Remembering You For Eternity

2.34 Return of The Yin Maiden (1)

"Isn't this year's summer much warmer than usual?" A white-robed swordswoman flicked her sword to get rid of some black sticky substance it had suffered from the earlier skirmish against a pack of dogs.

The man by her side, good-looking with a gentle appearance, gathered his qi to summon a Fire Phoenix. The spirit beast soon enveloped the carcasses of the dogs. To the pair of cultivators' eyes, the fire burnt unprecedently bright, that surely anything touched by such intensity would be ground to ash. However, when the spirit beast dissipated into the air along with its flames, the corpses of the dogs looked the same, as if they had never been burnt at all.

Nevertheless, by tacit understanding, both knew that the leftover malice had been purified from the dogs' bodies.

"You have been saying that every year, Ah-Zi." The man's lips were pulled into a tiny smile as he chided her gently. Nevertheless, he took out a green coloured piece of cloth, bearing his name, and handed it to the female,

"You can use this." As he watched his female companion proceed to use his handkerchief to wipe her blade, he hastily gripped her arm, "Not to clean 'Xiang', Xiao Mei Zi!"

Xiao Zi flashed her white teeth and laughed. She sheathed her sword and looked up at the older man, gently wiping the small beads of sweat on his face using the handkerchief,

"I was just toying with you, Ao Xiang-shiong. Of course there's only one 'Xiang' I would ever dare to use such precious item to clean... ." Her laugh turned more mischievous as she noticed the tip of the man in front of her getting redder.

"I cannot believe that I have to watch my own shimei flirting in daylight!" A grumpy voice was heard. Xiao Zi quickly lowered her hand and bowed towards Cao Lu. The latter glanced at her quickly in disapproval,

"Just make sure you will not lose that cinnabar mark on your elbow before you seek for your Shifu's approval!"

Both Xiao Zi and Ao Xiang's heads lowered their heads further as they understood the implication of Cao Lu's words.

"Whatever." Cao Lu sighed and waved her hand, before poking at Ao Xiang's chest with her index finger,

"Remember that if you ever take advantage of my Shimei, you would make an enemy of the whole Ping sect."

"I won't dare, Madame!" Ao Xiang laughed in response, before his expression turned serious, "How did it go at Ru'An?"

Ru'An was a sizeable town that they had made their base since a few nights ago. Xiao Zi and Ao Xiang left on their own as amidst the chaos they were suddenly facing in town, a pack of deformed dogs had gone loose. The domesticated animals-turned-daemons, were no longer uncommon ever since they took the journey together, sometimes separated with their friends and fellow peers in groups. In fact, for a good number of months since they first left their sects to the Imperial's territory, the only malice they encountered was in the forms of animals and plants. It was pretty easy to spot too, as they were always deformed.

That was, until the last fifteen or sixteen full moons. Princess Zuo Shan'er apparently possessed an innate perception of this peculiar threat to humanity.

Normally it was impossible to tell if a human had turned into a Daemon, as their physical appearance remained the same. However, Zuo Shan'er had been able to lead them to the different locations where malice had corrupted some humans. She did not go as far as to point her fingers at the exact Daemons, but with the assistance of Ping sect's miraculous pills, it turned out that her ability was not false at all. After consuming the town's water source, the people possessed by malice started to go berserk, making it easy for the cultivators to locate and incapacitate them.