Bifang Blood

It had merely been for fun.

He had ordered Hongfeng Village, under Sun Copper County's jurisdiction, slaughtered to the last. More than two hundred households, over nine hundred villagers—only twenty-three had escaped.

And they had been deliberately let go.

Even Axu, who had been raised in the Lotus Intent Sect and rarely felt much emotional turbulence, inexplicably sensed a trace of unease.

It made her suspicious.

Whether the sect's several Protectors had been wise to choose cooperation with the Tao Family.

Though Tao Yanchen was merely an unfavored son born of a concubine within the Tao Family, his utterly unscrupulous, illogical conduct might still affect the sect's plans.

"Should I discuss it with Master again?"

A hint of distraction appeared in Axu's delicate features. Yet when she recalled her master's words before departure, she suppressed the thought. "Forget it. Better not trouble Master."

She was merely a lotus maidservant raised from childhood.

She had no right to point fingers at the plans of the sect's upper ranks.

"What is it, Axu? Don't you think this is quite fun?"

Tao Yanchen stepped fully out from the shadows. Wearing a golden monocle, he looked refined and handsome, like a young scholar returned from studying in the West.

He asked again.

"Not fun."

There was little emotion in Axu's faintly cool voice. "I don't like killing people."

Tao Yanchen's eyes narrowed at once, and a savage gleam seemed to radiate from his gaze as he stared at the woman in black for a long while.

Axu calmly met his eyes, utterly unconcerned by the threat in them.

"Good Axu, good Axu! As expected of a little white lotus from the Lotus Intent Sect. Compared to all those vulgar powders and common rouges, you truly stand apart from the crowd."

Tao Yanchen laughed. "What a pity, what a pity. I have a woman betrothed to me by our parents before we were born. Otherwise, I would surely make you my principal wife."

"Principal wife or concubine, such worldly titles mean little to me."

Axu merely said indifferently, "I am only here to complete the sect's mission."

Lotus maidservants like her dedicated their entire lives to the Lotus Fragrance Matriarch. This mere sack of flesh was nothing but a shackle left upon her in the mundane world.

Sooner or later, she would cast it off and return to Lotus True Emptiness.

"Good Axu, what I love most is how you never lie."

Tao Yanchen looked over Axu's graceful figure, and suddenly his eyes lit up. "Since you don't like killing, let's make people here instead. The wooden cabin beside us is empty."

The wooden cabin was indeed empty.

But the remains of a family of five were scattered throughout every corner of the room. The thick stench of blood was enough to smoke a normal person until they could not even open their eyes.

"As you wish."

Axu nodded coldly, then walked straight into the wooden cabin.

Elsewhere, Wei Yu and the others from the escort agency were resting beside that group of martial wanderers.

Their emotions seemed to have mostly recovered. They had already calmed down from the earlier threat of death.

Even the sole female escort hand had taken out some provisions to eat. With a few pieces of dried meat and a flask of weak liquor, she half-squatted atop a rock and ate with great relish.

One escort hand glanced at his companion who was eating, smacked his lips twice, and felt his heart grow heavy. He had no appetite at all, so he merely said to the colleague beside him, "Brother Wen, lend me a light."

He pulled a pack of locally made Old Shrimp cigarettes from his clothes.

He had smoked cigarettes made by Western companies before, but he always felt the local brands had more kick.

As he borrowed the flame, he also handed the other man two cigarettes.

"Here!"

The escort hand surnamed Wen took a box of matches from his clothes, fumbled to strike a light, then accepted the cigarettes. The two began smoking together.

As clouds of smoke billowed from their mouths.

The pressure in their hearts not only failed to ease, but grew heavier still.

Because.

Night had already fallen.

When the escort carts had left the city, the weather had been excellent, with not a cloud for ten thousand miles. Yet by nightfall, dense black clouds had gathered overhead, and not even a sliver of moonlight could be seen.

"Gentlemen, would you like some cigarettes? Old Shrimp brand—smooth in taste, not harsh at all."

While smoking, the escort hand ingratiatingly offered cigarettes to the martial wanderers around them. Most shook their heads in refusal, and some did not even acknowledge him.

Not a single person accepted one.

His expression turned somewhat awkward, and he then offered cigarettes to the people from the escort agency.

Other than Jiang Jingnian and the female escort hand, even Wei Yu took a cigarette and squatted nearby to smoke. Thinking of what had happened earlier, he truly had no appetite for food.

Wei Yu looked at Jiang Jingnian, who stood motionless where he was as if he were about to fall asleep, and asked in a low voice, "Escort Master Jiang, you don't smoke?"

He was usually a man of few words, but the emotions in his heart were so stifling that he actually took the initiative to speak to Jiang Jingnian.

"I don't smoke. That stuff affects martial training and judgment."

Jiang Jingnian inhaled the secondhand smoke from the group and answered quietly without even lifting his eyelids.

Wei Yu took two puffs from his cigarette, exhaled a cloud of smoke, and watched it drift hazily through the night. "Actually, I don't usually smoke this stuff either."

"It's just that we'll be entering the mountains to purge Wraiths soon. I'm afraid that if I don't smoke a couple now, I may never get another chance."

Even though more than a hundred soldiers from the Black Flood Dragon Army and over a dozen highly capable martial artists would be entering the mountains with them.

He still felt little sense of security.

First.

Their group would definitely be used as cannon fodder by the Black Flood Dragon Army.

Second.

The Demon Wraith they were going to surround and destroy this time was the famed Bifang Blood.

"Brother Wei, what exactly is this Bifang Blood?"

Jiang Jingnian slowly opened his eyes, confusion on his face.

After they had been conscripted, they had heard the term Bifang Blood quite often.

Jiang Jingnian was naturally no stranger to the words Bi Fang.

In the Classic of Mountains and Seas from his previous life, there had been records of Bi Fang, a kind of divine bird.

But in this world.

Judging from the literal meaning, Bifang Blood meant the blood of a divine bird?

If it was blood, how could it be a terrifying, bizarre Demon Wraith?

"Bi Fang is said to be an ancient divine creature, with red markings and a white beak. Where it appears, strange fires arise in its settlements."

"As for whether those myths and legends from ancient times are true, I do not know. But this Bifang Blood is not a divine bird. It is a cluster of blue flame, a Demon Wraith capable of parasitizing the human heart."

Wei Yu drew deeply on his cigarette, then lowered his voice to explain.

"Blue flames, capable of parasitizing people? What does it specifically look like? And what traits do those who have been parasitized show?"

Jiang Jingnian furrowed his brow slightly. That description was far too vague.

And without specific traits, it would be far too difficult to determine whether someone had been parasitized.

No wonder Tao Yanchen and the Black Flood Dragon Army could use it as an excuse to execute people at will. Whether such an excuse could convince anyone, however, was another matter.

"How would I know? It's not like I've seen it with my own eyes. The newspapers only mentioned it briefly."

Wei Yu gave a bitter laugh. "Anyway, witnesses who saw Bi Fang's Fire basically all died. The few who survived seemed to have gone mad, and they were all locked away in lunatic asylums run by Westerners."

Even escort masters mostly learned about those powerful Demon Wraiths from records kept by escort agencies and public information in newspapers.