Volume 4, Chapter 127 – Qingluo

Since Bai Xiang, the person in charge, had already spoken, everyone else immediately turned their eyes toward the woman in the green dress, wanting to see how she would choose.

The green-dressed woman pressed her lips into a smile and turned her face toward the old beggar, who had been giving most of his attention to her ever since she appeared. She said to him, “You keep jumping into magma to bathe… Do you think you’re filthy?”

“Hm?” The old beggar’s eyes lit up. “You have a way?”

“I don’t have a way to cure you at the root,” the woman said, shaking her head. “But if it’s only to suppress it a little…”

She deliberately slowed her movements and reached into the void, drawing out something unseen, then scattered it toward him as though sowing seeds.

All the others saw was a flickering green glow appear in midair, like a gauzy robe of rosy light settling over the old beggar and slowly seeping into his body.

“Mmm…” The old beggar’s brows drew tight. He kept lifting his arm to sniff it again and again, and from time to time he looked back up at the woman, his eyes full of surprise and curiosity.

“If you want a cure, then don’t make trouble,” the woman warned him. “Don’t attack people, and especially don’t kill anyone.”

“The one inside, she isn’t an ordinary Venerable.”

The old beggar curled his lips and frowned, his mouth moving as if muttering something under his breath. But just as everyone thought he was about to start causing trouble again, he instead braced himself on his knees and sat down cross-legged on the ground.

With a heavy thump, Li Sheng suddenly had the illusion that what had just sat down was a mountain. The crushing pressure he had released earlier when he attacked briefly surfaced again.

“The food in the main world shouldn’t be too badly contaminated yet. Get him some wine and food,” the green-dressed woman instructed. Then she warned the others, “Remember not to get too close to him. All of you have been contaminated by Divine Pool rules to one degree or another, so don’t blame him for finding your smell unpleasant.”

So the old man’s distinction between “fragrant” and “foul” was based on the degree of contamination by Demonic Power…

Li Sheng frowned as she watched the green-dressed woman follow Bai Xiang through the doorway. She thought to herself that even someone like her, who had already switched over to the Path of Qi for quite some time, was still judged “foul,” so just what counted as “odorless,” and what counted as “fragrant”?

Just what kind of nose did that old man have, and who exactly were he and that woman in green?

Reαd oո ΚαtReаdіոɡСafe

But there was no time to think about it now.

Seeing that everyone, Fang Wenya included, was looking at her expectantly, Li Sheng thought it over and decided to follow the green-dressed woman’s instructions and get the smelly old man some wine first.

Inside the room, after passing the screen, the woman in green saw Bai Xiang already seated on the left side of the square table.

There was another seat on the right, and tea had already been set there.

With a faint smile, the woman first bent her knees in a half-curtsy toward Bai Xiang in greeting, then walked gracefully to the right side and sat down. She spoke frankly at once. “My name is Zhu Qingluo. Zhu Sheng, the disciple who joined your sect in the last intake, is my descendant.”

Bai Xiang’s brows drew together slightly.

She had openly admitted that there was one of her hidden pieces among the disciples.

Was that sincerity, or was it a threat?

“There’s no need for little sister to mind it. Zhu Sheng herself doesn’t even know about it,” the woman in green, Zhu Qingluo, said with a sigh and a shake of her head. “Strictly speaking, the whole Zhu clan is only a branch that grew under the blessing I left behind. The demon blood in them is already very thin. Little sister need not blame them.”

“But the reason you were able to find this place is because you can sense Zhu Sheng’s condition,” Bai Xiang said, clearly unconvinced. “That isn’t something that can be explained away with ‘the ignorant are not guilty.’”

“That is true.” Zhu Qingluo smiled. “Which is why… I’ve come to offer little sister an apology, haven’t I?”

Bai Xiang frowned, quickly thinking through what sort of background this person had.

Judging from the information in her words, her identity was most likely that of the old ancestor of the Zhu clan among the Qizhou nobility.

And since she had mentioned demon blood, she ought to be a demon, or at the very least someone with demon blood.

Rеаd оո KαtRеaԁіոgСafе

As for her cultivation, the only way to describe it was unfathomable.

Before today, Bai Xiang had thought the enemy who gave her the greatest sense of threat was Li Huiran of the Demon Court Heaven-Patrol. But after meeting this slovenly old man and Zhu Qingluo, she felt that neither of them was likely weaker than Li Huiran.

Of course, the current Bai Xiang could not be compared with her former self either. She was already confident that she would not fall behind against people like these. If she made proper use of her soul-abilities, she even had a solid chance of defeating them.

That much could already be seen from the brief clash just now. Zhu Qingluo seemed to carry a kind of natural affinity with her, and even the slovenly old man could be influenced by that power. Yet it alone had no effect on Bai Xiang.

Her soul-abilities were simply too effective at restraining the Loss of Order interference caused by Demonic Power.

Whether it was demon pools, soul-eroding Void Demons, or the rules of Divine Pools, as long as Bai Xiang could recognize them, they had no effect on her.

This woman had come to her door looking as though she wanted cooperation. There was no need to ask what she wanted. Like the old beggar outside, she was after the Heavenly Stem Precious Jade hidden at Bai Xiang’s chest.

She had not tracked Bai Xiang here by sensing the jade directly. Rather, through Zhu Sheng, her blood descendant, she could observe the aura of Shenming Sword Dao, and even that of all Zhennan.

In other words, she had first learned of Bai Xiang’s movements, then realized that the area where the treasure’s residual aura remained had most likely been caused by Bai Xiang, and from there guessed that the treasure was on her person.

At the very least, that was two pieces of good news.

The first was naturally that Zhu Qingluo did not belong to Great Yu, Blood Soul Heaven, the Demon Court, or any other major faction. She showed no intention of revealing this matter.

The second was that even with cultivation as deep as Zhu Qingluo’s, she still could not track the little yellow jade through aura-sensing. Her finding Bai Xiang this time had been pure coincidence.

“The one outside, did he also follow your trail all the way here?” Bai Xiang stared fixedly at the woman’s face. “What exactly are you plotting?”

“He is not one of my kind,” Zhu Qingluo said, shaking her head.

“As for him, the blow he suffered was too severe. He has most likely forgotten himself and forgotten his past. He is only following his wishes by instinct now.”

Rеаԁ οn КαtRеaⅾіոɡСαfe

“And as for me… well, in truth, I may not be much better off than he is.”

A bitter smile appeared on her face.

“As for me, what I want is to borrow your treasure, little sister, and do something earthshaking.”

“If it succeeds, I may have a chance to meet an old friend again. Perhaps that eternal cycle of calamity that returns once every thousand years can be brought to an end.”

“At that time, the Demon Court’s attention will shift away from you and onto me.”

“Even though the Transmitters will still come trouble you because they need to secure their Divine Pool seats, at least the others, most of them, will make me their first target.”

“I should be able to buy you quite a lot of time. What do you think of that plan, little sister?”

Zhu Qingluo felt she was showing full sincerity, and could not help looking at Bai Xiang with anticipation.

But Bai Xiang only frowned and asked, “Transmitters?”

“Divine Pool seats?”

Huh?

She doesn’t know?

Seeing that Bai Xiang did not seem to be pretending, and at a time like this there was indeed no point in pretending, Zhu Qingluo’s eyes widened. For the first time, real shock showed on her face.

“You… you are not someone who took over this body?”

Reаⅾ οո ΚatReаⅾіոɡСаfе

Bai Xiang nodded. “Naturally not.”

Zhu Qingluo was stunned beyond measure.

Because through Zhu Sheng, she could sense the aura of all Zhennan, and could even guide some of Zhu Sheng’s actions through certain subtle changes. That meant that among all those outside Shenming Dojo’s upper echelon, she was probably the clearest on most of the arrangements that had taken place in Zhennan Circuit during this period.

And all of those arrangements had given her a feeling of calm maturity and practiced steadiness.

If Bai Xiang reaching the Venerable ranks at eighteen could still be explained as talent, then what about that kind of seasoned handling? Didn’t that require the tempering of long years?

And then there was the Path of Qi. It looked like a peerless new law that could only have been refined through the efforts and accumulated heart’s blood of countless generations. How could she possibly not be someone taken over by a predecessor?

Could it be that she was a true genius?

Zhu Qingluo was dumbfounded.

The gap between reality and what she had guessed was too great. She was so shaken that for a moment she did not know what to say.

Seeing Bai Xiang’s expression grow colder and colder, Zhu Qingluo hurriedly began to explain. “Oh, little sister, don’t be offended… It’s only that the shock is too great… little sister is just… just too astonishing…”

Could she have mistaken me for Daokong after a successful body seizure?

Bai Xiang frowned, feeling a little irritated.

She had not minded when the woman kept calling her little sister before, but now the term sounded more and more grating.

“Ahem.” Zhu Qingluo realized she had made a serious mistake. After coughing lightly, she said, “Since little sister does not know, then let me start from the source.”