Three’s Company (4)

Beneath the riverside willow brush the water spun in tight, urgent eddies, gulping bubbles that broke with a sour pop. Along the bank, reed stems quivered, their hidden roots already charring to black, and a sharp, scorched stench rode the night wind.

The thing that hunted was almost here, yet the ordinary crowd pressed on, oblivious. Xiao Lanle, caught among them, caught the warning reek and reacted at once; sword-qi flared from her blade, curling round her like a living guard.

Lin Qianshuang stood apart, wholly absorbed in guiding an ink brush half her height. Where her strokes had dragged dark demonic qi, a pale arc of shielding now rose, locking the air into a curved bulwark.

Lanle brushed the barrier, thoughtful, then turned, impatience clear in her voice-transmitted words. “Senior sister, you hauled me out here to admire moonlit water, only to plant a protective array?”

“Come with me.”

The brush dissolved. Qianshuang caught Lanle’s wrist and pulled her through the crush of people. Together they skimmed the riverbank, racing the wind. Overhead, constellations shattered into sudden, brilliant fireworks; rune-layers froze mid-sky, pulsing the characters for Happy Birthday that kept pace with their steps. Silver light rippled through the grass underfoot, shifting glyphs of a hidden sword array forming and reforming as they ran.

Xiao Lanle’s face was calm as she looked at Lin Qianshuang, her eyes sparkling with happy surprise, the corners of her mouth lifting in a gentle smile. She tightened her grip on the cool wrist she held and secretly laced their fingers together.

The immortal crane dipped low, calling as it circled to Lanle’s feet; it was the very spirit bird their late sect leader had raised.

Lanle knelt and stroked the crane’s head with fond remembrance. A Universe Bag¹ hung from its sharp beak; she unfastened it and opened the drawstring. A cloud of Fluorescent Powder Butterflies poured out and fluttered around her, several alighting on her shoulders, their pale pink wings beating softly.

These butterflies came from the cold depths of the Demon Realm and would live only a few days once they left it.

Lanle lightly brushed a fingertip across a pair of fragile wings; the tiny creature quivered, as though it might vanish at any breath.

“Junior sister, I missed your birthday and never gave you a present. Let this make up for it. Last time, you lost a lightning-proof robe protecting me from heavenly thunder, so I refined a new garment. Take it back and try it on; I only hope it fits.”

Lin Qianshuang offered the clothes with a faint smile, yet her eyes swept the crowd and the river.

In the original story it was right here that a python beast surged from the water and swallowed more than a dozen people on the bank; this was exactly why she had lured Xiao Lanle to this spot.

The venom the python released in that plot induced hallucinations, drove minds into chaos, and slowly turned victims into mindless walking corpses. In an instant the whole city collapsed into disorder. After recovering its strength the monster broke into the Buddhist Temple’s Beast-Sealing Tower, smashed the pagoda, and cracked the sturdy Taotie Seal anew.

If Junior Sister Xiao could slay this python, take its blood to cure the poisoned in time, she would earn both merit and the people’s hearts; once she consumed the beast’s core she would become immune to every toxin.

Lanle took the garment; true energy slipped from her fingertips and formed a single green leaf. Wherever it drifted, layers of protective demonic qi materialized in the air around her.

She glanced back at Qianshuang with smiling eyes, but when she turned away her expression was sheathed in frost.

She hated being kept in the dark, being steered from the shadows without ever knowing why.

The one she loved was still gazing at her with that tender affection, making her feel like a child who had never grown up.

Xiao Lanle folded the garment and muttered, “Senior sister, Senior Brother Chen is alive. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“The City Lord wanted him dead; the situation was critical, so I decided on the spot.”

Lin Qianshuang’s heart gave an uneasy twitch at the name Chen Shangqing. “Anyway, he’s alive; you would have found out sooner or later.”

Lanle looked straight into her eyes. “Senior sister, you’re hiding something from me.”

Lin Qianshuang’s heart fluttered under the beauty of those black eyes; she looked away. “Junior sister, what could I possibly hide from you?”

A face swooped in close; fingers grazed her neck and chin, light as a feather.

Hot lips brushed her cheek and slid to her ear. “Looks like it’s more than one thing.”

Clang. Xiao Lanle tossed her longsword aside; rings of sword-light rippled outward like water, talismans flickering into the ground.

Fabric at her shoulder was tugged down, baring skin, and warm breath swept over it, sending shivers through her.

“Senior sister, if you truly want to give me a birthday gift, why not give me your person?”

Xiao Lanle buried her head in the crook of Lin Qianshuang’s shoulder. When she lifted her gaze, a playful glint sparkled in the corners of her eyes, and she offered a graceful, bewitching smile. “You know I’m far more interested in you than in these insubstantial toys.”

“You—”

Lin Qianshuang seized the hand that had begun to snake upward through the side-slit of her robe, irritation flaring. She banked it at once, voice turning frigid and clipped. “Madame City Lord, kindly conduct yourself with decorum.”

Fireworks blossomed above them like night lotus, walls of shifting light painting two pretty faces. Pale butterflies drifted about their shoulders, the scene serene and beautiful.

Once Xiao Lanle drew back, an unexpected calm settled over Lin Qianshuang. She kept her eyes on the midriver swell; the shoreline’s guardian array was solid, and she no longer feared for the disciples stationed there.

A sudden chill grazed her neck as a sword tip touched her throat.

“What exactly did you lure me here for?”

All playfulness had vanished from Xiao Lanle’s eyes; the blade pointed straight at Lin Qianshuang while she asked, “Was my sect-leader father’s death carried out on the City Lord’s orders too?”

Lin Qianshuang’s mind went blank. She stared, stunned by the abrupt accusation, and only answered after a long pause. “I killed him not just for the City Lord’s command, but because he deserved to die.”

“I thought everything Senior Brother Liang told me was a lie.”

Xiao Lanle’s fingers closed around Lin Qianshuang’s throat, tightening slowly. Her delicate face twisted into a strange, terrifying half-smile. Voice ragged, she choked out, “So it’s all true. You murdered my father with your own hands.”

“City Lord of Tianshu, Liang Jingxuan, I hate them because their bottomless greed has hurt me and everyone I care about. Senior Sister, why did you do it?”

Lin Qianshuang realized she had been baited. Nipped by the throat, she stared straight at Xiao Lanle without fear. “Junior Sister, things are far more complicated than you think. Don’t do something you’ll regret.”

Xiao Lanle suddenly laughed, the light in her eyes almost frenzied. “Since it has come to this, why should I care what the City Lord thinks? She ruined you. The Senior Sister I see now isn’t the one I used to love.”

“Then let me ruin you completely.”

She eased the grip on Qianshuang’s neck, her gaze darkening to something dangerous, and brushed a fingertip over her throat. “You’re my woman, the personal cauldron the City Lord bestowed on me. Even if I drain you dry and ruin your meridians, she won’t suspect a thing. Why don’t I crush your throat and snap your limbs as well? How does that sound?”

Pinching Qianshuang’s chin, Xiao Lanle smiled softly. “As long as you’re still breathing, that’s all that matters, right?”

Lin Qianshuang had foreseen Xiao Lanle’s move; she slipped past the hand lunging for her throat, swept her sword in a slash, then shaped demonic qi into iron chains that whipped toward Lanle’s limbs.

Lanle caught one chain single-handedly, frost in her eyes deepening. “Demonic qi solidification. Your cultivation has already reached this level? Then why play weak every day?”

“Because you’re my junior sister.”

Qianshuang answered softly, her clear, lovely face tilted in gentle regard. In that instant her sapphire eyes held a calming spell that quieted the agitated girl before her. “You’re the one I want to protect all my life.”

Lanle’s expression blanked; gazing into those tranquil pupils, her frantic rage settled.

Seizing that brief slackening, Qianshuang flicked the chains around her arms and legs and pinned her tight to the ground.

The creature inside the river was about to break free. Qianshuang had left only one gap in the formation, right where they now stood, yet Lanle’s focus swung toward her, and at that instant deduced she was the one who had murdered Xiao Shen.

No plan ever keeps pace with change.

Qianshuang strode to Lanle and knelt, trying to soothe the restless spirit-object inside her. When her palm pressed against Lanle’s chest she felt a mighty power, but it did not belong to the Glazed Temple Gem.

Had Lanle already succeeded in taming the relic into her own magic treasure? Then why did her emotions still pulse with the same rash intensity that had always ruled her?

“Liar! Senior sister, you’re nothing but a liar!”

Green light flared in Lanle’s eyes. Sword-light answered, each slash aimed at the tendons of Qianshuang’s arms and legs.

Qianshuang retreated several paces, the demonic qi in her palm slamming against the sword light as she forcibly blocked more than ten strikes.

A sudden, splintering pain shot through her spine, pitching even her sea of consciousness into turmoil.

The Gu worm was crawling along her backbone, slicing through flesh and sinew.

Her eyes widened in alarm.

Curved horns rose above the water, and a serpentine monster twisted its dripping, black-scaled python body free of the river behind Lanle. A long, crimson tongue darted toward her cheek.

Lanle had not driven the worm; the worm itself had, in its agitation, wrenched the joint love-curse into motion.

Even if Lanle knew the truth, with her temperament, how could she ever want to kill her?

Lin Qianshuang felt a nerve snap inside her skull. She slashed at the serpent monster, hurling every talisman she had hoarded in her jade slip without hesitation.

Her junior sister’s mind was clearly addled by the python’s toxic fog; had her cultivation been any lower, she would already be the creature’s puppet.

She had meant to shield the people on the bank with walls of light, cutting off the poison and sparing the city, but she had only trapped them all in the same jar. She shot herself in the foot, putting them all in danger.

A low hiss sliced the air, and a thorn-studded tail of black scales slammed to the ground.

A cloud of venomous fog suddenly coiled around Lin Qianshuang, pinning her steps short of Xiao Lanle.

“Such a waste of power, truly enviable,” the voice hissed. “A body brimming with cultivation, yet the child hasn’t the faintest clue how to wield it. All that pristine spiritual energy, too rich a tonic for these old bones, one mouthful and my dantian would burst.”

A gray-robed youth emerged from the mist, patting his stomach with a satisfied belch. He tilted his head and muttered to no one, tone slick with mockery.

Before Qianshuang could focus, he flickered and stood nose-to-nose with her. Veins of dark scales patterned his throat; snake-eyes of molten amber fixed on her without a blink. He sniffed, lips curling. “A spirit beast of your calibre slumming in the human realm? I thought this mire was beneath the notice of so-called gods.”

He circled her twice, tasting her wary aura and slipshod qi. Malice sharpened his smile. “Fortune smiles on a weary old serpent. Fresh out of the Beast-Sealing Tower and already I trip over a ready-made long-term cauldron.”

Qianshuang’s fingers parted. The crimson blood-spot Mu Weiyin had dotted on her palm was fading to bruise-purple.

The City Lord had received her signal.

While the gray-robed youth measured her from head to toe, she catalogued every secret of the monster.

A millennium of cultivation lay on the python’s coils; no one knew which crack in the ruined Beast-Sealing Tower had freed him. He had risen to the rank of Beast Lord and, in the original tale, had served as one of Taotie’s tiger generals when the glutton fiend scourged the human realm a century ago. A foe not to be dismissed.

Lin Qianshuang spoke coolly. “You’ve gorged yourself, yet you still hunger for a cauldron. Isn’t that gluttony?”

She flicked a glance toward Xiao Lanle, still half lost in the fog, and added in a voice like winter. “The laws of heaven and earth are plain, a cultivator may not seize another’s dao partner. With such words on your lips, are you not afraid a judgment thunderbolt will blast you into a swamp worm?”

“You claim to be dao partners, yet that girl was trying to hack you to pieces a moment ago.”

The youth in gray did not believe her for a heartbeat. He snapped his fingers; Xiao Lanle appeared in front of Lin Qianshuang, tilted her head and slumped into her arms.

Qianshuang caught Lanle around the waist. A tickle darted across her palm as, stroke by stroke, words etched themselves the moment Lanle’s hand slid away.

Safe. Strike the snake seven inches below the head; the horn is the weak spot; wait for the opening.

Junior Sister Xiao was faking unconsciousness. Qianshuang’s heart leapt. With a divine artifact inside her she was immune to every poison; the python’s mist could confuse her only for an instant.