For many years, Qin Niang has been giving life-saving elixirs to other demon cultivators as a bargaining chip to save Qiao Yan, which has caused her spiritual power to be exhausted by half. She doesn't have much time left.
In addition, a fierce battle broke out with her own people today, and her spiritual power, which was already very little, has been exhausted. She can't support it for too long.
Ning Ning's mind suddenly recalled the conversations she had with Qin Niang, and she didn't know how much was true and how much was false when she said "I just hope Xiao Yan can live."
The night wind was gentle, quietly blowing away the dull smell of blood. Ning Ning just felt depressed, squatted down and looked at Qin Niang at eye level, and wiped the blood off her face.
After all, she was just a little girl who had not experienced any major storms. Even though she knew that the other party was a demon, she could not blame him too much under such circumstances. She was silent for a long time before she asked in a low and gentle voice, "Do you have any other wishes?"
Qin Niang seemed to have not expected her to say that. A hint of tenderness flashed in her dark pupils. After a brief stunned look, she shook her head lightly.
"You two must remember that the power of the Demon Lord is unfathomable. It is difficult to defeat him with ordinary methods... But if we can destroy the eye of the formation and damage the formation with external force, it will definitely cause him great damage."
She finally ran out of strength at this moment, leaning against the tree stump in the courtyard, letting her long hair cover her bloodstained face: "The spirit fox clan has been infected by the demonic energy for a long time. It won't be long before the demonic energy is destroyed. will completely degenerate into an evil creature that is neither human nor ghost... If you want to save them, it depends on you."
Ning Ning grasped the hem of her skirt with her right hand, with some hesitation in her tone: "Really don't tell Qiao Yan the truth? You did all this for her, right?"
Abandoning the life-saving elixir and struggling to support with this broken body, and fighting against the demons in the entire secret realm and exhausting all spiritual power until death.
She was willing to give everything for the girl, but in Qiao Yan's perspective, this false mother was just a liar from beginning to end, no different from other demon cultivators.
It was really... unfair.
Qin Niang just shook her head and forced a smile. Although she was the one who was about to die, her tone was like the gentle consolation of an elder, and there was no trace of sorrow in her voice: "Time is running out, go find the Eye of the Array quickly."
They didn't know when the "Demon Lord Qi Han" mentioned by these demon cultivators would come back, and if the two of them were caught by him, it would be difficult for them to escape. Ning Ning raised her head and exchanged a glance with Pei Ji, and finally nodded.
The other demon cultivators around her had been killed by Pei Ji, and Qin Niang watched them leave quietly. When the backs of the young man and girl gradually disappeared from her sight, it seemed as if the whole world had fallen silent. Her
spiritual power was like a dried-up spring, and her whole body was filled with heart-wrenching pain. She took a deep breath, and through her increasingly blurred vision, she raised her eyes to look at this familiar courtyard.
This is Qiao Yan's house.
The little girl has carefully planted many flowers and plants around it, including some magical medicines that can restore spiritual power and heal injuries. The night of midsummer is green and even the wind is fragrant. Occasionally, groups of fireflies fly by, making Qiao Yan very happy.
She has struggled in the bloody quagmire for many years. The memories of killing and survival are far away, like something done by another person. However, the blood on her hands can never be washed away. Qin Niang does not expect to be forgiven.
If you stray, you will find the way back. These words sound so nice, but she knows that the sins she has committed will follow her all her life.
——In fact, she is not worthy of staying by Qiao Yan's side, and it has been like this since the beginning.
The night sky is as clear as a mirror, reflecting the lonely shadow of a woman. Qin Niang knew that her life would not last long, but a very light smile overflowed from her eyes.
This is her and Qiao Yan's home.
She used to have no place to live and wander around. "Home" was such an unattainable word. Now she can die in her home... It seems not bad.
=====
Ningning has not spoken much since she left the courtyard.
She rarely sees separation of life and death, especially Qin Niang's departure is filled with too many regrets. In a trance, she thought of Chen Lubai in the pagoda, and her mood became more complicated.
In the world of cultivation, the strong prey on the weak, and life and death are uncertain. No one knows about their death, and the sacrifices and contributions they made are also silent.
Pei Ji also walked beside her without saying a word, and suddenly said: "Are you still thinking about her?"
"Thinking about a lot of things."
He rarely spoke on his own initiative. Ning Ning seemed to be startled. She raised her head hurriedly, looked away quickly, and then spoke again with a hint of hesitation: "Pei Ji, if someone close to you actually has evil intentions and wants to use you with impure motives, what will you do?" He
finally asked.
Ning Ning was nervous and slowed down her breathing.
Qin Niang and Qiao Yan seemed to have a relationship similar to her and Pei Ji.
Although they were getting more and more familiar with each other, she was the villain after all, and had to do many things against her will according to the system's requirements.
If Pei Ji caught her one day, Ning Ning was confused, but Pei Ji answered without hesitation: "I don't have anyone close to me."
Ning Ning was choked.
"What if it was me?"
She mustered up the courage to look him in the face. In the gloomy night, the boy's dark pupils were like the abyss: "If I did something bad to you, what would you do?"
Pei Ji looked at her steadily and answered quickly: "You wouldn't."
Ning Ning was stunned.
"What do you mean 'I can't'?"
She chuckled at these three words, but halfway through her laugh, she felt inexplicably a little sour. She pursed her lips and continued, "Do you trust me so much?"
The young man in black who was walking beside her paused, subconsciously exerted force on the slender fingers holding the long sword, and turned his face away from her.
He finally paused for a long time this time, and when Pei Ji spoke again, his voice was somehow stiff: "It's just intuition."
Cheng Ying almost died on the spot, and screamed wildly in his heart: "What do you mean by 'just intuition'! Will you die if you tell the truth!"
He rolled over and over in anger, but Ningning lowered her head, and a subtle arc appeared at the corner of her mouth.
"It's hard to say, I don't know when I will bully you."
Her mood seemed to be no longer as bad as before, and a smile was quietly wrapped in her voice: "I'm afraid we can't find any clues here, why don't we go to the other side of the formation to have a look?"
Pei Ji said "hmm".
Then he replied to her sullenly: "Don't be sad."
"Yeah."
=====
"Master Xu, where are you taking me?"
The dusk was clear, and the reflections of the trees flowed slowly like water, falling on a man and a woman in the forest.
Qiao Yan was led out of the settlement by Xu Ye in a daze, and she still didn't understand his intention until now. Seeing that she was getting farther and farther away from the waterfall, she couldn't help but break away from his hand holding her sleeve and hurriedly stopped:
"You keep saying that you want to show me something, but where are we going? What is that thing? Why are you hesitating so much?"
Xu Ye was asked three questions in a row, and froze in place for a while, at a loss.
Not long after He Zhizhou pulled the Demon Lord straight out of the gate, the demons in the settlement began to stir. Although they are weak, if they rush forward, Xu Ye alone will certainly be defeated.
Moreover... Qiao Yan knows nothing about all the secrets. If she encounters those murderous demon cultivators, she will probably be in danger.
Although Xu Ye has always lived under the protection of his master and senior sisters, and is not very good at getting along with others, he also understands that he should do his best to protect her -
this not only includes Qiao Yan's life safety, but also more importantly, she must not know the truth.
It is actually them who are in the formation, and the mirror ghosts on the other side of the water mirror are all transformed from the fox clan. As an outsider, he was stunned for a long time after learning about this, not to mention Qiao Yan.
——After all, to her, everything that had happened was no different from slaughtering her own people and living with a mortal enemy with
whom she had a blood feud. No matter who it was, they would collapse instantly the moment they learned the truth. Xu Ye knew that he could not stay in the settlement, so he could only rush to Qiao Yan's residence and make up an excuse to take her out. Maybe they were lucky, and those evil cultivators never caught up.
"I, I'm not--"
He was not good at lying. The last time he and He Zhizhou teamed up to commit a crime to deceive Liu Ying of Neon Island, he had already been under tremendous psychological pressure, not to mention that the current situation was so urgent that it concerned the life and death of both of them.
"Aren't I looking for Ning Ning and the others?"
Xu Ye was forced into a corner, and the words in his head popped out without thinking: "They said they found clues related to the Burning Sun Bow and asked us to meet nearby - how come there is not even a shadow of a person?"
Qiao Yan's eyebrows moved: "Burning Sun Bow?"
The girl seemed to be finally relieved.
Xu Ye nodded without hesitation as if he had been pardoned: "Yes, yes, yes! That's it!"
He thought Qiao Yan would calm down, but she frowned slightly, lowered her head to think for a moment, and suddenly spoke in a low voice: "They should not find the Burning Sun Bow... I think I have figured out something."
Xu Ye's smile froze on his face.
In a trance, he heard Qiao Yan's clear voice.
"The bow and arrow could only have been taken away by a spirit fox or a demon. We can make an assumption based on this."
She said seriously, her furry snow-white ears swaying as she thought: "If it was the spirit fox clan, there was no reason not to make it public to deal with the demon cultivators. Moreover, my people are weak and will never be able to defeat the Fire Phoenix."
Xu Ye: ...
Xu Ye listened to her blankly.
"In this way, we can pin all suspicion on those demon cultivators. Although they are now trapped in the water mirror, it does not mean that they could not have stolen the Burning Sun Bow before."
Qiao Yan spoke faster and faster, looking at him steadily: "They must have used some shady methods before the war to steal the jade pendant and take the bow and arrow. They wanted to use it to completely eliminate the Spirit Fox lineage, but we took the lead and sealed it in the formation."
Xu Ye: ...Ah?
"So the Burning Sun Bow must be in the hands of the demons, on the other side of the water mirror!"
What is this called, the reasoning is completely wrong, but the result is right, the Burning Sun Bow is indeed on the other side of the formation -
but the demons are not on that side!
Xu Ye's mood was as complicated as a knot. He looked at Qiao Yan with eyes that became more and more firm, even with a bit of determination. He told him very seriously: "Master Xu, I have a plan. I plan to go to the other side of the water mirror tonight to see if I can get the Burning Sun Bow back."
"No, no, no, that's not good!"
Xu Ye didn't expect this girl to be so desperate that she would not even give up her life for the Burning Sun Bow and the fox clan. Hearing this, he quickly replied: "You are alone and it is too dangerous to go alone. Why don't you come with me to find Ningning and the others first, and then we can discuss it together."
Qiao Yan looked at him sternly: "But haven't you lost contact with them? You can't find them after so long?"
Xu Ye was choked.
But she still had something to say, and every word she said was righteous and unquestionable: "My mother is almost unable to hold on to support the water mirror formation... I must act as soon as possible. Moreover, the land of the demon clan is extremely dangerous. This is the business of the spirit fox clan. I can't let you take risks. It's enough for one person to go."
But you really can't go! What if you see a mirror ghost that looks like your relatives there -
Xu Ye didn't dare to think about it. He was so anxious that his head was overwhelmed. He was tossed around by the wheels of life and almost shed tears of grievance.
"Don't worry, I know what I am doing."
Qiao Yan paused, thinking that he was worried about her: "This time I went into the water, I just went to investigate the situation on the other side and try to find the whereabouts of the Burning Sun Bow. Mother is still waiting for me at home, I will not ask for trouble and conflict with them beyond my ability."
- But the woman at home is no longer your mother, she will not wait for you to come back!
Xu Ye wanted to continue to persuade her shamelessly, if it didn't work, then he would just use force and knock Qiao Yan unconscious, and then find any excuse to prevaricate afterwards.
He had thought of all the plans and steps, but he didn't expect that just when he opened his lips and the words didn't jump out of his throat, he saw Qiao Yan move.
"I'll be back as soon as possible!"
She moved swiftly, her long hair was blown high by the wind, and when she raised her head in the chaotic night, a bright color flashed in her eyes: "Master Xu, don't worry about me, go meet up with the others first!"
Behind her was a lake as smooth as a mirror.
Xu Ye's last memory of the mirror world was the smooth arc drawn by the girl when she jumped into the lake, and Qiao Yan's fluttering white shirt disappearing from his sight.
He was confused and followed her into the water without hesitation. After a sudden feeling of suffocation, he saw the blood-red lake water and a dark whirlpool.
He must have fallen into the whirlpool.
Otherwise, when he opened his eyes again, he would not see a completely different scene.
The sky was turbid, filled with dark clouds and thin smoke. It was already night, but the scarlet glow of the sky was strangely remnant.
What came towards him was a rotten and fishy wind. The evil spirit lingered for a long time, almost condensing in every corner, which made him feel a little disgusted. As soon as he raised his head, he saw the withered branches of old trees and scattered animal carcasses.
Xu Ye had wondered before, since the two tribes had fought such a life-and-death war, why was there still birds singing and flowers blooming in the secret realm, and no trace of war could be seen. It turned out that everything was just an illusion.
People who have lived in the mirror for a long time finally came to the real world.
A world full of death, mutation and cruel truth.