes.
What a quiet, peaceful night it was.
Suddenly Xiao Hui gave a violent start, all three of its eyes snapping open at once. It lifted its head slightly from Ming Li's lap and raised it a little, as though listening for something. At the same moment, Ming Li's brows knitted faintly, and the last trace of that pale smile at the corner of his mouth vanished without a sound.
Silently, he opened his eyes once more, and what met his gaze was this world again.
He reached out and patted Xiao Hui lightly on the head, and the monkey immediately grew calm. It turned its head, its three eyes rolling nimbly about, but it would not sleep either; it rose softly, scratched at its head, then sprang lightly up onto Ming Li's shoulder and began peering about in every direction.
Ming Li remained seated in that secluded corner. Before him a broken wall happened to screen his body, but the gaps where it had crumbled and peeled away let him look out.
A desolate place like this drew no one even by day—could some unexpected thing really be about to happen on a night so dark and windy as this?
A strange and uncanny aura, as though born of thin air, abruptly descended upon these ruins. Ming Li's intuition caught something at once, and his brows drew tighter still.
The night wind turned cold and bleak, as though it were the chill wind said to blow through the Nine Hells of the underworld, piercing to the bone—only it was not the skin that felt the cold, but a phantom chill that seemed to seep into the very channels of the heart. Amid this uncanny, mournful wind, a dark figure dropped from the sky and landed without a sound at the center of the ruins of Liumiao Village.
In the distance, through that gap, Ming Li watched the dark figure covertly, betraying nothing, yet a deep shock ran through him. The evil power contained in this unknown newcomer was greater than any he had seen in all his life; even at a considerable distance, at the very moment the figure touched down, he still felt his blood and qi churn faintly through the meridians of his whole body.
But why would a master of such fearsome cultivation come in the dead of night to these deserted ruins of Liumiao Village?
Ming Li could make no sense of it, and could only fix his eyes upon the figure.
Soon he discovered something strange: the figure appeared black not because the man wore black clothes, but because his whole body was enveloped in a layer of uncanny black vapor that rolled and surged without cease, making it impossible to see his true face.
Ming Li grew all the more puzzled, and observed the man covertly all the more carefully. Yet after landing, the man did not move at once; oddly, he stood there in place, motionless, for a long while.
Just as Ming Li was baffled, the dark figure stirred again, then slowly walked forward. Ming Li's brows locked tightly; he watched the figure in cold silence.
As the black figure trod upon the grassy ground and slowly passed one stretch of crumbling walls after another, Ming Li's gaze rested upon him and drifted quietly along.
The black figure seemed to have no particular aim; he merely appeared to be strolling. Ming Li had grown up in Liumiao Village and knew its every turning intimately, yet even he could not tell where the man was headed. He only watched the black figure walk slowly on, looking somewhat as though he were searching for something.