Chapter 25

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Chapter 25

Lian Renyu did not pursue her. The White Tiger finally arrived as well, pacing back and forth behind him before eventually settling down behind him.

It was a full-grown white tiger, with thick fur. Even sitting, it stood taller than Lin Qing. Its huge, bell-like eyes remained fixed on her, as though deciding where best to sink its teeth.

The horses that had been standing off to one side began whinnying like mad from fright. Then, under the White Tiger’s roar, they collapsed to the ground and trembled uncontrollably.

Lian Renyu patted the White Tiger’s head and pointed toward the horses. With a sudden leap, the beast sprang up and pounced on them, biting every one to death.

Lin Qing could feel the itch of sweat trickling down her forehead. She did not dare wipe it away. The hand gripping her sword hilt had grown slick with perspiration, and she unconsciously flexed her fingers.

The stench of so much horse blood overwhelmed the smell of the corpses beneath their feet.

Lian Renyu sheathed his flexible sword and strolled through the sea of bodies. “You are afraid.”

Behind Lin Qing stood an old tree. Its rough bark scraped against her back, sending waves of prickling pain through her. Her heart pounded rapidly in her chest, beating so hard that even her lower lip seemed to tremble with it.

“I’m afraid of dying,” she said.

Lian Renyu had clearly not expected such an answer. He stopped, and the face behind his mask seemed to smile. “At least you are honest.”

Lin Qing seized the opening. “I have no other virtues. I’m simply exceptionally honest.”

“So it seems…”

His figure drifted before her like a specter.

Lin Qing saw only a blur. In the next instant, she was facing Lian Renyu’s mask, close enough to feel the warm breath from behind it.

A dagger pierced the fabric over her shoulder.

Lian Renyu whispered beside her ear, “If you dodge, I will send the White Tiger after those little rats who ran up the mountain. But if you obediently play a game with me, the White Tiger will not harm anyone before dawn.”

Lin Qing suppressed the urge to evade. She felt the chill of the blade against her skin, raising gooseflesh all over her body. Then came the excruciating pain. Warm blood flowed like water down her arm and across her chest, staining half her clothing red.

Lin Qing sucked in a sharp breath from the pain.

Lian Renyu withdrew the dagger and lightly brushed the blood from its blade with his fingers. “Run. As long as you are not caught before dawn, you win.”

Lin Qing stared at the ghastly mask. “And what do I gain if I win?”

Lian Renyu had not expected her to bargain, and seemed pleased by her performance. “If you win, I will take my people away and let you reach the Northern Border safely. If you lose, not one of those rats will live.”

A bargain this generous would be foolish to refuse. Lin Qing turned and ran.

She pushed her lightness skill to its limit and was ten yards away in the blink of an eye. The shadows of the trees raced backward on either side, while her inner force drained away without pause, leaving her entire body burning hot.

Lin Qing ran quickly, but Lian Renyu was in no hurry. He merely whistled, and the White Tiger, which had been tearing into the horses’ flesh, shot after her.

That streak of white clung to Lin Qing like a vengeful ghost, following her scent without rest.

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A deafening tiger’s roar rang out, as though it had sounded right beside her ear.

“It’s about to catch you.”

Lian Renyu’s voice suddenly came from her left.

Lin Qing instinctively veered right and raised her sword horizontally. With a clang, the tip of Lian Renyu’s flexible sword struck her blade, then withdrew at once.

Lin Qing swung her sword to stab, but Lian Renyu had already retreated to the White Tiger’s side, standing there at his leisure.

Lin Qing had no choice but to withdraw her sword and keep running.

This was truly humiliation piled upon humiliation—she had been reduced to nothing.

Against Lian Renyu alone, she had a thirty percent chance of winning. Against the White Tiger alone, she also had a thirty percent chance.

But with the White Tiger and Lian Renyu together, even her master had suffered at their hands. For a tiny nobody like her to challenge them would be nothing short of suicide.

Besides, she could not shake the feeling that something was wrong with the White Tiger.

The path through the woods was difficult to traverse. Weeds and dead branches concealed unknown depths, while branches tore at her clothes. The wound on her shoulder had made the hand gripping her sword begin to tremble.

She leapt down a low cliff. The excessive expenditure of inner force had caused a faint, tearing pain to spread through her meridians.

But Lin Qing knew she could not stop yet. The wound Lian Renyu had opened in her shoulder was still bleeding, and as long as the scent of blood lingered, she could not shake off the White Tiger.

If she wanted to escape that nose, she had to find a way to deal with the blood on her shoulder.

Yet she no longer knew how many mountains she had crossed, and her strength was nearly exhausted.

Could she really do nothing but wait for death…?

Lin Qing felt all the blood in her body boiling. Her fury was so intense that even the crown of her head throbbed.

Damn it! To hell with this!

Grinding her back teeth, Lin Qing thought, So it’s a tiger? In these deep mountains, she refused to believe she could not find another one.

As the saying went, two tigers could not share one mountain—unless one was male and the other female.

Either she would make them fight, or she would borrow one to sire some cubs.

She was a good person. Good people did not leave their names behind.

Lin Qing had originally been avoiding the hunting grounds of large beasts. Now she deliberately cut straight across them.

Luck was on her side. In less than half an hour, she spotted claw marks on the trunk of a huge tree.

Following the trail, she soon came upon a full-grown tiger with yellow fur and black stripes.

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The tiger was asleep in the grass. Perhaps it had heard Lin Qing running, or perhaps it had caught the scent of blood in the air. It opened its tiger eyes and rose to its feet.

Lin Qing stopped in the great tree above it, tore off her bloodstained sleeve with a sharp rip, and let it fall on the wind.

The wind was weak that night. The half-sleeve drifted and fluttered before landing squarely on the striped tiger’s head.

The tiger was driven mad in an instant by the scent of blood. At that very moment, the White Tiger also followed the smell and found its way there.

When the two tigers met, the striped tiger let out an enraged roar and pounced, determined to crush the intruder that had invaded its territory.

The two beasts became locked in a furious struggle, their cries sending birds scattering in every direction.

Lian Renyu tried to command the White Tiger back, but the beast, blood-maddened by the fight, ignored him completely. Suddenly, a sharp pain struck his lower abdomen.

He looked down and saw the tip of a sword protruding from behind him, a sliver of silver-white gleaming from his belly.

He turned his head and met Lin Qing’s brilliant smile.

“I’m returning this sword strike to you.” Lin Qing slowly drew out the blade. With her left hand, she seized his cloak and pulled it off, then draped it over her own shoulders.

Without the cloak, Lian Renyu’s black, close-fitting combat attire was revealed. Lin Qing’s bold action left him momentarily stunned. Then a hearty laugh rang out from behind his mask.

“No one has ever dared take something from me—not even a single article of clothing.”

“Well, now you’ve met someone who will.” Lin Qing was entirely unabashed. She raised her hand and pointed at Lian Renyu’s waist. “You have a pretty good figure. Slim where you should be slim, and nicely rounded where you should be. Quite easy on the eyes. Add that ghost mask, and you have a kind of sinister beauty, as though an underground wind is blowing around you.”

Lian Renyu fell silent.

Had he just been flirted with?

The battle between the two tigers had reached its end. The yellow-and-black-striped tiger lay pinned beneath the White Tiger, unable to move.

Lin Qing wasted no more time. She feinted, transformed into a streak of afterimage, and vanished into the mountain forest in the blink of an eye.

She raced onward, heading straight into the deepest part of the mountains. Lian Renyu’s scent clung to the cloak, so the White Tiger would not be able to find her for a while—but surely not for long.

Then a booming rush of water reached her ears.

Clear stream water poured into a broad river. The current was swift, surging downward as though it ran straight into the clouds.

Lin Qing stood on the riverbank, her heart heavy. This might be a path to survival—or another road to death.

Never mind. Drowning was still better than being eaten.

Lin Qing tore off a strip from the hem of her clothes and tightly bound the sword hilt to her wrist. Gathering what little inner force remained, she stepped across the water several times, then used her toe to flick a floating log from the surface into the middle of the river. She plunged into the water after it, untied her belt, and bound her other hand to the log.

Life or death would be decided here.

The river was pitch-dark in the dead of night. Lian Renyu emerged from the distant forest with the White Tiger and stopped at the riverbank. His hand stroked the fur along the White Tiger’s neck again and again, and for a long while, he did not move away.

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