Book 1: Winds Begin to Blow in Tai Yuan
Chapter 29 – One Touch Fire
The sound traveled over. Pei Yuan’s expression changed, and Meng Fuyao inwardly lamented.
This d.a.m.ned Zhan Bei Ye, why did he have to appear at this hour? With only a couple words he had pierced through the facade that she had bitterly set up.
Without even thinking, Meng Fuyao fled with a slip of her feet.
Unfortunately, Pei Yuan’s reactions were not lacking. When Zhan Bei Ye’s words entered her ears, her eyes immediately brimmed with murderous wildfire. With a stretch of her hand, ten fingernails instantly pierced out like ten daggers. Whistling in the wind, they shot towards Meng Fuyao’s two shoulders.
At the same time, she fiercely yelled, “You dare trick me! Someone come!”
In the shouting sound, her figure twisted into a burst of red-colored whirlwind. Golden steps swayed in mid-air, burning and shining into a streak of blinding gold light. Chiming and jangling noises sounded out unceasingly, and a stretch of leaves and flowers were torn up by her shock wave. Around her they scattered, then coiled, in a blink melding into indigo and orange powder that slowly drifted down.
“Pu chi.”
The ten long and sharp nails deeply dug into her shoulder, and fresh blood sprayed. Pei Yuan’s eyes flashed with a murderous gleam. Her fingers used strength to tug backwards, wanting to use this leverage to rip open Meng Fuyao’s back.
Fuyao didn’t even let out a sound. Her body lowered while her two legs knelt down, sliding three chi across the ground and forcefully pulling out Pei Yuan’s ten fingers.
Pei Yuan would not give up, stepping forward while her two hands clawed towards the top of Fuyao’s head. Suddenly, an outraged yell came from behind like a thunderbolt. “Let go!”
A human figure moved in a streak of alternating black and red, so fast that one couldn’t see their outline sweep past. Before the person arrived a golden light flashed in their hands, and a thin sword brought heavy wind gusts with it as it brazenly swung upwards, extremely accurately warding off Pei Yuan’s killing move.
That brush of intense air shook Pei Yuan away, causing her to back flip a couple times, and land three zhang away. She couldn’t help but sneer.
A crowd of guards surged up with blades drawn and arrows nocked, the jet black arrow tips oppressively aimed at Zhan Bei Ye.
Pei Yuan piercingly shouted, “These people trespa.s.sed into the palace for a.s.sa.s.sination! Seize them!”
Zhan Bei Ye stood his ground, his black robes fluttering crazily and the crimson flame-like trim soaring in the air. The ominous aura surrounding him was like a knife’s edge unsheathing, threateningly burning those around him. However, that shocking fury within his brows was not inferior – underneath the azure sky his dark pupils seemed like black iron in the deep sea, containing flame sparks that shot towards the arrogant red-clothed Pei Yuan.
“Who dares to touch me!”
This sound brimmed with true qi, shaking the flowers and trees to rustle and the green leaves to fall. The arms of the guard charging in front were trembled soft, and some whose martial arts were weaker had their fingers loosen, their weapons clattering to the ground because of the sound.
Pei Yuan’s expression changed, and only now did she calm down enough to take a more detailed look at Zhan Bei Ye. The aura that the other wore made it obvious that his status was not low. When connecting this to the guests of today’s Emperor grand birthday feast, she couldn’t prevent herself from silently frowning, and extend a hand to halt the movements of the guards.
Here she demonstrated intent to back down, but Zhan Bei Ye was not resigned. He had waited outside that bathroom for very long while slowly beginning to realize that something was wrong, and finally, heedless of the blocking palace maid, with one foot he kicked the female bathroom door flying. When he glanced the palace maid subst.i.tuting for Meng Fuyao panic and jump up from the toilet, he finally found out that he had been fooled by that girl, and immediately set off to search for Fuyao in aggravation. He was unfamiliar with the paths through the palace, and the troop deployments in the Tai Yuan imperial city seemed a little strange. After his random search, he turned joyful when he finally spotted Meng Fuyao, but before he had time to catch her, he actually saw someone try to murder her!
This time Zhan Bei Ye’s fury was not small – even he himself didn’t understand why he would be this angry. The moment fresh blood splattered out from Meng Fuyao’s shoulder, he instantly felt hot blood scorch his heart.
The woman that I caught, I haven’t even bullied yet! How could it be your turn?
Gripping the thin sword, Zhan Bei Ye charged forwards. Today when entering the palace it wasn’t convenient for him to bring his Vajra staff, and so this wasn’t his main weapon. However, that didn’t stop him from wielding his weapon in a dance filled with killing intent; with a flick of his long sword he directly pointed towards Pei Yuan’s two eyes, while Zhan Bei Ye coldly said, “You owe me ten wounds!”
Startled, Pei Yuan only realized just now that he was referring to the punctures she dug on Meng Fuyao’s shoulder. Sneering she replied, “So what? If you have the ability come and dig them!”
Lifting up a corner of his mouth, he said, “Of course!”
With a lift of his fingers, the narrow sword shot out with a “chi” sound. The line of golden light seemed to shift water and split tides as it forced the guards in front of Pei Yuan to fall and tumble away to the left and right sides. As the golden light came whistling through the air, Pei Yuan felt that an extreme brightness lit up in front of her eyes, as if something was swiftly coming closer and enlarging in the her field of view. Before she had time to lift her hand to block, she suddenly felt a dimness in front of her eyes and a brush past her face.
Instinctively grabbing with her fingers, a piece of thin light substance floated into her palm, the place where it contacted her hands feeling soft and icy cold.
There was unexpectedly no pain on her face, only feeling a chilly breeze sweep past her face. With a rub of her fingertips, Pei Yuan’s mind realized something was wrong, and lowering her head she found a perfectly round red-colored piece of satin in her palm. It was the exact same material as that of her face veil.
Dumbly lifting her hands to feel her face, Pei Yuan turned her eyes to see the guards around her show faces of horror all of a sudden. Only then did she understand, that her veil had actually had a hole cut out from it, revealing her scarred face.
Her vision turned dark, and a mouthful of blood almost vomited out.
After her appearance was destroyed she had always worn that face veil, lying to others that she had fallen ill with measles and could not withstand strong light and wind, and so her ruined face was never seen by anyone else. She had always entrusted her hope onto Zong Yue, that world-renown medicine sage. Even though he was young, he was the apprentice to the legendary character Medicine Immortal Gu Yidie – someone whose medicine arts channeled the divine and could bring a person back to life, and enjoyed an extremely lofty status in the Five Regions Continent. The Pei family had exerted huge efforts to ask Zong Yue to come, hoping that this divine physician could help cure her scarred face and allow the peerless beauty of the past to shine once more in the future.
Yet today this savage man actually cut out a hole in her veil with one sword, causing her painstakingly covered appearance to completely be exposed in front of others!
This hole felt like it was dug directly into her heart, piercing open the b.l.o.o.d.y, still unhealed wounds from the past. Pei Yuan’s grief and wrath came crashing down wave after wave, each one wanting to drown her underneath. With a piercing screech, even her voice changed octaves, and like shattered metal strings it penetrated through the suffocating and shocked silence.
“Kill him! Kill him!”
Zhan Bei Ye held his long sword horizontally while laughing loudly. “The next hole, I’ll poke through your mouth that only knows how to crazily shout!”
“Fire!” Pei Yuan retreated three chi, surrounding herself in the crowd of guards. With a swish of her red sleeve the first row of guards marched up, bent their knees and nocked their bows. Innumerable arrows formed a cl.u.s.ter that lined up with Zhan Bei Ye’s front chest.
The bows creaked and groaned as they were pulled to the fullest extent, the sound making one’s flesh crawl in the silence of the air, as if a death G.o.d was coldly smiling while awaiting a banquet of fresh blood.
Zhan Bei Ye held up his sword, raised his head, and sneered, not even looking at the frigidly murderous arrow formation.
With one touch, they instantly shot out.
“Fire!”