Chapter 86
Chapter 86
Ding Fufu’s courtyard was the most luxurious place in all of Ding Manor. Her father and brother doted on her, showering her rooms with the finest and most expensive things as if money meant nothing.
Her fiancé, Li Yuanzhi, was likewise never stingy about spending money to please the girl he loved. That was why Ding Fufu was the envy of every young woman in the city.
The courtyard where Miss Ding lived was the very height of refined extravagance, the complete opposite of Guang’en Temple in the desolate wilderness.
Qiao Ying suddenly thought it might be for the best that Ding Ling had not come out this time.
To her surprise, both of Ding Fufu’s maids were lying unconscious on the floor.
Qiao Ying woke one of them and asked, “Where is Ding Fufu?”
The maid answered fearfully, “Miss… Miss was taken by a masked man!”
Not long before, Ding Fufu had learned that someone had stormed into the manor and caused trouble. Her first impulse was to run out and see what was happening, but before she could leave her room, she encountered a masked man dressed in black.
The masked man knocked out both maids, abducted Ding Fufu, and vanished without a trace.
“I really don’t know anything else! Don’t kill me! Please don’t kill me!”
The young maid was so agitated that she accidentally knocked over a stack of jewelry boxes on the table. Their contents spilled across the floor. Amid all the gold, silver, and jewels, only one object looked strikingly out of place.
It was a string of Prayer Beads.
Qiao Ying crouched down and picked them up, intending to ask where they had come from. When she looked back, however, the young maid had been knocked unconscious again.
She raised her head in silence.
Shen Qingyu smiled. “She was too noisy.”
“What do we do now? Ding Fufu is missing, and that man surnamed He has disappeared too. Where are we supposed to find Yan Yanchi?”
Master Ding denied having captured Yan Yanchi. Regardless of whether he had given the order, Yan Yanchi’s life would be in danger if he remained trapped for too long.
“This sword is rather good,” Shen Qingyu said.
He was referring to the Demon-Subduing Sword in Qiao Ying’s arms.
He smiled. “Since it is a fine sword, surely it knows how to find its master.”
Shen Qingyu lightly tapped the blade with a fingertip. The Demon-Subduing Sword instantly shuddered free of Qiao Ying’s arms and flew into the air, where it hovered.
Qiao Ying stared in astonishment.
Shen Qingyu tapped her forehead with his finger. “Let’s go.”
The Demon-Subduing Sword shot away, flashing like a meteor beneath the overcast sky.
Coming back to herself, Qiao Ying saw Shen Qingyu holding out his hand. She instinctively took it and followed him in the direction the sword had flown. Only after some time did realization dawn on her.
“If you knew all along that the spirit sword could lead us to Daoist Master Yan, why did you bring me to Ding Manor and cause such a scene?”
The young man smiled leisurely. “If I hadn’t, how else could I have gotten Yingying to do wicked things with me?”
She had no answer to that.
He knew that Qiao Ying had a much stronger moral sense than most people in this world.
He also knew that using force to coerce someone could never be a good thing in her eyes.
But he wanted to lead Qiao Ying into this world’s shades of gray.
Then it would feel as if the two of them no longer belonged to different worlds.
The Demon-Subduing Sword flew out of Ding Manor and stopped inside an abandoned residence on the outskirts of the city.
The house was thick with cobwebs and dust, as if no one had entered it for years, yet several footprints marked the floor. They were especially obvious in the center of the room.
Shen Qingyu tapped the floorboards with his Blind Staff. Cracks swiftly spread across the wood. With a succession of crashes, the boards shattered, revealing a cellar. The moment it appeared, dank air surged up from the darkness below.
The young Daoist Master’s robes were stained with blood. His head sagged, and chains bound his hands and feet, suspending him upright above the ground. Deep, ragged wounds covered his body, proof that he had endured brutal torture.
Nothing remained of Yan Yanchi’s former spirited bearing.
The Demon-Subduing Sword flew into the lightless cellar and hovered before its imprisoned master.
Stirred by the glow, Yan Yanchi’s eyelids twitched. He forced his eyes open. Perhaps he was hallucinating on the verge of death, for he saw the precious sword that had accompanied him for so many years, and within its shadow, the phantom of a girl.
“Daoist Master!”
At her cry, Yan Yanchi lost consciousness completely.
If asked which clinic was the finest in Yunling Prefecture, everyone would give the same answer: Chunlin Hall.
The physician of Chunlin Hall was said to revive the dead and put flesh back on bare bone. As long as his patient still drew breath, there was no ailment he could not cure. But the injured man brought to his clinic today was truly a difficult case.
“Knife wounds, sword wounds, lash wounds… and he was poisoned as well. It is a miracle he is still breathing.” The old physician shook his head in amazement as he studied the unconscious man on the bed.
Ding Ling sat beside the bed, tears streaming constantly down her face.
Other than Qiao Ying, no one could see her now.
“Can you save him, doctor?” Qiao Ying asked.
The old physician said, “These wounds go all the way to the bone and would be difficult for most to treat, but they pose no great problem for me. The real problem is the poison. His entire body is icy cold, the chill seeping through him from the inside out. I believe it is Ice Beauty. I have only ever read of this poison in books. Without the antidote, his flesh-and-blood body will turn into a block of bitter ice within half a month at most.”
“How can the poison be cured?”
The old physician looked troubled. “Every method of preparing this poison requires a different means of neutralizing it. I do not know how the poisoner made it, so I have no idea where to begin.”
The young doctor grinding herbs nearby suddenly said, “Maybe the roots of the Golden Tree could cure it.”
The old physician glared at him. “Chunsheng, there you go spouting nonsense again. The Golden Tree is a divine tree worshiped by millions. Do you mean to dig up its roots and make an enemy of the whole of Yunling Prefecture?”
At the center of Yunling Prefecture stood Yunling City, whose people had worshiped the Golden Tree for generations. According to legend, it was the tree’s presence that blessed the city with favorable weather and kept its inhabitants free from disease and disaster.
Chunsheng muttered resentfully, “But the medical texts clearly say the Golden Tree is sacred and can cure a hundred illnesses and neutralize a hundred poisons.”
The old physician said apologetically, “Chunsheng only recently became my apprentice, and he speaks without thinking. Please pay him no mind, miss. I will treat this Daoist Master’s injuries first. Though I cannot eliminate the poison, I can suppress it for the time being.”
Qiao Ying thanked the physician, then glanced at Ding Ling, who remained beside Yan Yanchi, sobbing uncontrollably. She walked to the doorway and found Shen Qingyu there.
He sat on the steps with his ebony blind cane beside him and a bundle of piping-hot steamed buns in his arms. Afraid of dirtying his white hair, he had carefully gathered it over his knees. Whether he was listening to the wind or to the conversations of passersby, his quiet figure looked remarkably docile.
Only when he sensed her familiar presence did he lift his face and offer her the bundle with a smile. “Yingying, it’s time to eat.”
Qiao Ying sat beside him. She picked up a steamed bun and held it to his lips. After taking a bite, he accepted the bun from her.
“Didn’t I tell you to eat if you were hungry? Why wait for me?” Qiao Ying took out a second bun and bit into it. Resting her chin on her other hand, she stared at his beautiful profile.
Shen Qingyu said softly, “You like me so much that without me by your side, you would have no appetite.”
That was why he had waited to eat with her.
Qiao Ying fell briefly silent. “Why, thank you for being so considerate.”
The young man turned toward her and gave her a gentle smile. “I am your husband. No need to thank me.”
A gust of wind swept past. When one lock of his white hair threatened to fall to the ground, Qiao Ying swiftly caught it in her hand. Finding it rather interesting, she examined the lock closely and stroked it again and again.
Shen Qingyu had always known how much she liked his body. In her eyes, everything about him deserved to be cherished, naturally including the long white hair everyone else regarded with such dread.
He leaned closer almost imperceptibly, letting more of his white hair spill across her. Before it could touch the ground, she hurriedly gathered every strand into her arms.
Shen Qingyu laughed, lighthearted and delighted.
They were only a few strands of hair. Why did she treasure them so much?
Yingying truly was strange.
“This hair…”
Hearing her murmur, the young man brought his face still closer. Her scent curled around his nose and left his heart itching pleasantly.
Qiao Ying rubbed the hair between her fingers and muttered gravely, “Is it because you used up too much energy and haven’t replenished it yet? It feels quite a bit coarser. Will it not improve until your next shedding season?”
Shen Qingyu was silent.
The next instant, Qiao Ying’s hands were empty. The young man had snatched all his hair back from her.
When she raised her head again, she saw only his back.
Shen Qingyu sat with his head bowed, stroking the ends of his hair without a word.
Qiao Ying did not know that telling him his fur no longer felt nice was the equivalent of saying he had grown old and lost his beauty.
Baffled, she leaned against his back. “Shen Qingyu, what’s wrong?”
He remained silent.
Qiao Ying tugged at the corner of his robe. “If you don’t tell me what’s wrong, I won’t know how to coax you.”
There was some sense in that.
Shen Qingyu twisted his hair around his fingers, then slowly turned back to her. “Yingying, I want a fried egg.”
“…Oh,” Qiao Ying said.
And so she could not help thinking in turn:
Shen Qingyu truly was strange.