As far as the eye could see, there was almost no moisture or sign of life, only yellow sand churning and billowing everywhere. Hurricanes swept across it, like giants striding over black masses of clouds, their great legs carrying them wildly across the wilderness.
This was Purple Sun Fort. Like Ximu City, it was cut off by the Shuhuan Mountain Range, and being deep in the Eastern Ridge, it presented just such a scene: yellow sand filling the eye, truly an excellent place for killing. Yet whenever the setting sun cast its slanting rays and the hurricanes stopped, the magnificent colors of the sky draped themselves over it, and it became the most dazzling jewel on the Lingze Defense Line. A hundred thousand Kunling Sect soldiers were stationed nearby.
The wind roared, whipping sharp grains of yellow sand against his face and filling his collar and cuffs. The two strings of beads his footprints left behind in the sand were buried by drifting sand within a few steps. Mu Bai lowered his bamboo hat and wrapped his black cloak tightly around himself, letting the hurricane and wild sand howl past.
By the time he entered town, the sky had darkened. Moonlight and starlight spread a silver frost across the ground, and people of every description seemed to grow out of the sand. Purple Sun Fort, this little frontier town, suddenly came alive, bustling with a clamor of voices. A tavern in the middle of the street blazed with light, yet the space before it was as deserted as a place of death. Mu Bai pushed the door open and walked inside.
Every gaze swung toward him in unison. The newcomer was merely an ordinary young man, his face weathered by wind and sand, his bamboo hat and black cloak wrapping