Mysterious Figure, Critical Danger

Zhang Xiaohua tunneled back to the pill room, where everything remained as before. The medicinal liquid in the Eight Trigrams Purple Gold Furnace was still nurturing the pill, and the process seemed to be going quite smoothly.

After inspecting it, Zhang Xiaohua took a meditation cushion from his robes and placed it before the furnace. He sat down cross-legged, took out two yuan stones, and began his cultivation for the day.

While Zhang Xiaohua was cultivating, a tall figure hidden beneath a cloak that covered its entire body appeared behind the small house where Ou Yan lived, like a ghostly shadow.

The black figure was incomparably swift and soundless upon landing. Even if it passed directly before someone's eyes, it might not be noticed. The figure halted, looked around, and listened closely before drifting away and landing beside the roof. Inside the room, beneath pale yellow lamplight, Ou Yan still lay on her back with the same sleeping visage. Though her face had grown thin and lost its former fullness, her long lashes and pale skin beneath the light and shadow made her the very image of a sleeping beauty.

Beside Ou Yan's bed, a long-haired woman was bent over the bedside, exhausted and already asleep. Who else could it have been but Qiutong?

The black figure watched the room for a long while, then listened intently once more. At last, it took from its robes a rough black bottle, less than half the height of a jade vial. Its material could not be discerned. After removing the stopper, the figure muttered softly, chanting something unknown. The murmuring had a rhythm, rising and falling like a song. After another moment, the figure extended its other hand from beneath the cloak—slender and fair. Its five fingers rose and made several inexplicable