Jin Ping'er noticed him looking at her and lifted her head, meeting his gaze.
She froze for a moment, then the corners of her mouth curled up.
She deliberately tugged her neckline lower, revealing more of her shoulders. Her movements were slow, as if she were unfurling a painting before his eyes.
"Do you like what you see?"
Lu Jiuyuan looked away, the tips of his ears growing warm.
Jin Ping'er chuckled softly and didn't press him. She bent down and picked up her sodden clothes from the ground.
She casually draped the sheer undergarment on top. It was dripping wet, its sheen in the moonlight suggestive.
She walked up to him and handed him the bundle of clothes.
"Hold on to these for me, Young Master Lu. I can't very well go back in wet clothes."
Lu Jiuyuan lowered his eyes to the bundle.
The sheer undergarment was impossible to miss. It was pink and thin enough to see through. Now that it was soaked, its color had deepened, and draped atop the clothes, it looked like a withered flower.
His fingers paused when they touched the damp fabric. Then he hurriedly stuffed it into his storage pouch, moving as furtively as a thief.
Jin Ping'er watched from beside him and laughed aloud, her voice soft and teasing.
"Let's go." Lu Jiuyuan drew a deep breath and pushed all those improper images out of his mind. "Let's see who it is."
The two of them headed down the slope.
Jin Ping'er was wearing his oversized robe and walked slowly, its hem dragging on the ground and picking up dew and grass.
Every so often, she glanced down and kicked the hem out of her way. She seemed a little impatient, but didn't stop to fix it.
At the western end of the village, several dark figures were creeping toward its outskirts.
The moonlight revealed their crimson robes—the standard uniform of Fenxiang Valley.
What were they doing?
Lu Jiuyuan furrowed his brow.
"People from Fenxiang Valley." Jin Ping'er stood beside him, her voice low and edged with amusement. "Out scouting in the middle of the night instead of sleeping?"
"They're doing more than scouting." Lu Jiuyuan's gaze fell on the copper bell in the leader's hand. "That's a Beast-Driving Bell. Fenxiang Valley uses it to drive low-level demon beasts."
Jin Ping'er's expression changed as she looked at the bell. "Are they planning to use demon beasts again? Or lure them over while you're all asleep?"
"Neither would be an honorable tactic."
Down the slope, the four men had already crept close to the village. The leader held up the bell when a hand reached out from behind and clamped around his wrist.
The grip wasn't strong, but that hand was like an iron vise. He couldn't break free.
The Fenxiang Valley disciple leading them froze, then slowly turned around and saw a young face.
In the moonlight, there was no anger on that face—there was even a hint of a smile—but those eyes were cold as a pool in midwinter.
"Out this late instead of sleeping?" Lu Jiuyuan asked softly, his voice quiet enough for only the four of them to hear.
The leader's face went deathly pale in an instant.
Of course he knew who this was.
Everyone in Fenxiang Valley knew the name of the man even their sect master feared.
His hand began to tremble, and the copper bell slipped from his fingers. Lu Jiuyuan caught it with his other hand.
"Not a bad bell." Lu Jiuyuan weighed it in his hand. "I'll borrow it for a bit."
The four Fenxiang Valley disciples exchanged glances, then turned and bolted as one.
They ran fast, but Lu Jiuyuan had no intention of simply letting them go.
He raised his hand, and a faint green light gathered at his fingertip. Thin as a strand of hair, it silently caught up with the leader and settled on the inside of his collar.
Qingyun Sect's tracking technique couldn't match the Ghost King Sect's sinister arts or the Hehuan Sect's subtlety, but it was well concealed.
With the means of the Taiqing Realm, a few disciples in the middle stage of the Yuqing Realm would never detect it.
Jin Ping'er stood beside him, wrapped in the oversized robe with her chin tucked into the collar. Watching the direction the four had disappeared in, she asked lazily, "You're just letting them go?"
"No rush." Lu Jiuyuan lowered his hand. "Let's see what they're up to first."
The two didn't head straight back. Instead, they silently followed the four Fenxiang Valley disciples from a safe distance.
Still shaken, the four ran for a while before stopping beneath a dead tree to argue in hushed voices.
"I told you we'd run into him! With our cultivation, we wouldn't even make a decent snack for him!"
"Keep your voice down! Do you want him to hear us?"
"So what now? We still haven't finished the task Senior Brother Li Xun gave us..."
"Pick another spot. There are a few houses at the eastern end of the village. Scatter the powder over there."
At the words "the powder," Jin Ping'er frowned slightly and glanced at Lu Jiuyuan.
He said nothing. He simply watched from afar as the men took several small paper packets from a cloth bag. Inside was pale yellow powder with a pungent, sickly-sweet smell.
They scattered it around the few houses at the eastern end of the village. They moved quickly, and once they'd finished, they left at once, not daring to linger.
Only after they had vanished completely into the night did Lu Jiuyuan and Jin Ping'er emerge from the shadows.
Lu Jiuyuan crouched and rubbed a pinch of powder between his fingertips. It was fine as face powder and dissolved in water. Its pungent smell carried a sickening sweetness that made him uneasy.
"Beast-Attracting Powder." Jin Ping'er stood beside him, looking down at the powder, her voice edged with coldness. "Fenxiang Valley's specialty. Scatter this near someone's home, and demon beasts within a hundred li will charge toward it like mad. It works even better than a Beast-Driving Bell."
"You know a lot about it."
"The Hehuan Valley has dealt with Fenxiang Valley for years. Of course I know." Jin Ping'er crouched and nudged the powder with her finger. "This stuff has one trick: it takes two hours to work after it's scattered. By the time the demon beasts arrive, the people who scattered it will already be long gone.
"Then the demon beasts will attack the Qingyun Sect disciples, and what will Fenxiang Valley have to do with it?"
Lu Jiuyuan fell silent for a moment, then swept his hand across the ground. A surge of spiritual power gathered all the powder and scattered it into the night wind.
He went to the few houses at the eastern end of the village and cleared away the powder around them as well, moving so quietly that he barely made a sound.
Jin Ping'er followed behind him, watching as he bent to clear away the powder. Then she suddenly said, "Sometimes, you really don't seem like someone from the righteous path."
Lu Jiuyuan didn't turn around. "How so?"
"When righteous-path cultivators catch people from Fenxiang Valley, they either arrest them on the spot, report them to their sect, or give them a stern lecture about righteousness.
"And you? You let them go, mark them, eavesdrop, and destroy the evidence!" She counted on her fingers, a smile in her voice. "That's clearly the way our Demon Sect does things."
Lu Jiuyuan cleared away the last of the powder and straightened up, turning to look at her. "If it works, what does it matter whether it's righteous or demonic?"
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