Volume 3, Chapter 362 – Half a Severed Arm

“Mm.”

“I’ll do whatever Older Sister says.”

The girl’s soft, well-behaved voice drifted from behind her, and the sound of it made Chi Xiyan’s ears tingle.

The manservant let his gaze linger on Chi Muxue for a moment. “This young lady must be the Second Miss?”

Chi Xiyan caught something flicker in her own eyes. She raised an eyebrow, almost imperceptibly, and said, “Yes. She is my little sister.”

The manservant smiled. “Second Miss is so pretty.”

The flicker in Chi Xiyan’s eyes deepened.

The manservant took no notice. He lifted a lantern and led the way ahead.

The swaying candlelight cast the alleyway in a dim, amber glow.

They walked in silence for a short while.

Then, from the far end of the alley, the clash of metal rang out.

The manservant immediately signaled everyone to stop. He pressed himself against the wall and listened quietly for a moment.

A beat later, he turned to Chi Xiyan. “Young Miss, there seems to be someone up ahead. Let’s take a different route.”

Chi Xiyan held his gaze for a long moment. “Fine.”

“Young Miss, follow me. I’ll take you around.”

He spoke as he moved, lifting the lantern and turning away from the path ahead.

After about ten paces, his ear gave a faint twitch, as if he had received some kind of signal. He stopped abruptly.

“Young Miss, we agreed to take a detour. Why haven’t you followed?”

“Follow you?” Chi Xiyan’s voice came out cold. “Follow you straight into a trap?”

Clang!

She summoned her natal sword and leveled it at the manservant’s back.

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The sharp sword qi locked onto him completely.

“I knew something was wrong with you from the start.”

“Who are you people? What do you want?”

The manservant didn’t turn around. He could feel that keen sword intent pinning down his vitals. One wrong move and Chi Xiyan’s blade would run him through.

“Heh.” A quiet laugh escaped him. “I thought my disguise was airtight. I didn’t expect you to see through it so quickly. The eldest daughter of the Chi family truly lives up to her reputation.”

“It was hardly airtight.” Chi Xiyan’s gaze was sharp. “The way you looked at my sister made my skin crawl.”

The manservant paused. “Ha. So that was it!”

“Who sent you?” Chi Xiyan’s voice stayed cold. “And what are you after?”

He laughed. “Does the eldest Miss of the Chi family really need to ask?”

Chi Xiyan’s brow drew together. “What do you mean?”

“Ha. The eldest Miss really does know how to play dumb.” The manservant’s laugh turned cold. “Lingxiao Sword Sect broke with the Chi family. Do you know why?”

“The Chi family wants to claim the Sword Saint’s reincarnation all to themselves. Did they ever stop to think whether they had the means to hold onto something like that?”

Chi Xiyan’s pupils shrank.

So these people had truly come for the Sacred Sword Physique.

But how had word gotten out? Lingxiao Sword Sect wouldn’t do something so self-defeating. Was there a traitor within the Chi family?

“Eldest Miss of the Chi family.” The manservant’s tone was lightly mocking. “You are clever, but you lack experience in the ways of the world.”

“You already know we’ve come for the Sacred Sword Physique. So why haven’t you raised your guard a little more?”

Chi Xiyan stilled for just an instant, confused.

Then the cold hit her all at once, from the inside out.

“Muxue?!”

She spun around. The scene that greeted her eyes froze her to the spot.

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Her head rang. Something burst open behind her eyes.

Chi Muxue, whom she had been holding by the hand the entire time, was gone.

There was no one behind her.

“How? I was holding her hand the whole time!”

She had never once loosened her grip on Chi Muxue’s hand. She had felt her the entire way, warm and soft.

Chi Xiyan raised her hand and looked at what she was holding.

Her pupils jolted.

In her hand was half a severed arm.

Blood dripped from the pale, clean-cut stump, falling in slow drops to the ground.

Chi Xiyan’s lips parted. A wave of terror crashed over her.

Her heart hammered against her ribs, each beat a dull, bruising blow to the inside of her chest.

She crushed her trembling fist closed and wheeled on the spot where the manservant had been, her voice cracking like a whip. “What did you do?!”

But the manservant was already gone.

He had slipped away in the moment her attention had broken.

His voice carried back to her from a distance, wrapped in spiritual energy, laced with mockery.

“We have what we came for, eldest Miss. You still have a lot of growing up to do. Heh heh…”

Chi Xiyan felt her mind go blank.

Boundless fury surged through her.

“What have you done?! Give Muxue back to me!”

“Ha. Eldest Miss is too funny.” His voice grew fainter. “If you want her back so badly, why not come and take her yourself?”

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“I don’t care who your master is!” Chi Xiyan’s voice burned with fury. “I will kill every last one of you. I swear it!”

“Heh heh…”

The laughter faded into the distance.

Chi Xiyan felt her whole body shaking.

She dragged air into her lungs in great, ragged gulps, her breathing completely undone.

Calm down. Calm down.

She forced the thought into herself, over and over.

Their goal was the Sacred Sword Physique. They wanted Muxue as a weapon to wield.

They couldn’t truly harm her.

So Muxue was still safe. She had to be.

Chi Xiyan clamped down on the trembling in her chest and wrenched her heartbeat back under control.

She looked again at the bloodied half-arm in her hand.

Her expression turned hard. She flung it away.

It struck the wall with a dull thud, then dropped to the ground.

As she watched, the blood drained from the pale skin with unnatural speed.

In moments, the arm had become a colorless, stone-grey limb.

“An illusion.” Chi Xiyan’s voice came through her teeth. “To throw my mind into chaos.”

“Everything I saw was false. They used it to destabilize me, make me drop my guard, and use that opening to take Muxue.”

Her gaze steadied.

“They’ve already tracked me down, but instead of overwhelming me with numbers, they used illusion magic…”

“That means they don’t have the confidence to defeat me quickly in a direct fight.”

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Something sharpened in Chi Xiyan’s eyes.

“Illusion can only conceal. It isn’t a true escape technique. They can’t teleport someone away in an instant.”

“Escape techniques are banned within the commandery city. They can’t have gotten far.”

“I still have a chance to take Muxue back.”

Chi Xiyan drew in a slow, deep breath.

She knew how to deal with illusion magic.

She reached into her storage space and drew out a talisman, pressing it lightly against her palm.

A ripple spread outward from where she stood, like water disturbed by a stone.

Across the ground, the footprints that had been hidden by the illusion surfaced cleanly.

Chi Xiyan let out a quiet breath of relief.

Good. It was only the most basic grade of illusion magic. A talisman was more than enough to unravel it.

They had been moving too fast to use anything more advanced.

“There.” Her gaze swept along the trail and she launched forward, sword in hand.

She rose and fell in a series of swift movements, cleared a courtyard wall, and landed inside.

She brought her natal sword into a sword seal and drove it forward.

A sharp crack. The barrier in front of her shattered like glass.

“Found you.” Chi Xiyan’s face was cold as she looked ahead.

The dark-haired girl had been forced to the ground by two armed men, ropes wound around her body.

She lifted her head and looked at Chi Xiyan with wide, pitiful eyes.

“Older Sister! Save me!”