Chapter 118
Chapter 118
Although Bai Jingmo never came to confront me about Old Lady Bai, there was no way he didn’t know how she had ultimately been taken down.
That was the leverage that gave me the nerve to come here and negotiate today.
As for that monster with spikes growing out of its back-even if it kept hiding, as long as I used the Soul-Guiding Lantern to summon Black and White Impermanence, they would be able to find it and lock down its soul, wouldn’t they?
Of course, right now, I didn’t dare overdraw the Merit inside the Soul-Guiding Lantern so easily again. I was only putting on a show.
All’s fair in war. If this kind of bluff could help me achieve my goal, then I was willing to take the gamble.
Sure enough, the moment I said it, Bai Jingmo’s expression changed.
He narrowed his eyes and stared at me without blinking, his gaze growing colder and colder, as if it were filled with a thick, unmelting grief and resentment.
“Xiao Jiu, why do you always have to push me like this?” Bai Jingmo advanced on me step by step. “Do you have any idea how much I’ve sacrificed for you all these years?!”
His eyes were terrifying. Even as he spoke, his teeth were clenched, and there was a strange viciousness in his tone, as if he were settling a long-overdue score.
It was completely absurd.
“Ever since she discovered my feelings for you, she seized on my weakness. Whenever I showed even the slightest intention of resisting, she would say to me, Jingmo, little girls are far too fragile. They can’t withstand even the smallest setback.
“Jingmo, if you aren’t strong enough, how could you possibly bear a fate like that and protect her?
“Jingmo, what are you in such a hurry for? She hasn’t even turned eighteen yet. Do you see that sedan chair in our Main Hall? Grandmother promises you, when the time comes, she will appear in our family’s sedan chair.
“Jingmo, you are destined to be her husband.”
At this point, Bai Jingmo reached out and gripped my shoulders. His whole demeanor turned a little crazed. “But what did I end up waiting for? Xiao Jiu, tell me-what did I wait for?!
“I waited for an empty sedan chair!
“I waited for the terrible news that you and another man had fallen in love!
“Xiao Jiu, how can you be so cruel? How can you trample on everything I’ve done for you like this?
“You are mine! You should have been mine from the start!”
Like a madman, Bai Jingmo clutched my shoulders and bent down to kiss me.
This was not the direction I had ever imagined this negotiation would take.
Before coming here, I had gone over the possibilities again and again. I had considered that he might fly into a rage from humiliation and attack me. But now-what was he doing?
What was he trying to do?!
I snapped my knee up with all my strength, driving it hard toward him. Bai Jingmo’s entire focus was on my face, and he had no time to react to my little move.
But strangely, the instant my knee struck upward, a fragrant wind rose out of nowhere. A powerful force slammed into my knee, and in the next moment, my entire body was thrown backward.
That force had come too suddenly. It didn’t feel like an attack from the outside. It felt more like… it had been hidden inside Bai Jingmo’s body.
I stumbled, retreating several steps before barely managing to steady myself.
Bai Jingmo’s hands were still frozen in the position of gripping my shoulders, and for a split second, his eyes were blank.
But soon, his gaze changed. It became… alluring and ruthless.
That look didn’t seem like Bai Jingmo’s at all.
More accurately, it wasn’t the kind of look a man would have. It was far too seductive.
The instant our eyes met, a thought flashed through my mind-Bai Xian’er!
Bai Xian’er had possessed Bai Jingmo!
I immediately went on guard.
The moment I caught a trace of killing intent in Bai Jingmo’s eyes, I had already summoned Fengwu and held it firmly in my hand.
I drew the bow to its full arc and aimed at Bai Jingmo.
With a whoosh, the flame shot out cleanly.
Strangely enough, Bai Jingmo didn’t dodge.
He simply stood there and watched the ball of fire sink into his chest.
The next moment, a cloud of black energy rose from his chest. Fengwu’s flame entered him, only to vanish without a trace, like a lit match dropped into water.
That eerie feeling instantly reminded me of what had happened in front of Qilin Temple.
How could this be?
How could Bai Jingmo have the power of that thing with the Black Giant Wings from Qilin Temple?
So far, that was the only power I’d ever discovered that could directly swallow Fengwu’s flames. It was my natural counter!
And now, it had actually joined forces with Bai Jingmo.
All at once, I thought of what Dou Jinsuo had said on the mountain. He said a woman had delivered a suitable girl to the Bai Family to replace me and be sealed inside the Human-Skin Red Coffin.
Looking at it now, that woman had to be Feng Lishu!
Feng Lishu and Black Giant Wings were on the same side.
When had she gotten involved with Bai Jingmo?!
No wonder Dou Jinsuo said that woman had another use for keeping me alive. Everything lined up.
There had been too many sudden developments. It seemed today’s negotiation was no longer going to proceed peacefully.
I retreated two steps toward the door, with Fengwu still aimed at Bai Jingmo.
When I arrived, I had chosen to wait for Bai Jingmo in the front hall instead of going to the Inner Courtyard precisely so that if talks broke down, I could withdraw at any time.
Li Qingying had long since hidden outside, ready to back me up at a moment’s notice.
But I had only taken two steps back when I felt a shadow fall behind me, right at the main entrance. I turned to look, and the hand gripping Fengwu trembled violently.
At that moment, a person was hanging upside down from the lintel of the Bai Family Medical Hall.
It looked to be a pale, whitish monster in its teens, its back covered in Flesh Thorn growths. Its four limbs clung to the top of the doorway as it turned its face sideways and stared at me with a sinister gaze.
Its eyes were bright red, the color so vivid and bewitching that it only made terror rise in my heart.
When it looked at me, it suddenly opened its mouth. A blood-red tongue at least half a meter long shot out. If there hadn’t been some distance between us, I felt like it would have swallowed me whole in one bite.
Was this the monster that had killed people, skinned them, pierced their bodies with Flesh Thorn growths, and caused so many deaths?
“Weren’t you boasting about judging it?”
A soft, seductive woman’s voice rang out abruptly. I instantly snapped back to myself and looked toward Bai Jingmo.
But aside from Bai Jingmo, I saw nothing.
The next moment, Bai Jingmo’s mouth began to move, and a woman’s voice came out of it. “Heh. I have lived nearly a thousand years. What in Wufu Town could possibly escape my discerning eyes? A Soul-Guiding Lantern that was once shattered beyond repair has already reached its limit by being used once. There is absolutely no way it can be used a second time in such a short period.”
A slender, snow-white hand appeared out of thin air beside Bai Jingmo’s face. The back of the hand gently brushed his cheek again and again. “Tell me, why are you so easy to fool? But why are you only willing to be fooled by her, while guarding against me at every turn?”
“Haven’t I been good enough to you?”
The bizarre, disjointed scene before me nearly drove me insane.
A woman’s hand was caressing Bai Jingmo’s cheek, yet Bai Jingmo’s own mouth was speaking words addressed to himself. The voice coming out, however, belonged to a woman.
There was no doubt about it. Bai Jingmo had now completely become this woman’s puppet.
And the woman controlling Bai Jingmo was Bai Xian’er, the being the Bai Family had always worshiped…