t
Han Yunxi’s provoking statement made Bai Yanqing laugh out loud!
“This old man, afraid of you?” he grinned as he came closer.
Han Yunxi shielded Ning Jing behind her as she probed. “Where’s Long Feiye?”
“Lass, just how much do you like Long Feiye?” Bai Yanqing stopped to ask in earnest.
“That’s none of your business. Where is he? Just what do you want?” Faced with Bai Yanqing, Han Yunxi really wanted to calm down and probe him for intel, but it was impossible!
“Of course he’s perfectly fine. After all, he’s still my son-in-law, so how could I hurt him? Don’t you worry, I won’t touch a hair on his head,” Bai Yanqing looked full of goodwill.
Han Yunxi’s eyes flickered with a complicated expression as she fell silent. With an madman like Bai Yanqing to deal with, all her questions and probing would be useless. She even threatened to castrate him but he still held back and stayed hidden. Any more words would be a waste of time.
The only choice was to wait and see what he’d say instead.
Seeing her reaction, Bai Yanqing grew curious. “What, are you unhappy?”
Han Yunxi ignored her while continuing to protect Ning Jing. She silently dwelled on how to fight this man long enough to make a racket to attract the others.
In a maze like this, anyone besides an expert in Qimen Dunjia formations would be hard pressed to get their sense of direction right. Everything was designed to trick the senses. However, hearing and smell wouldn’t change. As long as she made a loud enough commotion to attract the others’ attention, Long Feiye’s group would have a chance to find her.
Unlike her past opponents, Bai Yanqing remained calm and shrewd. He didn’t volunteer much information just because Han Yunxi was ignoring him. Remaining mute, he approached her again with that kindly, yet threatening, face. Han Yunxi kept backing away until she finally pushed Ning Jing behind her and unsheathed her sword. Faced with Bai Yanqing’s undying body, any weapon was simply a futile effort. She had drawn her sword simply to lure Long Feiye and the rest here.
“Be careful. Don’t worry about me,” Ning Jing murmured.
“Mm.” So speaking, Han Yunxi leaped to the air with both hands on her sword. She gathered her strength and internal energy, combined it with her Phoenix power, and concentrated it all on her blade.
This was a sword she’d borrowed off a shadow guard, not some great treasure, and it almost couldn’t bear her strength. Fortunately, the sword didn’t snap but simply exploded with mighty sword qi. Gu Beiyue and Gu Qishao might not be able to sense it, but a swordsman like Long Feiye would definitely be able to tell if she was nearby.
Han Yunxi looked about to strike, but held steady. Bai Yanqing looked at her with amusement and chuckled. “Yunxi, if you lure your husband here and make father unhappy enough to kill him, don’t regret it!”
At that, Han Yunxi slashed down with her weapon. “You won’t! Bai Yanqing, do you think I don’t know what you’re up to? You only want to stop our dual cultivation and have me cross swords with him! I’m telling you now, I won’t raise my sword against Long Feiye even if I die!”
She didn’t know why Bai Yanqing was doing this, much less his true motives! But she was certain on this one point!
Bai Yanqing stood and took the full brunt of her attack. Although he was injured, it didn’t take his life. At the same time, Long Feiye had already picked up on the sword qi from their neck of the woods. Once Han Yunxi attacked, he knew her location.
“Right side, go!” he said coldly, too much in a hurry to bother with the other two. Since Han Yunxi was already attacking, she must have ran into Bai Yanqing!
Gu Beiyue caught up from behind and soon surpassed Long Feiye, but remained close in case the situation shifted. Still, he quickly stopped when he saw all the trees growing together in front of them with no crack in sight. This was a wall of pure trees!
Long Feiye had long noticed as well. He took to the skies, but no matter how high he flew in this maze, all he saw was the same wall of black! For now, he was calm enough to land back down and tell Gu Beiyue, “We’ll wait in place…”
“Understood, this subordinate will scope out a way!” Gu Beiyue said before Long Feiye finished. He vanished in a flash and used the quickest speed to head right, then left, but found no end to this wall! They knew this was simply an illusion of the matrix formation, but had no other choice but to comply as its victims.
What now?
“Let’s go!” Long Feiye said as he turned back. Once they were some distance from the wall from walking blindly, Long Feiye stopped in the middle of the woods to sense for the sword qi new. Immediately he declared, “It’s in front of us!”
As long as they moved, the matrix formation would shift as well, but the sword qi was a constant. They didn’t need to worry about directions as long as they kept tracing the sword qi to its source.
Yet once again, they reached an impasse when they hit another wall of trees. Long Feiye knew it was impossible to destroy the illusion, but couldn’t help drawing his sword and slashing it anyways. But it was all useless!
“Let’s go!” Once again, he left and headed off wildly in a direction direction. Gu Qishao and Gu Beiyue couldn’t think of any other solutions besides chasing after him. Like Long Feiye, they didn’t dare to stop and wait, because that would mean facing the reality. When had any of them ran away or escaped from a difficulty? Yet now they were afraid to accept the truth! Bai Yanqing’s goals were clear: he didn’t want to hurt them, but he did want Han Yunxi. Otherwise, he wouldn’t need to use Mu Yuanbo to lure Han Yunxi to Tianan to play hostage!
While Long Feiye’s group was frantically walking around, Bai Yanqing said to Han Yunxi with a worried face, “Lass, you really attacked me! This is patricide. Aren’t you afraid of being struck by Heavenly lightning in retribution?”
That’s right. Han Yunxi was doing her best, both to sound him out and drag out time. She still didn’t know how Lady Tianxin had really died, only that Bai Yanqing had spies in the Han estate. Although Lady Helian only entered the estate years after Lady Tianxin’s death, that didn’t mean Bai Yanqing didn’t know Lady Tianxin was there, or rule out his hand in her dystocia!
When Bai Yanqing heard Han Yunxi voice this accusation, his calm evaporated into rage. “I didn’t kill Mu Xin! I didn’t!”
Like a man possessed, he charged at Han Yunxi with overbearing fury and killing intent. Han Yunxi never expected to provoke him like this. Were there other secrets afoot? She naturally backed off while Bai Yanqing stopped chasing her to surprise attack Ning Jing. Han Yunxi rushed to block him by speeding in front of her while she exclaimed, “It was you who killed Mu Xin! It was you, but you’re still denying it!”
She was goading him to speak the truth while egging on Lil Thing! Lil Thing had been smashing itself against the walls of Bai Yanqing’s poison storage space this entire time. It was still impossible for them to communicate telepathically, but she could clearly sense its determination to escape and see her again. If her guesses were right, Lil Thing had already transformed into its white wolf form inside Bai Yanqing’s poison storage space. The more anxious it felt, the more agitated her emotions turned. At the same time, the feeling of imminent breakthrough was growing stronger and stronger.
Perhaps her gamble had been right.
Like last time at Celestial Mountain Sword Sect, Lil Thing could be the key to her level up.
Lil Thing, sorry. Mama Yunxi’s made you worry again. Han Yunxi apologized silently in her heart, but didn’t show any abnormalities in front of Bai Yanqing. As ever, she was “filled with indignation.” Stoked by her flames, Bai Yanqing reached out a hand with the intent to kill!
Heavens, so Mu Xin is Bai Yanqing’s Achilles’ heel! Han Yunxi was now even more curious to find out what had happened. Just what kind of enmity or affection did Mu Xin share with Bai Yanqing? Luckily, she dodged out of the way and pulled Ning Jing with her. They didn’t get far, but teetered on the edge between danger and safety.
“Why are you angry? Is it not true? My mother was the West Qin princess while you were the Wind Clan heir. The truth is, I’m not actually your daughter, am I? You came to claim kinship with me without measuring your own worth? Do you still have any shame?”
“You shut up!” Bai Yanqing lost all self-control.
This was exactly Han Yunxi’s aim. Unless she put herself in mortal danger, how was Lil Thing supposed to explode? Unless she forced Bai Yanqing to extremes, how was he supposed to tell her the truth?”
“Oh my!” Han Yunxi laughed coldly. “So you do have some pride! Feeling ashamed after I exposed you? Bai Yanqing, I--”
“If I’m not worthy, your father’s even less so!” Bai Yanqing interrupted.
That left Han Yunxi stunned. Although she’d always suspected whether Bai Yanqing was her birth father, hearing it from the man’s own mouth was still a shocker. Still, with it came pleasant surprise. She laughed out loud and said, “So you’re not my father...so you really weren’t!”
How lucky she was! A large rock seemed to have lifted off her chest, leaving her light and relaxed. She wish she could tell Long Feiye and the others the good news right away. This was the greatest success of Han Yunxi’s provocation career, but it led to her greatest defeat as well. After Bai Yanqing spoke those words, he immediately came to his senses. A chill covered his figure as he gazed at Han Yunxi with icy eyes. At last, he realized that he’d fallen into this lass’s pace and noticed the chaos breaking out in his poison storage space.
Sensing things were getting bad, Han Yunxi turned to flee, but Bai Yanqing just said, “Han Yunxi, take another step and this old man promises you’ll see Su Xiaoyu’s corpse!”