[Imperial City Storm] Who is her master?
Just as she finished complaining about this cartoon-like exit, she immediately heard the master's faint voice beside her:
"Haha, I'll never see you again!"
The figure in the black smoke seemed to pause. Zhou Suyao privately thought that he was completely enraged, and in that second of pause he was calculating the chances of winning in a head-on fight with his master.
But after the black smoke paused for a moment, it immediately fled. The master shook his head and sighed, "He's still the same as he was a hundred years ago, always thinking of running away when faced with trouble."
Then, he pointed at the dazed Qi Shuobei lying on the ground and the seriously injured Qi Jie and said, "Don't just stand there. If you don't get up, you'll be eaten by those evil spirits in the palace as a midnight snack. And you, girl."
His gaze paused for a moment on Zhou Suyao's pale face, and his tone softened a little, but his words were still unpleasant: "Exploding Spirit Core? You've made it. Go back and see if I don't punish you by making you copy the Pure Heart Putuo Mantra a hundred times!"
After saying that, he bent down to pick up another relatively cleaner straw sandal, casually put it on his bare feet, then turned and walked towards the deeper shadows outside the palace wall, taking one deep step and one shallow step.
"Wangcai! Where have you been?! Come out and lead the way! This dynasty is built in such a complicated way, how can we know where the dungeon is?"
Zhou Suyao closed her eyes. The feeling of having survived another catastrophe made her legs go numb, and she stumbled and almost fell.
If Qi Jie hadn't rushed over from behind and supported her, she would have probably fallen hard.
But during this moment of distraction, a female voice suddenly came into her mind.
"I know what I'm doing, Zhou Xuqing, let go."
"Master promised me that as long as I help him succeed and ascend to the spiritual path, he will use the power of the sect to open a channel connecting the demon world to the spiritual path."
Zhou Xuqing, turned out to be her master!
She opened her eyes suddenly and heard Qi Shuobei's anxious and urging voice in her ears.
And in her mind, what was hidden was from her by the closest and kindest people in this world.
Boundless sorrow.
In the dead silence of the imperial city, the smell of blood was so strong that it could not be dispelled, and it went straight into people's noses.
Even though Zhou Suyao was half supported and half held by Qi Jie at this moment, she still staggered and coughed up a fishy and sweet taste from her throat.
But the pain on the body is far less than the heavy feeling of separation in the heart.
Zhou Xuqing.
These three words repeatedly sank and then resurfaced in her chaotic consciousness, and it seemed that every word carried a biting chill.
The young boy with bloodshot eyes in her fantasy was actually——
The master who taught her for many years was always a disorderly person.
Two completely different figures were torn and overlapped wildly before her eyes.
At the side, Qi Jie grabbed her arm tightly, his eyes showing deeper concern as he asked, "What's wrong?"
She shook her head. In truth, she didn't know how to describe her feelings at the moment, so she forced a smile and whispered, "Still...still standing there? Hurry up and follow the master. He...he just said he knew where Mingluo was."
In front of him, Qi Jie frowned. He stared at the bright red blood between Zhou Suyao's teeth. In the end, he said nothing more, just nodded slightly, then supported Qi Shuobei and quickly followed Master Zhou's steps.
Behind them, Zhou Suyao sighed imperceptibly. Although she was confused at that time, the appearance of her master was like a magic needle that stabilized the sea, instantly dispelling the suffocating despair around her.
After being stunned for a while, she chose to suppress the doubts that were churning in her mind. She gritted her teeth, stepped forward quickly, and together with Qi Jie, struggled to help the seriously injured Qi Shuobei up.
In this way, the three of them supported each other, taking one step deep and one step shallow, and struggled to keep up with the figure in front of them wearing tattered straw sandals. Led by Wangcai, they gradually went deeper into the more hidden depths of the imperial city.
The imperial city was eerily quiet.
Even Zhou Suyao, who occupied a hill alone, had never seen such silence.
It seemed that even if they accidentally stepped on a rotten branch at this moment, the sound would be transmitted directly from the foot of the imperial city to the ears of the old emperor.
Even amidst the Hetian's silence, Zhou Suyao's eyes never left her master's bare feet. Mud clung to his ankles, and even between his toes was stained with dirty black mud. Every time he stepped on the ground, a slight sticky sound was heard.
This picture is so real, so... down-to-earth.
But even with such a pair of feet, a hundred years ago, did they ever step on the Langyuan Yingzhou, which was untainted by dust and surrounded by fairy air?
Zhou Suyao's stomach suddenly churned - he wasn't disgusted by the mud under his feet, but by the huge and somewhat absurd gap in height.
Are the young man who tried to turn the tide a century ago and the cynical old man before him truly the same person? What went through his mind as he watched Ning Qinggui shake his hand away and step into the Qinghui Palace, from which there was no return? How had a century of vicissitudes shaped him into the person he is today... the one who plays with the world?
At this moment, the master's voice suddenly drifted over lazily, as if intentionally interrupting Zhou Suyao's surging thoughts: "Girl, can you still walk? If you can't, let the kid from the Qi family carry you. I think he's quite happy to do it."
After a pause, he continued, "Don't hang your head. Although I'll punish you by making you copy the Pure Heart Putuo Mantra a hundred times when you get home, weren't your good brothers responsible for doing most of the copying for you that time? What's there to be upset about?"
This familiar, slightly off-key tone of instruction was like a needle, unexpectedly piercing Zhou Suyao's chaotic mind. She raised her head abruptly, a surge of emotion mixed with immense grievance rising to her throat, causing her to almost shout out the question without hesitation:
Why did you hide this from me for so many years? You clearly knew the secret of the eldest brother! Why did you pretend that nothing happened? And you kept pretending for so many years!
However, her throat seemed to be strangled by something, and all her questions were blocked in her throat, turning into a suppressed sob.
She bit her lower lip hard, as if she could taste her own rust.
Her nails dug deep into her palms, and the pain suddenly woke her up.
Can't ask.
At least not now.
Xuan Yangming's remaining soul escaped, Ming Luo's life or death is uncertain, and the Qi brothers were seriously injured... This place is full of dangers, and we shouldn't delve into the truth because of her grudges.
"I... I'm fine." She squeezed out a few words in a hoarse voice, then forced herself to look away from her master's back and look at the thick darkness in front of her.
Qi Jie seemed to increase the strength of his grip on her arm slightly, and glanced at her sideways. In the dim light, a hint of concern seemed to flit across his eyes, but it was fleeting, so fast that it was hard to grasp.
Suddenly, Wangcai, who was leading the way in front, called out hurriedly.
Zhou Xuqing's footsteps stopped instantly. He raised his hand and signaled the three people behind him to be silent.
The deathly silence descended once more, even more eerie than before. A faint, fishy, sweet smell permeated the air, like the odor of coagulated blood evaporating.
The demon spiritual power in Zhou Suyao's body instinctively became restless, like a stone hitting blood plasma, causing sticky ripples, madly attacking her consciousness, and controlling her body to move forward involuntarily.
Just as she was about to move on, the master spoke.
"Don't move."
It was like a spiritual spring pouring into her chaotic consciousness. Zhou Suyao, who had been completely unaware of what she was doing, suddenly woke up.
And she also saw the scene in front of her clearly——
This place doesn't feel like an imperial city, nor does it feel like the human world.
The moonlight cast a few strands sparingly, outlining a huge, bottomless pit in front of her eyes.
At the edge of the pit, the soil was a strange dark red, as if it had been repeatedly soaked in countless blood and then dried and solidified.
What is even more terrifying is that countless broken bones are scattered at the bottom of the pit. Those bones are of different sizes and twisted shapes. Some are still attached to dried flesh and tissue, as well as contemporary clothing.
This is a hell in the imperial city, a mass grave.
Qi Shuobei just took a look and couldn't bear it anymore. He suddenly bent down and started to retch violently.
Qi Jie also took a deep breath. He had been accustomed to seeing blood since he was a child, but the scene before him that silently told of slaughter still shocked his consciousness.
Zhou Suyao's stomach churned. The scene in the illusion completely merged with her surrounding perceptions. The desperate wails and miserable pleas for mercy before the dying were like a flood that broke through the dam, madly attacking the fortress of her consciousness.
She groaned, her body trembling uncontrollably. Her vision darkened, and she seemed to see the illusion again, countless bodies floating in a bloody broth. Ning Qinggui's tears of blood lay before her eyes, accusing her of everything, "This is... the Yellow Springs Road... that Dao Moxing and Xuan Yangming... forced us to take...!"
Her feet were uncontrollably moving forward slowly, as if her consciousness was telling her:
Go... go... go die with them, go... lie down...
However, just when she was about to fall completely.
"Calm down." A big, warm, rough hand suddenly pressed against her cold back.
It was Zhou Xuqing, her master.
A warm spiritual power as vast as the ocean instantly surged into her body, like a magic needle that stabilized the sea, forcibly calming the violent resentment of the demons.
This power was not overbearing, but rather carried a heaviness that had accumulated over the years, slowly embracing all the restlessness in her heart.
Wherever it passed, the boiling and restless spiritual power, like a tamed raging wave, reluctantly subsided.
She finally gasped violently, cold sweat soaking her temples. Finally, she slowly raised her head and met her master's eyes, which were so close to her.
Without the playfulness and laziness of the past, those eyes now seemed to be filled with a heaviness she had never seen before.
He spoke slowly, his voice carrying a strange penetrating power, but it seemed that he was not speaking to her, but rather to the fierce demon power in her consciousness.
"Hate can neither save anyone nor destroy anything."
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