IVYSCP - Chapter 95
Chapter 95
After the woman left, a restriction descended upon the cave. It held no offensive power; its purpose was merely to block prying eyes from the outside. Pei Yin took one look and understood. A restriction of this level posed no threat to her.
Infernal Cliff was full of demonic cultivators and yao cultivators who still followed the customs from beyond the Great Wilderness, serving tea to guests. But neither Ling Qingyue nor Pei Yin touched the tea set before them. Its surface gleamed with a reddish tint, and a faint metallic scent of blood hung about it.
Ling Qingyue sat down. Noticing the cool, faintly distant expression on Pei Yin's face, she leaned in, hooked her little finger around Pei Yin's where it rested on her knee, and gave it a gentle shake. "Still mad?" she asked softly.
"No," Pei Yin denied.
"No, huh." Ling Qingyue glanced behind her, stifling a laugh. "You're practically bristling."
Her furry tail had expanded to more than double its earlier size.
Pei Yin stayed silent.
While they were still alone, Ling Qingyue gathered Pei Yin into her arms and pressed several placating kisses to her face. "Don't be angry. You can touch my tail."
As she spoke, Ling Qingyue reached over and placed her own tail directly into Pei Yin's hand.
Pei Yin looked down. The black-and-gold banded tail wrapped itself around her wrist of its own accord, and the corner of her lips couldn't help but lift. Her hand followed the curve of the tail upward and began to knead gently at its base.
Ling Qingyue's eyes flew wide open. Her round pupils narrowed into vertical slits, and her ears shot straight up.
Pei Xi crouched nearby. She stole a glance, then silently averted her gaze.
Cheeks burning, Ling Qingyue snatched her tail back and glared at Pei Yin, half embarrassed, half indignant.
Pei Yin's eyes curved in a soft, quiet smile.
At that moment, the restriction opened. A woman stepped through it into the cave. Behind her, the restriction flickered open and sealed shut again in an instant.
Ling Qingyue raised her eyes to look. A flicker of surprise crossed her face. This woman bore a striking resemblance to Linglong Pavilion Master Shen Qi, at least seven or eight parts alike.
"You two guests are unfamiliar faces. Where might you be coming from?" The woman's tone, too, closely resembled Shen Qi's.
Ling Qingyue lowered her gaze, silently considering the woman's connection to Shen Qi.
"That is none of your concern," Pei Yin said coolly.
Shen Ling laughed softly. Even before arriving, she had already heard about today's guests. They had neutralized Hu Xiao in a single move. Their cultivation was unfathomably profound.
"Then I won't ask," Shen Ling said, seating herself across from the two of them. "The rules first. If you wish to inquire about matters or people, there is a price to pay."
Ling Qingyue thought it over. At Linglong Pavilion, gathering information or seeking a rare treasure usually required an exchange with an item of equivalent value, or it depended on what the Pavilion currently needed. But here in the Great Wilderness, they were newcomers. The local rules were still unfamiliar to them. Pei Yin, however, had searched that tiger yao's soul moments ago. She must have gleaned at least a fair amount of knowledge about Infernal Cliff by now. Ling Qingyue held her peace and waited for Pei Yin to speak.
"What do the two of you wish to ask?"
Pei Yin's tone was flat. "The list of those who have newly entered the Great Wilderness recently."
Originally, the Great Wilderness had held only the Demon Race and some evil spirits. But later, whenever the immortal sects encountered troublesome cultivators or yao beasts, they would banish them to the Great Wilderness to fend for themselves.
Shen Ling's face betrayed her difficulty.
Pei Yin tapped her fingertip lightly on the table. In a flash, the full expanse of Infernal Cliff materialized before them. "Infernal Cliff marks the boundary of the Great Wilderness. Anyone entering the Great Wilderness must pass through here."
A slight change crossed Shen Ling's expression, and she smiled faintly. "Recently, there have indeed been some new cultivators and yao beasts entering the Great Wilderness. Which ones are the honored guests asking about?"
Pei Yin raised her hand and manifested the portraits of Yu Ting and Xue Zizai.
Shen Ling glanced at them and nodded. "Those two. They did pass through Infernal Cliff two or three days ago."
She did not continue further. Instead, she reached up and gently twirled a lock of hair beside her ear. "If you wish to know their whereabouts, you must first answer one question for me."
"Speak," Ling Qingyue said.
Shen Ling's brows lifted. "I want to know whether Linglong Pavilion Master Shen Qi is dead or alive."
A small shock rippled through Ling Qingyue. For this woman to pose such a question, she must have already seen through the fact that they had come from outside the Great Wilderness.
"She is not dead," Pei Yin replied.
A cold sneer curled at the edge of Shen Ling's lips. "She has quite the stubborn life."
With that, she produced a map and pointed with a finger. "The ones you seek went this way."
Ling Qingyue looked down. The spot where the woman's pale finger rested was a deep valley.
Great Sorrow Valley.
Her brows furrowed. Why would Yu Ting bring Xue Zizai there? Or more precisely, why was she trying to lure them to that place?
"One more matter," Ling Qingyue said. "Have you found any trace of Yu Liuli from Lingxu Immortal Palace, or of a half-human half-demon?"
She did not ask whether they were dead or alive. Deep in her heart, she clung to the hope that they were still alive.
Shen Ling paused. Her gaze swept over the two figures before her, and she probed cautiously, "Do you bear them a grudge?"
The heart Ling Qingyue had been holding tight with tension suddenly eased. The woman had not answered directly, but her words made one thing clear. They were not dead.
"No," Ling Qingyue pressed. "Where are they?"
Shen Ling's eyes swiveled. "Ah, that information," she said offhandedly. "That will be rather more expensive."
Ling Qingyue nearly blurted out the question of how many spirit stones it would cost, but she swallowed the words at the last moment. This was the Great Wilderness. Spirit stones might well be useless here.
"What do you want?"
Shen Ling smiled and was just about to demand an exorbitant price when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw the cold-eyed woman slap a diagram down onto the table. Shen Ling looked at it. Her gaze locked, utterly unable to look away. Unconsciously, she reached out her hand, but the diagram flickered before her eyes and was pulled back out of reach.
It was a restriction diagram, its level of complexity and refinement far surpassing the one laid over this very cave.
Shen Ling's eyes gleamed with greed. If she could master this restriction, she might well be able to expand her sphere of influence beyond just Infernal Cliff.
Pei Yin held the diagram between her fingers. "Is this sufficient to barter for your information?" she asked unhurriedly.
Shen Ling nodded hastily. "Sufficient! Quite sufficient!"
"Speak."
As Pei Yin finished, she caught a glimpse from the corner of her eye. Ling Qingyue's tail had lifted, the tip swaying back and forth, and her eyes shone bright as she looked at her. A sense of deep pleasure rose in Pei Yin's heart.
On her side, after Ling Qingyue finished wagging her tail, she noticed that Pei Yin's tail had also twitched in a small, subtle motion.
Shen Ling, sitting across from them, remained oblivious to the silent exchange between the two tails and went on speaking. "I am not certain whether the person I know is the Yu Liuli you seek. But there is indeed a half-demon on the far bank of the Wuding River. After Formless Demon Lord fell, the Demon Race was all driven into the Great Wilderness. Over time, the Demons and evil spirits here split into three factions. That half-demon is one of the Demon Lords. She does have a cultivator by her side, neither demonic cultivator nor yao cultivator, who requires spiritual energy to sustain her life. As honored guests surely know, spiritual qi is virtually nonexistent in the Great Wilderness. A cultivator who relies on spiritual energy to cultivate simply cannot survive here. So that Demon Lord has been collecting spirit stones everywhere. Most newly arrived cultivators entering the Great Wilderness receive a summons from her."
Shen Ling finished and fixed her burning gaze on the diagram in Pei Yin's hand.
Pei Yin passed it over.
After leaving Infernal Cliff, Pei Yin summoned her skyship and placed a concealment array over it. In the entire Great Wilderness, those capable of sensing the skyship's presence could likely be counted on the fingers of one hand.
They set course toward Great Sorrow Valley.
If the half-demon Shen Ling spoke of truly was Qiu Feng, then there was no need to worry about Yu Liuli's safety. The immediate priority was still to first locate Yu Ting and Xue Zizai.
Pei Xi had gone a long while without feeding on dreams. At present, she lay listlessly asleep in the next cabin. At Infernal Cliff, she had thought about sneaking off to steal a few bites, but Ling Qingyue had told her that the dreams of the cultivators and yao beasts there were mostly foul things. That reminder brought Xue Zizai's dream back to her mind. So she hadn't run off, and she still hadn't eaten any dreams. She was deep in slumber, entirely unaware of what was happening on the other side.
Next door...
Ling Qingyue had Pei Yin pinned down on the couch. Her eyes were dangerous. "Where are your ears and tail?"
The moment they boarded the skyship, Pei Yin had retracted her own ears and tail but had not retracted Ling Qingyue's.
Pei Yin looked at Ling Qingyue, fierce and bristling with her teeth bared in a snarl, a perfect match for her current guise. A fierce, cantankerous tiger yao. At that thought, a smile became impossible to suppress.
Ling Qingyue wound her tail around Pei Yin's leg and laughed as she overpowered her completely. "Fine! You did this on purpose!"
The furry tail was nimble, too, coiling its way upward along her leg and drawing a sudden sharp intake of breath from Pei Yin.
Ling Qingyue tilted her head, looking at her meaningfully. "In that case, just don't put them away at all."
Pei Yin braced her upper body, trying to rise, but Ling Qingyue pushed her back down with one hand. Her calf received a light but firm slap from the long tail, a punishment for disobedience.
Pei Yin swallowed, her gaze fixed on Ling Qingyue's face.
Ling Qingyue leaned down, hands planted on either side of Pei Yin's ears, the tip of her nose brushing against Pei Yin's nose.
A long moment later, she asked, with intimate, suggestive tenderness, "Do you like the tail?"
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