Behind the mountain, at the bottom of the cliff.
The heavy rain gradually subsided, and the thin sky light filtered through the branches of ancient trees, and the rocks and bushes cast all kinds of eerie shadows in the dimness.
With a bang, Shan Chao inserted Qixing Longyuan into the mud, stood up while supporting the mountain wall, let out a long breath of scorching bloody air, and thrust his backhand behind him.
— Tai Ah Jian is gone.
Fu Wenjie's figure has disappeared, and it must be more or less ominous. The surrounding rocky beach is full of mess, the soil is full of obvious rusty smell, and the cut swords are still stained with blood, scattered on the hillsides and rocks not far away, it is obvious that there has been a fierce battle here.
And yet—no body.
After the melee, both sides took away the corpses of their companions, obviously well-trained.
Shan Chao coughed hoarsely twice, spit out bloody saliva, walked a few steps forward, and suddenly saw something reflecting light on the muddy ground in the crevice of the rock.
He stretched out his hand and took it out, and looked at it carefully for a moment, only to see that it was a half-bronze plaque that had been chopped into pieces. The patterns and seals were extremely finely carved, and the lower half of a certain word could be vaguely recognized——
ban.
Daming Palace banned.
"It seems that there should be a bad relationship between you and me."
"Stupid, sugar water isn't toxic at all—"
"I have a royal guard token, and I can enter the palace to face the saint at any time, and I can do things cheaply in the capital."
In front of the Ci'en Temple on Zhongzheng Street, as a mouthful of poisonous blood was coughed up, the seemingly ruthless and invincible person collapsed so dejectedly and completely.
Shan Chao gasped for a moment, and slowly clenched the token until the sharp broken horns pierced into the muscles of his palm.
"My surname is Xie, and my single name is Yun, the cloud of a star beacon fire, Shuo Yunqiu..."
"From now on, he will be your master."
"Xie Yun..." Shan Chao spit out two words from between his teeth, and looked up at Houshan Biezhuang, which was looming in the distant mountains and forests.
After a while, he finally held the bronze token and walked forward step by step.
·
The vestibule of the other courtyard.
There was a heavy bang, as if it rang through the ears through the water, dull, indistinct and indistinct—that was because the ears were filled with blood.
Jing Ling fell to the ground on his back, feeling as if a long, long time had passed in his daze, but he knew that it was only a few short breaths.
Immediately after a gleam of coldness stuck to his throat, Xie Yun's deep voice sounded from above: "—do you still think you can kill me now?"
Jing Ling opened his eyes, and saw that the chaotic battlefield in the courtyard had already decided the winner: Although a dozen martial arts disciples suffered heavy casualties under the attack of the killer of Shenguimen, the killer was unable to resist Xie Yun's sword, In the case of huge losses, they were forced to retreat to the periphery.
The torches were extinguished or turned down, the crackling of sparks, the painful groans of the wounded, and broken limbs and swords all over the ground, forming an extremely cruel, bleak and absurd scene under the dim light of the sky.
"It was my fault... I remembered."
There was a dull cough in Jing Ling's chest, and he laughed intermittently: "Every time a tattoo emerges, you will suddenly burst out with this kind of strange power... What is this? God and ghost gate control, or some kind of secret method in the palace ?”
Xie Yun half-kneeled on one knee beside Jing Ling, holding a knife in one hand and casually resting the other on his knee, and lazily said: "This is not something children can care about, let adults worry about it."
"Senior," Jing Ling mocked, "Then, have you learned to control this power and stop being mad?"
Xie Yun looked him up and down, and finally narrowed his eyes thoughtfully after a while.
"...It seems that there is indeed some rift between you and me..."
This time it was Jing Ling who said coldly: "No, Yun Shi. There are too many killers who have feuds with each other in the sect of gods and ghosts, let it go."
The Shenguimen have serious internal fighting, and it is normal for each other to kill each other. However, for some reason, Xie Yun was keenly aware from Jing Ling's words that the four characters "obsessed with madness" seemed to have a more subtle and malicious meaning.
He frowned, and suddenly saw Jing Ling stretching out his hand.
—His arm was slapped away by Xie Yun's palm when he tried to regain the soul hook just now, and his muscles and bones were damaged under the impact of internal force. As a result, it is now covered with criss-crossing dried blood, which is a little scary on his lean muscles.
Xie Yun turned his head slightly, but Jing Ling put his hand together, and his fingertips slipped across the skin of his side neck in an instant.
"The tattoos are gone." He said meaningfully, "This kind of power that is so powerful that it does not belong to humans must also cause corresponding backlash."
"..."
"Shenguimen has been operating in the Huainan area for a long time, with deep roots and luxuriant leaves. In addition, Yuwenhu is leading five hundred soldiers to the south of Beijing, and will soon arrive here... Do you think how long can you hold on when the backlash comes? "
There was undisguised malice in Jing Ling's eyes, Xie Yun looked at him for a moment, and finally lowered his head and whispered in his ear, "You know me so well, do you think I have a good temper?"
"—Or do you think that I will let you off for the sake of my old classmates and not kill everyone present?"
Although his voice was low, he didn't deliberately control it. Several people around him heard it, and their faces turned pale instantly!
Jing Ling looked mockingly at the blade at her throat: "But if you silence everything, you won't be able to find the snow lotus, Commander Xie. Are you afraid that the empress in the capital will turn against you at the same time?"
"Commander Xie?" Someone couldn't control his voice.
"Thank... Xie Yun..."
"He is Xie Yun! Xie Yun, commander of the Ouchi Imperial Guard!"
Fear spread quickly like an electric current, and everyone was dumbfounded for a while, and small voices came and went one after another.
Xie Yun looked down at Jing Ling from a high position, and smiled loudly: "I'll kill you first, and then I'll kill everyone present, and order the Imperial Guards to dig the entire Jianjianzhuang three feet into the ground. Could it be that I can't find a single flower?" Snow lotus!"
Everyone's attention was focused on him, and no one saw a masked killer of the gods and ghosts stepping forward in the corner of the entrance of the front yard, moving his hands slightly.
At that moment, Xie Yun suddenly turned his head, and accurately locked the killer's direction: "—Do you think so, Master Fu Shaozhuang?"
Snapped!
Xie Yun slashed the knife with his backhand, and cut off the killer's crossbow arrow in the air at the critical moment!
The voices at the scene were sensational: "Master Fu Shao?" "What?" "Isn't the master already dead?"
Chen Haiping looked suspiciously at the corpse covered in white cloth on the ground: "My cousin has already-"
Amidst the uproar, the killer saw that the sneak attack had been seen through, turned around and leaped, and rushed out of the courtyard in the astonishment of everyone's eyes!
A series of accidents exploded on the ground. Before everyone could react, Xie Yun turned back and hit Jing Ling's forehead with the handle of the knife, knocking him to the ground immediately.
Immediately afterwards, he stood up, raised his breath and went straight to the eaves, his figure floating like a shadow like a charm.
—He actually completely ignored Jing Ling and the disciples of the major martial arts sects behind him, and immediately followed the killer to the backyard.
·
The sky has gradually turned gray, and the surrounding scenery seems to be covered with a layer of veil, showing hazy shadows in the fog before dawn.
The killer ran all the way back to the ruined backyard. When passing the garden, he took several shortcuts in a few vertical leaps, and sneaked into the collapsed back hall without anyone noticing.
After the building was knocked down by lightning, the ground was covered with rubble and broken bricks, and the beams above the head were also crumbling, and there was a dangerous squeezing sound when it shook slightly. The killer didn't care, strode across the half-cut wall, walked around behind the scorched screen, knelt on the ground and began to move large pieces of rubble, and quickly cleared a three-foot-square open space.
There was a secret door in the open space that was very similar in color to the floor tiles. The killer pulled it open forcefully, and the wind gushed out of it—it turned out to be a secret passage!
The killer let out a long breath, but suddenly coughed, the sound was so dull that it almost cracked his chest, and it took him a while to forcefully suppress it with his mouth covered.
Immediately afterwards, he stood up, without a light, and walked down the secret passage directly, and closed the secret door above his head back with his backhand.
The tunnel stairs are very steep, but he seems to be familiar with the road, turning a few turns in the dark, and the terrain under his feet gradually leveled off. He stopped and picked up the torch and torch from the wall, lightly lit it with a click, and saw a bright light in front of him.
— This turned out to be an open underground secret room.
The chamber of secrets is far from simple, on the contrary, it is also decorated very gorgeously. Pepper wall flower bag, screen display, book case and bed are all available; the floor is laid with lotus-patterned bluestone bricks, the pear marble table case is displayed with pen, ink, paper and inkstone, and there is a picture of a beautiful woman looking at flowers framed and painted in gold on the wall.
What is frightening is that there is a coffin standing upright in the secret room.
The materials used for the coffin are extremely valuable, the nanmu is black lacquered and shiny, and I don't know how long it has been kept here, but it looks like new.
The killer walked over in a daze, pulled Zhang Muzi to sit beside the coffin, and suddenly broke out a heavy and urgent cough that seemed to choke his heart and lungs out of his throat.
Coughing and coughing, the voice gradually turned into bitter crying until it got out of hand.
The killer leaned over the coffin with his shoulders trembling, and tears welled up in his eyes. He took off the mask casually and threw it on the ground with a bang.
"Master Fu Shaozhuang," a hoarse and steady male voice suddenly sounded in the darkness behind him.
The killer suddenly got up and turned around: "Who?!"
——The firelight reflected on his pale and tear-stained face, whoever it was if it wasn't Fu Wenjie!
A tall figure with a strong figure walked out of the darkness, and he saw him in monk clothes with Buddhist beads, sword eyebrows and star eyes, holding the sword in both hands on his chest, although there was blood on his forehead, it did not damage the masculine and tough face .
That is obviously a single super.
Fu Wenjie stepped back half a step, and knocked over the scorpion with a bang: "You...how did you find it? How do you know it's here?!"
Shan Chao looked around, and his gaze stayed for a moment on the picture of the smiling and charming beauties on the wall, and then turned to Fu Wenjie: "Is this decorated in the style of the boudoir of the young lady and the virtuous husband and wife before her death?"
"..."
"Young Madam's coffin is brand new. You must have never buried her since the day she passed away."
Fu Wenjie stared at Shan Chao for a long time, his chest rising and falling, and finally let out a sneer after a long while: "I thought you were killed by the ghosts at the foot of the cliff. It seems that Jing is really not trustworthy."
He paused, patted the coffin and said hoarsely: "—why is it buried? To me, she has never left, she has always been here!"
From the first meeting by the West Lake, Master Fu Shaozhuang has always been gentle and pale and weak. Although he is not good at walking, he has a certain bearing, which is enough to make people feel good at first sight.
But now he was standing there straight, his veins swollen and his voice hoarse, his eyes seemed to be filled with red tears, like a wild beast that would rush up to die with people at any time after being cornered.
"..." Shan Chao breathed out lightly, and sighed: "So that's the case. In your heart, everyone is the murderer of the young lady, even the baby who died of dystocia... That's why you separate the baby and bury it In the ancestral grave, after killing Miss Fu, the baby was dug out of the grave and the corpse was placed in her room; then the old lady was deliberately lured to the back mountain courtyard, so that in front of his wife, he could use the tunnel to kill her with his own hands. Killed by the explosion, pretending to be killed by a thunderbolt... "
Fu Wenjie stared straight at Shan Chao, not denying it at all.
"... When you were doing these things," Shan Chao paused awkwardly, and asked, "Didn't you... have any hesitation in your heart?"
The tunnel was quiet, only the torch was burning, and the light and shadow on the wall shook slightly.
Fu Wenjie actually laughed slowly, but that smile was also full of madness.
"You answer me a question first, master. Have you ever been forced to separate from the person you love, forever and ever, separated from yin and yang, and never seen each other again in this life?"
Shan Chao wanted to say no, but at that moment, what appeared in his mind was the vast desert and the boundless moonlit night.
Thousands of miles of silver sand are boundless, the Milky Way spans the sky, and the sky is as bright as an ancient sea of stars.
A warm voice softly said: "Xinsu, Tianshu, Yaoguang, that piece of flame called bullfighting in ancient times..."
However, another cold voice in the scorching sun and yellow sand replaced it:
"Bullfighting Flame means two swords, and the one who killed you here today is Seven Star Longyuan."
"..." In the basement, Shan Chao opened his mouth. At that moment, even he himself could hear the trance and hesitation in his voice: "I don't know."
"Maybe... no."