Chapter 17

Li Daoxuan’s brows ticked up at her blurting his name like that, utterly forgetting their respective positions. In the end, he let it pass without comment.
The two of them headed south. With Li Daoxuan as a walking cheat code at her side, all the traps and obstacles Shen Qing had struggled through before were cleared with ease. Before long, they stood once more before the locust grove, its ground crawling with vine-like tendrils.
But a new problem immediately presented itself. Under the influence of the nine-headed Xiangyou, the air in the forest was damp and heavy, thick with moisture and gloom. With everything so wet and no fire on hand, burning an entire grove of locust trees would be no easy feat.
And there was one more issue: she had to lure him into the jar before she set it aflame.
Wuming, however, was extremely cautious; he still refused to show even a glimpse of himself.
Shen Qing found this distinctly vexing.
Seeing the girl staring at the locust grove with a stormy expression, even the light in her eyes dimmed by worry, Li Daoxuan finally asked, “What now, Miss Shen? Aren’t you going to break the array?”
Shen Qing cast a wary glance around, then suddenly crooked a finger at him, looking all kinds of furtive, as if she wanted to whisper a secret.
But the young man didn’t budge, standing there as loose and unruffled as a pine in the wind.
When he still didn’t move, Shen Qing’s patience frayed. There’s no one else here, what exactly is he guarding against? It’s not like I’m going to eat him, she thought.
So she simply stepped forward, grabbed him by the collar, yanked him down to her height, and leaned in close to murmur by his ear.
Li Daoxuan’s gaze dropped, his dark eyes almost inky beneath his long lashes.
Her warm breath brushed his ear. His nose was filled with a faint sweetness that seeped into his bones; whatever scent she wore, it was dangerously distracting.
As she spoke, he watched the pale line of her neck from the corner of his eye.
The longer he looked, the sharper the memory became: the feel of that fragile throat under his hand earlier. A strange, feather-light craving stirred in his chest.
He had the sudden urge to break that tender skin and slowly savor the rich blood beneath it.
Just as that shadow in his eyes deepened, Shen Qing stepped back.
Face unchanged, Li Daoxuan lifted his gaze a fraction. Her whispered plan replayed in his mind, and his lips quirked faintly. His eyes dropped to the Glass Heart resting against her chest. “If it really is the nine-headed Xiangyou,” he said coolly, “then this becomes much easier.”
Shen Qing lit up. She knew Li Daoxuan would have a solution.
Then she heard him drawl, “So what if he’s the Nine-headed Xiangyou? Back then, he still had his head cut off with a single sword, and he’s been skulking like a grindstone rat ever since, hiding in the dark, tail tucked between his legs. Now it’s the same: he’s barely finished half an array and already can’t wait to embarrass himself.”
“Oh, right,” he added lazily, turning the blade with a twist of his tongue, “the one who took his head was, if I recall, your master, the former Master of Xuanji Pavilion, wasn’t he?”
Shen Qing hadn’t expected his heart to be black enough to drag her into it even now. Still, he was only telling the truth; she really had nothing to say in her defense.
She could only grit her teeth and go along. “Yes. Since my master could lop off one of his heads back then, once my senior brother arrives, he can lop off another. I just wonder, Your Highness, who’s stronger, you or my senior brother?”
The moment the words left her mouth, a violent gale erupted. Shen Qing’s eyes flashed. Here we go.
Clouds piled thick overhead. A streak of green light split them, hurtling down toward Shen Qing’s face like a thunderbolt. She didn’t so much as blink as it approached.
A gust of wind swept her hair back. Light bloomed before her eyes in a shimmering arc, and when it faded, a cold, gleaming sword was poised before her, neatly intercepting the strike.
Standing between her and the attack was Li Daoxuan, tall and straight as a spear. The sweep of his tail-tied hair whipped past her lashes. Shen Qing pushed his hair aside and let her lips curl in a small smile.
This was the sort of protection she had never tasted in her last life, the kind that had belonged solely to Shen Ling. Touching the warm Glass Heart against her chest, she couldn’t help sighing inwardly: A heroine’s treasure really is convenient.
In the next instant, red and white flashed together. Their two figures blurred, trading blows so fast that a dozen moves passed in a heartbeat.
Wuming’s voice rang out, hoarse with rage. “So you’re his disciple? I’ll kill you!”
The humiliation and hatred of that day, when his head was lopped off, burned fresh in his mind.
If Qin Zimo hadn’t taken advantage of the siege to strike from behind, how could he have lost a head? If not for that strike, he would never have been beaten half to death and forced to skulk in the human realm, hiding in fear for years. It was all that man’s fault.
He wanted to tear this girl apart to vent his hate, and then find the senior brother she’d mentioned and kill him too.
But no matter how he lunged, he couldn’t get close to Shen Qing. The young man in red stuck to him like a bad rash, refusing to let him past. With his wounds still unhealed, Wuming could do nothing about him. Rage flooded his vision, leaving him with only a single thought: kill them both.
No one knew how long the man and evil spirits had been locked in combat when a girl’s voice suddenly rang out.
“Li Daoxuan, that’s enough!”
Li Daoxuan’s body folded in midair as he instantly shifted, sweeping toward Shen Qing. At that exact moment, Wuming flung out a blast of demonic power.
Li Daoxuan snatched Shen Qing up and, with a push of his toes, sprang higher. The demonic power shot right through the space their feet had just occupied and slammed into the locust grove below.
“Boom”
A series of explosions rang out in succession. The blast array Shen Qing had quietly laid during their fight was triggered, and in an instant roaring flames surged through the locust grove.
The Five Elements snapped back into place. Above Mount Li, the clouds and mist tore open, the sky clearing in a heartbeat. Sunlight poured down in sheets, sweeping away the lingering gloom and ushering in dawn. The enraged Wuming was trapped at last within the Three Bonds, Five Directions Array.
Once they were outside the array’s bounds and before Shen Qing had even found her footing, Li Daoxuan let go of her with obvious distaste.
She went down hard, adding a fresh set of bruises to the collection.
She didn’t get angry. She climbed to her feet, patted off the dust, gave Li Daoxuan a look loaded with meaning, then turned her eyes toward Wuming, who was battering helplessly against the barrier.
At this point, manners, bearing, “gentlemanly conduct”, all were long gone. Wuming, utterly crazed, pounded at the boundary. “You schemed against me! Once I get out, I’ll devour you both in one bite!”
Shen Qing said, “We finally managed to catch a scourge like you, and you still think I’d let you walk out? Sit tight and wait to pay for all that karma you’ve racked up.”
For the people who had waited in despair for death when he trapped them in the city ten years ago, and for all the cultivators and disciples who had died because of him, Shen Qing was determined to remove this threat once and for all.
As the Three Bonds, Five Directions Array took hold, Wuming’s demoic power was suppressed thinner and thinner. Faint dark-green scales began to surface across his face.
Then, for some reason, Li Daoxuan suddenly shrugged off his quiver, tossed aside his bow, drew his sword, and stepped into the barrier.
Seeing him inexplicably walk in, Wuming gaped wide, fangs bared, his skin swelling as if his body might burst.
Li Daoxuan’s voice was icy. “If you dare show your true form now, this prince will take your remaining eight heads as well.”
His tone was almost casual, but Wuming could clearly hear the bone-deep killing intent underneath.
Perhaps realizing he was completely at the other’s mercy, or perhaps simply afraid this lunatic would really chop off the rest of his heads, Wuming forcibly swallowed down the urge to transform.
His demonic power drained away another notch.
The Three Bonds, Five Directions Array had locked onto the strongest evil spirits within. The net was tightening steadily around Wuming.
Li Daoxuan’s gaze sank, and he drove his sword straight into Wuming’s shoulder, pinning him hard to the ground.
He seemed to be radiating an aura of grievance and hatred even more intense than Wuming’s own. Caught off guard, Wuming had already lost the upper hand. Even if he wanted to fight back now, his best opportunity had passed.
Then Li Daoxuan yanked his sword free and planted his boot directly on the gaping wound in Wuming’s shoulder. Wuming couldn’t move at all. He abandoned decorum completely, cursing at the top of his lungs. “Idiot! Bitch! Sneak attacks, that’s all you can do? If you’ve got guts, take your foot off and fight me head-on! I’ll skin you alive, rip out your tendons, and eat you!”
Li Daoxuan held his sword horizontally in front of Wuming’s mouth, measuring with chilling leisure. “A sneak attack is still a kind of skill. I may be useless, but somehow this useless man has you, a supposedly mighty evil spirits, trampled under his feet. What do you have to say to that?”
Wuming was so furious he hammered his head against the ground, helpless in his rage.
Shen Qing had just been quietly admiring how sharp Li Daoxuan’s tongue was when his next move made her wrinkle her nose in sudden disgust.
The sword he’d been holding in front of Wuming’s mouth slid all the way in. There was a flash of red light, and with one thrust, he speared Wuming’s tongue.
Wuming let out a strangled, inhuman sound, clawing at the ground in agony, his fingernails peeling back. He was utterly wretched.
Whatever grudge lay between Li Daoxuan and Wuming, it clearly ran deep. From the moment he’d learned Wuming was the legendary nine-headed Xiangyou, his entire aura had turned dark and stormy.
Cutting out his tongue wasn’t enough. Li Daoxuan began slicing strips of flesh from Wuming’s body, carving him apart one stroke at a time.
With the Three Bonds, Five Directions Array now fully active, its bounds had shrunk to contain just the two of them. Wuming had completely missed his last chance to transform and could only endure the lingchi in human form, eyes blazing with raw hatred and killing intent.
Soon, the once snow-pale Wuming was drenched in blood. A few drops had splashed onto Li Daoxuan’s cheek, red buds of color on a face like fresh snow.
He lifted a hand and carelessly wiped them away. The smears spread like blooming plum blossoms, stark and vivid, deadly flowers blooming on a soul-stealingly beautiful face.
No one knew how long it went on before Wuming finally lay still, soaked in blood, motionless on the ground. He looked dead.
But they both knew: flesh wounds alone couldn’t kill him. They could only hurt.
Li Daoxuan knew that perfectly well. He shook the blood from his blade and walked out of the array. The killing aura and shadow in his eyes hadn’t faded yet, and he closed in on Shen Qing with a pressure that made it hard to breathe.
He’d barely reached her, Shen Qing hadn’t even managed a full breath, when he suddenly asked something completely off-topic.
“You went to all this trouble just to get this prince to look at that thing. Since you know this prince needs it, speak plainly, what do you want in return?”
Shen Qing hadn’t expected him to lay her motives bare so bluntly. Her mind went blank. Before she could even think up a counter, her vision went dark and she crumpled where she stood.