Chapter One Hundred and Three: Slay Xie Yingying

“Oh? You do not often speak with Yingying?” Huo Tianqing asked, a trace of delight flickering in his eyes, though it was hidden so deeply that Ning Qingqing never noticed it.

“Yes!” Ning Qingqing nodded repeatedly, wiping at her tears as she choked out, “Because the Young Emperor likes me. He always tells me that he has no choice but to marry Xie Yingying…”

“No choice?” Huo Tianqing lifted a brow slightly. “What kind of choice?”

“I do not know the details,” Ning Qingqing said, trembling all over. When she looked up at Huo Tianqing, she seemed like a pitiful little deer.

Then, as if something in her suddenly broke, she cried out in a乱 and tearful voice, “Are you Yingying’s elder? Please… please do not let them marry, all right? I love Shengyun—can you give Shengyun back to me…”

The two disciples holding her were startled by her fierce outburst. They swallowed hard, pity unconsciously surfacing on their faces, and in their hearts they cursed: Bai Shengyun truly is a heartless scoundrel!

But Huo Tianqing’s expression never changed from beginning to end. Only the depths of his gaze carried a great deal of scrutiny.

Seeing this, Ning Qingqing cried even harder. Her sobs even infected the gatekeepers outside, who could not help but peer in curiously.

Yet Huo Tianqing still showed no reaction at all, unmoved by the intensity of her grief.

Seeing that she would not stop crying, hiccuping as she sobbed, Huo Tianqing actually began to feel annoyed. After sweeping her with a look of disgust, he rose and left the palace with his hands behind his back.

Ning Qingqing, seeing that he had not been moved, bit her lip in anger.

After Huo Tianqing left, the other disciples also departed. The disciple who had first scolded Ning Qingqing even helped her to her feet before leaving.

Ning Qingqing inclined her head slightly and said, “Thank you.”

On the other side, after Huo Tianqing had put some distance between himself and the palace, he thought of Ning Qingqing’s tear-streaked face and gave a cold laugh.

He truly could not tolerate such a woman, and so had never thought highly of her.

If not for the current tension between the two sects, and if his people had not told him that she was the most beautiful woman in the immortal sect, with many powerful cultivators chasing after her, he would have wanted to cut off Ning Qingqing’s head on the spot with a single sword strike.

Still, he had taken some of Ning Qingqing’s words to heart.

If what she said was true, then Bai Shengyun’s plan to bring Xie Yingying back to Gufeng Mountain was probably driven by ulterior motives.

At that thought, his eyes narrowed slightly, and he immediately strode back toward his own palace.

Huo Tianqing’s palace was dark and eerie. No one usually set foot inside, and everyone found it frightening.

As a result, Huo Tianqing did not need guards. He simply set up a formation, sparing himself the trouble of those guards interrupting his work.

He walked all the way to the rear of the sleeping chambers. As he passed, the space around him rippled faintly like the surface of water.

Once the ripple faded, Huo Tianqing stepped effortlessly through the restriction, and before him lay yellow sand and barren earth. In the midst of that wasteland stood something resembling an altar.

Around the altar were countless mysterious symbols formed from thin red bloodlines, each one interlocking with the next, making the scene all the more uncanny.

He stepped inside, and those bloodlines actually writhed like vermilion worms, coiling up his leg and then crawling from his leg to the palm of his hand.

Huo Tianqing did not even blink. He treated the blood worms as though they did not exist, then extended a finger from his other hand and lightly drew it across his palm.

As he did so, spiritual light glimmered faintly at his fingertip, like a razor-sharp blade. It effortlessly cut a long, deep gash across his palm.

The flesh split open, and the blood worms obediently gathered around the edge of the wound. The instant they saw blood welling up, they all surged forward as if trying to suck it dry.

However, Huo Tianqing’s blood was not actually swallowed by these blood worms, whose essence was nothing more than red patterns. Instead, it dripped one drop after another into the center of the altar.

At once, the altar and the other bloodlines on the ground blazed with light. The blood worms on his palm also fluttered and sank to the floor, almost strangely beautiful in that moment.

Then from within the altar came a hoarse voice: “Elder Huo.”

“I need you to investigate everything about Bai Shengyun and Yingying on Gufeng Mountain.”

Upon hearing this, the other side seemed to recall that Gufeng Mountain had not yet withdrawn from the world, and that finding out anything would be exceedingly easy. So the reply came quickly: “Very well. This time, I will need ten top-grade spirit stones.”

Huo Tianqing lifted a brow. “What do you need them for?”

When the hoarse voice answered, it seemed to carry a hint of amusement. “For gifts.”

“All right.” Huo Tianqing did not ask further and answered at once.

After he finished speaking, the altar’s light gradually dimmed. On the ground, those blood worms also seemed to lose all vitality in an instant, darkening with the light until they became nothing more than ordinary, dull red patterns.

Then Huo Tianqing turned and left. As he stepped out, the space around him rippled gently once more, and everything behind him vanished in an instant.

He returned to the sleeping chambers and sat cross-legged on the mat. In front of him were several high-grade magical artifacts. Flames burned atop the candles on the shelf, and a censer on the desk sent out wisps of blue smoke. A faint fragrance drifted into his nose, making his mind even clearer.

Huo Tianqing maintained that posture for a full two days and one night. When he opened his eyes again, it was already dawn on the third day.

A tiny red dot flickered on his wrist. He covered it lightly, then brought two fingers together and brushed across it. The flickering red point vanished at once.

Huo Tianqing stood and once again walked toward the back courtyard with his hands behind his back.

This time, even before he arrived, the altar was already glowing with a faint light.

This time, Huo Tianqing did not shed blood. He simply placed his hand lightly against the side of the vessel and tapped it once. The hoarse voice soon sounded again.

“You have arrived at just the right moment.”

“You were simply quick in your work,” Huo Tianqing said with a raised brow, offering the praise.

“On the very night you told me, I slipped into Gufeng Mountain and cast spells on several people,” the voice replied, still hoarse, though with more playfulness than the day before. “They said Bai Shengyun often went to find Xie Yingying, but nearly every time he left her badly injured. A few times, he almost killed her in the room.”

When Huo Tianqing heard this, killing intent surged skyward in his eyes, and his voice turned icy and grim. “Anything else?”

“Yes.” The hoarse voice spoke slowly again. “After I had investigated for a long while and was about to leave Gufeng Mountain, I saw several elders secretly training dead soldiers. Their task was to infiltrate the demonic sect and deal with Bai Shengyun and Xie Yingying. I also overheard their conversation. They said they would bring down heavenly punishment and electrocute your obedient disciple to death, because Xie Yingying is a stain upon their Heavenly Fox clan.”

At this, the veins on Huo Tianqing’s hand, resting against the altar’s edge, bulged violently, and his fingers turned deathly pale.

Word by word, he said coldly, “Who wants to kill her?”