Chapter 60: Gu Xiyan Thinks All Is Lost

“Wait!”

The green fire in Gu Xiyan’s throat suddenly froze half an inch away.
The sparks illuminated her fair collarbone under her collar.

Bai Ling suddenly rushed out, so fast that she almost crashed into the medicine cabinet.

“What? You know her?”
Guan Qing’s pipe spun lightly.
The green fire retracted into the jade pipe bowl, bringing with it a smell of burnt flesh.

She leaned against the purple sandalwood medicine cabinet, the hem of her cheongsam sweeping across the scattered book scrolls on the floor.

“I…”
The girl swallowed, not knowing how to explain.

The bitter scent of angelica from the medicine cabinet suddenly became pungent.
In the morning light shining through the old window lattice, the fine beads of sweat on the girl’s nose could be clearly seen.

She couldn’t say in front of Gu Xiyan that she knew Gu Xiyan.
Wouldn’t the Demon Suppression Division find out sooner or later that she was a snake demon?

Actually, it wasn’t a big deal if the Demon Suppression Division found out.
At worst, she could just avoid the Demon Suppression Division in the future.

The main thing was that Xu Zhi couldn’t find out.

But she couldn’t just watch Gu Xiyan be killed by Guan Qing.

‘Why is your body always faster than your brain, Bai Ling! You rushed out before you even thought of an explanation.’

“Hmm?”
Guan Qing nonchalantly flicked off the ashes of her cigarette, and a few sparks fell on the scattered tips of Gu Xiyan’s hair.
“Doctor Su, you can go and get busy first.
This is my family matter.”

Su Xuanhu looked at the girl, then at Gu Xiyan, and then bowed to Guan Qing.
“Then I will take my leave.
Mistress, this is a medical hall.
I can’t see blood.
I hope you will be considerate.”

She carried the medicine jar and left the room.
Her stooped back just happened to block the sophora tree in the courtyard outside the door.
The old woman’s turbid sigh mixed with the sound of pounding medicine.
“What a sin…”

“A demon spy from the Demon Suppression Division…”
Guan Qing suddenly used her pipe to lift Gu Xiyan’s chin.
The firelight illuminated the unhealed, winding scar on the girl’s collarbone.
“It’s one thing to infiltrate the demon market, but you even dared to follow me…”

Before she could finish, the girl suddenly kicked Gu Xiyan in the back of the knee with such force that her own high heel flew off.

“She saved me last night!”
The girl’s voice was frighteningly sharp.
She stared at the bleeding bandage on the back of Gu Xiyan’s neck.
The Panax notoginseng powder in the medicine roller was swept up by the crosswind, making her eyes red.

“You won’t talk about what happened here, right?!”

‘Didn’t you save me?’

Gu Xiyan was stunned.
‘What’s going on?’

‘Twice!’

‘Last night at the riverside, it was possible that she didn’t know she was a member of the Demon Suppression Division.
What about now?’

‘The Demon Suppression Division is at odds with you demons, right?’

But while Gu Xiyan was stunned, the girl kicked her twice again.

‘Speak! Say you won’t talk!’

That was what the girl’s eyes meant.

“Really?”
Guan Qing suddenly withdrew her pressure, her gaze shifting back and forth between the two girls’ faces.
“Forget it.
You handle this yourself.
Don’t come to me to clean up your mess if you screw up.”

She turned and walked towards the door, her heels crushing the falling sophora flowers.
“You deal with that zombie.
Remember, do it before the Demon Suppression Division.”

When the room door creaked shut, the girl stumbled and sat down by the basket of medicinal dregs.
Her palm had been pinched into a crescent-shaped blood mark at some point.
Mixed with the blood drops from Gu Xiyan’s cuffs, it left a dark red pattern on the blue bricks.

“What are you doing here? Don’t you want to live?”

she hissed, her trailing voice trembling.

“Ice Pop Girl, why did you save me?”
Gu Xiyan suddenly grabbed the girl’s wrist.

“You’re still calling me Ice Pop Girl? I saved your life! Twice!”

“What on earth do you want to do?”

“I just want to live a good life.
Why are there so many whys?!”

“Thank you…”
Gu Xiyan’s voice was as soft as a mosquito.

“What did you say? Ah, forget it.
You can go.
Don’t come to the demon market again.
If you get caught again, I might not be able to protect you.”

The sophora flowers in the backyard rustled as they fell.

Guan Qing leaned against the carved doorframe and couldn’t help but let out a light laugh.
A sophora flower petal fell and just happened to land in her pipe bowl.

She had never intended to kill Gu Xiyan from the beginning.
Anyone in this demon market could kill Gu Xiyan, but she couldn’t, because she was the master of the demon market, and her every word and action represented the attitude of the demon market.

Killing Gu Xiyan meant that the demon market would go to war with the Demon Suppression Division.
She couldn’t do such a thing.

The reason she had shown such an attitude was simply to use this matter to have Bai Ling owe the other person a favor.
At that time, if Bai Ling’s identity was exposed in front of the Demon Suppression Division, there would still be someone to cover for her.

Hearing the girl’s grumbling in the room, she felt that this day was not far away.

“I hope you can really do it…”
She flicked the flower petal in her pipe.
The moment the flower petal landed, the person had already disappeared.

The sound of tactical boots hitting the metal floor exploded in the corridor.
When Xu Zhi burst through the explosion-proof door of the analysis room, Zhou Xuan was looking up from the encirclement of three screens.

The piercing sound made the energy drink can shake a few times.

“What’s the situation?”

“Boss!”
Zhou Xuan handed a tablet to Xu Zhi.
His face, with dark circles under his eyes, was deathly pale in the blue light of the tablet.
“This is the comparison result.
Take a look…”

Xu Zhi looked at the image on the tablet and couldn’t help but suck in a breath of cold air.
“Are you sure there’s no mistake?”

“The Hetu module has compared it ninety thousand times.
The result can’t be wrong.
This matter is very strange…”

The image showed the comparison result of the nine sword marks and the sword marks in a yellowed photo.
The match rate was as high as 99.3%.

“And this.”
Zhou Xuan opened an old, watermarked archive scan.
The pixelated paragraph still had the electronic signature of the previous leader.

The old photo in the comparison was from this archive.

“Nine Heavens Sword Marks?”
Xu Zhi narrowed his eyes, looking at the words on the archive.
This archive was an evaluation report from decades ago, and the object of the evaluation was Ming Yun.

“Yes, Nine Heavens Sword Marks.”
Zhou Xuan said,
“Ming Yun’s secret.”

“Why can that zombie use the Nine Heavens Sword Marks?”

‘Could it be that the zombie is related to Ming Yun?’

“In this world, only Ming Yun can use this set of sword marks.
But, I found this…”
Zhou Xuan waved the archive bag in his hand.
“Ming Yun once had a disciple.”

“But her disciple was confirmed to have died in the Fengdu incident 27 years ago.”

Xu Zhi opened the archive.
Unlike the previous highly confidential archive, which was mostly blacked out, this archive was very simple.
Just a few photos, identity information, and…

“He was only 18 when he died, about the same age as you.”

“The day before he died, he had just received this.”

Xu Zhi pushed aside the photo in the archive bag, revealing a yellowed Tianque University admission letter.
The ink of the fountain pen had long since peeled off with time.

“This poor guy didn’t even get to experience a single day of university life…”

That was a university student from 27 years ago.
The value was much higher than that of university students now.

Xu Zhi slowly caressed the photo in the archive.
The big boy, who was the same age as him, was grinning in a world of black and white, as sunny and cheerful as him.

“Feng Yi…”
He slowly read the big boy’s name.