Chapter 118

Chapter 118

Xue Heting frowned slightly. “He disappeared after taking me to the clinic. I was worried he might fall back into his old ways and start pilfering again. Sure enough, he can’t keep himself out of trouble. This time, he even stole from the City Lord’s Manor.”

After spending so much time together, Xue Heting had come to see that Ming Caihua was not bad by nature. He had simply grown up stealing and swindling to survive, and habits like those were not easily changed.

Xue Heting said, “If he really was the one who took the Saintess, there’s no telling what he intends to do with her. Our first priority is to find him.”

Qiao Ying rubbed her chin. “But Ming Caihua is better than anyone at hiding his tracks. Otherwise, with so many people searching the city, they would have found him long ago.”

Xue Heting held out his hand. A yellow Talisman slowly rose from his palm and hovered in midair.

“I placed a tracking spell on Ming Caihua in case he caused more trouble. Follow this Talisman, and it will lead us straight to him.”

Qiao Ying raised a hand and gave him a thumbs-up. “Brill…”

Behind her, Shen Qingyu smiled.

Qiao Ying lowered her hand and abruptly changed course. “What remarkable foresight.”

Long before Yunling City had been sealed, Ming Caihua had already slipped out with Mo Qingyi.

Beyond the city, the night was no longer bright and bustling. Cold winds howled through the streets, where the occasional beggar could be seen curled into a ball. It was a sight never found within Yunling City itself.

Mo Qingyi’s gaze lingered several times on these people she had never seen before. She noticed an elderly man huddled beneath a straw mat, clutching a young boy who trembled in his arms. The child’s face was flushed scarlet with fever. Without treatment, he would not survive the night.

Mo Qingyi walked over, crouched down, and took the boy’s hand.

A moment later, his fever faded. He opened his eyes, and when he saw the veiled woman in white, he stared at her in a daze.

“Fairy Sister…”

The old man immediately dropped to his knees and kowtowed. “Thank you, miss! Thank you!”

Ming Caihua stood behind Mo Qingyi with his arms folded and said lazily, “I thought you only cared whether the people inside Yunling City lived or died. So you save people outside the city too.”

Mo Qingyi rose without answering. A handkerchief appeared before her.

Ming Caihua said, “When you treated Shangguan Lingxiao, I noticed you only touched him through a handkerchief. I figured you must like to keep clean.”

Mo Qingyi accepted it. “Thank you.”

Their hands brushed as she took it. Ming Caihua vaguely felt that her hand was unusually hot, but the contact lasted only an instant, and the heat seemed almost like his imagination.

He glanced at the old man, who was still kneeling and kowtowing in gratitude, and quietly tossed him a silver ingot. Then he hurried to catch up with Mo Qingyi.

“You’re awfully cooperative about coming with me. Aren’t you afraid I have some wicked scheme in mind and might sell you?”

“There is no evil aura about you.”

Ming Caihua had no answer to that.

Mo Qingyi surveyed their surroundings with her clear eyes. “So there are this many peonies planted outside the city as well.”

“That’s because the City Lord’s late younger sister loved peonies. Every year, on the anniversary of her death, the city puts on a grand ceremony. Whoever presents the finest peony receives prize money and spiritual medicine from the City Lord’s Manor. That’s why everyone inside and outside the city likes growing them.”

Ming Caihua asked with interest, “Wasn’t your aunt the previous Saintess? She should have received the Golden Tree’s protection too, so how did she die so young? Is there some shameful secret behind it?”

“My aunt was already gone by the time I was old enough to remember anything. I know nothing about the shameful secret you imagine.”

Seeing that Mo Qingyi did not wish to discuss it, Ming Caihua fell silent. At dawn, he led her into an alley instead. The houses here were even more ramshackle than those outside, and the air itself felt stifling.

Several children who had risen early spotted Ming Caihua and ran over happily, calling him Brother. Ming Caihua generously took out the snacks he had bought ahead of time and handed some to every child.

The children looked curiously at the veiled woman in white and asked excitedly, “Brother, is this the wife you brought home?”
Mo Qingyi showed no change in emotion, but Ming Caihua nearly jumped out of his skin.

“Don’t talk nonsense! She’s a fairy I invited here!”

“A fairy? One who can cure our parents and grandparents?”

In an instant, the children crowded around her. Trapped in the middle of them, Mo Qingyi looked into their eager faces and seemed faintly at a loss.

Ming Caihua shooed them away and rescued Mo Qingyi from the crowd. “All right, go play. Don’t bother us while we’re doing something important!”

The children scattered in a rush, still shouting that Ming Caihua had brought a fairy home to be his wife.

Ming Caihua cleared his throat awkwardly. “They’re talking nonsense. Don’t take it to heart.”

Mo Qingyi said impassively, “Children speak without restraint. I do not mind.”

Ming Caihua stole a few more glances at her. A Saintess really was a Saintess, he thought. She seemed to have cast aside every human passion and desire, without even the slightest unnecessary ripple of emotion.

At the far end of the alley stood an even more dilapidated courtyard.

Ceaseless coughing sounded from within. The sick included the old and the young, both men and women. Their skin was an unnatural red, as if it had been scorched, and every moment brought them the torment of being burned alive.

“Why are you back again, you little brat? Go! Hurry up and leave!”

The old man guarding the gate brandished a broom and tried to drive Ming Caihua away. Ming Caihua nimbly dodged each sweep, squawking and yelping all the while.

“Old Man Yuan, I’m not here to make trouble this time! I brought a miracle doctor who can cure you!”

“What cure could there possibly be for us? Stop spouting nonsense and leave! If our illness spreads to you, you’ll have plenty to suffer!”

A young woman took Old Man Yuan by the wrist, and the broom about to strike Ming Caihua stopped in midair.

The old man felt a cool current surge into his body. At the same time, the flames burning inside him were drawn out in an instant and vanished without a trace. He had never felt so light. Even his back, hunched for years, straightened once more.

Old Man Yuan’s broom fell to the ground. With trembling fingers, he touched his face and discovered that the burn marks had disappeared.

Ming Caihua exclaimed, “Old man, your Heat Sickness is cured!”

Old Man Yuan shook all over, hot tears filling his eyes. “Miss, you really are… You truly are a miracle doctor!”

Before Mo Qingyi could respond, the people waiting to die in the courtyard saw hope and surged toward her.

“Miracle doctor, please save me!”

“I haven’t seen my child grow up yet. I don’t want to die!”

“Please save me! My wife is still waiting for me!”

Voices rose one after another around Mo Qingyi. The sick humbled themselves before her, some kneeling and others bowing. At this moment, in their eyes, she was a god.

Standing among them, Ming Caihua could not suppress the fervor in his own expression. “Miss Mo, can you help them?”

Mo Qingyi lowered her head and clasped her right hand in her left. After a moment, she raised her eyes.

“Very well.”

Perhaps a Saintess qualified to serve the Golden Tree truly did possess extraordinary divine power. No matter how baffling the illness, no matter how fatal the disease or grave the injury, a single touch from her could heal it in an instant.

The people confined to this ruined courtyard in the Poor Quarter to await death finally received a moment of mercy from the heavens. Their so-called Heat Sickness vanished in the blink of an eye.

They wept for joy and rushed to spread the news. They had never imagined they would live to leave this courtyard and return to their families.

“Father, Mother, your son was unfilial! I couldn’t even see you off when you died!”

“Yaya, Papa is back! Papa can take you to buy sugar figurines now!”

“My wife, you’ve suffered so much all these years. I failed you. I failed to take care of you and our child!”

For the first time, joy and bustle filled the lifeless alley.

Ming Caihua watched vitality return to the place where he had grown up. Words could not describe the emotion in his heart. When he looked at Mo Qingyi again, unrestrained gratitude and fervor shone in his face.

“Miss Mo, thank you. You saved everyone in the Poor Quarter. I’ll serve you like an ox or a horse for the rest of my life if that’s what you want!”
Mo Qingyi closed her eyes. Her body swayed, and she put out a hand to steady herself against the doorframe.

Ming Caihua’s expression changed. He rushed over and caught her by the arm. “What’s wrong?”

The instant he touched her, the searing heat made his hand jerk. It was as though all the burning heat in those people’s bodies had now gathered inside hers.

“Mo Qingyi, your body is burning. Are you…”

A blast of sword energy suddenly came at them. Ming Caihua instinctively wrapped an arm around Mo Qingyi and leaped back to evade it.

Their attacker was a masked man dressed in black. Most striking of all was his empty sleeve, though the missing arm did nothing to diminish the clean precision of his swordsmanship.

Ming Caihua realized that the man’s target was Mo Qingyi. Without hesitation, he hoisted her onto his back and bounded onto the rooftops in several leaps.

The frigid wind howled past them, and Mo Qingyi regained a little awareness.

“Someone… wants to kill me?”

“Don’t worry. With yours truly here, I won’t let anything happen to you!”

An arrow whistled through the air. Ming Caihua lashed out with his long whip, and a sharp crack split the night as the shaft snapped in two.

More men in black suddenly appeared, and a dense volley of feathered arrows shot toward them like driving rain.

Ming Caihua’s gaze sharpened. He pushed off with the tips of his toes and spun into the air, his scarlet whip dancing into an impenetrable barrier. Cracks sounded without pause as broken shafts and flecks of snow sprayed in every direction.

He knew the terrain better and was as slippery as an eel. The men in black truly could not catch him for the moment. But he was carrying another person, and sooner or later, his strength would run out.

Under cover of the arrow storm, the one-armed man rapidly closed the distance and knocked Ming Caihua’s whip away with a single stroke. Ming Caihua lost his footing and tumbled from the roof. Before he struck the snow, he instinctively pulled Mo Qingyi into his arms to shield her.

When the sword came at them again, Ming Caihua swiftly planted himself in front of Mo Qingyi.

Clang!

Two swords collided with an ear-piercing shriek.

Xue Heting wore a blue martial robe that outlined his tall, flawless figure. His features were cool and stern, and righteous authority suffused his bearing. His voice was as cold as ice. “To commit murder in broad daylight… You are far too arrogant.”

Ming Caihua was overjoyed. “Xue Heting!”

“Yingying, how lively it is here.”

Outside the fray, the Youth in Blue walked slowly through the snow, smiling as he held his wife’s hand. His white silk blindfold and snow-white hair seemed ready to meld with the purest white between heaven and earth. No wind or snow touched him, yet he came wreathed in countless currents of both.

The one-armed man in black halted and retreated several steps in succession. His voice was muffled. “You are not from Yunling City, Young Master. Why interfere in Yunling City’s affairs?”

Shen Qingyu smiled. “It is amusing to see all of you so frustrated.”

The man in black’s breathing caught. “There is neither grievance nor enmity between us, and our paths have never crossed. Do me this favor, Young Master, and if you ever have need of me in the future, I will do everything in my power to assist you.”

Qiao Ying poked her head out from behind Shen Qingyu. “We only met in Yunling Prefecture not long ago. You can’t exactly say our paths have never crossed.”

The man in black said, “You jest, miss.”

“I’m not joking. He Fei, are you no longer working under Ding Yanyu?”

The man in black fell silent.

After a moment, he removed his mask, exposing a weathered, scarred face to everyone. His expression was especially grim.

“How did you recognize me?”

Qiao Ying blinked. “Huh? I just recognized you. Wait, you weren’t wearing that mask to make yourself look mysterious? You were actually trying to hide your identity?”

He Fei was speechless.

Shen Qingyu’s lips curved upward. He poked her cheek, insisting on pressing a soft little dimple into it before he was satisfied. Then he bent down and murmured, “Yingying, so silly.”

Qiao Ying covered her cheek and glared at him.

The young man smiled again and crooned in a clingy voice, “I like it so much.”

In an instant, Qiao Ying’s air of being ready to open her mouth and bite someone vanished without a trace.