Song of Everlasting Regret - Chapter 42

Lou Jing descended from Caoliu Manor.

By the time she reached the foot of the mountain, a shrill whistle echoed throughout Youqu Mountain, warning the manor that a prisoner had escaped.

Everyone on the mountain was immediately thrown into motion.

The piercing sound followed her all the way, resembling the long, twisted, cold, and shadowy figures beneath the Dragon Pit—snakes that continued biting her even within her dreams.

Snow fell that day.

Lou Jing sat beneath the eaves of a house, resting upon its threshold. Snowflakes drifted steadily around her.

Although she wore only two thin layers of clothing, she did not feel cold.

It was still early, and the streets were quiet, with few people passing. Every so often, one or two pedestrians walked by and glanced at her curiously.

A father and son approached from across the street.

The child was only seven or eight years old. He wore thick winter clothing, and his small face was red from the cold.

“Father, I don’t feel well today. Can I skip school?”

His father glanced sideways at him and uttered a threatening, “Hm?”

The child pursed his lips.

“Then, Father, you must come and collect me on time tonight.”

“You are supposed to be a man. Yet you still cling to others and demand an escort merely to attend school. Aren’t you ashamed?”

The child said aggrievedly, “You promised Mother…”

“I cannot stand that spoiled, girlish behavior of yours!”

His father lightly kicked him on the backside.

“Get to school!”

The corners of the child’s mouth drooped. He turned away dejectedly.

His father called again, “Come back!”

The child obediently returned.

His father stepped forward, placed a bamboo hat upon his head to shield him from the snow, and said sternly, “I will wait for you on Temple East Street at a quarter past the Shen hour. If you arrive late because you were playing, just see how I deal with you.”

Having gotten what he wanted, the child’s gloomy face immediately brightened.

He happily bade farewell to his father and skipped toward the school.

When he passed Lou Jing, he noticed her staring at him and returned her gaze with curiosity.

This person was truly strange.

In the middle of winter, she sat upon a doorstep wearing only two thin garments. No wonder her skin was so pale.

Yet her eyes were dark and gleaming, like the smooth black jade stones from his father’s game of Go.

One white and one black.

The contrast was extraordinarily striking.

The child took the initiative to speak.

“Elder Sister, did your father also chase you out and tell you to go to school?”

Lou Jing did not answer.

Seeing her desolate expression, the child assumed he had guessed correctly and felt considerable sympathy.

“Does your father also glare at you and scold you while searching everywhere for a bamboo switch to beat your bottom?”

Lou Jing’s heart suddenly contracted.

A sharp ache burst through her nose and eyes, and her lips began to tremble.

“I don’t have a father…”

“Then was it your mother? My mother is usually very gentle, but sometimes when I make her angry, she smiles without really smiling. She is even scarier than Father.”

“I don’t have a mother either.”

The child did not understand.

He laughed.

“Everyone in the world has a mother and father. How could you not have them? Where else did you come from?”

Lou Jing wrapped her arms around her legs and curled beside the doorway.

Without family or support, she resembled drifting duckweed.

She looked at the child with the empty confusion and fragile helplessness of someone much younger.

The child removed his bamboo hat and held it out to her.

“If you don’t want to go to school, hurry home. Otherwise, your father and mother will worry about you.”

Then he ran toward the school.

Lou Jing held the bamboo hat.

All the grievance inside her suddenly surged forth.

“I don’t have a home either.”

When she first learned of Lou Xuanzhi’s death, she had been shocked and refused to believe it.

Yet she had not shed a single tear.

It was not because she had deliberately restrained herself.

Her heart had simply been hollow and numb, as though her emotions were delayed and her body could not yet comprehend the unbearable pain of losing the person closest to her.

Now, after an unknown number of days, grief and desolation suddenly surfaced.

Wave after wave overwhelmed her.

Tears fell one by one.

The street remained bleak and sparsely populated.

Every household was gathered together, preparing for New Year’s Eve.

The white snow continued falling.

Everything felt so lonely and sorrowful.

A cold, sharp wind suddenly swept across the ground.

Lou Jing tilted her head.

A streak of silver grazed her ear and embedded itself in the door behind her with a vibrating clang.

Lou Jing raised her face.

Tears still shimmered within her eyes, but her gaze had become exceptionally fierce.

A group of people surrounded her.

At their head stood a man whose robes stirred in the wind and whose face was covered in frost.

It was none other than Cao Bo.

What an impressive formation.

To capture one junior from the martial world, the master of Caoliu Manor had personally brought his subordinates.

Judging from the cold light in his eyes and his gritted teeth, as though he wanted to devour her alive, Cao Bo had probably never imagined she would possess such extraordinary fortune.

She had fallen into a pit of ten thousand snakes yet emerged with all her limbs intact.

Cao Bo had intended to torture her to death.

She had certainly suffered torment and stepped halfway through the gates of the underworld.

But she had been too stubborn and hard-headed for even the lesser ghosts to chew through. She had dragged herself back and survived.

Cao Bo was undoubtedly unwilling to accept that.

His hatred had not been satisfied.

This time, now that he had pursued her personally, he probably had no intention of wasting time with empty tricks.

He would kill her on the spot.

Lou Jing had cultivated bitterly for half a year and made significant progress.

But Cao Bo possessed several decades of cultivation. Half a year was nowhere near enough to catch him, even on horseback.

She still had no chance of winning this battle.

If she could not defeat him, she could only run.

She refused to return to the lightless Dragon Pit.

Nor would she accept struggling between life and death for so many cycles only to perish beneath Cao Bo’s hand in the end.

Even if both legs broke from running, she would crawl away.

The moment they met, Lou Jing turned and fled.

Her feet barely touched the ground, and her body moved so quickly that the others saw only a shadow flashing past.

How could Cao Bo allow her to escape so easily?

Although she was wounded, the flames in her eyes refused to extinguish even beneath the force of a hurricane.

She seized a horse and escaped the city.

Before long, she reached a forest road.

The path curved between trees, while loose snow covered the ground and reflected dazzling white light.

As she passed one place, Lou Jing’s heart inexplicably lurched.

The next instant, silver light erupted from the snow and shot directly toward her.

People had been lying in ambush beneath it.

Snow scattered everywhere.

A person dressed in white stabbed a saber into the horse’s belly.

The fine animal neighed and reared high.

Lou Jing’s weight tilted backward.

At that moment, two more people burst from the snowdrifts behind her and attacked her back.

Lou Jing braced one hand upon the horse, twisted her waist in midair, and moved with the agility of a cat.

She landed behind the two attackers.

Sword light flashed.

Both men died beneath her blade.

Before she could breathe, something tore through the air ahead.

Several iron pellets shot directly toward her.

Lou Jing had previously witnessed the power of these hidden weapons and did not dare split them with her sword.

Instead, she used the flat of the blade to deflect them.

The moment she saw them, she thought of Snake Lady.

The memory of countless snakes biting her inside the Dragon Pit returned.

Her entire body trembled.

The pain had reached deep into her soul, and the memory shook her mind so severely that she failed to notice Cao Bo catching up behind her.

Cao Bo flew forward and struck her back with one palm.

His profound palm force was fully concentrated within the blow.

Lou Jing was caught completely unprepared and received the strike directly.

When Cao Bo’s inner force shook her body, power spontaneously arose within her dantian and resisted.

But it could not contend with Cao Bo.

It dispersed only a small portion of his force, while the rest entered her body.

Her organs immediately churned as though rivers and seas had overturned within them.

Pain cut through her like blades.

Blood poured from Lou Jing’s mouth, and she collapsed powerless into the snow.

Bright red drops stained the scattered white snow like winter plum blossoms bursting into bloom.

Lou Jing pushed herself upright.

Blood dyed her lips brilliant crimson, appearing almost bewitching against her pale skin.

The white-robed person who had stabbed the horse approached with a swaying waist.

It was Snake Lady.

Cao Bo had clearly prepared in advance, spreading an inescapable net to capture the turtle trapped inside his jar.

This was not the only ambush.

People from Caoliu Manor waited upon every road leading out of the city.

The manor master truly hated Lou Jing to the marrow of his bones.

To capture and kill her, he had gone to extraordinary lengths.

Cao Bo walked to Lou Jing’s side.

One palm would have been enough to kill her.

But he did not strike.

He would not allow Lou Jing to die easily.

He accepted a sword presented by one of his subordinates, intending to sever her arms and legs and let her bleed to death.

At that moment, a group of travelers appeared around the bend in the road.

Amid the swirling snow, two fine horses rode in front.

Behind them came an elegant, warmly enclosed carriage drawn by two horses, with two people upon the driver’s seat.

The procession advanced without haste and stopped directly before the group.

Judging from their clothing, they appeared to be people from the martial world.

Cao Bo glanced at one of his subordinates.

The man stepped forward.

“Caoliu Manor is conducting business. Friends ahead, please take another road.”

The carriage did not turn away.

Instead, it stopped.

A cool, clear voice came from within.

“Grandmaster.”

An elderly man in plain robes sat upright upon one of the horses.

His hair and beard were entirely white, and his eyes were closed. The skin around them was wrinkled and sunken.

He was blind.

Hearing the voice, he said nothing and abruptly drew his sword.

Although he could not see, he moved as though his vision were perfectly clear and attacked Cao Bo directly.

His sword carried vast and majestic power.

It swept the snow from the ground, sending silver flakes soaring into the air.

They drifted lightly, yet descended like thunderbolts.

The fragile snowflakes, which ordinarily melted or broke at the slightest touch, became hidden weapons that cut bloody lines across everyone’s skin.

Everyone was shocked by the depth of his cultivation.

The moment Cao Bo saw the man’s sword, his expression changed drastically.

“Yan Bumei!”

A metallic crash rang out.

Cao Bo was forced three steps backward.

His subordinates moved forward, intending to assist him.

Cao Bo shouted, “Stay back! You cannot withstand this man’s cultivation.”

If they joined the fight, they would only be throwing away their lives.

The voice inside the carriage called again.

“Gusheng. Banxia.”

A man and woman immediately entered the battlefield.

But rather than attacking the people of Caoliu Manor, they flew to Lou Jing’s side and carried her away from the fighting toward the carriage.

Lou Jing did not know who these people were.

Judging from their actions, they seemed to have come to help her.

Although she did not understand their purpose, it was still preferable to being killed by Cao Bo, so she cooperated.

Snake Lady blocked their path and laughed softly.

“Miss, Sir, this little girl is our manor master’s prisoner.

“You may interfere in another person’s affairs, but you should first consider whose affairs you are interfering with.”

The powerfully built man clenched his fist and scoffed.

“What is Caoliu Manor supposed to be?

“If my master wishes to interfere, there is nothing beneath heaven she cannot involve herself in.”

With a furious shout, he punched toward Snake Lady.

Snake Lady’s body swayed like a willow in the breeze, and she avoided the fist with apparent ease.

Yet once he entangled her, she could no longer divide her attention between stopping the woman and watching Lou Jing.

The woman supported Lou Jing to the carriage.

Lou Jing cupped her hands.

“May I ask the name of my benefactor?”

The carriage curtain was lifted.

A slender hand as pale as polished jade held it aside, allowing outsiders to glimpse the person within.

She lazily opened a pair of sleepy, misty eyes.

Weakness showed between her brows, and her expression was distant.

Wrapped in silver fur, she held a hand warmer.

Her lips seemed to curve in a smile that was not truly a smile.

When she looked sideways at someone, there was always a trace of mockery in her expression.

Without revealing her thoughts, she examined Lou Jing for a long moment.

Then she spoke three words.

“Zhan Sanxiao.”

Cao Bo’s earlier palm strike had inflicted internal injuries upon Lou Jing and thrown her breathing into disorder.

She had been forcing herself to remain conscious, but she had now reached her limit.

She had wanted to ask, “Why did you help me?”

Before the words could leave her mouth, cold sweat covered her body.

Her vision darkened, and she fainted.

Zhan Sanxiao lowered her eyelids.

“Bring her into the carriage.”

Banxia looked slightly surprised and was about to speak.

Zhan Sanxiao glanced at her.

Banxia swallowed her words and nodded.

“Yes.”

She lifted Lou Jing and carried her into the carriage.

Zhan Sanxiao looked toward the battle ahead.

The old man was forcing Cao Bo backward step by step.

She lowered the curtain.

“Let us go.”