Chapter 935: It's My Fault

Sai Fei Er's mind raced, and a smile still lingered on the face.

She put the Mask back on the stall, brushed off nonexistent dust from the hand, and said in a very natural tone, "Ah, isn't that a special case? The Star Chariot's explosion is beyond my control. Not coming back now? Come on, come on, there's still half a street left to stroll, and if I don't shop you to exhaustion tonight, I won't be Bai!"

Sai Fei Er kept moving forward, steps light, the fox tail swaying freely.

But the Fox Ears, hidden beneath the hair, were quietly pressed back half an inch.

Jing Liu followed, footsteps so light they were almost inaudible.

Sai Fei Er knew the other was right behind without turning, for the closer they were, the colder the air, and the breath turned into a faint white mist.

Now that chill lay at the back of the neck, about an arm's length away.

The distance was subtle.

Too close.

An arm's length for Jing Liu already fell within the realm of "intimate contact."

"What are you thinking?"

Jing Liu's voice came from behind, light and floating, like a flake of snow landing on the back of the neck.

"Thinking about what? Wondering if that grilled fish stall ahead is still open; the scent was especially fragrant when we passed earlier."

Sai Fei Er answered without turning, the relaxed tone hitting the perfect balance of "natural."

"I say."

Jing Liu's voice remained an arm's length behind, no tonal shift, "You used to walk on the left side. The left ear hears more clearly. Now you walk on the right."

Sai Fei Er's steps subtly slowed by roughly less than 0.1 seconds.

She lowered the head to glance at the current position, indeed on Jing Liu's right.

That detail existed in Bai Hang's records, but Sai Fei Er had casually stood on the right when choosing a spot, because the right streetlight was brighter, the view clearer, making it easier to manage expressions in Jing Liu's blind spot.

She hadn't expected Jing Liu to notice this.

"Oh, let's switch sides, walking the same side all the time gets boring."

Sai Fei Er said in a natural tone, while silently adding an exclamation point to Jing Liu's observational skill in the mind.

She decided to tweak the strategy a bit.

When passing the next few stalls, she deliberately slowed the rhythm by half a beat, consciously reducing some body language; Bai Hang liked to express with the whole body, gesturing constantly, but Sai Fei Er feared that some earlier motion's amplitude hadn't been controlled, exposing a flaw.

She began to rely more on Bai Hang's voice and expressions, cutting down gesture frequency, focusing the emphasis on dialogue.

But Jing Liu seemed completely indifferent.

She began to speak to herself, still in that thin, transparent tone, yet the content grew increasingly specific. She said that after that year, she gathered all the things Bai Hang had left in the barracks, placed them in a box, stored the box in the attic of her residence, and each plum‑rain season she would take it out to dry, fearing insects.

She said that whenever she passed that old shop, she would go in and sit for a while, not order the lamb hotpot, only a pot of tea, and leave once the tea cooled.

She said she sometimes wondered, if that day she had arrived half a step earlier, just half a step earlier, would the Star Chariot not have exploded.

"Bai Hang's death is my fault."

When Jing Liu uttered that, they were standing on a stone bridge.

The night wind blew.

Sai Fei Er's elbow rested on the bridge railing, maintaining the relaxed posture Bai Hang habitually used, the fox tail hanging behind and swaying gently.

But the pupils narrowed slightly.

That sentence wasn't in the records.

It was Jing Liu's own inner monologue, something Bai Hang had never heard while alive, so naturally it wasn't in any memory data.

The 95% complete Bai Hang memory in Sai Fei Er's mind flashed a huge blank page at that moment, with no preset lines to respond, no ready memory to draw upon!

She turned her head toward Jing Liu.

Jing Liu stood beside the bridge railing, white hair drifting in the night wind like a quiet frost.

The black Eye Mask covered the eyes, hiding the gaze, but the lips were slightly open, as if weighing how to utter the next word.

"At that time—"

Sai Fei Er opened the mouth, intending to fill the void with a Bai Hang‑style consolation, but Jing Liu wasn't conversing.

She only needed a listener that resembled Bai Hang.

Jing Liu didn't wait for Sai Fei Er's reply, and kept speaking.

The tone was flat, like reciting an ancient dossier, yet the content was anything but flat.

She said that in the years after Bai Hang's death, she killed Abundance to the point of becoming demonic; the blood on her sword froze into ice, melted, and refroze. Each sword swing made her feel a step closer to Bai Hang, because Bai Hang died for killing Abundance, so the more she killed, the nearer she got. She even began to thank the demonic shadow body, for it stopped her from dreaming; Bai Hang would no longer appear in her dreams, her Star Chariot would not explode in her dreams, and she would no longer wake at midnight reaching for the neighboring stall only to feel a cold hand.

"But now you have returned."

Jing Liu said, turning the head slowly toward Sai Fei Er, the silver crescent pattern on the black Eye Mask flashing in the Nihong lights, "Bai Hang. You have returned."

A chill surged up Sai Fei Er's back, as if someone dragged an Ice Cone along the spine from the tailbone to the back of the head.

No!

"You have returned."

Jing Liu repeated, this time the voice lower, almost muttering to herself, "This time... don't go again."

Then she extended a hand, grasping the hand Sai Fei Er had placed on the stone bridge railing.

Jing Liu's hand was icy.

Unexpectedly icy.

It was obsession solidified!

A voice in Sai Fei Er's mind shouted loudly—Run!

Run quickly!

Run now!

Yet a smile still hung on the face, and the voice even carried a hint of amusement.

"Ah, I have to say, why are you being so cheesy today?"

She used her other hand to pat Jing Liu's back of the hand, the gesture intimate and natural, the warmth of her palm passing through Jing Liu's skin; she hoped this warmth would make Jing Liu a bit more normal. "What, you keep saying you won't go, you won't go, I'm not coming back here, let's go, let's keep strolling, there's still half a street left to walk, standing on the bridge blowing wind is so boring—"

Jing Liu didn't let go.

Sai Fei Er also didn't forcibly pull her hand away, because she knew best when to apply force and when to ease off.

Pulling away now would be tantamount to confessing without a fight.

So she let Jing Liu keep holding on, even though she said she was already shivering a bit from the cold.

Immediately after, Jing Liu kept walking forward, hand in hand, like a pair of ordinary friends strolling through a night market.

But Sai Fei Er keenly noticed a detail that made the back of her head tingle: Jing Liu's steps began to drift away from her rhythm.

When they were shopping before, Jing Liu always followed her steps—when she sped up, Jing Liu sped up; when she slowed, Jing Liu slowed; when she stopped to look at a stall, Jing Liu quietly waited beside her.

Now it's different.

Jing Liu is leading the way, completely unaffected by Sai Fei Er's changes.

Sai Fei Er tried to slow down half a step, but Jing Liu didn't follow; her hand was tugged forward half an inch, the pull light but firm.

Jing Liu is taking her somewhere.

"Where are we going?"

Sai Fei Er asked, her voice tinged with just the right amount of curiosity.

But there was no answer.

Jing Liu kept walking forward, crossing the stone bridge and turning into a relatively secluded side street.

This street was considerably quieter than the main street, with closed shops on both sides and wooden crates piled in the corners of the walls.

There were few people on the street; occasional one or two pedestrians passed by, hurrying.

Sai Fei Er's sense of danger spiked to its peak when Jing Liu turned into this street.

She quickly scanned left and right; at the side‑street entrance two streetlights were out, ahead at the fork a half‑person‑high pile of discarded wooden crates, and on the right‑hand wall several fresh sword marks!

Wait! Sword marks!

She recognized those sword marks.

Sai Fei Er suddenly realized a fact that made her hair stand on end: this was the very street she had fled through earlier while disguised as Bai Hang, being chased by the Blade!