Huo Xiao Di shot him a sharp glare, then sat back down with a sulky expression. Even so, he muttered under his breath, “If it weren’t for your injuries and my curiosity about your reasoning, I wouldn’t put up with your nonsense!”
The resinous torch emitted a thick, oily smoke that stung the nose.
Under the torchlight, Yan Zi Qing’s face also seemed to glisten as though coated with oil.
The nearby soldiers stood respectfully beside him, holding the torches high overhead to illuminate the ground before him.
Yan Zi Qing crouched down gently, pinching a handful of damp soil from the ground.
When he rose, the soil on his fingers was still sticky.
It was soil stained with blood.
He turned back and said, “It seems there’s been a battle here. Blood has been spilled!”
“There were at least four people here! One of them, from start to finish, hardly moved at all; his martial skills must have been the weakest.”
“Judging by the varying depth of their footprints, their fight appears to have been fierce!”
Behind him, Mo Dao was silently observing the ground covered in fallen leaves.
The tender, once vibrant green pine needles, now soaked by days of relentless rain, glistened under the flickering torchlight, resembling the crimson leaves of late autumn.
— But autumn had yet to arrive. How could there be so many fallen leaves?
Mo Dao’s wide, worn Daoist robe fluttered in the night wind, while his topknot cast a long shadow on the ground.
Under the torchlight, his face appeared even darker and more foreboding.
Yan Zi Qing had also noticed the scattered leaves on the ground. His pupils contracted sharply. “Could it be him?”
Mo Dao’s voice emerged through clenched teeth: “Who else but him could unleash the ‘Thousand Jin Dragon Slash’?”
Yan Zi Qing remarked, “But the Han Shui Palace has been absent from the martial world for over twenty years. Why have they suddenly appeared here? Could they also be targeting our Xiangyang Prince’s Manor? And who was it that faced off against him?”
— Soaked leaves, even if one were to use a sword to slice through them one by one, would be an almost impossible task. Only the unparalleled power of the ‘Thousand Jin Dragon Slash,’ with its unmatched masculine energy, could tear apart feathers and rip through life itself.
— And who could withstand such an unstoppable blow?
Mo Dao’s voice was low and resonant.
There were several moments when Yan Zi Qing almost mistook it for Shao Jizu’s voice. Among the members of “Jinshi Hall,” the two people he feared most were Shao Jizu and Mo Dao. Whenever he encountered this shadowy-faced Daoist, Yan Zi Qing would show utmost respect, refraining from speaking unless absolutely necessary. Now, seeing Mo Dao’s grim expression under the firelight, Yan Zi Qing understood that his current role was simply to listen.
Mo Dao spoke slowly, for he never wasted a single word.
— “The person who fought him used a sword, not a blade.”
— “If they hadn’t already fallen to my ‘As Familiar As Old Friends’ technique, I would have thought it was him.”
Yan Zi Qing cautiously asked, “Given his current circumstances, why would he recklessly provoke new enemies? Even if he crossed paths with someone from Han Shui Palace, how could he still withstand a strike like the ‘Thousand Jin Dragon Slash’?”
Mo Dao seemed not to hear him. His gaze appeared to have merged with the night itself.
The night was deep and vast, but Mo Dao’s eyes were deeper still.
In the forest, everyone remained silent, waiting!
After a long silence, the somber Daoist in the old, worn robe finally spoke two sentences. Though they sounded cryptic, everyone present seemed to understand them perfectly.
— “Whether or not the one who took the ‘Thousand Jin Dragon Slash’ was him, the hour of Zi [midnight, a critical time in traditional Chinese lore] is almost here.”
— “Our second chance today will come at the hour of Zi.”
The dim light from the fire in the ruined temple grew even fainter.
Under the firelight, Huo Xiao Di seemed to have forgotten his earlier anger. This was likely because he still couldn’t figure out what was so mysterious about the boy sleeping nearby.
Zhan Ri Fei had already returned to their previous topic.
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