Chapter 51: 50. Young Lady, Tonight I

50. Young Lady, Tonight I’ll Take You to Kill and Burn

Outside the papered window, the light shifted.

From weak to strong, then from peak to decline.

A long day passed like this.

No one came to bring Bai Xiue her two meals; her mother, who had once spoken so gently, had vanished entirely.

Bai Xiue sewed the Hundred Beasts Robe, her needlework exquisite—even without a measuring tape, merely having observed Zhou Chang’s build earlier, the robe she now finished fit him perfectly.

She sewed for a while, then lifted her gaze to the window.

The papered window glowed with the crimson haze of twilight; night was coming again.

“This is your one hundred and twenty-third time looking out the window—what are you still hoping for?” Bai Ma spoke coldly. “Don’t wait. What doesn’t exist won’t come just because you wish for it.”

Bai Xiue said nothing, lowered her eyelids, and kept sewing.

Silent tears clung to her eyelashes.

When she lifted her gaze for the one hundred and forty-seventh time, the outside was pitch black.

Muffled footsteps sounded outside.

“Xiue… Xiue…”

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

With that whisper, the person outside unlocked the chain and pushed the door open.

Bai Xiue stood at the threshold, staring at her father outside.

A bruise marred his forehead; his shoulders slanted unevenly as he stood.

He noticed her gaze on his brow and quickly covered his forehead with his hand—but the twisted, crippled leg beneath his clothes could not be hidden.

“I slipped while chopping firewood,” he awkwardly explained to Bai Xiue, then cautiously glanced behind him—the courtyard was dark, empty of others.

“Xiue, here.”

The man handed her a dirty cloth-wrapped object: “Your favorite dried biscuit—take it for the road.”

“While you still can, Xiue, go now.”

In just a few words, he made her eyes well with tears.

Bai Xiue stared at his leg, bloodied and bare beneath his clothes, tears falling steadily: “Father, your leg… what happened? Who hurt you?”

“I’m fine, good girl, I’m fine,” the man hurried to wipe her tears, but when he raised his sleeve and saw the dirt and mud caked on it, he dropped his arm, grabbed Bai Xiue’s hand, and pulled her toward the door. “Little daughter, if you’re safe, I’m safe. Go now—never come back!”

Bai Xiue bit her lips, tears falling like beads.

She knew she couldn’t leave—without her, the Wen family would blame the Jing Bai clan, and her father would suffer.

That would be his punishment.

Yet despite this, she let her father pull her forward a few steps.

Just as they reached the courtyard gate, a shadow burst from the darkness: “Xiue!”

Bai’s mother’s face emerged from the dark; she stared at her husband dragging Bai Xiue away, her eyes red: “Do you no longer trust me? Do you truly believe I’d abandon my own flesh and blood?

Didn’t I do those shameful things because the Jing Bai clan forced me?

Every wind and rain that blew over the Bai Family Graveyard was decided by them—I had no choice!

I told you to wait, to let me arrange things—why were you so eager to ruin it?

Forget it, forget it… it’s already done.

Xiue, let’s go.

Let our whole family leave—if we can’t escape this village, we’ll all jump off the cliff and die rather than return!”

Bai’s mother spoke these words with such sorrow that even her husband was moved.

Bai Xiue, standing beside them, had already become a weeping mess.

She had never imagined things would be this way—both father and mother loved her so deeply, and she didn’t want them to suffer because of her!

She had never imagined things would turn out like this—her father and mother loved her so deeply, and she didn’t want them to suffer even a little because of her!

The three of us—leave together!”

Bai’s father finally made up his mind; his gaze toward his wife had softened.

Bai’s mother wiped her tears, took Bai Xiue’s other arm, and the three hurried forward into the dark.

Until they reached the village entrance—

Bai’s father still pulled Bai Xiue forward, head down.

Bai Xiue had slowly stopped walking.

She felt they had gone far enough.

All her life’s regrets and sorrows had been healed, fulfilled, in these few hundred steps from home to the village gate.

Parental love, family harmony.

At this moment, she was the luckiest person on earth.

Bai Xiue gripped her father’s arm; her mother beside her also halted.

Her mother’s hand still clenched her wrist tightly, making it ache slightly.

She turned to her mother, wanting to say she needn’t worry about her anymore.

A daughter had fulfilled her filial duty now.

But before the words could leave her throat, her mother lifted her elegant face and fixed her with a steady gaze.

Her mother’s expression was gentle: “Xiue, Mother must betray you…”

Her mother’s expression was gentle: “Xiue, Mother has failed you…”

Bai Xiue’s lips trembled; a cold premonition suddenly pierced her heart—

Her mother still held her wrist, but her eyes scanned the surroundings, then shouted: “What are you waiting for?!

Her mother still clutched her wrist, but turned her gaze around and shouted loudly: “What are you all standing there for?!

“Splash!”

No sooner had her mother spoken than shadowy figures erupted from every dark corner!

They carried wooden basins and hurled the thick, bloody liquid inside directly onto Bai Xiue—whom her mother still gripped tightly. Bai Xiue made no move to resist; she only stared, stunned, at her mother.

Watching her mother release her wrist, watching her recoil as if fleeing a plague, watching her stand beside the young man she called her brother, turn, and gaze at her with utter loathing—

Watching her white mother release her wrist, watching her recoil from her as if fleeing a plague, watching her stand beside the young man she called her brother, then turn her head and fix her with a face full of loathing—

“Don’t go!”

Though her mother stood only steps away, Bai Xiue felt she was already a thousand miles distant.

Bai Xiue screamed in agony.

“My little daughter!”

“Don’t hurt my daughter—she hasn’t harmed you!”

Her father wept bitterly, spreading his arms to shield Bai Xiue, futilely trying to block the torrent of black dog’s blood—but it was useless.

Large patches of dark red blood drenched her hair and clothes.

Her father turned frantically, reaching to pull her into his arms.

He feared the black dog’s blood more than she did.

—He remembered clearly: his daughter had hanged herself before the Bride’s Pond.

Her neck bore a deep, unmistakable mark.

She had no breath left.

She had been dead long ago.

What returned now could only be her ghost.

Yet even as a ghost, he wanted her to live.

“I see this old turtle’s gone mad!”

“He’s not even afraid of ghosts!”

“He still recognizes a ghost as his daughter!”

…

The voices and stares around her were like icy knives, piercing her heart with a thousand wounds.

She clung to her father, pleading with her eyes at the villagers who gathered with tools and weapons—each one now looked to her like a monstrous demon.

“Please, spare my father…” she whispered, her face already dotted with translucent lotus pores, her appearance grotesque and terrifying to others—yet the villagers, seeing her trembling, pitiful plea, shrank for an instant, then surged forward with even fiercer malice!

Threads of lotus root drifted from her body, wrapping around the weapons thrust toward her.

This only provoked even fiercer retaliation from the villagers.

“If you’ll let my father leave… I’ll let you do whatever you want—I’ll let you do whatever you want…”

Bai Xiue cried out to the crowd, tears streaming down her face.

No one answered her desperate pleas.

Only her father, holding her, lowered his blood-smeared face, the grime and gore deepening every wrinkle: “But daughter… I want you to live…”

Her father suddenly released her, turned abruptly, and charged toward the gleaming blades and spears surrounding him!

Her father suddenly released her, then whirled around to face the glittering blades and spears stabbing at him from all sides!

Bai Xiue screamed, and threads of lotus root surged with her cry, wrapping around her father’s form.

But someone moved faster than she did.

But at this moment, someone moved faster than she did.

The man, holding a sharp firewood axe, stepped forward from the crowd, seized Bai Fu’s shoulder, and rendered him immobile.

The young man in black garments crossed through the dense, spiderweb-like lotus threads around him; with each step forward a foot, the threads retreated three feet, all of them retracting back around Bai Xiue.

He walked up to Bai Xiue, the sharp edge of his firewood axe lifting her chin, forcing her to tilt her head up and meet his gaze.

Bai Xiue saw the man’s pallid face, and her shoulders trembled.

Tears streamed down from the corners of her eyes, washing through the blood caked on her face.

The man’s eyes held no emotion; he frowned sharply at Bai Xiue and spoke coldly: “How can you be so weak?”

“When you wield a sharp blade, killing intent arises naturally.”

“You clearly have the means to slaughter them all—why hide it?”

“If you hold a divine weapon yet refuse to use it to kill, merely storing it away, aren’t you betraying the weapon’s purpose?”

“Come, come, stand up—don’t kneel…”

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

In her eyes, the pale, gaunt man seemed wrapped in thick, unyielding pools of black blood, becoming the most terrifying horror in this world.

“Come…”

On Zhou Chang’s expressionless face, a sudden fierce smile appeared.

One hand held the firewood axe he had taken from the villagers, its tip slowly lowering; the other hand’s iron threads flared wildly, instantly wrapping around a spear thrust at him, snapping off its head, spinning it around, and driving it through the spearman’s skull:

“Come… Miss Bai, tonight I’ll take you to kill and burn…”