Chapter 240
Chapter 240
It was pitch-black, too dark to see a hand before one’s face. After a moment, even the rustling wind in her ears vanished completely.
Xia Ximo stood where she was and instinctively reached for the Soul-Ferrying Lantern she carried. But there was nothing at her waist…
“Wuyou?”
No one answered her call in the darkness. Nor could she sense Wuyou’s presence.
An Illusionary Realm created by Xueyin?
Instinctively, she took two steps forward. Her footfalls echoed clearly all around her.
From the sound, she could tell she was probably in a vast, empty space.
There was no one nearby, and nothing around her. Even the Soul-Ferrying Lantern and Wuyou were gone.
Xia Ximo began walking through the darkness. The sensation was not unfamiliar. She seemed to have experienced it before.
Yet try as she might, she could not remember when.
Wuyou had said that a Soul Ferryman’s memories of life were painful.
But Xueyin had said that someone once risked his life and gave up everything for her, only for her to turn around and forget it all.
Was that painful to her too?
She had no answer.
Yet in this empty, hushed space, thoughts began springing up in her mind like bamboo shoots after rain…
Just then, another set of footsteps sounded, drawing closer from a distance.
Xia Ximo stopped. As the sound approached, she could distinctly hear her own heartbeat…
“Who is there?”
She stopped and turned. A familiar voice came from behind her.
“Miss Xia?”
Unable to see each other, they nearly collided…
Ren Fengjue hastily stopped and gently steadied her.
In the silence, they spoke at the same time. “Have you seen the others?”
Then they answered in unison. “No.”
Ren Fengjue seemed to smile, but quickly grew serious. “We must have entered an Illusionary Realm.”
And an exceptionally convincing one.
Xia Ximo gave a quiet acknowledgment. “We need to look around and see whether we can find them…”
She could not tell directions in the dark. After taking two steps, she slowed, clearly waiting for the person behind her.
Ren Fengjue had only taken one step before he nearly bumped into her again…
“Sorry. It is too dark to see.”
Xia Ximo said nothing. Instead, she reached out and took hold of his sleeve. “Do not get lost.”
The words had barely left her lips when a loud, howling wind rose from every direction.
Without thinking, Ren Fengjue caught her tightly in return. “Miss Xia, look…”
The wind swallowed his voice in an instant.
Clearly, its force was beyond human strength to resist. A moment later, it swept them both up and sent them tumbling through the air.
Amid the chaos, Xia Ximo could feel Ren Fengjue’s hand holding her wrist firmly. Even in such danger, his grip never slackened.
She reached out with her other hand and caught his wrist too.
“Hold tight.”
A short while later, the wind stopped abruptly, and they plunged out of the air…
At that moment, an arm wrapped around Xia Ximo’s waist, drawing her sharply closer to Ren Fengjue.
The force of their landing made it impossible to keep their feet.
Ren Fengjue fell onto his back, and Xia Ximo landed directly on top of him.
A heartbeat thundered in her ears like a drum. For a moment, it was impossible to tell whether it came from fright or something else…
Xia Ximo immediately sat up and asked instinctively, “Are you hurt?”
Ren Fengjue was also flustered by their closeness. Only when he recovered did he notice the pain in his back and waist.
He sat up as well. “I am all right…”
After all, he had trained in the army and practiced martial arts without interruption over the years. His constitution was fairly strong.
But Xia Ximo suddenly studied him. “Your face is so red. Are you sure you are all right?”
Under her gaze, the Young Marquis’s ears reddened too.
“I really am…”
His eyes lowered. He seemed about to speak, then stopped.
Xia Ximo looked down and only then realized she was still sitting on his lap…
Her expression froze briefly, but soon returned to normal. She stood without any sign of haste.
Only then did she notice a glimmer of light in the gloomy space.
“There seems to be a way out over there.”
She spoke and was about to go investigate.
But her steps visibly paused again. Involuntarily, she turned back and waited for the person behind her.
As Ren Fengjue rose, he caught the gesture and could not help smiling in understanding.
They walked side by side toward the light. Before long, the sight ahead made both their expressions change sharply.
The bitterly cold Nine Abysses lay in the deepest reaches of the Underworld Administration.
A blood moon hung overhead all year. Yin winds circled through drifting dark mist, and not a blade of grass grew on the ground.
Though snow never fell there, the bone-piercing chill seeping from the Cold Abyss was beyond anything ice or snow could match.
Once, through a hundred years of imprisonment spent in a haze, her heart had been colder than her body.
Now she saw that landscape and felt that chill again.
Yet Xia Ximo’s state of mind had changed, because someone stood beside her.
“Do not move.”
She spoke and reached out to stop Ren Fengjue.
“This place…?”
“The Nine Abysses Prison of the Underworld Administration.”
Wuyou had said that Xueyin was the Attendant of the Cold Abyss, foremost among the twelve attendants of the Ghost King’s Palace. Appointed an earth deity, she held an exceptionally high position in the Underworld Administration.
Naturally, she knew what the Nine Abysses looked like.
Moreover, she had been born for the Cold Abyss, which was effectively the lifeblood of the entire Underworld Administration.
With her abilities, creating a Nine Abysses Prison would hardly be difficult.
Ren Fengjue seemed to pause. “Forgive my ignorance.”
Xia Ximo concealed nothing, explaining calmly, “Those guilty of the gravest evils enter the Nine Abysses Prison after death. I spent a hundred years there.”
“…”
She plainly saw the shock in his eyes and deliberately asked, “Frightened?”
Ren Fengjue’s expression was complicated. He looked around again, then asked, “You spent a hundred years in a place like this?”
Xia Ximo was taken aback for a moment. “Are you not curious what terrible crime I committed?”
Ren Fengjue shook his head, his gaze sincere. “I only wonder how you survived those hundred years.”
Xia Ximo looked away awkwardly. “I am more frightening than any Vengeful Ghost you have ever encountered in the mortal world.”
“If that were true, should I not have died a hundred times already? You have not killed me. Presumably, you would not stoop to it.”
His voice was gentle, without a trace of fear.
Xia Ximo fell silent for a moment, then suddenly moved closer, fixing him with her cold, dark eyes.
“Do you want to see what I truly look like?”
Beneath that icy gaze, Ren Fengjue did not retreat. Instead, he said, “I think I have already seen your true appearance.”
“When?”
“In that ruined temple outside the capital. The woman in red who saved me in the Illusionary Realm was you, was she not?”
At his words, Xia Ximo recalled it faintly, but stubbornly said, “I remember no such thing.”
Ren Fengjue smiled. “It is enough that I remember.”