"Fairy Hu truly kept her abilities hidden, and this dear sister of mine certainly knew how to hold her tongue. With a connection like this, she never breathed a single word."
Cheng Xinzhan sighed.
Even as he spoke, he secretly raised his guard. From the looks of things, there was no telling who was ambushing whom.
If they killed Li Xiahua and these two subdued him afterward, wouldn't Heavenly Scabbard Mountain end up belonging to someone surnamed Zhang as well?
Cheng Xinzhan was no fool. He could not possibly still believe Xue Linglong was innocent.
Xue Linglong chided him,
"I've always held my tongue, yet you keep accusing me of talking too much, Brother. I only wanted to build a bridge between the future leaders of Western Hunan's corpse and soul paths. Was that wrong too?"
Cheng Xinzhan laughed at her words and cupped his hands toward her.
"Fine, fine, fine. I wronged you, Sister."
Then he turned back to Hu Baozhuang and said,
"Fairy Hu, shall we stop wasting time? Whether this great undertaking succeeds still depends on you."
Hu Baozhuang smiled.
"I'll see to it that Temple Master Shan gets his wish."
With that, the fox formed a hand seal and muttered an incantation. A hazy mist spread around her, obscuring her movements.
When the mist dispersed, the peerlessly beautiful fox immortal sitting opposite Cheng Xinzhan was gone. In her place was an old woman, hunched like an aged ape and dressed in ocher hemp robes!
Her face was gaunt, her cheekbones high, her nose hooked, and furrows of wrinkles lay piled across her face. Her eyelids drooped, but the eyes beneath shone with an unnerving brightness. Her gray hair was wound into a round bun, secured with a wooden hairpin polished smooth and glossy with age. Its