Volume 4, Chapter 188 – The Long Wheel (I)

Zhu Qingluo returned in a dazed state with Senior Sister Qin in tow. Since she had always been lukewarm toward everyone except Bai Xiang, the abnormality in her mood did not attract anyone’s attention.

Only Bai Xiang noticed that something was wrong when they met, but she said nothing. She merely made a few guesses in private, while on the surface focusing on having Bai Zhuqing deal with the newly added trouble.

That newly added trouble was, naturally, Senior Sister Qin.

They had brought her back already, but as for her condition… nearly a full day and night had passed, and Senior Sister Qin still neither ate nor drank. Even when awake, she merely stared blankly at the ceiling.

She had been rather slovenly to begin with, having gone unwashed for a long time, and her hair still smelled of alcohol. Bai Xiang had Bai Zhuqing, Hu Hu, Chen Jing, and the others take her away to scrub her clean. It was said that even during the bath, she gave no response at all and was like a puppet from start to finish.

“I won’t say much to you.”

Bai Xiang stood by Senior Sister Qin’s bed. “I’ll only ask you one thing. Do you hate me?”

Senior Sister Qin finally reacted. She turned her head, and in her vacant gaze there truly was a trace of resentment toward Bai Xiang.

Her cultivation was limited, so she had been unable to see all the details of what happened in the sky above. She had not heard a single word of the exchange between Chu Weiping and Bai Xiang. In her eyes, then, Bai Xiang really ought to be an out-and-out murderer.

But this was the Dao-Void Tournament!

On the surface it was only a continuation of the annual sword meet, but in truth it was a tool used by countless ambitious people to stir up the storm and determine the preliminary outcome of the tribulation struggle. A conflict like this was always meant to be to the death. Could she really blame Bai Xiang for it?

Senior Sister Qin was not stupid. She understood all of this perfectly well. Even in the period leading up to the tournament, she had already sensed it: whether it was Qin Wuyang or Chu Weiping, the “momentum” emanating from them had carried a feeling of grim resolve.

She did not want to think that way, but reality forced her to.

That is, “To fight Bai Xiang, either kill her or be killed by her, was itself Chu Weiping’s final wish.”

“If I hate you, can that bring him back to life?” Senior Sister Qin spoke for the first time since returning. Her voice was hoarse, like a middle-school boy going through puberty.

Bai Xiang shook her head. “Of course not.”

“Then there’s no point in hating you.” Senior Sister Qin turned her head back again.

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Rather than hating you, I may as well hate myself.

Hate myself for being so powerless, for not being able to help in the slightest when the crushing force of the age came bearing down.

“Before he died, he entrusted you to me,” Bai Xiang suddenly said.

Huh?

Senior Sister Qin turned back, her eyes full of disbelief and absurdity.

Entrusted?

Would that old man, already steeped in “emotionlessness,” do something like that?

“You have two paths ahead of you now.” Bai Xiang’s expression did not change as she continued lying. “One is to stay here, guard the Qingping Sword, and continue comprehending the emotionless sword dao. In other words, use your current emotions to cultivate The Taishang Slaying-Emotions Life-Preserving Scripture. It will definitely produce remarkable results. You might even become the equal of his earlier self.”

“His” referred to Chu Weiping.

When Chu Weiping first made his name in his early years, he had been just as unreasonable. That was precisely the sinister peculiarity of the Qingping method.

Senior Sister Qin narrowed her eyes. “And the second path?”

“The second path is not to rush into taking part in the opening stage of the tribulation struggle. You can go back with them to Zhennan in Maozhou first.”

“What are you trying to do?” Senior Sister Qin glared at her, sharply catching the implication in her words. “Are you planning to rebel?”

“It’s others who plan to rebel.” Bai Xiang met her gaze seriously. “We are merely protecting ourselves.”

Coming from Bai Xiang, Senior Sister Qin did not believe a single punctuation mark of that statement.

With all the things you did in Maozhou, and the overbearing ferocity you displayed after arriving in the Tongyun tournament zone, and you still say you are not rebelling?

Still, she really did take the words to heart. By now she had more or less pulled herself out of her grief and was able to think rationally about her future.

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It seemed her feelings for Chu Weiping only ran this deep, but the true “great grief” had already come once before, when Qin Wuyang and Chu Weiping had merged back into one. Naturally, this time did not appear so intense.

“I’m going back to Zhennan.” After weighing the pros and cons, Senior Sister Qin chose the second path.

“With the old man’s level of cultivation, he still could only lose beneath your sword. Even if I break through by relying on the emotionless sword, there is no real meaning in staying here.”

“If he truly entrusted me to you, then what he expected of me is obvious: abandon the old road and choose a new one.”

Once she was willing to leave, things became easy. Bai Xiang called Bai Zhuqing over and had her tidy Senior Sister Qin up, disguise her, and bring her into the group.

“But I won’t switch masters!”

As Bai Xiang was leaving, Senior Sister Qin stubbornly shouted after her.

“I’m going to learn your sword, and one day I’ll fight you again!”

“Suit yourself.”

Bai Xiang did not bother with her any further. She left behind those words and then prepared to return to her cultivation.

After going back to her room, she discovered that the little white fox that had been lying on the table was gone.

When she walked farther in, Zhu Qingluo came into view.

She was sitting by the bed, holding the little white fox in her arms, her eyes fixed on the empty air ahead, the expression on her face utterly vacant.

“You noticed long ago, didn’t you?”

Zhu Qingluo spoke, her drifting gaze settling on Bai Xiang.

So those people really had made contact with her on the way back.

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Bai Xiang had already begun making calculations in her heart, but she showed none of it on her face. She only said modestly, “I only guessed.”

“You could guess that?”

“Yes. Because there was already a ready-made comparison right in front of me.”

Zhu Qingluo fell silent, realizing that the comparison Bai Xiang meant was Chu Weiping.

Yes…

The original self of the emotionless dao, and the split body of the emotional dao.

So similar… and with the flaw in her personality so obvious, how could anyone else fail to make the connection?

The taut force around Zhu Qingluo suddenly slackened.

“Pang Tiandao contacted me.”

She laid out what had happened to Bai Xiang.

“He told me to plot against you.”

“I didn’t agree.”

Bai Xiang said nothing.

She knew Zhu Qingluo had not finished speaking.

“That name awakened quite a few old memories I couldn’t recall before.” Zhu Qingluo shook her head, then suddenly asked Bai Xiang, “Do you want to know everything about me?”

Bai Xiang nodded. “I do.”

“Follow my qi. I’ll show you.”

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A vast green radiance began surging from Zhu Qingluo’s body. Bai Xiang instinctively activated the Golden-Pupil Illusory God, following the source of that green light with her gaze.

And when she truly saw the scene inside it clearly once more, she found that both the bed and Zhu Qingluo had vanished. In their place was a primeval forest, and within that forest, a tiny little white fox hopping about in search of food.

This white fox…

Oh. No wonder Zhu Qingluo had looked like that when she saw the little fox.

But on closer inspection, the little white fox in the scene was still different from the one in reality.

The one in reality had pure, immaculate white fur.

The one in the scene had mottled brown-green fur mixed in.

The little fox suddenly sensed danger and sprinted away, only to be driven by the pursuing hunters to the edge of a cliff.

“Still running? Nowhere left to run, is there?”

“A White-Ginseng Spirit Fox! How did a native of the Douyun Sea end up in the Shengshu Sea?”

“The fur doesn’t look very pure… probably a mixed-blood hybrid, but that’s fine. We can still sell it for a lot of money if we catch it!”

At that moment, Bai Xiang’s perspective connected to the little fox’s. The scenery ahead seemed to turn into speed lines as the fox fixed on a direction and tried to break through.

There stood a half-grown boy in animal skins, with bronze-colored skin and thick brows over wide eyes. He held a bow and an arrow in his hands, and the moment he saw the little fox charging toward him, he immediately drew the bow to shoot.

But at the final moment, the little fox kicked off an obstacle and leapt up. Suspended in midair, it stared at the boy with round black eyes.

For some reason, the boy’s arrow flew crookedly off to one side.

In the next instant, the little fox slipped past him like a gust of wind and fled.