Chapter Eighty-Eight: Woof, woof!

He could not beat her.
That was Jiang Lin’s first thought.

Who the hell is she?
That was his second thought.

Why do I feel like some unknown force has suddenly singled me out?
That was his third thought.

If all else failed, he would use a revival coin and run for it.
That was his final thought.

But before running, Jiang Lin felt he ought not waste this life. Even in death, he should at least try to pluck a few hairs from her.

Though he still had tens of thousands of revival coins... and the system did offer a service for buying them, it was absurdly expensive: forty thousand notoriety points for one revival coin. Was that not highway robbery?

Jiang Lin drew a deep breath, raised his sword before him, and even planned to swallow a healing pill. After all, he would be restored to full health in a moment.

“Master... my sister and I were careless. Please grant us one more chance.”

Behind the woman, the white fox elder sister spoke, her voice trembling violently.

“You need not disgrace yourselves any further. Come back with me in a while,” the woman said coolly. Her lips had not moved, nor had she turned her head; her eyes remained fixed on Jiang Lin.

The younger white fox opened her mouth as if to say more, but her sister pressed her small hand down.

“Yes, Master.”

“All right. Rise, and tend to your injuries yourselves.” The woman, still with her back to the fox sisters, lifted one arm in a gesture.

The fox sisters slowly stood, taking up positions behind the woman like maids. Without the slightest worry, they began to circulate their inner worlds and heal themselves.

“Miss, I think there may be some misunderstanding between us.” Looking at the veiled woman of unknown name, Jiang Lin felt there might still be some information to pry loose.

“Misunderstanding? What misunderstanding does Young Master Jiang believe there is?”

The woman’s light veil stirred gently, as if the corners of her mouth were curving upward.

“You injured disciples of my sect and even threatened them so viciously. Is that not a misunderstanding too?”

“Miss, one should speak with a conscience. It was these two who tried to kill me first.”

“Oh? And what of it?”

“...”

Jiang Lin was speechless. No wonder Old Wang in East City always said not to reason with women. Indeed, one simply could not.

It was like when a girl told you her stomach hurt, and you said, “Drink some hot water,” and then she got angry.

Why get angry? Was hot water not good to drink?

As expected, women were utterly baffling.

“Young Master Jiang is truly rude.” While Jiang Lin was still lamenting this, the woman’s voice rang again in the lake of his heart. “How is it that I cannot reason with you? What does drinking hot water have to do with a stomachache?”

“Damn, miss, you can read minds?” Jiang Lin clicked his tongue. Trouble...

“I have been able to since childhood. It is only natural that the Young Master would find it troublesome. But what did you mean earlier in your heart by revival coins? And what is this system?”

“Even if I told you, you wouldn’t understand.”

Jiang Lin shook his head, not wanting to explain.

“I truly do not quite understand. Could a revival coin be some kind of technique? And a system some sort of object? After all, what Young Master Jiang imagined just now was leaving after death; that is truly strange. Could there really be such a technique in this world?”

Jiang Lin’s brow twitched. “I’m done for! Miss, leave people a little way to live, will you?”

“A way to live? Of course there is one.”

The woman before him placed both hands atop her thighs and sank into a polite curtsy.

“Please come away with me, Young Master Jiang.”

“And if I go, will I ever come back?”

The woman replied serenely, “Most likely not.”

“Then forget it. I have both the old and the young to care for, and I am not suited to eloping with such a beautiful girl as you.”

“That is the truth, at least.”

Jiang Lin’s fingers slowly loosened from their tight grip on the hilt of First Snow. Above the ruined temple, the dark clouds veiling the bright moon drifted apart. Moonlight poured down like a waterfall, slipping through the many cracks in the temple’s broken roof and converging into First Snow.

With a light stroke of his fingertips along the blade, First Snow once again radiated a pure, swordlike brilliance.

Since none of his schemes would matter anymore, he might as well pour out every last drop of energy and see just how deep this woman’s waters ran.

Woof...

When the woman landed, the husky, who had long since hidden far behind a pillar, gave Jiang Lin a soft bark, as if to say, Brother, walk well. I will remember you.

“Brave of you.”

Watching the ice crystals gathering endlessly around First Snow in Jiang Lin’s hand, the woman did not move at all.

This move was one Jiang Lin had devised himself on the basis of his “Sun and Moon Dual Cultivation.” Taking the moon as its guide and sword aura as frost, it was the most powerful burst he could unleash with every last bit of his energy. Its inspiration and even its name came from an anime’s Hyorinmaru.

“Dragon Collapse!”

Jiang Lin muttered inwardly. His thought fell into the lake of his heart like a drop of water; the instant that lake stilled, sword aura swept through the dilapidated temple and then condensed into a single line.

In an instant, Jiang Lin was no longer where he had stood. Along a straight path, a streak of white light tore through the air.

Just as the sword was about to pierce her chest, the woman caught the blade as casually as pinching a leaf between her fingers. At that very moment, a massive cross-shaped ice pillar formed with astonishing speed, enveloping the two of them, and even the fox sisters were caught within it.

The instant that enormous cross-shaped pillar of ice was about to explode, the woman within the ice curved her eyes slightly, as if in triumph. It looked like some inexplicable teasing, though to Jiang Lin it felt more like a mocking, “You little fool, you’re pathetic.”

The next moment, the ice shattered, and the scattered fragments became reflections of the bright moon, like a world within a mirror.

“In the future, I will come looking for you again. As for this sword... never mind, take good care of it for now. But I have reserved it.”

Along with the white fox sisters, the woman’s figure slowly vanished.

Woof! Woof woof... woof!

Jiang Lin seemed to hear the faint barking of the husky. For an instant, his mind blurred, and he suddenly opened his eyes.

The husky was carrying the empty bag of pig feed in its mouth, patting Jiang Lin’s hand with its little paw over and over, as if to say, Is there any more? I, your dog, am still hungry...

Jiang Lin patted its head and looked up in a daze. There was no hole torn in the ruined temple by the woman.

There were no claw marks on the floor from the white fox sisters, and there was not the slightest trace of sword aura within the temple, nor any sign of combat. There was only the faint, lingering sword cry of First Snow within Jiang Lin’s acupoints.

So he had long since been trapped in an illusion without knowing it...

Closing his eyes, Jiang Lin was just about to gather his thoughts and retrace everything when a familiar voice came from outside the door...

“Senior Sister, let us rest a while and enter the city tomorrow...”

...

At the same time, ten li away, two white fox maidens followed behind the woman as they strolled through the mountain woods, their hands folded neatly before them.

The woman stopped and turned halfway back. The attendants parted to either side to clear the view.

Under the bright moonlight, the woman in a white dress and light veil smiled softly. Nine pure white fox tails spread open like flowers, swaying in the air, as beautiful as a painting.

The woman in that “painting” wore a very strange hairpin, seemingly a bamboo skewer of the sort used to thread candied fruit.