Chapter 61 Northern Yong - Demon-Subduing Sword (Part 8) Don't Dislike Me...
Although Shi Xianxue had fainted, her senses were still clear.
She could hear the howling of the raging wind and snow, and the icy snowflakes slapped against her face. In an instant, she was held tighter, the sound of the wind and snow subsided, and she was enveloped in a warm, fragrant embrace.
The two seemed to be moving forward, the sound of wind and snow far away, she could only hear the strong heartbeat of the person holding her.
But this tender feeling didn't last long. The earth began to tremble, a huge object crashed to the ground, mechanical gears whirred wildly, and there was a jumble of footsteps all around, as if many people had arrived.
The enormous creature seemed to have gone mad, launching indiscriminate attacks on those around it.
The sounds of shouting, metal piercing flesh, and screams of internal organs being pierced as they fled.
It's so noisy, why is it so noisy? Kill them all, I really want to kill all of them.
The moment this thought crossed her mind, Shi Xianxue felt her eyelids open, and she saw the scene before her.
Extreme crimson and pure white appeared on this land, and Shi Xianxue saw many familiar faces.
Song Qingshu, Li Fuchao, Qi Yunchu (who hadn't been seen in a long time), Fu Liuwan, a group of disciples from the Nine Heavens Immortal Mansion, and the Zhou family father and daughter who were tied up and kneeling on the ground.
They no longer possessed their former superiority and prestige, but were instead entangled by the four impenetrable black iron beasts, unable to break free, and looked utterly disheveled.
She chuckled dismissively, seemingly amused by their predicament.
The person holding her noticed that the person in their arms had woken up and slowed down their movements.
"Master Xianxue".
Shi Xianxue?
Who is Shi Xianxue calling?
oh.
Oh, right.
She also has another name, Shi Xianxue.
Fu Liuwan was trapped here by the Xuan Tie Beast, and behind her were countless poisonous beasts. The place was extremely cold, and those with lower cultivation levels had their limbs frozen stiff, let alone use spells.
On the snow-capped mountain, they had absolutely no advantage over the Xuan Tie Beast and the snow beast.
She glanced at Shi Xianxue not far away through the wind and snow, her eyes subtly shifting before she suddenly had an idea.
Whether she is a goddess or not, what meaning would a goddess have for her if she were to die?
The next moment, the disciple of the Nine Heavens Immortal Mansion was struck by the Xuan Tie Divine Beast and rolled down to Wu Xiutang's feet.
The men still had burning wires on their bodies, which were particularly glaring in the whiteness.
As expected, the Azure Dragon Beast's attack range was drawn here.
Wu Xiutang was in a hurry to get down the mountain and had no intention of fighting, but some filthy thing just happened to bump into him, which made his already bad mood even worse.
Let's just raze this place to the ground and kill them all, leaving no one alive.
What are the people of Beiyong City? What are the feuds between sects across the land?
He just wanted Shi Xianxue to be alright.
Just as this thought of mutual destruction came to mind, he heard the person in his arms chuckle softly.
Has Shi Xianxue woken up?
Before he could verify it, the Azure Dragon's tail, as thick as a stone pillar, swept across like a storm, carrying the power to flatten the mountain.
Wu Xiutang instinctively wanted to fight, but considering the person in his arms, he only defended and did not attack. Soon, his back was slashed by the tail. He staggered forward two steps, but immediately looked at the person in his arms.
The person in my arms indeed woke up.
Her lips still held an upward curve, but her eyes were not as lively as before, like the purest jade powder on a mountaintop, shimmering with a solitary light like glass.
Without hesitation, she threw herself out of his arms, rolled on the ground, and then quickly got up and headed straight for the Azure Dragon Beast.
Wu Xiutang's pupils contracted sharply. In the two seconds that his mind went blank, his body rushed forward like an arrow. Just as his hand touched her shoulder, he saw the girl suddenly turn around.
His eyes met those of his master, Xianxue.
Still beautiful, but with a hint of impatient indifference than before.
It's as if you're looking at someone who has no connection to you.
Wu Xiutang's palm trembled, "Master..."
The girl slapped him hard across the chest, catching him off guard and sending him flying backward.
Looking up again, Shi Xianxue had already rushed into the Azure Dragon's claws.
Just as a mayfly trying to shake a giant tree, her figure appeared small and laughable.
"Minor Snow!"
Song Qingshu screamed in surprise.
The Azure Dragon's sharp claws fell heavily from above, showing no sign of slowing down, and were about to crush the head of the arrogant man before it.
The girl, who was dozens of times smaller than him, neither dodged nor avoided him.
She has a well-proportioned figure, a long and fair neck, and the lines of her neck are extremely beautiful when she tilts her head back. When she smiles, she is like the most colorful flower growing on a monotonous and dry snow mountain.
"Little Azure Dragon, use the Bagua mirror on your head to take a good look and see who I am?"
The dragon claw stopped abruptly when it was within arm's reach.
The Bagua mirror reflected a blinding light from the snow, revealing the girl's face.
The Azure Dragon, whose control valve had been damaged and which had gone berserk, was suddenly frozen in place as if it had been frozen in place.
The Bagua mirror not only reflected Shi Xianxue's delicate face, but also vaguely revealed the figure of another person in the hazy snow light.
A woman who knew it intimately and created it.
It is its owner.
It was completely stunned.
The four mythical beasts share a common sense, and the Bagua mirrors above their heads demonstrate the same scene.
Behind them, snow beasts surged in like a tsunami, a sight that sent chills down one's spine.
Shi Xianxue's expression was always humble and gentle, but in this icy and snowy world, it seemed to have gained a touch of aloofness and coldness, and she was shrouded in a layer of unfamiliar, clear light.
She slowly raised her hand, pointed at the snow beasts behind her, and commanded arrogantly, "Tear them to pieces."
For a moment, Fu Liuwan thought Shi Xianxue had gone mad. Who did she think she was, trying to give orders to the Xuan Tie Divine Beast of Beiyong City? You should know that the Xuan Tie Beast only sees the mechanical command, but if the control valve is destroyed, then there will only be one identical command in its Bagua mirror.
Destruction, endless destruction.
She was vicious and only wanted to see Shi Xianxue trampled into mincemeat.
To everyone's astonishment, the Xuan Tie Divine Beasts whose control valves had been destroyed actually changed direction and charged towards the snow beasts that were coming from behind.
A sliver of clarity returned to Zhou Xun's eyes, which had been bound like a rice dumpling.
Zhou Xiangzhu called out "Father" in disbelief.
He was equally shocked.
If the control valve is destroyed, the mechanism created by my great-grandfather will be useless.
Throughout the entire world, the only people who could control the Xuan Tie Divine Beast without a mechanical token were...
But how could that be? That child clearly died more than four hundred years ago.
Wu Xiutang stood up from the snow and stared at her slender back. He couldn't help but think of the small mechanical beasts in the Zhou family's storeroom that were so enthusiastic about Shi Xianxue, as well as the woman in the portrait.
In the Misty Forest, he had also seen a woman in Shi Xianxue's memories, but if it were a person, Shi Xianxue's reaction would not have been so calm.
Shi Xianxue could both enter his illusions and fight against the miasma demons, and in another completely different world, she could talk to him and weep bitterly by the woman's bed in that white house.
In Chaoyun, she said that she was both Shi Huaiyu and Shi Xianxue.
Upon arriving in Beiyong, one can also control the Xuan Tie divine beast left behind by the founder of Beiyong.
Zhou Zheyue also said that the founder of Beiyong, whose great-grandmother was surnamed Shi and came from Xiliang, had given birth to a daughter, but she died in infancy.
Based on the timeline, it should be more than four hundred years ago.
In the astronomical records left by that man, it was shown that he had divined that the previous goddess appeared four hundred years ago.
If the baby girl hadn't died, if she had been a goddess, if her mother had tried to save her life...
Wu Xiutang thought that if he were to use the astrolabe to predict the timing of the appearance of the Goddess of Wushan, it would probably be four hundred years ago.
--
Shi Xianxue's vision went black again. She felt that the surroundings were chaotic, as if she had entered a vegetable market in the early morning.
One moment someone suggested that repairing the seal and suppressing the demons was the most important thing, the next they said that finding an antidote for the snow beast's venom and reviving the goddess was the most urgent task, and someone else wanted to take her away to the Nine Heavens Immortal Palace for treatment.
Later, she could no longer hear clearly; her consciousness seemed to detach from her body and float into the air.
Remembering her master's instructions, Qi Yun Chu whispered to the two, "Senior brother and sister, Master said that you must go to Mount No Return immediately after you have collected all the divine artifacts. You must not fail to do so."
“Yes, fellow Daoists, repairing the seal is urgent. Let’s not waste any more time. As for the goddess, why don’t my junior brothers take her to the Nine Heavens Immortal Palace? Although the snow beast’s cold poison is troublesome, it is not without an antidote. My master will surely be able to save the goddess.”
Shi Xianxue's eyebrows were covered with a layer of white frost and snow particles, and her lips were frozen blue and shivering. Even though she was covered with two layers of brocade quilts, the cold air she exhaled made her face stiff.
The room was full of people, all of them putting on airs and acting pretentiously.
Wu Xiutang's patience ran out.
A burst of lightning and fire exploded in the middle of the crowd.
As everyone was vying for the goddess, a sudden burst of lightning and fire forced them to retreat several steps, hastily brushing the sparks off their bodies.
"Get out if you don't want to be burned to death."
Li Fuchao knew he was worried, and he was equally distressed: "Young Master Wu, don't worry, we will definitely find a way to treat Xiaoxue. She is a goddess, and all our sects have the responsibility to protect her."
Song Qingshu also said, "The Snow Beast's poison is not incurable, so why don't we..."
"No need." Wu Xiutang interrupted her coldly, showing no respect for anyone. "I will save my person. She doesn't need to owe you any favors."
Upon hearing this, Fu Zhen's face turned ashen.
His orders upon descending the mountain were to bring the goddess back to the Nine Heavens Immortal Palace at all costs.
He was very dissatisfied with the young man of humble origin in front of him and couldn't help but retort, "Young Master Wu, don't talk big too soon. Although the cold poison is not fatal in one hit, once the poison enters the body, it will cause the blood to freeze and become unable to circulate in the body, eventually leading to death. Under heaven, only our Nine Heavens Immortal Mansion has the way to cure it."
"Yes, Xiaoyue has also been infected with the cold poison. We wouldn't lie to you about that."
“Even if you are Daoist partners, Miss Shi is also a goddess. If she truly delays the best time for treatment, can you, Young Master Wu, bear the responsibility?”
Again with these threatening, high-sounding words, they weren't really worried about Shi Xianxue; they were clearly afraid that the goddess would perish before she could even demonstrate her value, and they just felt it was a pity.
If it weren't for the fear of angering Shi Xianxue, Wu Xiutang would have loved to start a massacre right then and there.
“You also know that we are Daoist partners.” Wu Xiutang’s eyebrows and eyes were sharp, and the gleaming tip of his knife swept across the dangerous firelight. His posture was arrogant and unapproachable.
He had an expression that said he'd kill anyone who said another word.
"I will die for her, it's that simple."
"So, get out before I get angry."
Everyone was stopped at the door. Fu Zhen was extremely anxious. He couldn't let anything happen to the goddess. He was about to lead his men in to forcibly take the goddess away when Song Qingshu stopped him.
“Fellow Daoist Song, are you going to stop me too? No matter how powerful he is, he is just a rogue cultivator who is not worthy of being mentioned. How can he be compared with the medicine cultivators of a proper sect? If the goddess is in trouble, or if her sacred body is damaged by some evil or crooked path, none of us can bear that responsibility.”
Song Qingshu stood in front of the door, without saying a word.
Fu Zhen was furious and looked at Li Fuchao: "Fellow Daoist Li, Fellow Daoist Song is so concerned that he loses his composure, yet you just sit idly by and do nothing?"
After a moment of silence, Li Fuchao stepped forward and stood there like gatekeepers, one on the left and one on the right, alongside Song Qingshu.
Silently, yet arrogantly, they made their stance clear.
Just a door away, a silver blade slashed the boy's wrist, and in an instant, blood-red jade beads gushed out like a broken thread, sliding down the cut.
Blood stained his cuffs, and the boy hesitated.
Wu Ying was not afraid of the cold, but for some reason he was frozen stiff in the cave and only recovered when he got down the mountain.
Seeing his master cut his wrist, he instantly understood his intention. But seeing his hesitation, he advised, "Actually, Master could have simply handed Shi Xianxue over to the Nine Heavens Immortal Mansion. There's no need to cut your wrist to draw blood, as this would only harm your body..."
Then Wu Xiutang seemed not to hear, treating it as if it were air. He picked up Shi Xianxue and held her in his arms, his back slightly bent, his eyelids drooping, looking somewhat uneasy.
"I didn't let the Nine Heavens Immortal Mansion interfere in your affairs because they have ulterior motives towards you. Using your kindness as leverage, you are both a princess of Xiliang and a goddess, and you can't silence the gossip."
"I'll give you my blood, so the venom can enter my body." He unconsciously hugged her tighter, blood falling like jade beads, but he didn't care.
"The key to the Goddess's power doesn't lie in the blood. Even if you exchange my blood, it won't taint your Goddess's power, but..."
He was raised in the Ten Thousand Gu Pool from a young age, where countless poisonous insects tore at his flesh and blood. The Gu insects would burrow into his seven orifices and enter his body, merging into his blood.
Therefore, in Shi Xianxue's eyes, his blood was not clean; it could be described as dirty and evil, containing the very things she hated most.
Her face was bluish-purple, and her skin was covered with a thin layer of white frost. She began to groan in pain and burrowed into his arms, not caring about anything else.
The blood turned into a sharp line, cutting a very fine gash on her fair wrist.
Blood flowed in continuously.
At the same time, the blood carrying the cold poison flowed back into Wu Xiutang's body.
The bone-chilling heat it brought almost froze his blood vessels. He felt white frost forming on the surface of his blood vessels, and the blood stopped flowing and instead got stuck in one place, congealing into frost and snow.
The soul was forced to burn to clear the ice in the blood vessels.
Between the cold and the heat, the boy's face turned as pale as paper, and his thick eyelashes trembled. But seeing her face gradually return to normal, he felt that suffering a little pain was nothing to worry about.
But when her face regained its rosy color and vitality, Wu Xiutang began to feel uneasy again.
"Don't you dare dislike me, or else—" His throat tightened, afraid that his body temperature would freeze her, so he reluctantly put her back on the bed and used magic to cover her with the blanket.
Having done all this, he slumped wearily against the edge of the couch, resting his face on it like a puppy, his eyes fixed on the sleeping figure, a restrained look of wanting to touch but not daring to.
The words she found difficult to utter when she was lucid were now being uttered as delicately as a lover's whisper.
"I will cry."
--
Shi Xianxue floated aimlessly in the sky above Beiyong City for a long time, her body out of control, like an inflating hydrogen balloon. A giant dragon ark passed by her, along with mechanical birds and beasts of various shapes.
It seems they are still in Beiyong.
Suddenly, she was hit by something and her body began to fall rapidly, as if she had been stuffed into a washing machine. She didn't know how long she spun around before she finally landed.
Why is her gaze so much lower? She hasn't moved, so why is her body swaying? And whose hand is on her face? Where is she?
"Miss Huaiyu."
Huaiyu? Shi Huaiyu? Isn't this Beiyong?
Why is Shi Huaiyu here?
The swaying stopped, and her gaze suddenly rose, only then did Shi Xianxue realize that she was being held in someone's arms.
The ground was pockmarked with melted snow, like unpolished bronze mirrors, vaguely reflecting her current appearance.
Help! How did she turn into a little mechanical beast? And how could the little girl holding her be Shi Huaiyu?
"Madam is looking for you." The little maid looked at the naive young girl in front of her and couldn't help but feel worried for her. "It's probably because you've been caught sneaking out of the manor to play in Xiliang again."
The little girl sat on the swing, hugging the mechanical beast she had just finished, and kicked away the four black iron beasts that were circling around her feet, looking rather bored with the new one.
She didn't seem to care, her pink lips slightly pouting.
"So what? My dad will protect me anyway, I'm not afraid of that tigress."
The maid reminded her, "Miss, have you forgotten that the city lord left the manor early this morning to deal with the appearance of demons outside the city? He is not in the manor at the moment."
The little girl's nonchalant expression froze for a moment, then she gasped, tossed the mechanical beast to her, and ran towards her mother's yard, lifting her skirt.
"Help! My father is so unreliable! Why did he have to go out when Mom was about to beat me?!"
I dashed to my mother's yard and saw a humanoid mechanical beast holding a ruler in each hand, which had been waiting for a long time.
Without saying a word, the master and servant knelt down with a thud.
"Mother, I was wrong, Mother, I was wrong, I will never do it again." The little girl began to wail.
As the maid knelt down, Shi Xianxue's head also hit the ground, making a crisp sound. She tried to adjust her angle and finally saw the woman's face clearly when she spoke.
She had seen her before.
Inside the city lord's mansion's storeroom, there was a portrait of Zhou Zheyue's great-grandmother.
So, is this little girl named Huaiyu her child?
But Xiaoyue clearly said that the child died in infancy.
"You don't know you're wrong at all; I think you're just afraid of getting beaten up."
The woman's voice was also familiar, as if I had heard it somewhere before, just a short while ago.
"Mother, I really know I was wrong. I will never run away secretly again. I will listen to you. I have memorized all the books you asked me to read yesterday, and I can even make little mechanical beasts now." She hugged Shi Xianxue and said, "Look, Mother."
"Yes, Madam, Miss has been very well-behaved these past two days. Even the tutor keeps praising her for being a teachable child."
Shi Xianxue was knocked to the ground.
"Don't try that on me. No matter what you say, you're not going to escape this beating today!"
The young girl was stubborn. Since she couldn't get through to him, she stopped arguing and crawled over to hug Shi Xianxue back into her arms, then lay down on the stool with a defiant look of "what's the use of trying?"
"Go ahead and hit me, I'll still go even if you don't break my legs."
"you!"
“I am Zhou Huaiyu, that’s true, but I also have my mother’s blood in me, so I’m half a Xiliang person. Why can’t I go to my maternal grandfather’s house? I like Xiliang, I like my maternal grandfather’s house, where there are crabapple and pear blossoms. I don’t like Beiyong where it’s always snowing.”
“Mother, you hate your father, but my maternal grandfather was very good to me. He even gave me the name Xiliang.”
Shi Xianxue's heart pounded, as if she had a premonition of what she was about to say.
"The crabapple blossoms are not yet wet with rain, but the pear blossoms are already covered in snow." The young girl's voice was childish, yet it struck Shi Xianxue's mind like a heavy bell.
"Shi Xianxue, I like this name!"
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Author's Note: Ahhhhh, thank you so much for the nutrient solution, everyone!
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