Chapter 132 (2/2)
A good many of the female disciples that came along had the hems of their skirts torn by the thorns that their shins could be seen through the tattered fabric. They would have been bleeding if not for the protection of their True Qi.
Xiao Chen went to the front and took the lead. With the Unsullied, he hacked and hewed at the thorny branches, clearing a way for Mu Chengxu and Luo Shangyan behind him. The female disciples, seeing this, smiled at his chivalrous gesture.
But the dire conditions of the road did not improve as they climbed further; the pebbles and gravel began to grow larger in size, further aggravating the company’s walk uphill and the branches and stalks of the thorns and briars seemed stronger and sturdier now that they began to entangle themselves upon anyone who walked near like ravenous vines.
Even Ye Wuhen’s clothes were frayed and ripped by the barbed vegetation lurching in on the company slowly. Incensed, he began yelling loudly, “Did you not want to meet! Come meet us then! Enough with the cloak and dagger!”
But the same hollow voice echoed from the mountaintop once more, saying, “You have before nightfall to escape the Cold-billow Labyrinth. Fail to do so, and you’ll remain here for eternity and serve the bidding of the City Master!”
“What are you talking about? What Cold-billow Labyrinth!” Ye Wuhen shouted into the air as any vestiges of the voice’s presence swiftly retreated with the wind, “Show yourself and explain!”
If Ye Wuhen was indeed awaiting a reply, only the frosty howling of winds responded. He could bridle his anger no more, punching with rage at several boulders, reducing them to bits and pieces.
“Amitabha…” Xu Gu muttered again, “Please be calm, Brother Ye. There’s no need for distress and anger. We’d better start thinking of a way to escape this place…”
But the frantic screams from one of the female disciples robbed their attention. Everyone looked back, peering down the path which the company had come from and found everything behind them had vanished. They could no longer see the dense and placid forest they had come out from, as if the company had been cut off from the world, trapped in another dimension.
“What is happening to us?” Panic cries began to arise. A young man drew his sword, and was about to step on his sword to fly. But his sword clattered to the ground helplessly. There was a magical enchantment here that restricted anyone from flying!
A few other swordsmen followed suit, drawing their swords and trying to fly, yet none of them could resist the strength of the enchantment and fly! Some began to panic. Being cut off from the rest of the world, not even their jade notes could work; there was no way they could send word to their own respective schools and sects to call for help.
“Please remain calm,” Xu Gu beseeched everyone, before turning to Xiaoyue and Yu Yifeng, “Master Xiaoyue and Junior Yu, I suggest the three of us lead the way to cut a path. Everyone else will follow behind and be careful not to do anything rash.”
With them three spearheading the front, the rest of the company that followed behind peered intently at the thorny patch around them, although everyone failed to note anything out of the ordinary. Xiao Chen gripped the Unsullied tightly, walked closely beside Luo Shangyan warily. The wardens mentioned about three days, he remembered suddenly. Was the Master of the city trying to hold them off for at least three days here while he planned to accomplish something? He noticed Mu Chengxue’s dazed look and whispered softly to her, “What’s wrong, Miss Mu?”
“N-no… Nothing…” Mu Chengxue replied, shaking off her lethargic drowsiness, “I just felt slightly dizzy…”
Xiao Chen nodded, saying nothing. He felt something strange about her ever since entering this city. The company continued searching for their way out for another hour and slowly found their way out of the vast thorny briar patch to discover a completely different scenery unfurled before them. They had wandered into a lush gorge filled with blossoming flowers that bloomed lavishly despite the beckoning autumn season. The tender and refreshing scent of wild flora and fauna filled the air, while birds chirped cheerily of love and romance around the gorge.
The gentle gurgling of a flowing brook could be heard from afar as they ventured deeper into the valley. A majestic ring of mountains encircled the gorge, looming like silent sentinels that watched over the palace complexes that stood in the thick of a forest paradise. Xiao Chen took a deep breath, taking in a refreshing gulp of air as he contemplated the difference between the harsh tangle of thorns and spikes that tormented them earlier and this bizarre utopia that they had stumbled upon. But when he turned his head, Senior Sister Luo who was supposed to be at his side was missing!
He turned another round, and found everybody had vanished! He was alone! He began yelling for everyone but got no reply, save for the echoes of his own voice resounding off into the gorge.
“What is going on? Where am I?”
He had been careful all the way, still, he did not know how he fell into the trap, although he was certain that nothing of what he could now see and feel was not part of the Wuwang Wind Cloud City.
All of a sudden, he heard the sound of someone crying.
“No… Please… They are my Senior Sisters… I cannot kill them…”
The voice sounded oddly familiar to him. He crept towards the voice and saw the figures of a few strangers ahead. An aged Taoist priestess, looking grim and cold, had a little girl, looking about thirteen to fourteen of age, standing her. It was Xiaoyue in her early teens! Before them both, stood a pair of female disciples that looked slightly older than the little girl.
Xiao Chen instantly understood: the gorge he had found himself in was the surroundings of the stronghold of the Thousand Feathers Sect. The entire company had fallen into an illusory enchantment, including him. He was witnessing the inner-most secret of Xiaoyue, the one memory that she had hidden within herself, away from the knowledge of anyone else.
He had never liked Xiaoyue since the moment she had callously expelled Chen Nianxue from her order when they had first met at the Widespread Wintriness Sect. But he could not help feeling sympathetic towards her now. Did she also have a painful past that she did not wish to speak of?
He instinctively began to wander closer. The old priestess and her students made no notice of him. “Such are the rules,” Xiao Chen heard her saying, “These are the unbreakable tenets set by our founder thousands of years ago. They have broken the laws and they are to be executed. Perform the coup de grace and spare them of any more pain; else they would suffer even more if I were to exact judgment myself!”
This must be Perfected Immortal Su Nian, Xiao Chen gasped with surprise, momentarily stunned. What ruthlessness, he grimaced, that she was now forcing Xiaoyue to execute her own beloved seniors with her own hands.