“So you are not …”
Liang Lian looked at Ding Ning. A drop of blood beaded on his forehead and he fell backwards.
As he fell down, blue-black ice formed again on the surface of his skin. But this time, the ice did not just stay on his skin but went deep into his flesh.
By the time he hit the ground, he was already a blue-black ice statue. This general, who had fought countless times and climbed out of mountains of dead, finally died.
He did not want to die. But he died before he left Changling.
No one heard his unfinished last words nor did they know the secret contained in the words.
Ding Ning covered his lips with his hand. He was holding a thick piece of cotton cloth in his hand. When the cotton cloth came into contact with his lips and nose, blood spurted out of his mouth.
His breathing was irregular. Blood continued to come out of his mouth and nose, but were all caught by this cotton cloth. Blood froze this cotton cloth, and no drop of blood landed on the ground in front of him.
His vision was slightly out of focus. He felt like knives were cutting his lungs each time he breathed, and these little knives were covered in needles that went deep into his chest bones.
But he was very happy. He laughed as he vomited blood.
“Bai Shanshui’s sword essence … all of Zhangsun Qianxue’s power, and waiting for so many years to kill you now, could you not have died?”
He looked with unusual contentment at Liang Lian’s corpse. Then he breathed deeply and started to run.
He sprinted towards the edge of the snowstorm. There was a watering pond for horses there.
The water there had completely disappeared, leaving behind a passage to the underground rivers.
The carriage sprinted towards the Changling suburbs.
Zhangsun Qianxue’s eyes were slightly closed as she leaned back against the cushioned seat. In that short moment, she had forced out all the power of her body. So right now, she was no different from any ordinary person.
But her cultivation realm was still present. Her senses were still more powerful than most cultivators in Changling.
Suddenly, she opened her eyes and looked up. Even though her gaze was obscured by the roof of the carriage, her beautiful face was filled with anger instantly.
A streak of flowing flame appeared in the high sky. A pale white starfire was falling down from space.
“This has nothing to do with you. Zheng Xiu’s blow is because of me, and not you,” The carriage driver turned and said softly to her.
Then this small and short carriage driver flew off the carriage and flashed towards the top of a mountain at the side.
The carriage continued to sprint on the path. Soon, a carriage driver flashed out of the woodlands and landed on the front.
Zhangsun Qianxue’s anger did not fade from her face, but when she sensed the direction of the starfire, she completely understood why Ding Ning told her to not leave behind any vital energy at all.
When she lost all presence, the empress returning to the palace could not sense her existence.
“You understand her too well!”
But the moment after she understood, her fury grew. Her fury appeared innocent on her face like she was a pure girl who did not know about the world.
The small and short carriage driver reached the top of a nearby mountain.
The mountain was not tall but had many trees.
When the carriage driver started to reveal their presence at the peak, all of the trees started to turn red and then ignited.
The carriage driver looked up at the sky.
The pale starfire in the sky was visible to the eye as it fell down towards the mountain.
All of the flames on the trees were like this carriage driver, giving off an unyielding and determined air.
The entire mountain became a furnace, a burning furnace hard to describe.
The flames left the burying trees.
These trees burned, their trunks turned to black charcoal, and then quickly turned red before becoming white dust. However, all the flames were pulled away to gather at the top of the mountain, forming a sword of fire. Alongside the wild fighting spirit the carriage driver gave off, the sword of fire faced the pale white flames from the sky.
Boom! The sky thundered again.
Previously, the flames burning on the mountain and the narrow pale white starfire falling from the sky were too distant and small to Changling. But when the thunder sounded in the sky, everyone in Changling saw the two exploding flames in the sky above the suburbs.
One was pale white, spreading upwards like a holy white lotus. The other was fire red, burning like a furnace of liquid metal.
Many Changling cultivators had an unpleasant expression when they saw the distant red flames. They knew cultivators from only one place could produce such sword essence.
On the mountain, the short and small carriage driver’s hair flew in the wind. The fire reflecting in the sky turned her hair red.
The ground around her was in ashes, yet her eyes were full of pride. She felt like a phoenix reborn from the ashes.
In Changling, the empress did not look up at the sound of thunder from her phoenix carriage. But the coldness in her eyes grew stronger like another layer of frost.
After many years, she finally sensed true shocked anger again.
Palace Attendant Rong had died.
Xu Fenqin had died.
In her perception, Liang Lian in the snowstorm should be dead as well.
Thes people who had once worked for her all died within the span of a day. Zhao Si, one she had once defeated, managed to deflect one of her swords … but this was not just all she was angered by.
The eldest miss of the Gongsun Family, Bai Shanshui of Cloud Water Palace, and Zhao Sword Furnace … she was shocked and angered that these people seemed to have been pinched together by a pair of invisible hands.
She felt this somewhat familiar. She sensed that that person was still existing. She had been the one who controlled Changling like she was the mandate of heaven all these years. After making the decision back then, that person was an unrememberable memory. All of the sweetness had turned into humiliation after that night of submission when she made her decision.
Now, Palace Attendant Rong was dead. That person was also dead. There was no one who knew about that night.
But did that middle-aged tea master know?
Who had pieced together the bone characters?
Her body did not change. But the phoenix carriage started to tremble.
High in the air, sparks of starfire started to float about disorderly.
At the sound of thunder in the sky, Jing Liuli, who had been deep in thought outside the clinic, suddenly looked up.
She saw the two balls of flame in the sky and her breathing stopped again in shock. She knew that something else important was happening in the distance. And in this instant, like an epiphany, she realized what was wrong.
She had seen the changes in the black ice worm. That black ice worm would be able to give Ding Ning great assistance. Yet in the battle against Palace Attendant Rong, she had not seen him use the black ice worm.
Based on her understanding of Ding Ning, he could not make any mistakes, and neglect anything he could use.
Without any hesitation and before Ye Zhengnan could see the changes in her expression, she disappeared down the gates of the clinic.
She entered the clinic, and passed through two courtyards at her fastest speed to reach the room with the strongest scent of medicine.
As the person inside gave off a furious shout, her hand landed on the door to the room, and the door naturally opened.
Seeing the scene inside, she suddenly stilled.
The bed was covered in blood and Ding Ning was unconscious.
One healer looked angrily at her with a burning gaze.
Jing Liuli was silent for a moment, and then gave a minute nod of apology before closing the door.
