Chapter Ninety-One: A Threat to Bai Qirui

Yingying Xie narrowed her eyes and kept coughing. Out of the corner of her vision, she caught a flash of cold steel and a white figure.

Instinctively, she wanted to cry out a name, but with her throat bound so tightly, not a sound could escape.

She slowly closed her eyes, thinking that she was about to die here, and could not help but laugh bitterly at herself.

So in the end, after all that struggle, she was still going to die...

But in the next instant, she heard a shrill, piercing scream. Then fresh air rushed continuously into her nose.

She opened her eyes and saw Bai Shengyun holding a long sword in his hand. Yet that sword seemed forged of ice itself, snow-white all over, translucent as fine jade, exuding a faint, chilling aura, as though anyone who came near it would be frozen solid.

Standing beside Bai Shengyun was Bai Qirui, also in white. By now, his expression had lost all its usual warmth, leaving only the same icy sternness as Bai Shengyun’s.

Yingying Xie turned to look at Shuru Shen, only to see that one half of Shuru Shen’s body had become an ice sculpture, while the other half was covered in deep and shallow bloody wounds.

The two stood in front of Yingying Xie, staring at her without expression.

Shuru Shen seemed to feel no pain. Her face did not change as she raised a hand, flames blazing in her palm, and melted away the thick white ice covering the other half of her body.

“Shengyun, I am doing this for your own good.” As she spoke, her expression finally shifted a little, her eyes full of grief and unwillingness. “If you truly marry her, what will become of your reputation?”

“You are nothing but acting for your own selfish ends.” Bai Shengyun’s tone was already laced with anger and killing intent.

“Yes, I admit I have selfish desires. I cannot bear to watch you marry someone else, to share a bed with someone else! Shengyun, how can you still not understand how deeply I love you?”

At this, Bai Shengyun merely let out a cold sneer, his eyes showing a trace of impatience and disbelief.

When Shuru Shen saw that he still gave no reply, she turned to Bai Qirui beside him. Seeing that Bai Qirui looked the same, she clenched her hands so hard that her long nails dug into her palms.

She bit her lip, looking aggrieved, yet her gaze was filled with hatred.

Suddenly, she nodded and yanked the sword straight out of Yingying Xie’s chest.

Blood spurted before everyone’s eyes. Outside the iron brambles, Gu Ruohan felt his heart tighten at the sight. Jing Ling and Lieyang showed pain in their expressions, and Yinling immediately covered her mouth, tears of anguish spilling down her face.

Lightning flashed across the sky. Huo Tianqing stood enveloped in a deathly still aura, hands clasped behind his back, staring at Shuru Shen with no emotion at all in his eyes.

Bai Shengyun hurriedly turned to check Yingying Xie’s injuries and used spiritual power to seal the bloody wound for her.

Yingying Xie was in turmoil, her expression complicated. She pressed her lips together, then opened her mouth as if to say something, but in the end the pain made it impossible for her to speak.

Her body was already weak from the Nine-Tailed Fox primordial essence, and now, with such a grave injury, she could not hold on. Her eyelids drooped, and she fainted at once.

Bai Shengyun’s face actually showed panic. When Shuru Shen saw this, the flames of rage in her heart burned even more fiercely.

But with the two of them guarding Yingying Xie, she could not make a move. She could only grind her teeth in fury.

Just then, out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of Pomo, who had been following Bai Qirui for quite some time.

Pomo, seeing this scene unfold, looked disheartened. Shuru Shen could not help thinking of Bai Qirui’s good-natured temperament, and her eyes lit up. She leapt onto the rooftop and swooped down like an eagle snatching a chick.

And the one she meant to seize, naturally, was Pomo.

Some disciples who had been watching the spectacle for quite some time recognized that she was the newly joined disciple of the Demon Sect, Pomo, and hurriedly cried out a warning. But Pomo’s reflexes were astonishing. The instant Shuru Shen struck, she suddenly turned into a dense mass of gray mist and darted behind Jing Ling.

When Jing Ling saw her rushing over, he instinctively resisted, but upon realizing she was of the Mist Demon clan, he knew she belonged to the Demon Sect’s territory. He quickly drew the Scarlet Moon Blade, ready to meet Shuru Shen’s sword.

Lieyang beside Jing Ling was also fully prepared.

But Shuru Shen, whose strength had now surged and whose speed had grown even greater, actually slipped past both of their layers of defense at a tricky angle, landing behind Jing Ling. With lightning speed she avoided the Scarlet Moon Blade and the flames, and seized Pomo up like a chick.

Seeing this, Bai Shengyun and Bai Qirui both sharpened their expressions.

Shuru Shen stood in midair, Pomo dangling in her grasp, still utterly bewildered.

“Bai Qirui, if you do not want her to die, then kill Yingying Xie!”

These words rang through everyone’s ears. The people on the Demon Sect’s side stared in alarm and warning at every move Bai Qirui made, while Bai Shengyun stood in front of Yingying Xie, coldly watching Shuru Shen, showing not the slightest concern that Bai Qirui might act, so much so that it almost seemed he did not care whether Yingying Xie lived or died.

Bai Qirui folded his paper fan shut and slapped it into his palm, looking irritated beyond measure.

In all these years, this was the first time he had ever been threatened, and threatened with the life of an innocent person at that. Naturally, he was displeased.

Although Bai Qirui had not known Pomo for long and did not much care whether she lived or died, she had helped him before, and had nothing whatever to do with this matter. He was unwilling to drag her into it.

But... he glanced at Yingying Xie, unconscious beside him.

Setting aside the fact that his conversation with Yingying Xie had always been pleasant, she was also the only hope of making Bai Shengyun even a little happier, not to mention that she was the wife his younger brother had wed in proper ceremony. For all these reasons alone, he could not possibly lay a hand on Yingying Xie.

Seeing that he was still hesitating, Shuru Shen frowned and stabbed Pomo again in full view of everyone.

Though Pomo was often beaten and could endure ordinary pain, she had never before been pierced by a sword. Her face instantly turned pale.

Not only that, Shuru Shen deliberately twisted the sword inside her body and infused it with spiritual power.

In an instant, her flesh was torn to pieces by the sword and the force within it, and she let out a scream she could no longer suppress. The other disciples of the Demon Sect, seeing this, gained yet another understanding of Shuru Shen’s ruthlessness, and could not help feeling a chill of disgust.

“Will you kill her or not?” Shuru Shen narrowed her eyes and asked coldly.

Bai Qirui still looked at her without expression, making no move at all.

Seeing this, Shuru Shen gritted her teeth and stabbed Pomo again.

This time, Pomo’s scream was even louder.

Jing Ling and Lieyang could not bear it. At once, they coordinated and sprang into the air, intending to snatch Pomo from her grasp.

Seeing them come at her, Shuru Shen smiled with triumph and kept flooding Pomo with spiritual power, making her entire body burn hot, like a furnace.

Then, lifting one hand, she abruptly hurled Pomo toward the unconscious Yingying Xie. Her speed was just as swift this time, and the three purple pythons still failed to stop her, only grazing the edge of a sleeve.

Pomo, scalded senseless by the spiritual power Shuru Shen had forced into her, was jolted awake a little as the wind tore past her. Then she realized she was being thrown toward Yingying Xie, and she widened her eyes in utter disbelief.