Chapter 221 — Rescue
The Sword Questions the Heavens · Page 2 of 6
Could her guess truly have hit the mark?
Unawares, Lu Xueling found her palms slowly breaking into cold sweat. Yet she was no ordinary mortal; her will was firm, and though alarm and doubt stirred in her heart, there was no trace of cowardice. She quietly circulated her divine powers, gathered her spirit in vigilance, and advanced step by step.
Inside the coffin, the witch-demon and the mysterious fat man beneath him both watched Lu Xueling's white figure slowly draw near. The fat man showed no reaction, merely watching; but the witch-demon's mind was in turmoil, unable to guess how Lu Xueling would act once she came close. He longed to escape this humiliating predicament, and in this span of time he had tried no end of schemes and cunning arts—yet the bizarre restriction laid upon the coffin seemed made to be his bane, locking his meridians fast so that he could not stir, unable to summon the slightest strength.
The witch-demon cursed inwardly without pause; at his wits' end, he could only keep lamenting his ill fortune in silence.
Lu Xueling slowly approached the mysterious coffin. The closer she came to that seemingly unremarkable box, the more plainly her wariness and a faint trace of alarm showed between her brows. This coffin was clearly no peerless treasure; judging by its material, it was at best middling timber, and more than half rotted through—so it could hardly be the coffin itself giving off such powerful yin energy.
And with her keen senses, she could now indeed detect, at such close range, that there were two people inside the coffin—but around those two was spread a layer of murky, barely perceptible barrier, wrapping their bodies within. And though this yin energy lay three feet away from her, Lu Xueling already felt her own blood and qi stirring faintly, a chill seeping at her again and again.
What manner of sorcery, or what unheard-of demonic artifact, could possess such inconceivable power?
Lu Xueling forced down her astonishment, steadied her spirit, and suppressed the restless stirring in her body. She examined the coffin carefully, then slowly reached out her hand toward it.
At the doorway of the little room, Xiao Bai's figure appeared. She leaned against the doorframe, looking relaxed, but her fine eyes were fixed intently on Lu Xueling's movements. With her cultivation, she had already sensed the coffin's strangeness when she rescued Zhou Yixuan and the others; what had held Zhou Yixuan and his companions was the most ordinary of arts, but that corner coffin harbored immense danger, so much so that even she had not dared to act rashly. On the instant she had decided to pull Zhou Yixuan and the other two out first, and not to meddle with the coffin.
Now, seeing Lu Xueling stand before the coffin, Xiao Bai naturally watched closely—and the coffin also held a witch-demon, the very man she wanted, so she could not help but concentrate utterly. Meanwhile, Zhou Yixuan, Xiao Wan, and the Wild Wolf Daoist, unable to resist their curiosity, had crept quietly outside the great hole and were peering stealthily toward the middle of the room.
Inside and outside the mortuary, a sudden hush fell, the atmosphere turning somewhat eerie. Everyone held their breath and fixed their eyes on Lu Xueling, not daring to look away—so that when, far off at the horizon, a faint wisp of black qi shot up into the sky and spun aloft, and another figure seemed to give chase, grappling with it in midair, not a single one of them noticed.
"Crack."
In the darkness, as that white figure swayed gently, Lu Xueling's slender, pale hand slowly came to rest on the coffin's wooden boards—and almost at once, a movement that should have been utterly silent was answered from within the coffin by a small, crisp sound.
As though some strip of wood had burst apart.