Chapter 255 — Nestling Close
The Sword Questions the Heavens · Page 7 of 8
Behind every broken wall, beneath every fallen eave, there was perhaps a story, a family's laughter and sorrow, buried now beneath shattered earth and stone, and tonight, under the cold moon and clear wind, nothing remained but desolation.
In Lu Xueling's hand, Tianxuan gave off a faint, gentle glow, flickering bright and dim as though it knew its mistress's tangled heart. The white figure moved on through the ruins.
Suddenly, as Lu Xueling set down her foot, a small yet shrill cry burst from the grass beneath it, piercing and mournful in the chill of the night. Lu Xueling's face went pale and her body stiffened for a moment; then a field mouse darted out from the grass by her feet, scurrying on all fours, and in an instant vanished into another clump of thick grass.
Lu Xueling stood stunned for a moment, then slowly let out a long breath. Her nerves were stretched to the breaking point now; things that would never have troubled her ordinarily could set her heart quaking tonight. Yet that sudden shriek, though it gave her a small fright, also startled awake the monkey sleeping on the other side.
Before it was even awake, the gray monkey's ears had already twitched. A moment later, all three of Xiao Hui's eyes were open.
Footsteps—coming from the other side of the ruins.
Xiao Hui clambered up and looked about, and at once discovered that Xiaobai's familiar figure was gone. The monkey grew wary; it stood a while, glanced at Ming Li, and saw its master still sitting there dumb and unmoving as a wooden statue. Then Xiao Hui turned, climbed up onto the broken wall Ming Li leaned against, and looked toward the sound of the footsteps.
In the darkness, the golden eye on its brow slowly began to glow.
Lu Xueling had walked only a short while, and yet in her heart it felt long as a thousand years. Everywhere was an empty, hollow darkness, and her heart was filled with anxiety, now tinged faintly with dread as well—surely, in the time since Xiaobai left, he had not done something foolish, alone as he was...
Her face paled another shade, and her steps quickened of themselves. As though sensing the frenzy in her heart that was on the verge of bursting forth, after two more steps Lu Xueling abruptly halted.
On a broken wall ahead, a point of golden light suddenly kindled—but it was no firefly stirring in the dead of night. It was an eye, fixed intently upon her.
The moonlight crept forward, shifted a little, and lit the shadows, revealing the shape of a gray-furred, three-eyed monkey crouched atop the broken wall, several strips of cloth like bandages oddly and comically bound about its body, looking toward Lu Xueling.
Xiao Hui!
Lu Xueling's heart gave a violent leap. Almost without thinking she darted forward; the white figure traced a faint afterimage through the moonlight, as though vanishing like the last willow catkin of spring.
Watching Lu Xueling race toward it, Xiao Hui scratched its head, seeming to hesitate. Of all the women connected with its master, Lu Xueling was the one Xiao Hui knew least. The others—Xiaobai, Xiaowan, and the rest—would laugh and gather the monkey into their arms at first sight, stroking it or teasing it, but this woman in white was cold as frost and had never once exchanged a word with Xiao Hui.
Even so, Xiao Hui knew perfectly well that this woman's bond with its master was no ordinary one. Seeing the white shadow sweep near, Xiao Hui hesitated, then made no reaction at all.
The monkey did not react, but Lu Xueling did: with a face full of alarm she snatched the monkey up in one hand. In the moonlight there was the monkey's shape and no sign of that other person. Her voice trembling, she said, "He... where has he gone?"