Chapter 51: 50. Miss, Tonight I Take You to Kill and Burn (Please Follow and Read!)

50. Miss, tonight I'll take you to kill and burn (please follow and read!)

Beyond the papered window, the daylight shifted and changed.

From weak to strong, then from flourishing to fading.

A long day passed just like that.

No one came to bring Bai Xiue her two meals; her mother, once so gentle and sweet-tongued, was now nowhere to be seen.

Bai Xiue sat with her head lowered, sewing that beast-garment. She was skilled at needlework—even without a measuring tape, having only sized up Zhou Chang's build with her eyes earlier, the beast-garment now nearly finished in her hands fit his frame perfectly.

She would sew for a while, then lift her head to glance out the window.

On the papered window, the rosy glow of evening clouds had already begun to spread; night was about to fall again.

"This is the one hundred and twenty-third time you've looked out the window—what are you still hoping for?" Bai Ma said coldly. "Don't wait. What was never there to begin with won't come no matter how much you hope."

Bai Xiue said nothing, lowered her lashes, and went on sewing.

On her eyelashes, a few teardrops hung silently, without a sound.

By the time she looked out the window for the one hundred and forty-seventh time, the world outside had turned pitch black.

From outside came the sound of deliberately lowered footsteps.

"Xiue... Xiue..."

Her father's faint call drifted in through the crack of the door.

Along with that low call, the person outside undid the chain and pushed the door open.

Bai Xiue stood at the doorway, looking at her father outside.

There was a bruise on her father's temple; when he stood, one shoulder was higher than the other.

He noticed Xiue's gaze on his temple and quickly raised a hand to cover it, but the crooked, crippled leg beneath his clothes could not be hidden no matter what.

"When I went back to chop firewood, I took a bad fall." Her father explained awkwardly to Bai Xiue, then carefully glanced behind him—the courtyard was pitch black, no other figure in sight.

"Xiue, here."

The man handed Bai Xiue something wrapped in a dirty cloth: "The dry flatbread you like—take it to eat on the road.

While you can, Xiue, hurry and go."

In just a few words, he made Bai Xiue's eyes go red.

Bai Xiue looked at his wounded leg—bloody and mottled, impossible to hide beneath his clothes—and tears streamed down her face: "Papa, your leg... what happened? Who hurt you?"

"Papa's fine, good girl, papa's fine." The man hurriedly tried to wipe his daughter's tears, but when he raised his sleeve and saw it too was stained with dust and mud, he dropped his arm at once, took Bai Xiue by the hand, and started walking her outside. "My little one, if you're well, papa's well.

Hurry and go—never come back!"

Bai Xiue pressed her lips together, tears falling like beads.

She knew full well she absolutely could not leave now—if she left and the Wen family couldn't find her, they would surely join forces with the capital Bai clan to bring pressure to bear.

When that happened, the one to suffer would be her father.

But with her father gripping her arm, she still obeyed him and walked forward for a stretch.

Just as they were about to leave the courtyard, another figure burst out from the darkness: "Xiue!"

Mother Bai's face emerged from the darkness. She looked at Father Bai dragging Bai Xiue outside, her eyes rimmed red: "Have menfolk stopped trusting me entirely? Would I really cast aside the flesh of my own body without a care?

All those shameless things I did before—I was forced into them by the capital Bai clan.

—When the wind blows over the whole Bai family graveyard, when it rains, it's all decided by the capital Bai clan. I had no way out!

I told you to wait for me a moment, to let me arrange things—you were in such a rush, afraid of ruining the plan!

Forget it, forget it... things have already come to this.

Xiue, let's go quickly.

Our whole family, let's go now—if we can't escape this village, our family will jump off a cliff and dash ourselves to pieces before we ever come back!"

Mother Bai poured out these sorrowful words, and even Father Bai was moved.

Xiue beside them had already cried herself into a tearful mess.

She had never imagined things would be like this—both father and mother cherished her so deeply in their hearts; she didn't want them to suffer the slightest harm because of her!

"Let's go...

The three of us, together!"

Father Bai finally made up his mind; the look he gave Mother Bai had softened considerably.

Mother Bai wiped the tears from her face, took Bai Xiue's other arm, and the three of them hurried forward through the darkness.

Until they reached the village entrance—

Father Bai, still holding Bai Xiue, kept his head down and walked on.

Bai Xiue had already slowly come to a stop.

She felt that walking this far was enough.

All the regrets and heartaches of her life were made up for and satisfied on this path of several hundred steps from her home to the village entrance.

Parents who loved her, a harmonious family.

At this moment she was truly the most blessed person under heaven.

Xiue tugged her father to a halt, and Mother Bai beside her stopped along with her.

Her mother's hand was still gripping her wrist tightly, hard enough to make her wrist ache a little.

She turned to look at her mother, wanting to tell her that from now on she need never worry about her again.

As a child, she had, in this moment, done her filial duty to her parents.

But before the words in her throat could leave her lips, Mother Bai had already raised that face of considerable charm and looked steadily at her.

Her mother's expression was gentle: "Xiue, your mother must wrong you..."

"Mother..."

Bai Xiue's lips trembled, and a chilling premonition suddenly arose in her heart—

Her mother still gripped her wrist tightly, but her gaze swept the surroundings as she shouted loudly, "What are you standing there for?!

Kill the ghost!"

"Splash!"

The moment Bai Mu's words fell, black figures suddenly emerged from the dark corners all around!

They held wooden basins, pouring the thick, blood-scented black liquid inside them all over Bai Xiue, whom Bai Mu had been holding tightly—Bai Xiue did not even think to resist; she just stared blankly at Bai Mu.

Watching Bai Mu release her wrist, watching her move away as if avoiding a plague, watching her stand beside the young man she claimed was her brother, turn her head, and look at her with a face full of hatred—

"Mother, Mother—don't go!"

"Don't go!"

She was clearly only a few steps away from Bai Xiue, yet Bai Xiue felt she was already thousands of miles distant!

Bai Xiue burst into wailing tears!

"My youngest daughter!"

"Don't hurt my daughter; she hasn't harmed you!"

The father's face streamed with tears; he spread his arms, futilely blocking in front of Bai Xiue, trying to stop the black dog blood pouring down from the sky, but to no avail.

Vast amounts of blood, red turning black, still drenched Bai Xiue's hair and clothes.

The father turned in panic, wanting to pull his daughter into his embrace.

He feared the black dog blood even more than Xiue did.

—He clearly remembered that his daughter had been hanged before the Bride's Pool.

A deep strangulation mark on his daughter's neck could not be faked.

His daughter had no breath left.

His daughter had been dead long ago!

What had returned now could only be his daughter's ghost!

Yet even if she was a ghost, he still wanted her to be alive!

"I think that old turtle son has gone mad!"

"He isn't even afraid of ghosts!"

"He still recognizes a ghost as his daughter!"

The voices and gazes of the people all around were like cold knives, stabbing Bai Xiue's heart until it was riddled with holes.

She clung to her father, her eyes pleading as she looked at the people gathering around with various tools and weapons; every villager from Bai Family Grave who drew near seemed to her to have turned into a ferocious, terrifying demon.

"Please, spare my father..." she murmured softly. Though transparent lotus holes were already appearing on her face, her appearance had become extremely eerie and terrifying in the eyes of others—yet the villagers of Bai Family Grave, seeing her face full of timid pleading, shrank back for an instant, then gathered closer with even more ferocious expressions!

Threads of lotus silk drifted out from her body, winding around the various weapons the surrounding villagers thrust at her.

Such an act only provoked an even fiercer counterattack from the villagers!

"As long as you are willing to let my father leave this place... I will submit to whatever you do to me, I will submit to whatever you do to me..."

Bai Xiue shouted to the surrounding crowd, her face streaked with tears.

Not a single person in the surroundings responded to her desperate pleas.

Only the father holding her lowered his blood-stained face; the filth and blood made every wrinkle on that face appear even deeper: "But daughter, father wants you to live..."

The father suddenly released her, spun around abruptly, and faced the gleaming spears and swords thrusting toward him from all sides!

"Father—"

Bai Xiue immediately cried out, and threads of lotus silk, following her cry, all wound around her father's form.

But at this moment, someone was faster than her.

That person, holding a sharp firewood knife, stepped out from the crowd, pressed down on Bai's father's shoulder, and rendered him unable to move.

The young man dressed in black clothes crossed the dense, spiderweb-like lotus silk surrounding them; he stepped forward one foot, and the lotus silk retreated three feet, all of it retracting back into Bai Xiue's body.

He walked up to Bai Xiue; the sharpened firewood knife in his hand hooked under her chin, forcing Bai Xiue to tilt her head back and meet his gaze.

Bai Xiue saw the man's pale face, and her shoulders began to tremble.

Tears streamed down from the corners of her eyes, washing away the bloodstains covering her face.

There was no emotion in that man's eyes; he frowned tightly as he stared at Bai Xiue and spoke coldly, "How can you be so weak?"

"When you hold a sharp blade, the intent to kill arises naturally."

"You clearly possess the means to kill them all; why hide it away?"

"If one holds a divine weapon but cannot use it to take lives, merely keeping it in storage, is that not a betrayal of the divine weapon's true purpose?"

"Come, come, stand up; don't kneel..."

With the firewood knife pressing against her chin, feeling the force of the blade, Bai Xiue slowly rose from the ground.

In her eyes, the pale-faced, slender man seemed wrapped in pitch-black, undilutable blood, having clearly become the most terrifying ghost in heaven and earth.

"Come..."

On Zhou Chang's calm and indifferent face, a burst of intense laughter suddenly appeared.

In one hand, he held the firewood knife snatched from the surrounding villagers, its tip slowly lowering; in the other hand, his iron prayer beads vibrated and flared, suddenly wrapping around an iron spear thrust at him, snapping off the spearhead, reversing its direction, and violently piercing through the spear-bearer's skull:

"Come... Miss Bai, tonight I will take you to kill and burn..."