Chapter 233
Chapter 233
It was Feng Lishu’s Brother Qiu!
I stared at Snow Phoenix in disbelief. She had betrayed me!
When she met my gaze, her tears fell even harder.
Her apology and shame were written plainly across her face.
I forced down the black blood threatening to surge up my throat again and demanded through gritted teeth, “When did this happen?”
I didn’t understand.
When had this entire trap first been set?
Had it begun the moment we stumbled upon Snow Phoenix in Paradise Beyond the World?
Had Feng Lishu bitten through her wing as part of some self-injury ruse?
No. That couldn’t be it.
If it had only been a ruse, there would have been no need to injure Snow Phoenix so badly that she couldn’t even maintain human form or speak.
Besides, when Feng Lishu encountered us back then, nothing about her behavior suggested that she had planned it in advance.
And if she were truly evil, the Black Cat would never have taken to her.
More importantly, Snow Phoenix and the Ice Silkworm had remained together for days without incident.
Everything changed after Tafeng Village was destroyed and I returned from there.
Snow Phoenix suddenly ate the Ice Silkworm.
Yes. That had to be when she received her orders.
Snow Phoenix was the Phoenix Clan’s only pawn by my side.
But she had been severely injured. She couldn’t transform again anytime soon and had to remain dormant in the freezer compartment.
The best way to overcome that obstacle was to have her eat the Ice Silkworm and drink the Dragon Bone Blood, allowing her to wake fully and successfully assume human form.
Then she could wait for a chance to strike at me.
No wonder… Back in Tafeng Village, after my Souls were pulled back into my body, Brother Qiu never appeared again.
He hadn’t even chased after me.
It wasn’t because he had given up on me. He had merely switched tactics.
As I pieced everything together, a chill suddenly raced up my spine. The blood in my veins seemed to freeze solid, while pain like countless insects biting into me spread throughout my body.
Even more terrifyingly, I saw myself climb out of bed.
My own brain hadn’t issued the command.
That chanting started in my head again. It was Brother Qiu, reciting an incantation and controlling me through the Ice Silkworm’s Gu Poison.
This man knew Witchcraft.
And Witchcraft and Gu Sorcery sprang from the same lineage.
He meant to use it to take me away.
Step by step, I walked out of the room, turned, and headed toward the Pawnshop’s front entrance.
Just as I was about to cross the threshold, Snow Phoenix suddenly rushed over and spread her arms to block my path. “No, Sister, you… I…”
She was torn.
She didn’t want anything to happen to me, but she couldn’t abandon her clansmen either.
At that moment, perhaps even she didn’t know what she truly wanted.
She was only a fledgling, after all. Her resolve was unsteady, which made her easy to manipulate.
Strangely enough, I wasn’t as frightened anymore.
I was destined to return to Cangwu Mountain.
Originally, I had two possible ways in. One was to have Liu Junyan go to Hushan and negotiate with Tang Xun’s fated partner, then enter Cangwu Mountain through Paradise Beyond the World.
The other was to have Snow Phoenix take me inside.
But the One at Hushan might not be willing to help us again.
And Snow Phoenix was clearly no longer someone I could rely on.
Besides, I had been watched all along. Even if I successfully entered Cangwu Mountain, would that guarantee my safety?
No.
It would be a gamble.
A gamble that we hadn’t been discovered.
Otherwise, we would be walking straight into the tiger’s jaws.
In the end, that wouldn’t be much different from my current situation.
“Hmph. You overestimate yourself!”
A man’s irritated voice rang out. The next instant, Snow Phoenix let out a piercing screech. Her body hurtled outside against her will, and her back slammed violently into the wall across the way.
She had taken a brutal fall and was already coughing up blood by the time she hit the ground.
I sighed without meaning to.
Everyone involved was pitiful.
I stepped out through the Pawnshop’s front door, descended the steps one at a time, then turned to face west.
Dawn had yet to break. It probably wasn’t even three in the morning.
At the West Street Entrance, that tall, hulking figure stood with his fingers forming a hand seal, still muttering an incantation under his breath.
The instant our eyes met, he reached out a hand toward me.
Meow!
Just then, the Black Cat suddenly shot out of the Pawnshop, its agile body streaking straight toward the West Street Entrance.
The next moment, a vast, dark mass of birds surged out of the darkness there.
Birds of every kind.
Without exception, they all had bloodred eyes.
They swooped down in disciplined formation, more than a hundred strong.
The Black Cat retreated a step. A vast expanse of golden scripture suddenly appeared around it, forming a Scripture Barrier in front of it.
The birds slammed into the Scripture Barrier one after another. Heads and wings were severed in an instant, and their carcasses rained to the ground.
At first, the Black Cat managed to hold them off.
But there were simply too many birds, and the Scripture Barrier quickly began to fade.
The man’s chanting pierced the Scripture Barrier and wormed its way into my mind, compelling me to walk toward the West Street Entrance.
Before I had taken more than a couple of steps, another figure darted out from behind me and blocked my path.
It was the Red Banner Child.
The little fellow cried anxiously, “Sister, you can’t go any farther! You have to get back inside the Pawnshop. Hurry!”
With that, he rushed forward, wrapped his arms around me, and tried to shove me back.
He pushed with all his might, forcing me to stagger two steps backward.
At that moment, I suddenly sensed a strange, indescribable presence — one that made me want to draw closer and closer.
I whipped my head around toward the East Street Entrance.
I turned so abruptly that the Red Banner Child was caught off guard and nearly fell.
And the moment I turned around, I saw someone I never could have imagined appearing here.
No. I had never even imagined she might still exist in this world.
The girl standing at the East Street Entrance was none other than Feng Lishu!
Feng Lishu wasn’t dead?
How was that possible?!
Back in the underground palace beneath Tafeng Village, Feng Lishu had clearly been killed by Brother Qiu’s own hand!
So why was she standing here now, alive and perfectly well?
When she had died, her entire body had been covered in festering sores and reeked with a foul stench. She had been disfigured beyond recognition.
But now, she stood at the East Street Entrance in a red-and-black archery outfit, her face beautiful and her bearing full of vigor, exactly as she had been when I first met her.
At that moment, it was as though time had reversed, and everything between Feng Lishu and me… came rushing back.
Of course.
How had I failed to realize that Feng Lishu wasn’t dead?
If she had truly died, the Symbiotic Curse would have affected me as well. Shouldn’t I have died with her?
But I was still alive. Although my Souls were incomplete and I frequently left my body, I was undeniably alive.
I didn’t know why, but in the past, the mere sight of Feng Lishu had filled my entire being with revulsion. I had wanted nothing more than to kill her.
Yet now, as I saw her again, standing there in silence, I felt an overwhelming urge to throw myself at her and merge with her as one.
She held a fatal attraction for me.
She was Feng Lishu… and yet, somehow, she no longer seemed to be Feng Lishu…