Cheng Xueyi certainly knew that biting couldn’t kill anyone.
But what else could she do? Her spiritual meridians were sealed right now—did she really have the strength to fight him head-on?
If her spiritual power were intact, she would have made Shen Nanyin cough blood and collapse without question.
Mother always said she was a genius at cultivation, that there was no one in all of Heart-Devouring Valley stronger than her.
Even that so-called Little Demon Lord, born of demonic nature, who never showed his face and existed only in rumor—he might not even be her match.
So what about Shen Nanyin?
Cheng Xueyi really wanted to fight him fair and square.
But she carried too much on her shoulders. Until she got her hands on the White Marsh Chart, she absolutely could not expose herself.
Whether her mother could be revived, whether Fuguang could be saved—it all depended on her.
And it all depended on the person in front of her right now.
Cheng Xueyi slowly lifted her gaze, still biting down on the back of Shen Nanyin’s hand, and looked up at his face.
Her eyes were rimmed red, her irises flooded with bloody color. Shen Nanyin could see clearly the stubbornness and defiance in the depths of her eyes.
Though she’d only bitten the back of his hand, he felt as though his entire body had been swallowed whole.
She probably wanted nothing more than to just eat him.
Shen Nanyin flipped his hand and hauled her up, ignoring the blood streaming down the back of it. He locked one arm around her, summoned his life-bound sword, and took her directly off the flying blade, leaving the Ghost Market behind.
“Shen Nanyin, let go!”
Far in the distance, one could still hear her furious scolding, addressing him by his full name in outrage.
Atop the Crimson Tower, a masked man said to the subordinate beside him, utterly baffled: “Was that Shen Nanyin? The real Shen Nanyin? I wasn’t seeing things, was I?”
The subordinate answered honestly: “You saw correctly, young master. That was indeed Daoist Lord True Martial and Bright Splendor of the Qiantian Sect.”
The man spun around abruptly. “Then I must not be fully awake, getting up too fast messed with my head—because I just saw Shen Nanyin tangled up with a woman, letting her bite his hand and not even pulling away.”
The subordinate didn’t know how to respond. After a moment’s thought, he said, “In any case, young master, you’d best not get any closer. What you just did was far too risky. If the Martial Daoist Lord discovers your identity, it would be a great deal of trouble.”
The man atop the Crimson Tower was, in fact, the very person who had negotiated the five-million spirit stone deal with Cheng Xueyi.
“You’re that afraid of him? You think I’m no match for him?”
“This one merely thinks it’s better to avoid trouble than court it.” The subordinate’s words were carefully chosen.
The man glanced at him and murmured, “That’s true enough. Only, that little wretch got away from me again—what a pity.”
“Last time she swindled a good deal of fine goods out of me with a single potted flower. I thought I’d toy with her a bit this time, at least make her lose out for once, but then this Cheng Yaojin had to come charging in out of nowhere.”
The subordinate suddenly understood—no wonder that girl had looked so familiar from a distance. She was the one who’d extorted the young master last time.
This whole affair traced back to when the outer disciples of the Qiantian Sect had gone down the mountain on a mission earlier in the year.
At the start of the year they’d been out handling business that couldn’t be discovered, and had used some minor demons to cover their tracks.
They’d happened to run into this group of reckless outer disciples. The plan had been to simply kill them and be done with it—outer disciples of the Qiantian Sect were as common as cattle hair, a few deaths wouldn’t matter, just clean up after and leave no trace.
Except one of them had been unusually sharp-witted and refused to die so easily, managing to send out a distress signal. · BLACK LOTUS NOVEL Novel Site | black lotus novel
Old thief Gongming had arrived swiftly, forcing them to push someone forward as a scapegoat, staging it as catching a traitor, bleeding out quite a price before they managed to escape.
Cheng Xueyi—he still remembered the name of that disciple who’d sent the distress signal. Not only was her mind sharp, her luck was good too. At the very spot where they’d exchanged information and plotted their strategy, there had happened to be a pot of Silent Face Flowers, hidden among the thick grass, unnoticed.
The Silent Face Flower was an unremarkable thing—small, with white petals, easy to overlook. But its use was no small matter: it was an essential material for making memory-recording stones, capable of capturing sound.
Everything had already been settled and they were about to leave when Cheng Xueyi suddenly ran back out and pulled a potted Silent Face Flower from the grass, saying she’d left it there earlier and had almost forgotten to grab it.
She’d come with old thief Gongming, so she surely hadn’t overheard their scheming. But the flower was another matter entirely.
If it were taken back and it turned out to have recorded their conversation, the young master’s identity and the arrangements of the Ghost Market would be exposed.
So once Gongming led the group away and Cheng Xueyi fell behind at the rear, the young master offered to buy the flower from her, name any price.
He still remembered the girl’s reaction vividly to this day.
“You’re an eminent figure of the Ghost Market—and you’d actually want my little pot of Silent Face Flowers?”
The girl, dressed in gray with her braid mussed, had opened her eyes wide in surprise, looking utterly innocent. “You’re joking, aren’t you? I still need to catch up with the Elder, I really must hurry.”
Leave? Just let her walk off with the flower, as if that were acceptable?
The subordinate had wanted to simply seize it by force, but the young master, worried about alarming Gongming, had raised a hand to signal restraint.
“Silent Face Flowers are common enough, but this particular pot has grown especially lovely. I genuinely want it—would you be willing to part with it, little friend?”
Cheng Xueyi had turned around holding the pot, staring thoughtfully at the tall figure in black robes from the Ghost Market, then suddenly flashed a grin. “Since you’ve asked, of course I’ll part with it. Though I wouldn’t feel right taking your money.”
“Oh?” the young master had said with a smile. “Then you mean to gift it to me?”
Such good sense—seeing as she wasn’t going to make a fuss, it wouldn’t hurt to give her some small reward.
That had been what all of them were thinking at the time.
None of them had expected that this young woman, smiling so sweetly and innocently, would hold the flowerpot and say brightly, “I grew this flower myself—maybe that’s why it’s even lovelier. If you want it, let’s not talk about money, that’s far too vulgar. Let’s be friends instead, and this flower can be a gift between us—shall we trade?”
—And what followed was an extremely lopsided deal, one the young master still resented to this day.
“She must have sensed something was off at the time. But fortunately, that flower had never been opened by anyone—it was destroyed the moment we got it back. Even if she had her suspicions, she’d have no way to uncover our secret.”
So the subordinate said.
Standing atop the Crimson Tower, gazing out at the endless glittering excess of the Ghost Market, the man said, listless: “But if she and Shen Nanyin are on close terms, everything changes.”
If she let even a trace slip to Shen Nanyin, that man might well be able to trace it back to their most closely guarded secret.
“Might as well find a chance to kill her.”
He leaned lazily against the corridor railing, deciding a person’s fate with a single careless remark.
Cheng Xueyi had no time to spare for any of this right now.
She’d been forcibly dragged off by Shen Nanyin, assuming he meant to take her back to the sect. Instead, the direction they flew kept veering further and further off course.
“Shen Nanyin, where are you taking me?”
Had he discovered something? Or had he finally decided to stop being magnanimous and was going to retaliate against her?
Was he taking her somewhere secluded to deal with her quietly?
Cheng Xueyi, on full alert, struggled with all her might, managing to disarrange not only her own clothes but Shen Nanyin’s collar as well.
His expression didn’t change in the slightest the entire time. He was managing three things at once—flying the sword, restraining her, and chanting an incantation.
Cheng Xueyi wasn’t actually an outer disciple. Though he chanted the spell quickly and the words were awkward, she could still make out its purpose.
A tracking and seeking technique?
Was he searching for a person, or something else?
Cheng Xueyi’s mind wandered for a moment, and suddenly the Red Dust sword plunged straight downward.
She snapped back to attention, her body thrown backward by the momentum, slamming heavily into Shen Nanyin’s chest.
She looked back, her gaze meeting his. Shen Nanyin looked away first. The moment the Red Dust sword hit the ground at full speed, he pulled Cheng Xueyi off the blade.
This was her first time riding a flying sword, and such a rapid shift from up to down left her slightly dazed, her footing unsteady. She hadn’t taken more than a few steps before she stumbled, dizzy, against him.
Shen Nanyin stood where he was, eyes fixed pointedly elsewhere, not reaching out to catch her, but not pushing her away either.
“Shen Nanyin, you—” — black lotus Reading
Leaning against him, she was about to hurl more insults his way when, before the harsh words could leave her mouth, she heard him speaking to someone else.
“This one is Shen Nanyin of the Qiantian Sect.”
He had found the target of his tracking technique, and spoke with polite courtesy: “Forgive the intrusion. I apologize for the disturbance.”
Cheng Xueyi immediately looked past him at the third person present—a figure with their face veiled, only a pair of startled eyes visible. Her path was blocked; whether she wanted to be disturbed or not, disturbed she would be.
“Daoist Lord True Martial and Bright Splendor.”
Shen Nanyin’s name carried enormous weight and credibility. The moment he announced himself, the other party’s attitude visibly softened.
“How did you track me here? What is it you want from me?”
The veiled woman appeared to be in her twenties, her voice muffled. Her gaze drifted, seemingly without intent, toward Cheng Xueyi.
Cheng Xueyi caught up to him, her dizzy head clearing somewhat, still unable to guess what he was thinking.
“Shen Nanyin—”
She called his name again, but Shen Nanyin ignored her, speaking only to the veiled woman: “This humble Daoist caught your fellow cultivator’s trace on a Moon-Mending Grass and tracked it here—truly a discourtesy. But the matter is urgent, so this humble Daoist must beg your forgiveness for the intrusion. I only ask that you tell me where that particular Moon-Mending Grass was found. Once I know, I shall take my leave at once, without troubling you further.”
Wait.
Moon-Mending Grass?
Something clicked for Cheng Xueyi, and she immediately said, “Eldest Senior Brother~”
Shen Nanyin paused, and finally glanced at her.
The veiled woman’s eyes shifted subtly as well.
Well, look at that—just a moment ago it had been “Shen Nanyin” this and “Shen Nanyin” that, shouted with such righteous fearlessness, and now, in the blink of an eye, she’d switched to “Eldest Senior Brother,” her voice curling sweetly around every syllable?
Such a rapid change of face was truly something to admire.
“If my information is correct, the Martial Daoist Lord already bid on Moon-Mending Grass at the opening market. Why would you still be searching?”
Before Shen Nanyin could respond, Cheng Xueyi had already affectionately looped her arm through his, saying to the veiled woman, “Sister, Eldest Senior Brother is looking for it for me.”
Then she turned back, tilting her head with a beaming smile. “Isn’t that right, Eldest Senior Brother?”
Shen Nanyin looked at her quietly for a few breaths, then slowly withdrew his arm.
The crook of his elbow still held the faint chill of her body’s warmth, and the soft curve of her chest.
Was she really that cold?
Women did seem to feel the cold more than men.
Her cultivation was low—it was probably normal for her body to run cool.
Shen Nanyin said, “This humble Daoist’s junior martial sister is in poor health and requires Moon-Mending Grass. If you would be so kind as to tell me where you found it, this humble Daoist would be deeply grateful, and willing to offer an equivalent exchange.”
“Oh?” The veiled woman looked at him with something between a smile and a smirk. “An equivalent exchange? Martial Daoist Lord, you’d best think this through. Doing business with those of us from the Ghost Market, you will never come out ahead. Moon-Mending Grass is beyond precious. Finding that single stalk and bringing it back to the Ghost Market was already a brush with death—I don’t even know if there’s a second stalk to be found there. Are you certain you wish to trade something of equal value for such an unknown possibility?”
Shen Nanyin didn’t need to answer—Cheng Xueyi had already spoken first: “Sister, hasn’t Eldest Senior Brother already given you something of equal value? Just hurry and tell him where it is, so I can go take a look with Eldest Senior Brother.”
Now not only Shen Nanyin, but the veiled woman too, was left stunned.
“…No.” She frowned in confusion. “Weren’t we just starting to negotiate? When exactly did I receive anything of equal value?”
