The Tianshu Mirror Revealed (2)

“I will protect Xiaochi, but there is something this subordinate doesn’t understand.”

Lin Qianshuang held Mu Xiaochi’s hand as she followed Mu Weiyin, her dark eyes fixed on that proud, aloof profile.

Mu Weiyin’s steps slowed. “Speak freely. I told you to stop calling yourself ‘subordinate.’”

“The Soul Gathering Pearl is a demonic artifact that binds souls; demon cultivators normally use it to refine medicinal corpses. Why trade such a priceless pearl with the Lord of the Demon Realm?”

The pearl was indeed a rare treasure, yet Mu Weiyin had paid dearly to obtain something so useless for herself, and Lin Qianshuang could not fathom why.

“I only intend to collect it.”

Mu Weiyin’s eyes slanted toward Lin Qianshuang; she studied her face for a moment, a faint flicker in her gaze, then said, “I’m… glad you care so much about my affairs.”

“……”

Held by that otherworldly, exquisite face, Lin Qianshuang felt the words she meant to say evaporate. A warm smile curved softly across Mu Weiyin’s cheek, lending a hint of gentleness to the usually ice-cold, unyielding visage, like blossoms suddenly blooming amid harsh winter, dazzling her until she felt lost in a dream.

So the City Lord could smile… and with such gentle warmth at that.

Something in her mind clicked into place. What- the City Lord smiled?

Big red banners reading “The City Lord smiled” drifted across the blank sky of Lin Qianshuang’s thoughts, and an indescribable feeling spread through her heart.

Coffin-face… was actually smiling!

Why smile at her like that? Could Mu Weiyin, as Master claimed, have unsealed the Emotionless Path for no more than a transaction, intending to fall in love with her?

It was absurd, simply unbelievable.

Mu Weiyin studied Lin Qianshuang’s face, which bore the impression of having just spotted a ghost, and assumed a pensive look.

Was the smile that awkward? She’d practiced it before her bronze mirror and thought this curve the most attractive.

A woman’s thoughts are impossible to fathom.

Mu Weiyin studied Lin Qianshuang’s blank look, and vexation flickered across her face. She could grasp a hint of any peerless art and master it; her own master had called her a once-in-a-millennium prodigy who understood everything at a touch. Yet before this woman she felt like the ignorant child who had once fled through the four realms, helpless and lost.

Lin Qianshuang, seeing Mu Weiyin’s face turn to cold stone again, clasped Mu Xiaochi’s hand uneasily. Had her surprise shown too plainly? The City Lord seemed displeased.

At her dantian, the Tianshu Mirror quivered and loosed an unsteady ring of light.

Beneath Mu Weiyin’s soft silver lashes, her dazed dark eyes, misted as if with wine, showed a silver thread rising slowly beside a glint of gold; the line of destiny had shifted once more.

The Heaven Swapping Array had already detected the disturbance of the Tianshu Mirror and the Glazed Temple Gem, and the Heavenly Dao clearly knew.

If the plan succeeded, once she gathered the Red Tear Ring and the Demon Seal, the Heavenly Dao would have no further hold on her.

At first she had meant to wield the Heaven Swapping Array to open the treasure map, seize the heaven-defying artifact, and force the Heavenly Dao to spit out her old friend’s whereabouts. Now she would be content if she could simply grant that friend’s last wish.

Mu Weiyin swallowed the Soul Gathering Pearl. Wind snapped her purple robes as she alighted on the outermost boundary pillar; across the gate, on its twin, Lin Qianshuang shielded Mu Xiaochi. The Six-Petaled Spirit Mark on Mu Weiyin’s brow flickered, bright, dim, bright again, her newly unsealed twelfth heaven shaking under the weight of her feelings.

Why had she ever sought ascension?

Not to become a god or a buddha, only to seek the figure who had faded from memory.

Eyes closed, she drank in the breath of the ten-thousand things and allowed herself a faint, cold smile. She had always been selfish; for her own ends she could sacrifice everything. She had schemed for every one of the four divine weapons, had sent the five righteous sects spinning in circles, all to reclaim the one the Heavenly Dao had taken.

If that person could return, the myriad living souls beneath heaven were nothing but stepping-stones.

The haze in Mu Weiyin’s eyes vanished in a breath. The twelfth layer of the Emotionless Path, an icy staircase, snapped rung by rung and plunged into the scorching red sea at the bottom of her heart.

The Path was loosened, yet nothing was as before. She had found that person; even if the woman did not belong to this world, she would not let the Heavenly Dao snatch her away again.

Black clouds piled above Tianshu City; vultures wheeled and croaked. Several masses of dark vapor surged forward like breakers racing to crash against the gates. A shower of arrows felled one wave of grotesque, qi-made abominations, but the next clambered over the corpse-strewn, murky surf, baring fangs at the cultivators on the wall.

Their goal was plain: smash the barrier with their own bodies, rupture the city’s shield, and reach the last Beast-Sealing Tower that pinned the ancient fiend Taotie.

Lin Qianshuang weighed the scene and knew Tianshu could not hold. The turbid creatures neither lived nor died; corpses hanging from the walls stirred under fresh black mist and fought again. Such a grinding defense could only sap morale.

As she expected, the barrier was soon torn open. Ignoring the defenders, the beasts grew insect wings and flew straight for the tower.

Lin Qianshuang looked at Mu Weiyin. The city lord had foreseen from the very first moment that Tianshu’s barrier would shatter, and she had climbed this lofty pillar to await the ancient scourge Taotie.

Nervously tucking Mu Xiaochi against her side on the outlying column, Lin knew one leak of demonic qi could betray them to the things slithering below. Hundreds of undead thralls, gorged on turbid air, any single one could wear her down until she was swallowed.

From inside the walls drifted thin, panicked screams; she had no idea what fresh horror they meant.

She could do nothing to help. The irony bit deep: the same barrier the beasts shattered at will now stood like iron between her and any refuge.

Rumble…

The final Beast-Sealing Tower that had pinned the Taotie seal snapped in two and toppled.

Cultivators who had been watching the black mist stream away lowered their weapons; the ground lurched back and forth, the seal was gone, and the beast’s crushing spirit pressure settled on every head. Weaker cultivators collapsed, white foam on their lips, hands clamped to their ears as they shook.

Taotie had truly awakened.

Those within Tianshu who could still stand began streaming toward the inner gate; holding the whole city was all that mattered now. Layer after layer of barrier rose to plug the torn gaps, fresh walls of light stacking higher and thicker.

Xiao Lanle stood before the Celestial Myriad Phenomena Instrument; reversed gears inside clicked and turned, and the entire city’s state floated above the Mirage Mist released by the Shark Pearl.

Three figures stood on a barrier pillar. The undying fiends crawling from the black mist sensed them and swarmed up the column in a dense, writhing mass.

Xiao Lanle watched Lin Qianshuang hemmed in by the undying monsters as she fought to shield Mu Xiaochi. Her own pulse hammered as if she were the one about to die; one slip and the creatures would surge forward, tear the woman apart, and swallow her whole. The city gates were sealed, refuge long since gone, and her senior sister, clearly unaware, had been trapped outside. Xiao Lanle’s hand rested on the Celestial Myriad Phenomena Instrument’s lever; a light press would open every gate at once and collapse the barrier. If she put the safety of Tianshu’s people first, she could not let her senior sister in. She had believed she could harden her heart, yet seeing Lin Qianshuang in peril split her chest so badly she could not breathe. Cold sweat trickled down her forehead as she hesitated, palm over the activation panel, a storm of feelings battering her nerves as though to shatter them.

Yet before she could act, a scarlet blur flitted up behind her and reached out to decide for her.

The bronze sphere in the wrench slipped into the single eye-socket of the copper phoenix. Three sharp cracks followed, and the reversed Celestial Myriad Phenomena Instrument ground to a halt. Throughout Tianshu, gears disengaged, wheels reengaged, and every silent mechanism resumed its proper course, sending a ponderous creak rolling across the walls as the city gates inched open.

“The head of Penglai Immortal Sect truly has a heart of iron,” a languid voice purred. “To watch her beloved suffer and still keep her composure earns the utmost admiration from this seat.”

A stunning woman in red reclined against the bronze phoenix sculpture atop the instrument, crimson robes spilling like fresh blood across the gilt feathers. She regarded Xiao Lanle from above, the corners of her lips twitching in a smile that was not quite a smile.

Xiao Lanle stared, astonished. Tianshu’s defenses were famously impenetrable; how had the Lord of the Demon Realm slipped inside? Could there be a traitor among them?

“Demon, I advise you to leave at once. If you do not…”

Before Xiao Lanle could finish, Su Qing, the Demon Realm’s Right Protector, materialized behind her; a sharp blade kissed her neck. She narrowed her eyes, spun around, and saw the cultivators who had been standing guard sprawled every which way while demon cultivators ringed her in.

Han Shengyao stepped forward, violet gaze sliding over her with detached interest. A faint smile touched her lips. “The Glazed Temple Gem is settling nicely inside you. Whoever tamed your demonic streak has a clever hand.”