Chapter 86: The Snake’s Secret

Xu Zhi felt like he had dreamed. A very long dream. In it, a white snake had coiled around his body, and the feel of its tongue licking his skin still lingered in his nerves.

In the blurry memory, he also seemed to see a familiar face flushed red. The blush even climbed onto scales, red enough to drip blood.

Thinking carefully, wasn’t that face the snake demon? What had she done to him while he was unconscious?!

He sat on the pile of rubble as if all strength had left him. Sunset spilled amber gold over his cheeks. His fingers drifted to his neck without his control. The memory of cold, fine scales brushing his skin was still vivid.

For some reason, he felt terribly weak now. Maybe blood loss had made him anemic?

No, no, that wasn’t right.

Xu Zhi figured the snake demon must have taken advantage of the chaos to absorb his yang energy. Anemia alone wouldn’t leave him this weak, legs trembling.

But…

His gaze went to the broken sword lying beside him.

Surviving was really luck.

Around him, members of the External Affairs Bureau came and went, nursing headaches over the half-destroyed campus. Damage on this scale would be hard for even the External Affairs Bureau to cover up through normal means.

The injured demon-suppressing officials were carried onto medical carts. Logistics teams scrambled to clean up. Elder Qin, grief-stricken, held Zhu Ning, who barely breathed, and brought him back to headquarters for treatment. Full-body bone fractures plus large puncture wounds would be hopeless in any hospital, but in the Demon Suppression Bureau they weren’t considered severe.

It would just hurt. And from the look of him, his spirit had taken a heavy blow. No telling if he would recover.

Meanwhile Xu Zhi, barely hurt, only anemic and a little weak, had been dumped on this rubble pile. A young girl from the new medical team saw how weak he was and tossed him a bottle of glucose.

Was that kindness or just brushing him off?

A cold metallic touch suddenly climbed onto his head. The girl’s shadow passed through the rubble and covered his view.

“Great hero? I’ll treat you to a cola!” Bai Ling set a chilled can of cola on top of his head, then folded her legs and sat down, popping the tab with a hiss.

Who knew how she had found an intact vending machine in the half-destroyed campus.

The cold, sweet bubbly drink slid down his throat. The girl gave a satisfied shiver.

“I’m alive!”

She shouted at the sunset. Amber light cast their shadows into the puddles, like when they were children hiding under bridge piers, counting ripples.

In the past ten minutes, she had led the tiger and wolf demons away, sent them back to the demon market, then returned to human form and come back to the center of the battlefield.

Because this might be the last time she saw Xu Zhi as Bai Ling.

She had fully transformed in front of Gu Xiyan. By tonight, the entire Demon Suppression Bureau would likely know she was the snake demon that had been stirring up trouble in Lin’an.

She wondered what expression Xu Zhi would make. She hoped he wouldn’t be too sad.

Having your close childhood friend turn out to be the enemy sounded sad enough.

“Um, A-Lin…” Xu Zhi watched the girl take off her shoes and wiggle her toes in the sunset. He suddenly scratched his face.

This always sunny, cheerful big boy now stammered, and a suspicious red even rose on his cheeks.

“What is it?”

The girl looked back at him, as if seeing a flower bloom on his face.

“I think… I’m in love…”

“?!”

The girl’s expression shifted quickly to shock.

This guy had fallen in love?! With who? Lu Qingyu? Gu Xiyan?

Seeing the red on Xu Zhi’s face deepen, an ominous feeling rose in the girl’s heart.

“How should I put it?” Xu Zhi pressed the cola can to his cheek to cool down. “She’s saved me several times. I think she saved me this time too…”

The girl swallowed. The ominous feeling grew stronger.

“And it seems while I was unconscious, she gave me…”

The girl’s face turned red with a rush, red enough to bleed. There was even a faint ache between her legs.

I had no choice…

If not for that… you would have died…

Still, it hurt at first, but afterward it really was pretty good…

Her demon power had risen by a large amount.

And the result of that was, in demon form, she was crazier than usual, more ruthless…

But no matter what, she only did it because she didn’t want to see him die. It was a necessity!

“Right, right, right, that expression is exactly like hers!” Xu Zhi suddenly clapped. “But she’s a demon. In the end, we’ll still be enemies…”

When he said this, bitterness appeared on Xu Zhi’s face.

But the girl was completely different. Right now she wanted to hammer Xu Zhi to death.

I really regret not letting you die there!

Xu blind man, you’re really blind!

“Don’t give me that!” The girl suddenly shoved the half-drunk cola into his arms. An inexplicable shame and anger rushed to her brain. “You should just be called Xu Mumu!”

Luckily the girl’s shame did not last long. A furry touch suddenly brushed past her ear.

“Yahoo!” Gu Xiyan jumped between the two, her pair of fox ears twitching cheerfully.

Seeing this girl, Bai Ling broke into a cold sweat. She wouldn’t expose me now, would she?

I should be able to run, right?

The girl subtly sized up the busy Demon Suppression Bureau members around them and calculated. After doing that with Xu Zhi in the ruins, her demon power had risen a lot. More than half remained.

Fine. If she dares open her mouth, I dare go all out and run!

“What are you talking about?” Unexpectedly, Gu Xiyan only looked suspiciously at the two flushed people, as if fishing for gossip.

“No… nothing!” they both said.

“Oh…” Gu Xiyan suddenly burrowed into the girl’s arms, as if declaring ownership. “Wait until I finish my report! That notebook has to pass!”

Huh?

The girl finally realized. Gu Xiyan had not mentioned her at all. Had she lost her memory?

“Don’t worry. I’ll keep your secret.”

Gu Xiyan suddenly bit her ear.

“After all, you’re my stinky little brother!”

That’s good, that’s good. At least her human identity could stay hidden for a while…

But then the girl saw Xu Zhi’s bitter face.

Then what about this Xu Mumu who said he liked her demon form?!

****

“Pa!”

A black chess piece landed on the board. The force made the white pieces jump slightly.

The sky had suddenly cleared. Sunset slanted down, leaving amber spots on the board.

On the old-style eaves of an ancient alley in the north of the city, leftover rain from the storm fell like a curtain of beads. It struck the moss before the steps and shattered its reflection.

“I won again.” Xiao Mochen stroked his goatee. Behind his toad sunglasses, wrinkles at the corners of his eyes curved into a snicker.

On the board, the black pieces had gathered momentum, like a black blade falling, cutting off the white pieces’ life entirely.

“Did you really win?” Guan Qing placed a piece as if casually. But the moment it landed, a gap suddenly broke open in the black pieces surrounding the white: “In Go, you always move one step and think three ahead. If your skill is high enough, seeing seven steps ahead isn’t impossible.”

The white pieces, whose life had just been cut off, suddenly revived with this move. They seemed faintly about to gather momentum.

Xiao Mochen grabbed the milk tea cup beside the board and gulped. “All right, all right. Call it a draw?”

“After all these years, you still care so much about winning and losing.”

Compared with his senior sister, Xiao Mochen’s chess skill was not high. Even so, he could see that in at most three moves, the white pieces would form a white dragon.

By then, though the black blade had fallen, it could only cut off the white dragon’s tail tip.

He seemed to see the black blade and white dragon fighting on the board. No, in the sky.

But his bet with Guan Qing had ended in a draw. What he hadn’t expected was that the one who let poor Feng Yi sleep forever was neither Xu Zhi nor Bai Ling, but that girl Lu Qingyu.

“You sure are carefree as a master.” Guan Qing propped her chin and looked outside. Faint green smoke drifted from her pipe. The amber sunset stretched their shadows long across the wooden floor. “If my girl hadn’t been there, your disciple might have lost his life.”

“My disciple isn’t so easy to kill.” Xiao Mochen’s words were full of confidence.

His confidence was not strange. The fox demon’s wedding wine had already bound Bai Ling and Xu Zhi’s fates together. Fate would always find reasons to keep them from leaving each other.

If Xu Zhi was wrapped in baleful aura, fate would give Bai Ling the ability to soothe it.

If Bai Ling fell into danger, fate would make Xu Zhi appear like a deus ex machina.

“As for you, you really plan to hand the demon market master’s seat to that little girl?”

“The demon market was always hers. I only managed it for a time.” Guan Qing toyed with a chess piece carelessly. “But for that silly girl to shoulder that seat, it will still take a long time.”

“I’ve never heard that a Qingluan can also divine fortunes.” Xiao Mochen sneered. “When did you find out?”

“The day I came to you for a reading. That night, I taught her to control her demon power.” Guan Qing tossed the piece into the jar and suddenly changed the subject. “A snake becomes a python after five hundred years. A python becomes a boa after five hundred. A boa becomes a flood dragon after five hundred. A flood dragon becomes a chi after five hundred. A chi becomes a qiu after five hundred. A qiu becomes a Yinglong after five hundred.”

“From the Southern Song to now, this little snake has pestered me for nearly a thousand years.”

“Only a thousand years left. Still a long wait. I’m only a mortal. I probably won’t see that day.” Xiao Mochen suddenly straightened and pulled a broken sword tip from an inner pocket of his Daoist robe.

If Xu Zhi were here, he would probably recognize it as the missing piece of Feng Yi’s broken sword. Somehow it had ended up in Xiao Mochen’s hands.

“I need to go back to Tianque. Before I leave, can I take something with me?”

“What thing?” Guan Qing leaned against the board. The hem of her moon-white qipao moved without wind.

“Give me another tail feather?”

“Get lost!”

“Don’t be so irritable. You’ll get wrinkles.” Xiao Mochen still grinned. “Sometimes I wonder, if back then I had chosen Bai Ling instead of that brat as my disciple, what would things be like now?”

“Leaving!” He suddenly waved. “While I’m gone, take care of yourself.”

“Also, the Netherworld Society might reach into Lin’an while I’m away. Tell your girl to be careful.”

Before he finished, a handful of chess pieces struck the back of his head.

“Goodbye and don’t see me off!”

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