Another New Year's Eve

On new year's Eve, Master Zhu, who had decided to stay on the mountain for the new year, saw the two Spirit Elders, one white and one black. Watching the strings of fireballs and ice arrows and listening to the repeated "caw caw" and "meow meow," she was both shocked and amused. Full of interest, she followed them around for the entire morning, only reluctantly leaving the back mountain's "main battlefield" when someone suddenly appeared behind her. She went to sit for a while in the pavilion at the front courtyard.

"Has everything been going smoothly?" Liu Xiaolou asked.

Xia Ziyan and Jin Mengyao looked over at the sound, only to see Shen Linfeng pressing his ear against the cliff face, listening motionlessly to something.

A powerful impact tore through my chest. All I felt was boundless pain. Gunshots rang in my ears, along with Lin Dieyu and Shen Yi shouting, but those sounds drifted farther and farther away.

Following her instructions, I felt around the bottom of the zither and indeed found a smooth, rounded bump. I pressed it inward. With a crack, a wooden box sprang out from the left end of the Gu Zheng. Inside lay a neatly folded square of silk, dotted with ink marks. It must have been the score for the Formation Entry Song Princess Lanling had mentioned.

Hou Zheng, who had been anxiously waiting within the imperial palace, suddenly sensed it. Thinking Wu Wuyi had begun attacking the formation, he hurriedly flew out. The instant he emerged from the palace, he looked toward the direction where the formation was trembling.

So before she had even had her fill of this kind of life, on another snowy day, Bai Yan grabbed her by the ear and dragged her out of her warm bed.

His