Chapter 5

Chapter 5

The night wind howled, cutting against her skin.

Qiao Ying did not dare stop, but the sounds behind her were drawing closer and closer.

Within the shadows of the trees, two pairs of green eyes sped toward her like a Ghost. They fixed on the running girl as though they had locked onto some delicious morsel, eager to swallow her whole.

The instant she saw the Boundary Stele, Qiao Ying picked up speed. A sharp pain suddenly shot through her foot, and she pitched forward, crashing to the ground. She was only a tiny distance away from the Boundary Stele. When she lifted her head, two figures were already standing in front of her.

Wang Dalang and Sanniang, who was holding the baby, still looked like the same honest, harmless people as before. There was not the slightest hint of danger about them. Yet their faces were even paler than a corpse’s, and their murky eyes were filled with lifeless gloom.

Sanniang said, “Didn’t you say this girl had no schemes to speak of and would be easy to mislead? How is she so sharp? She almost got away.”

Wang Dalang’s expression turned unpleasant. “Didn’t we stop her in time?”

“A little later and she would have run out. It’s rare enough for us to wait for such a good body. If she escaped, how long would our child have to wait before she could grow up?”

The infant in Sanniang’s swaddling clothes babbled twice, as if echoing her mother’s words.

Qiao Ying quietly grabbed a handful of dirt from the ground and pushed herself up. Ignoring her scrapes, she limped backward on her injured foot and asked warily, “What exactly do you want?”

Sanniang smiled again. “Miss Qiao, don’t be nervous. We don’t want to hurt you. In fact, we both like you very much.”

Wang Dalang wore the same smile. “For these past several decades, Sanniang and I have been wondering what our child would look like when she grew up. The moment we saw you, we had our answer.”

The baby reached out a hand. Her round eyes stared at Qiao Ying, curving with an eerie smile.

Sanniang said, “Look, even our daughter likes you very much. You’ve forgotten your past, and you don’t know where your home is. Why not become a family with us? Dalang and I will treat you well.”

Qiao Ying understood now. These two wanted her body. When she heard them say “several decades,” her scalp went numb.

This husband and wife looked young, and the baby was only two or three months old. None of them bore the slightest trace of time’s passage.

They were not human.

Qiao Ying tried to stall for time. “You had your eye on me from the start. You deliberately told me to get off at the fork and take that little path. You were actually tricking me into coming back.”

Wang Dalang gave an honest, simple smile. “You really are very perceptive. You and that young master didn’t look like siblings. I overheard your conversation. You were going to different places, so we made a wager. We wagered on whether you would come back alone.”

“Fortunately, you did come back, and that young master didn’t come with you. He abandoned you. That’s a good thing.” Sanniang stroked the baby’s little face, barely suppressing her excitement. “Child, very soon you’ll have a body. You can finally grow into the beautiful young lady you’ve always wished to be.”

Sanniang lost her patience. “Dalang, do it.”

The instant Wang Dalang lunged, Qiao Ying flung the dirt in her hand at him, blinding his eyes.

Sanniang frowned. “Useless trash.”

Claws sprouted from her hand, and she flew toward Qiao Ying’s retreating back.

Qiao Ying dodged in a sorry state and fell to the ground again. Her will to survive was ferociously strong; she would never allow herself to die here. She picked up a stone and hurled it at Sanniang, then scrambled to her feet. Just as she was about to step past the Boundary Stele, a hand seized her foot.

Wang Dalang was on all fours. He no longer looked human, but resembled a wild beast. One of his clawed hands clamped tightly around Qiao Ying’s leg, the talons almost piercing her skin. The pain was excruciating.

With a sudden wrench of his hand, Qiao Ying lost her balance and was dragged backward. She fell to the ground once more, her whole body aching, but she still refused to admit defeat. Her fingers gripped the Boundary Stele as she fought desperately against the force dragging her from behind.

When an ant tried to contend with a beast whose strength far outmatched its own, that unexpected will to survive seemed almost laughable. Yet it only made them angrier.

Holding the child, Sanniang strolled over and crouched beside Qiao Ying. Her gaze seemed to carry a trace of pity as she coaxed her gently. “Why put yourself through this? Wouldn’t it be better to obediently come back with us and become our family?”

Qiao Ying gripped the Boundary Stele with both hands. She looked up and spat out a single word. “Scram!”

Sanniang was briefly stunned. Then humiliation turned into anger. “Such a pretty girl, yet you say something so crude. That won’t do.”

She freed one hand and grabbed Qiao Ying’s, prying her fingers off the Boundary Stele one by one.

Sanniang smiled. “All this effort now is nothing but futile. No one can save you. If that blind man hadn’t left ahead of you, I truly wouldn’t have found such a perfect opportunity.”

All at once, the sound of something slicing through the air rushed in. Sanniang felt the back of her neck go numb. Before she could turn around, the shaft of the cane pressed down in one smooth motion, forcing her hard to the ground with irresistible strength.

Sanniang wanted to climb up, but the thing pressing against her head seemed as heavy as a mountain. She was pinned there like prey nailed to the earth, unable to muster even the strength to struggle.

The young man wore a robe of blue-green, a lock of white hair brushing past the white silk blindfold over his eyes. The tip of the ebony blind cane in his hand rested lightly against the person on the ground. A faint smile curved his lips, and his whole presence was as gentle and refined as a breeze beneath the moon.

His voice was mild. “I believe I heard someone mention me.”

Qiao Ying cried out in surprise, “Shen Qingyu!”

The smile on Shen Qingyu’s lips deepened. Though the white silk blindfold covered his eyes, it did nothing to diminish that warm, elegant air. “Miss Qiao, we meet again.”
Sanniang was pinned to the ground, unable to move. She screamed, “Dalang!”

Wang Dalang charged out like the shadow of a beast.

The grip on Qiao Ying’s ankle vanished, and the force dragging at her body disappeared in an instant. She had just propped herself up with her bloodied, scraped hands when she witnessed a cruel scene.

The Blind Staff spun lightly in the young man’s palm, its tip pressing precisely against Wang Dalang’s wrist.

There was a crisp crack. Wang Dalang’s hand bent backward at an unnatural angle. Before he could even scream, his neck was snapped with brutal force. His head fell to the ground, and blood gushed from the stump of his neck.

“Dalang!”

Sanniang cried out in anguish. She set the child down and sprang up, swinging her blade from behind toward Shen Qingyu’s nape. Yet Shen Qingyu turned aside and avoided it, then thrust the Blind Staff backhanded into her chest.

His movements were always unhurried, as if he were deliberately savoring the spasms of his opponent’s body. The smile at his lips deepened, and even the white silk blindfold over his eyes seemed to take on a strange warmth.

The young man clearly could not see, yet his methods of killing were terrifyingly precise.

A wound had been pierced through Sanniang’s chest, but somehow she was not dead. She staggered backward in a wretched state and hid herself in the shadows.

The young man walked toward her step by step.

Qiao Ying called out in warning, “Wait, Shen Qingyu, you can’t go in there!”

Shen Qingyu merely smiled and calmly stepped within the range of the Boundary Stele.

He simply lifted his face and “looked” into the shadows of the trees. A chill spread rapidly outward, forcing the figure hidden in the darkness into the open.

Sanniang collapsed to the ground in disarray. Before she could react, the Blind Staff had tapped lightly against her knee. Another crack of bone rang out, and she screamed.

Shen Qingyu smiled. “It seems you’ve forgotten what I told you before.”

“No, please spare me. I never wanted to hurt anyone, but I had no choice. I truly had no choice…”

“What do your hardships have to do with me?”

Shen Qingyu smiled faintly and lowered his head a fraction.

Sanniang seemed to realize what was coming. Her kneecap was shattered, and she could only crawl on the ground, begging miserably, “Don’t hurt my child. Please, don’t hurt my child!”

Shen Qingyu gave a soft laugh. Right in front of Sanniang, he stepped on the swaddling bundle lying on the ground.

But the “infant” inside the bundle suddenly changed. It crawled out on all fours like a wild beast, and then its body gradually grew larger, transforming into a Tiger with bright eyes and a white forehead.

Unfortunately, it had only taken a few steps before a freezing chill enveloped it. Frost covered its body like a cage, leaving it unable to move.

Qiao Ying stared blankly at everything before her. What kind of bizarre, fantastical world was this?

“My child, my child…”

Sanniang stared dazedly at the Tiger before her. In her eyes, the Tiger was no beast. It was only her child.

The young man slowly walked out from behind the frost-covered beast. He approached at an easy pace, smiling. Before this “pitiful mother,” his cold indifference was laid bare.

“What a truly pathetic Chang Ghost.”

He did not wait for her reply. When the Blind Staff fell upon Sanniang’s skull, the sound of bone shattering echoed through the night. Sanniang collapsed into a pool of blood, her face twisted, her open eyes bloodshot. She would never move again.

With several cracking sounds, the Tiger sealed in frost shattered inch by inch, then turned into mist and vanished.

The two corpses on the ground instantly turned into white bones.

Qiao Ying shifted again, moving farther away from the remains. Her scalp prickled, and a chill ran through her.

A shadow came with the wind, as though it had easily enveloped her entire body.

Qiao Ying lifted her eyes. The young man stood amid the frost, his blue-green robes swaying faintly in the night wind. Shards of moonlight clung to his white hair, and the white silk blindfold over his eyes made the line of his jaw seem even cleaner and more refined.

“This world is very dangerous, isn’t it?”

Qiao Ying swallowed nervously and slowly nodded. “Yes.”

He sounded rather sympathetic, his tone carrying a faint sigh that was not quite a sigh. “You were only separated from me for a short while, yet you managed to injure yourself so pitifully. How poor you are.”

Qiao Ying shrank in on herself. Her foot hurt, and so did her hands.

He asked, “You are so weak. For you to have survived until now in this perilous world is no easy thing. But on the road ahead, if there is no one to protect you, what will you do?”

Qiao Ying secretly glanced up at him several times, observing his expression. In the end, she could only test the waters and say, “I’ll stay with you and won’t separate from you again. Is that all right?”

At her words, the smile at Shen Qingyu’s lips slowly spread, carrying a few more traces of genuine warmth than before.

“Very good.”

By the time the moon reached the middle of the sky, the night wind had grown colder.

Qiao Ying hugged the Blind Staff in her arms, her fingers trembling slightly. She could not help looking up again at the young man carrying her. His jawline was soft, delicate, and beautiful, his appearance so gorgeous it bordered on uncanny.

As if sensing her gaze, the young man lowered his head slightly, and the curve of his lips grew a little lighter. “I know. It’s because I’m good-looking, so you’re staring at me again.”

Qiao Ying was instantly at a loss for words.

Behind them stood the Boundary Stele of Phoenix Town, but fog had risen around it, making everything hazy and indistinct. Yet that brutal slaughter still floated before her eyes.

It was strange. His methods of killing were cold, but his embrace was warm.

In the end, Qiao Ying sighed. Her tense body relaxed. Forget it. Since she could not make sense of it anyway, she might as well just lie back and accept it.