Three’s Company (5)
The gray-robed youth rubbed his stomach and let out a satisfied belch. His yellow pupils reined in their greedy glint as he reasoned that, although this spirit beast carried the bloodline of a divine beast, she clearly knew nothing about it. With that pile of demon-infant cultivation, she obviously had some heavyweight backing. If her protector turned out to be truly powerful, he might end up biting off more than he could chew.
There were plenty of two-legged sheep in the human world; only an idiot would risk a tasty snack if he wasn’t even hungry.
After living for several millennia, he might not qualify as a full-fledged human genius, but he was definitely a wily old fox.
He flicked a glance at Lin Qianshuang’s face and at the human cultivator lying senseless from his poison. The pair were pressed together in an unmistakably intimate pose; they could well be dao-partners. Young couples quarreling was nothing unusual, he’d seen plenty.
But female cultivators were scarce to begin with, and now here was a pair, both women. That was anything but common. He’d never before watched two female cultivators entwined; just imagining the scene made his blood race.
The gray-robed youth, pleasantly full, beckoned to Lin Qianshuang with a crook of his finger. “This old one is in excellent spirits. You claim you and the human cultivator in your arms are dao-partners; then give me a convincing performance. Entertain me properly and I might let you leave.”
What sort of degenerate python beast had such a perverse hobby?
Lin Qianshuang’s stomach turned. She silently cursed the lecher, and when she recalled that this witless snake had also helped Xiao Lanle trick her earlier, fury flared. “Filthy old beast,” she snapped, “your mind is as foul as your scales. Enough talk, come and die!”
Years of training had hardened her; she refused to swallow such humiliation.
Seeing her drop into an attacking stance, the beast lashed his long, barbed tail. The beast-markings on his face flashed once as he hissed a warning. He watched the enraged girl charge, then stumble, thrown off balance so that she crashed to the ground and rolled against the unconscious girl beside her, and gave a lazy whistle.
The girl’s mouth said no, but her heart still feared death.
“Let go, Junior Sister Xiao, let me teach this bastard a lesson.”
Lin Qianshuang knew Mu Weiyin would arrive sooner or later, so her life was not in danger; the gray-robed youth’s lustful stare, however, turned her stomach. On a rare impulse she raised her sword to punish him. Xiao Lanle slapped the blade aside and pulled her close. Seeing Lin Qianshuang’s balance falter, Xiao Lanle pressed a palm gently to her chest and steadied her.
The gesture looked perfectly natural.
Lin Qianshuang’s face flushed; she struggled to straighten up. Xiao Lanle, unceremoniously, pressed her shoulder and tugged her back, plainly annoyed by the distance.
The gray-robed youth watched with relish, convinced the unconscious girl’s venom was fading and that she had risen again, mind lost, to attack her beloved.
Xiao Lanle tilted her head and bit Lin Qianshuang’s lips savagely, fingers clamping the nape of her neck, deaf to her shocked slaps and thrashes, only letting go when lips were raw and bleeding.
Lin Qianshuang had thought it was just an act, until she saw the pain and torment swirling in Xiao Lanle’s eyes.
Those once-bright pupils were no longer clear and sunny as at first meeting; they were black, bottomless.
She possessed no mind-reading art, yet she read the emotion flowing in that gaze: she had wounded her deeply.
Xiao Lanle’s bite felt like vengeance taken with the most primitive brutality.
Before they knew it the two rolled and lay side by side as though frolicking. A gust flipped Lin Qianshuang’s skirt open; her legs felt chilled, as if soaked in seawater.
The touch, strangely familiar, sent a jolt racing up her spine.
Lin Qianshuang forgot the python beast entirely; her body folded in on itself, stiff as a corpse just dragged from a snowbank, and she cried out in panic, “Xiao Lanle, what are you doing?”
Xiao Lanle’s hand clamped the back of Lin Qianshuang’s neck; the slightest struggle would tighten those fingers around her throat and force her down. Face blank, Shark Pearl floating overhead, eyes flushing blood-red, Xiao Lanle bent until their breaths mingled. She traced Lin Qianshuang’s torn, bleeding lip with a taunting thumb, sliding the slick of red from mouth to ear, and laughed softly. “What do you think? Finishing what we started, of course.”
She played the moment for an audience, each wrench of shame only making her bolder.
Her voice, usually bright, came cold, cracked, poisoned with hatred. “A father’s murder can never be forgiven. I’ll collect every debt, Lin Qianshuang. I will never forgive you.”
Hand on her thigh, weight on her waist, Xiao Lanle made sure the message was carved into her skin.
Lin Qianshuang was one step from losing the last of her dignity, yet the fear inside her quieted as she reasoned through the woman above her: Xiao Lanle would never go through with it; she only wanted to humiliate her. Otherwise she would not have used the very robe Lin Qianshuang had given her to block the grey-clad youth’s view.
Crimson waves rolled along the bank; mutilated, water-logged corpses bobbed white against the current. The once-teeming Pavilion Bridge dissolved into panic. Gaps riddled the river-spanning barrier, and victims half-corrupted by snake venom were already stepping through the cracks. There was no time left for their personal tug-of-war.
Lin Qianshuang wedged an elbow against Xiao Lanle’s pressing weight. A frost-laced demonic sword slid between them. “One crisis at a time,” she said coldly. “Innocent mortals along the shore are still writhing in venom. Our feud can wait. The true culprit stands right beside us. If the illustrious sect leader of Penglai Immortal Sect can’t tell major from minor, people will laugh.”
Xiao Lanle leaned in until their lashes almost touched, eyes storm-dark. Then she shifted, stretching out beside Lin Qianshuang. “One last time,” she whispered. “Won’t you even leave me that final warmth?”
Her words carried a second layer, but Lin Qianshuang chose not to hear it. What was broken should stay broken.
It had always been one person’s wishful thinking; and her own calculated kindness that handed out false hope and endless deception.
Yet this was still Xiao Lanle’s own choice; the guide’s lantern could not warm her path forever.
“Junior sister, if you’ve already condemned me in your heart, why bother asking?”
Lin Qianshuang turned away, her voice chill and remote. “The fault is set; you should hate me. We were never the same breed, so stop tormenting us both.”
Xiao Lanle’s fingers brushed the blade at her side. Hidden in shadow, her face was gaunt and drained; tears shimmered in her eyes, but she forced them back. “After today, don’t appear in my sight again. Otherwise, I will cut you down without a second thought.”
“Relax. No more unwanted eyesores will break into your world again.”
A formless weariness filled her. Her eyelids drooped and even her voice was faint, spent.
“If we meet again, we will be enemies.”
Xiao Lanle’s hand on Lin Qianshuang’s shoulder tightened, the Gu bug burrowing deeper into the heart meridian, just like her own heart. How could she ever bring herself to kill her?
She only wanted one comforting word, one admission of wrongdoing. Was even that too much to ask?
Lin Qianshuang set the strike in motion; a thread of demonic qi danced at her fingertip.
She looked away from Xiao Lanle. Her irises blazed blue, demonic light flaring. “I’ll go for its horn. The python’s guard is down, watch yourself.”
They had spoken only through mind-sense the whole time, so she felt no fear that the demon would notice.
Xiao Lanle instinctively caught Lin Qianshuang’s hand, then flung it away the instant their eyes met, as though the touch burned. “Planning to bewitch me again? I won’t owe you. If we go, we go together.”
Lin Qianshuang gave a small, quiet smile. By the time Xiao Lanle looked up again, she was already trading blows with the gray-clothed youth.
“Damned girl, you’re a spirit beast, yet you side with human cultivators against this old one?”
A furious hiss slithered through the air. Caught off guard, the python beast was knocked back into its true form. It reared, jaws gaping, needle fangs stabbing toward the green-robed woman who clambered up its flank, sword planted in its vitals.
Lin Qianshuang caught the strike with the demon’s own half-severed horn. Venom dripped from the fangs, inches from her face, before a wisp of demonic qi whirled out of her blade and swept it aside. She glanced up, ready to hurl the horn to Xiao Lanle, perched on the serpent’s skull, so she could drive it into the beast’s heart, but the spot was empty; Junior Sister Xiao had vanished.
The python demon lashed its tail. Dazed, Lin Qianshuang was slammed to the ground. The thick coil swept around her, yellow-green pupils narrowing to slits as the serpent’s head thrust close, hissing, “Your precious dao-partner is nothing. She left you and fled.”
Mu Weiyin’s aura was right beside them; why didn’t she strike? What was she waiting for?
Had she taken Junior Sister Xiao?
The thought flashed through Lin Qianshuang’s mind for only an instant before her sword met the lunging fangs. A thread of demonic qi coiled from her right hand into a dagger that drove deep into the snake’s eye. Black-red blood gushed, drenching her.
The demon shrank into the gray-robed youth, clapping a hand over his ruined eye and shrieking, “This old one will kill you, ungrateful wretch!”
A line on her palm deepened from red to purple; the venom was spreading.
Lin Qianshuang slipped her hand into her sleeve, eyes lifting toward the python demon in cold menace. Black-brown irises flashed to deep blue; if Xiao Lanle were not present she would already be exploiting the monster’s few blind spots, and its death would be a matter of moments.
Snake venom crept through her flesh without warning; she had to finish this fast, seize the creature, and drink its blood for the antidote.
She clenched her teeth, sliced away the bruised, tainted skin on her forearm, then sealed her five senses. A sword array blossomed beneath her feet; sword seals danced between her fingers. Whirling blades followed her phantom footwork and shot outward, the demonic qi mirage tearing into shreds that ringed the beast on every side.
The python beast whipped its tail, shattering the sword-light. Toxic insects, born from a coiling mist, rustled up through the soil and waved their feelers, hunting for her true body.
The Demon-Suppressing Sword, forged of demonic qi and suffused with violet light, rose from the ground and hacked at the serpent’s human guise. A scream tore the air; the beast resumed human shape, its serpent tail severed into three writhing pieces.
A venomous bug pinpointed her at last, but before it could reach her a zither note burst it aside.
The demonic qi around her body receded like a tide. Lin Qianshuang appeared behind the python beast, palm venom crawling deeper beneath her sleeve toward the heart of her arm. Within her deep-blue eyes a cold violet glint flashed.