Chapter Ninety: The Hall of Joyful Union

Both people in the room furrowed their brows.

Those voices unmistakably belonged to the three from the Cloud Peak, as well as to Bai Qirui and Shen Ruru!

Bai Shengyun released his hold on Xie Yingying and strode straight to the door. Xie Yingying hurried after him.

When Bai Shengyun opened the door, the two of them saw five people tangled in a fierce and evenly matched battle beyond the dense iron thorns, each side unable to gain the upper hand.

Xie Yingying looked at them with a pained expression, though what grieved her was not their fighting, but the splendid blossoms in her courtyard.

Though none of those flowers had been planted by her own hand, whenever she grew irritable, simply looking at those blooming clusters would lighten her mood somewhat. But now the flowers had all been reduced to gray ashes, not even a blade of grass remaining.

"Please stop," Xie Yingying said, rubbing her forehead, her expression helpless. "If you must fight, at least do not do it in my Love Gathering Palace."

At the sound of her voice, Shen Ruru looked over and saw Bai Shengyun and Xie Yingying standing side by side at the entrance of the sleeping quarters. At once her eyes turned bloodshot, and she raised her snow-white longsword, snarling viciously at Xie Yingying, "I will kill you, you wretched woman!"

Bai Shengyun's expression darkened. He was about to move when Bai Qirui had already torn himself free from Ho Tianqing's attack and flicked out the Purifying Heart Fan in his hand.

The fan spun with blinding speed, striking Shen Ruru once. Forced to halt, Shen Ruru turned to glare at Bai Qirui in fury. "Why?!"

"I did not join forces with you so you could kill people," he said coldly.

"I'll kill whoever I want. What business is it of yours?" Shen Ruru shot back, eyes blazing.

With that, she lifted her sword and lunged at Xie Yingying once more.

Bai Shengyun stood with his hands behind his back, making no move to stop her. Only a flash of purple light passed through his eyes, quickly concealed beneath that dark gilding.

Shen Ruru had originally thought the Purple Gold Bell would not interfere with her. Who would have guessed that just as she reached a foot beyond the iron thorns, the thorny mass suddenly swelled several times over, interweaving into tangled clusters as arcs of lightning merged into them in an instant, forming three colossal purple serpents.

The purple serpents flicked scarlet tongues from their mouths, their eyes as red as fresh blood, rivaling the blood moon in the sky.

Shen Ruru froze, nearly failing to stop in time.

Even had she stopped, it would have made no difference, for the purple serpents had already opened their gaping maws and lunged to swallow her whole.

She barely managed to evade. Then, from the right, a snake tail thick as a towering tree, several meters around, lashed out and slapped her brutally to the ground.

Severe pain shot through Shen Ruru's body. The sound of bones cracking chilled everyone present. On the side, Silver Bell immediately darted away to another corner, wiping cold sweat from her brow.

Shen Ruru lay on the ground for a long time, her breathing faint. Had no one probed with spiritual sense and discovered she was still alive, everyone would have assumed she had already been crushed to death beneath that tail.

After a long while, Shen Ruru finally turned her head with difficulty. Her cheek pressed against the dusty ground, and she coughed up a mouthful of dark blood.

After vomiting that blood, she seemed to feel somewhat better.

Her vision blurred. She opened her mouth and asked Bai Shengyun, bitterly and with great difficulty, "You found her... why did you not kill her?"

Bai Shengyun only replied coldly, "I kill when I wish to kill, and I do not when I do not wish to. What is that to you?"

At that moment, Mirror Lotus interjected coldly from the side, "He has come today to seek Xie Yingying in marriage from my Demonic Sect. Why would he kill her?"

At those words, not only Shen Ruru, but also Bai Qirui, Lonely as Frost, Silver Bell, and the other onlookers were stunned.

They looked at Xie Yingying, mouths slightly agape.

No one noticed that Ho Tianqing's gaze had grown increasingly dark.

"No!" Shen Ruru objected at once. Some unknown force seemed to fill her, so that her fingers clenched into the dirt below. "Absolutely not! She is Xie Buxiu, infamous and disgraced. There can be no future between you!"

Bai Shengyun kept his hands behind his back and said indifferently, "I do not care about such petty trifles."

"Petty trifles?!" Shen Ruru spat out another mouthful of blood in fury. After forcing herself to swallow a pill with all her strength, she looked at him in disbelief and said, "How is this petty? This concerns the Sky Fox clan and the reputation of the Immortal Sect! Shengyun, think carefully again!"

"How I act, do I need you to teach me?" His expression turned even colder, and his gaze toward Shen Ruru was filled with unabashed killing intent.

With that, he prepared to take Xie Yingying back to the room. Seeing this, Lonely as Frost was seized by jealousy and was about to step forward to obstruct him.

But at that very moment, as Bai Shengyun held Xie Yingying in place, she turned and shouted to Shen Ruru, "Shen Ruru, I do not wish to be married while I am still in the prime of my youth. Please, persuade him!"

Yet Shen Ruru's expression only grew more enraged. Bai Shengyun had already stormed into the Demonic Sect and publicly declared that he would marry her, and still she did not know how to appreciate his good intentions!

In her fury, she thought no further. Spiritual power gathered in her hand as she glared at Xie Yingying with bitter hatred.

Xie Yingying looked baffled. She had openly declared in front of everyone that she did not want to marry Bai Shengyun, and yet she did not know why Shen Ruru still hated her so.

At the sound of those words, Bai Shengyun stopped and turned back to look at Xie Yingying with a dark expression.

Before he could say anything, he sensed that something was wrong. He abruptly looked toward Shen Ruru and saw her aura surging once more, rising so violently that it seemed as though she might break through to the late stage of Spirit Severing.

Seeing Shen Ruru's cultivation increase so dramatically in such a short time, Bai Qirui could only think that she was utterly mad.

In truth, it was not impossible to raise one's cultivation in a short span. It was simply that whatever one gained, one must inevitably lose something in return—that was the law of heaven and earth.

Thus some sects inherited forbidden arts that could vastly increase a cultivator's strength in a brief time. The drawback, however, was devastating: body and soul alike would be damaged. At best one would suffer grievous injury; at worst, one would lose all consciousness, fall forever into inner demon madness, and finally go insane unto death.

The price Shen Ruru paid to raise her cultivation by an entire realm was naturally not some simple matter of grievous internal injury.

Everyone present understood this, and all were struck with fear.

At that moment, under everyone's gaze, Shen Ruru lifted her head. Her eyes had grown even redder, like two strange crimson lanterns. Gone entirely was the refined, ethereal bearing of the Immortal Sect; only demonic aura and killing intent remained.

Suddenly, she leapt high with her sword, her body rising like a specter to a height of several dozen meters before crashing down before Xie Yingying and Bai Shengyun.

Even the purple serpents looked on with confusion and astonishment, utterly unable to understand how she had crossed the Purple Gold Bell and the many barriers they had set.

Xie Yingying could only watch as Shen Ruru rushed toward her. Her speed was too great for her to match, and she could do nothing but be seized.

Then, before everyone's eyes, Shen Ruru drove her sword into Xie Yingying's chest and lifted her up just like that. Her own features were twisted beyond recognition, filled with hatred—what trace was left of a beauty's grace?

She had struck with full lethal intent. She truly meant to see Xie Yingying dead.