The downpour had passed, leaving only a fine drizzle drifting through the air.
Min Ning stood by the door, still gripping her Embroidered Spring Saber tightly.
Her thoughts were unsettled. She tried to empty her mind, closing her eyes from time to time.
Yet every move and stroke Chen Yi had unleashed in that alley kept replaying in her mind.
Had he been using the Jiao-Slaying Saber Technique passed down through his lineage?
But there had been subtle variations she could not fathom...
As though it was not merely for slaying jiao dragons as they surged along waterways.
Even his footwork had differed from the usual martial footwork of the Embroidered Uniform Guard.
The more she recalled the scenes of him killing in the rainy night, the more tightly Min Ning's brow furrowed. Her mind seemed on the verge of working something out, yet she could grasp nothing.
Like a comet streaking across the sky, leaving nothing behind.
Footsteps sounded outside.
Min Ning instantly opened her eyes, pulling herself from her thoughts and looking nervously toward the door.
The door swung open, and Chen Yi walked slowly inside, covered in blood.
Without the slightest hesitation, Chen Yi undid his sash and stripped off his blood-soaked clothes.
The bloody stench assailed her nose. Min Ning frowned as she watched Chen Yi change as though no one else were there, then use a linen cloth to wipe his bloodstained blade.
Silence settled over the room.
After a long while, seeing that he had finished wiping the congealed blood from his saber, Min Ning spoke first.
"She's inside.
I pulled out the silver needles and applied some ointment."
Apart from its inherited martial arts, the Min Household's secret ointment recipe was another major reason three successive generations had all served in the Embroidered Uniform Guard.
Chen Yi neither looked at her nor spoke.
Min Ning drew a deep breath and continued.
"About this... I, I..."
She faltered there. She wanted to apologize, but did not know what to say. Although she wanted to use her elder sister to excuse herself, a wrong was a wrong. She knew that even hundreds or thousands of weightless apologies would gain her nothing.
Chen Yi raised his eyes and looked at Min Ning.
Min Ning's throat tightened.
"Don't know what to say?"
Chen Yi asked, raising an eyebrow.
Min Ning nodded silently.
She would not make excuses for herself, nor would she say Chen Yi was also at fault. Though those thoughts had flashed through her mind, she always kept the Min Household's family precepts firmly in her heart.
Those precepts were brief, just eight characters, and the first four meant: turn inward in introspection.
Looking at Min Ning like this, Chen Yi said flatly,
"Min Moon Pond, if you want to take her away, weigh your own fighting skills carefully first. Think about whether you can actually protect her."
Min Ning's face paled.
"By 'her,' I don't just mean the Xiang Prince's Daughter."
Chen Yi said calmly,
"I mean your elder sister, too."
At Chen Yi's mention of her elder sister, Min Ning's spirited face lost even more color. Her lips pressed together, and only after a long while did she manage a strained "Mm."
From Chen Yi's words, Min Ning realized something.
By "her," he meant my elder sister even more...
If I want to... take my sister away...
That means... he's going to, he's really going to?!
Min Ning jolted in horror, staring at this subordinate whose audacity knew no bounds.
"Don't, don't lay a hand on my sister..."
Cold sweat seeped onto Min Ning's forehead as she said in a trembling voice,
"If you have to... just do it to me."
"Weren't you already... already..."
Min Ning could not go on.
That day, she had heard Chen Yi's words very clearly, and the goosebumps they raised had lingered for a long time.
But I'm... not a man!
She did not know whether Chen Yi would lose interest if he discovered she was a woman disguised as a man, or whether... he would fly into a rage on the spot.
Chen Yi's lips curved into a meaningful smile.
"The Purple Palace."
Min Ning exclaimed, as though jolted out of another lifetime,
"What?"
Chen Yi sheathed his saber and said with a smile,
"Both enter the Purple Palace."
Min Ning's heart nearly stopped. Her paper-white face instantly flushed crimson, her shame and anger plain to see.
Not just me...
He wants my sister too?
Amid her tangled thoughts, Min Ning tried to say something.
But her words were stopped before they could emerge.
Chen Yi had already stepped forward, pressing one hand against the side of Min Ning's face and kissing her.
As he kissed her, Chen Yi admired her features.
Her lovely head went rigid. Only after a while did she begin to struggle gently. She disliked this, and her negative emotions kept swelling.
But what did that matter? What did that matter? She dared not push him away and could only respond with flustered inexperience, as though this one kiss could save her elder sister.
When their lips parted, Min Ning panted, her heart trembling without cease.
Feeling her heartbeat, Chen Yi glanced down. The difference between hers and her elder sister's was like heaven and earth; otherwise, she could never have disguised herself as a man.
Min Ning was about to raise a hand to wipe her lips, but when she met Chen Yi's seemingly urging gaze, she lowered it.
Chen Yi turned away and said,
"Go home."
Min Ning gritted her teeth, nodded slightly, and turned sideways to plunge into the fine drizzle.
After she left, Chen Yi glanced at the panel.
[True qi remaining: one hundred and forty years.]
He still needed ten more years before he could condense five motes of true essence and attain minor accomplishment in the Grudge Yin-Yang Art.
"Just as well. She's injured right now, too."
Chen Yi muttered.
He had never been impatient, and she was injured besides. In any case, she was his concubine, and he was not short of much true qi. There was no need to rush.
Chen Yi first washed up, changed into clean clothes, then pushed open the door and entered the bedroom.
She slept on the side against the wall, almost pressed right against it, curled into a ball like a little fox.
Ever since coming to his home, she had kept shrinking toward the wall.
Actually, he wanted to sleep against the wall too. That was where he usually slept, but there was nothing he could do; she had taken the spot.
Yin Tingxue's eyelids were closed, her brow faintly drawn, as though she could find no peace even in sleep. Chen Yi briefly admired her sleeping face, feeling that her brow looked far too fragile, like a brittle, bent stalk in late autumn.
"If you don't save me, I'll hate you for the rest of my life. You'll be the only person I hate, all my life..."
Remembering what she had said in the alley, Chen Yi shook his head with a laugh.
Reaching out to gently stroke her brow, Chen Yi murmured to himself,
"But hatred...
Hatred is only one kind of passion."
Whatever Yin Tingxue had said then, even if she would rather die than have him save her, he would still have saved her.
Although traces of the pain of having all his meridians severed that day seemed to linger, he would not hurt her.
Because he... had indeed hurt a woman once.
That had been in his first save, or perhaps he ought to call it... his previous life?
Chen Yi would never forget her name.
Yinjian Mountain Sword Armor, Zhou Yitang, courtesy name Zhuyu.
As he was lost in thought, the Xiang Prince's Daughter stirred on the bed, her eyelids fluttering as though she were about to wake.
During curfew, Capital City lay in darkness, but the Western Depot remained brightly lit.
"Deputy Director Song, have all the bodies been accounted for?"
Wu Qingsheng asked.
Song Tong took a newly written dossier from his robes and said,
"Every fallen brother of the Eastern Depot has been entered in the records. Director Wu, you can submit the report to the empress dowager tomorrow."
Wu Qingsheng nodded slightly, his mind settling somewhat.
"The Eastern Depot made great sacrifices to rid Capital City of the Demonic Cult's scourge. I will remember them always."
Hearing this, Song Tong recalled something and turned to one of the pages. After hesitating, he said,
"I'm afraid... remnants of the Demonic Cult still remain."
"Director Wu, please look at this."
Wu Qingsheng took the dossier. Twenty-one names were written down that page, and their places of death were, astonishingly, all the same alley!
Wu Qingsheng's pupils contracted sharply, his fingertips tapping the wooden table.
Song Tong sighed.
"The officer assigned to penal investigations examined them. Judging from the Eastern Depot agents' wounds, almost all were killed with a single saber stroke, two at most.
Even the chief constable leading them failed to last four moves.
Director Wu, twenty-one men, all slaughtered within the time it takes an incense stick to burn. Tell me, who could do that..."
Wu Qingsheng lowered his brows and considered carefully before speaking.
"If it were Director Xue... he could probably have done it in half an incense stick's time. But... Director Xue was at the fifth grade of the Martial Dao."
Song Tong said gravely,
"Which means... the Demonic Cult still has an expert whose whereabouts are currently unknown."
Wu Qingsheng's expression grew solemn.
"Sixth grade?"
Song Tong fell silent for a while before slowly uttering a few words.
"I'm afraid... far beyond that."
"Because that Demonic Cult master appears to have joined forces with the Demonic Cult elder to fight Director Xue."
Unlike Wu Qingsheng, he did not say expert, cautiously calling the person a master instead.
Wu Qingsheng considered this after hearing it and could not help saying,
"No wonder Director Xue had to sacrifice his life for righteousness and died with his body bursting apart... after all, two fists can hardly fight four hands."
"Deputy Director Song, then tell me... just what grade of the Martial Dao is this expert?"
Song Tong fell silent again.
Wu Qingsheng looked at him in puzzlement, his fingers tapping rapidly on the desk.
"Fifth grade?"
Song Tong shook his head.
"Fourth grade?"
Song Tong shook his head again.
Wu Qingsheng's breath caught, and he asked uneasily,
"A third-grade minor grandmaster?!"
Even as the words escaped him, Wu Qingsheng found them unbelievable. There were only a handful of third-grade minor grandmasters in all of Capital City, and several of them guarded the imperial city day and night.
Song Tong hesitated, then still shook his head slightly. After another long silence, he finally spoke.
"I am too ignorant to know this person's grade...
All I know is that the true qi he poured into Director Xue..."
"...amounted to no less than two hundred years!"
Before you continue