Chapter 47 Chapter 47 The wind blew through the gaps in the treetops...
The wind that had been blowing through the gaps in the treetops and hitting the three of them suddenly stopped, and the rustling sound of the branches and leaves colliding disappeared in an instant.
The fox's long fur, after being ruffled by the wind and settling back into place, instantly puffed up again. Su Xiaochun propped himself up and took a few steps along the tree trunk, but his turbulent emotions still seemed unabated. He looked down at the tree, paused for a moment among the branches, and then plopped back down in his original spot.
“You…” Su Xiaochun blurted out a few words in anger, but then, glancing at the white head emerging from her friend's hand, she abruptly stopped. When she spoke again, her arrogance had diminished somewhat:
"Where did you get a father from! How could that mere mortal be your father?!"
Su Xiaochun exhaled, calming his agitated emotions: "Little..." He paused again, recalling the origin of his name, and sneered: "If you really have a father, it should be..."
Xie Baoqiong's sudden action interrupted his unfinished words. She placed the snow goose in her other hand on her shoulder and hugged the fluffy two-tailed fox.
Su Xiaochun's body stiffened.
Xie Baoqiong took the opportunity to hug the fox tightly. The fox, which was pressed against him through his clothes, disdainfully turned its head away, but its body did not resist his movements. Its two fluffy tails gently swayed and brushed against his hand.
“Xiaochun…” Xie Baoqiong said softly.
The head in her arms turned slightly, and one of its ears curled up at a small angle.
Are you worried about me?
The fox turned its head to another angle, its tail swishing more dramatically, and a haughty growl escaped its mouth:
"I told you to come down the mountain later. Look, you've only been down for a short time and you've already been scammed."
"..." Xie Baoqiong's eyelids were half-closed, her gaze blank and unfocused, her voice light and airy, as if it could be blown away by the wind at any moment:
"Xiaochun, I was lying."
The last glimmer of light disappeared at the edge of the world. In the dim environment, the three demons had different expressions, and the tangled shadows of the trees cast an even darker shadow on Xie Baoqiong.
Under the cover of darkness, no disturbance could escape the eyes of three inhuman beings.
As Qi Gui, who was being carried obediently on his shoulder, listened to the two's ambiguous conversation, a glint of wisdom flashing in his large eyes.
What did Arjun mean by his response?
Could it be that Ah Qiong isn't Lord Xie's child?
In his memory, Ah-Qiong looked very much like Lord Xie.
His elder brother and wife looked very alike, while he and his wife did not look alike. His elder brother was his wife's child, and he had never doubted that Ah Qiong was Lord Xie's child.
The light in Dou Da's eyes gradually turned into confusion and bewilderment. If Ah Qiong really wasn't Xie Baoqiong, it didn't seem to affect their relationship...
My thoughts wandered in the quiet environment until the tranquility was broken by a soft voice.
Xie Baoqiong's voice was ethereal, like the moonlight that was visible but intangible falling from the sky at this moment:
"Xiaochun, is lying wrong? Did I do something wrong?"
In the swirling shadows, a pair of almond-shaped eyes with drooping corners reveal a mind as innocent as an infant, untouched by the clamor of the world, exploring its wonders.
The fluffy tail on the opposite side stopped, drooping down in an arc, before irritably flicking towards the treetop behind it.
The branches and leaves collided and made a crackling sound. Several brown branches fell downwards, followed by a few green leaves that swayed and drifted down.
"..." Xie Baoqiong's question was not a simple yes or no. Su Xiaochun had lived a hundred years longer than Shi Tou and was able to understand this principle.
But when asked to explain the issue clearly, he couldn't find a clue for the time being.
Su Xiaochun's gaze fell on Xie Baoqiong across the way, but she didn't give a direct answer, managing only to utter one sentence:
Before you lie to someone in the future, think about whether you care if the person you lied to gets angry.
He darted back into Xie Baoqiong's arms, his claws kneading the clothes beneath his paws: "Anyway, I'll get angry, so you can't lie to me."
...
The temple gates closed as the bell tolled, and a strange, dark shadow slipped into the front hall through the crack in the gate.
No candles were lit in the hall; in the dim light, only a few embers on the incense burner emitted a red glow.
Xie Baoqiong dragged the bird and the fox to a secluded corner, scanning her surroundings but finding no living creatures.
Inside the secluded hall, any sound would be amplified.
Xie Baoqiong stepped lightly across the wooden plank, but a slight creak was still unavoidable.
A faint sound could be heard coming from outside the hall.
He stopped in his tracks, feeling the gentle grip of a fox's claws on his shoulder.
The sounds coming from outside the hall became clearer, and the faint firelight reflected on the windows.
The next instant, the pressure from the fox's claws on his shoulder increased, and the red fox on his shoulder picked up a white sliver from its mouth and leaped up the beam along the pillar.
He followed closely behind, leaping into the air, his toes barely touching the beam, and jumped onto the crossbeam, landing next to the red fox.
The moment he bent down, the palace door, which had been half-closed, was pushed open from the outside.
Two figures entered the hall one after the other.
A face I'd seen during the day was hidden behind the dim oil lamp; it was Amei's master.
The two walked to the foot of Xie Baoqiong. The person holding the oil lamp casually placed it on the offering table. The flickering light reflected off their layered clothes, casting long shadows on the walls of the hall.
Xie Baoqiong poked half her head out from above the beam and looked down at the people below.
His graying head was topped with a dark hair bun, which shone with a warm glow under the lamplight.
However, from his angle lying on the beam, he couldn't see the faces of the people below, and could only identify them by their figures as people he had never seen before.
"Yingyue, you appeared in public again yesterday?" Cao Zhuangling's questioning voice rang out from below the hall.
Another voice readily agreed.
"Didn't I say that we shouldn't take any action these days, and should wait until things calm down? The Anti-Evil Division has already come to our door today. If I hadn't been prepared, you probably wouldn't even have the chance to stand here and talk to me right now."
Cao Zhuangling's suppressed anger rang out towards Yingyue.
"They're completely unfamiliar with this place, how did they manage to catch me here?" Yingyue scoffed disdainfully. She walked past Cao Zhuangling, approached the statue inside the hall, and looked up at it:
"Moreover, you brought the people from the Anti-Evil Division here. If you hadn't insisted on going to the capital to arrest people, how would the people from the Anti-Evil Division have come to my little temple?"
Hiding above the beam, Xie Baoqiong listened to the conversation between the two and could vaguely guess why Xie Zhuo had appeared here not long ago. At the same time, a strange emotion arose in his heart. He frowned slightly, but before he could figure it out, his attention was drawn to the sound below.
"Heh, gathering children is something done for that lord. The young man from the Marquis's mansion in the capital is someone that lord specifically requested." Cao Zhuangling turned to the side, glancing sideways at the figure behind him:
“You were involved in everything, and you reaped the benefits, but now that you're in trouble, it won't be so easy for you to wash your hands of it.”
Cao Zhuangling picked up the oil lamp again and raised it high. The light illuminated a corner of the statue, whose face was hidden in shadow. The glass eyes on the statue looked down calmly.
"Don't forget what you were back then. If I hadn't introduced you to that great man... would you really think you would have this little temple to live in now and become a glorious fox spirit?"
Yingyue stood beside the statue, looking up at the statue's face hidden in the darkness.
Xie Baoqiong immediately turned her head away, avoiding the gaze from below, and turned her attention to the statue she hadn't paid much attention to since entering the room.
This face... seems familiar?
Yingyue's cold voice interrupted his thoughts: "Since I decided to embark on this path, of course I will not desert my post."
"That's good then." Cao Zhuangling's voice rang out immediately after Yingyue's: "Put away your useless pity. Don't think you're a god just because you've enjoyed some offerings for a while..."
His cold, mocking gaze followed the light of the oil lamp and landed on the idol:
"The 'empty-minded guest,' ah!"
A genius abandoned his own smooth path to immortality, insisting on getting embroiled in the turmoil of saving the world, only to find himself unable to save himself, his fate unknown.
The veiled sarcasm in his words was not hard to discern.
The oil lamp was suddenly turned around to shine in the direction of Yingyue. Cao Zhuangling did not forget to give a warning at the end of his sentence: "What we are doing is just to find a way out for ourselves. Mind your own business and do what that master tells you to do in order to change your fate."
In the sudden flickering candlelight, Yingyue's pupils turned vertical, and her gaze, fixed on the statue's crystal-clear eyes, hardened with resentment as she spoke:
"Yes, the world is unjust, we are just trying to find a way to survive."
...
Xiexuke doesn't sound like a proper name.
After Lin Zhechun removed the white silk, his face bore a resemblance to the statue of a deity, about six or seven parts similar.
He recalled a face he had seen once before, but he was still somewhat unsure.
The glass beads embedded in the statue's eye sockets were so different from Lin Zhechun's lifeless eyes, and coupled with the inexplicable difference in their auras, he couldn't match the statue in front of him with the name Lin Zhechun.
The statue standing in the temple was a bit too... spirited, while the Lin Zhechun he came into contact with had a restrained aura, more like an unnamed stone in the mountains than him.
If he hadn't seen Lin Zhechun's face under the white silk and known that the latter's face bore some resemblance to the statue, he probably wouldn't have made any connection between the two.
Footsteps sounded again from below, and the candlelight moved with the footsteps, but suddenly stopped in place.
Xie Baoqiong temporarily abandoned her thoughts on the connection between the statue and Lin Zhechun, and stealthily peeked out her eyes again.
In the center of the hall, Cao Zhuangling took out a simple jade pendant from his chest.
Wisps of fluorescence flowed across the jade pendant, and a strange spiritual energy suddenly appeared in the air.
Xie Baoqiong was searching through her memories for the magic artifact that the jade pendant belonged to when she saw Cao Zhuangling stiffen up. From her angle above, she could see that the latter's forehead turned deathly pale in an instant.
...
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Author's note: Finally finished finishing the rankings.
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