Ming Qitian paused, slightly startled. "...Oh."
"I'd like to leave the Nether Immortal Sword until tomorrow." Pei Ye's voice was slightly hoarse. "There are some other things I'd like to ask you, Miss Ming."
"About that night?"
"Yes."
Ming Qitian nodded. "Go ahead."
Yet Pei Ye fell silent for a moment.
Over the past few days, his mind had indeed remained fixed on that night.
Striving not to look at the ghastly blossoms of blood blooming from the girl's green sleeve, he had retraced every movement of the black-robed figure he had seen that rainy night, over and over, until his thoughts fastened firmly on that final exchange of gazes between them.
He had revisited that scene many times, gradually noticing details he had missed and gaining a complete picture of it.
It had been a clash neither of them was prepared for.
Neither Pei Ye nor the Lord of the Mask had expected a sudden, direct confrontation between their Mindscape Realms.
Pei Ye had charged forward in uncontrollable fury, but he had certainly not intended to use the Edict Diagram to attack his enemy. He had neither mastered such a technique nor made such a resolve.
In that instant, the Edict Diagram had invaded him, and then the purple bamboo forest had spread uncontrollably through his body.
He believed the same had happened on the other side.
The Lord of the Mask had been wholly unprepared when he was swallowed into the Purple Bamboo Secret Realm, and in the next instant, he had been unable to mount any countermeasure.
He was not that bead's master. In that moment, the two of them had been like blades wielded by the things behind them, placed on the same arena as their mortal enemies.
Neither side seemed to have been ready. Pei