Tap, tap...
Two sets of unhurried footsteps echoed through the deep, secluded dungeon.
Meng Jiao, the White-Haired Truth-Listener, wore the white dress of her younger days. Though her hair was snowy white and her youth had passed, her bearing resembled that of a middle-aged female constable of no great age, without her usual air of an elderly senior.
Behind her, the lean Sun Wuji walked past cell after cell with the Three-Foot Green Edge hanging at his waist and one hand behind his back, his eyes wistful.
"What a pity about Nangong Ling. I met him once when I was roaming the martial world. He was carefree and a little young and reckless, but his character wasn't bad. I never imagined that, after a few decades, he would become a monster who plagued an entire region..."
Meng Jiao was nearly seventy, which sounded quite old, but when Great Wei was founded, she had been no more than a little girl. Her master had been one of the wandering heroes who helped Sun Wuji and the rebel army take the city. He had subsequently been rewarded with a post in the Ministry of Justice, eventually passing his position on to her.
Thus, however old she grew, when she met Zhao Wuji, she still had to address him as an uncle.
Hearing Sun Wuji's words, Meng Jiao also sighed.
"Even heroes struggle to pass a beauty's gate. Nangong Ling had no fixed home and a footloose nature. While traveling in Southern Heaven, he met a woman with a heart like snakes and scorpions. A few honeyed words sent his head floating into the clouds, and he began robbing and pillaging.
"When people of the martial world hold fast to the chivalrous path, even killing a million people is eliminating tyrants and protecting