Chapter Fifty-Eight: Procrastination

The woman in the sky-blue Daoist robe showed no trace of delight upon seeing her two fierce beasts succeed. She had clearly noticed that the beasts’ claws had not torn off the man’s arm, nor was there any sign of blood streaming from his neck. Most crucial of all, the man was still calmly gazing at her, his dark eyes devoid of any pain, not even the slightest twitch at the corner of his eyes; this invisible pressure weighed heavily upon her.

She no longer waited for the two beasts to finish their work but swiftly flung a restraining talisman onto the man with her left hand. In a flash, she unfolded the mottled white cloth she carried, and from within drew a lotus-shaped lapis lazuli lamp of indigo blue.

"Go!" she commanded.

Biting her middle finger, she smeared a drop of blood along the body of the indigo lotus lamp. Instantly, a faint blue light emanated from it. As she tossed it into the air, the palm-sized lamp expanded rapidly, enveloping Su Yuanbai within.

"Explode!"

Just as at the dungeon gate, the two beasts—each as large as lions or tigers, exuding a savage aura—suddenly swelled like balloons and burst apart, scattering flesh and viscera in all directions. Blood splattered over the lotus lamp, staining its blue glow with a sinister crimson, while several cracks appeared on its surface, its once-lively radiance now dim and obscured.

But it did not end there. The woman formed incantation gestures with both hands, urging the lotus lamp to spin. The lotus petals of the lamp slowly unfurled, its indigo light mingling with the dim torches along the corridor, creating an eerie spectacle. The scattered flesh and innards within began to dissolve, even bone turning to powder and melting into a pool of blood.

"Two talismans for lower-grade beast control, two for upper-grade beast control, one lower-grade earth spike talisman, one falling rock talisman, five mid-grade thunder talismans, five mid-grade fire talismans... and now this earth-rank lotus lamp, whose connection I just had to sever—boy, you’d better have some fine treasures on you," she muttered, counting the cost on her slender fingers, not bothering to wipe away the blood trickling from her lips as backlash from the lamp’s damage. "If you have nothing at all to show for it, I’ll have suffered quite a loss. I haven’t even tallied the expense of capturing those four beasts, and now one of my thousand-spider silks is broken too—I’ll have to find someone to mend it later."

With a sigh, she looked up at the scene within the lotus lamp, where flesh dissolved into blood, and bemoaned her prospects. She had come out tonight hoping for a small gamble with a big payoff, not to lose everything.

But all at once, the woman stepped back nine paces, then circled eight more, for the cracks on the lamp only multiplied, and as the blood and flesh dissolved away, that strange man stood within, wholly untouched.

A sharp crack sounded from the lotus lamp, and she spat a mouthful of blood; it was now clear to her—the earth-rank lotus lamp, whose bond she had just forged, was ruined.

“Senior, it seems I mistook you for someone else—you are not the enemy with whom I have a life-and-death feud!”

The woman in the sky-blue Daoist robe did not wait for Su Yuanbai to reply. She opened her palm and tossed out the mottled white cloth, revealing all its contents. Then she raised both hands in a deep salute, bowing her head as she addressed Su Yuanbai, who had just emerged from the shattered lotus lamp.

Su Yuanbai looked down at his ochre robe, now burned clean away, leaving him stripped of all clothing. With a helpless smile, he walked to the white cloth and casually selected a dark-blue Daoist robe to wear. This robe had wide sleeves that almost touched the ground; with arms spread, the sleeves and robe formed a quadrangle, both embroidered with gold dragons.

“You may take all the magical implements here,” said the woman, “let them stand as my apology for offending you.”

She glanced at the robe Su Yuanbai had chosen and let out an inward sigh of relief—thankfully, it was only a lower-grade protective garment.

“Senior?” Su Yuanbai chuckled. It was the first time anyone had called him that.

“So you’re an immortal! I thought you were one of those cultivators who defy fate and steal the world’s luck. Since you are an immortal, perhaps we share some past connection. Are you familiar with the Celestial Void Grotto?” The woman’s hands, still raised in a respectful bow, shifted into a formal gesture of obeisance as she smiled.

Su Yuanbai’s smile faded, his dark eyes regarding this plain-faced yet singularly intriguing woman with quiet composure.

“Aha! You truly are a senior of unfathomable cultivation. I knew you were not one of those hypocritical, sanctimonious alchemists. Were you sent by the Lofty Clouds Pavilion to observe this operation? I am one of the ten participants in this mission,” she said, her manner shifting seamlessly from one pose to another, without a trace of embarrassment, as though she were well practiced in such things.

“No,” Su Yuanbai answered calmly.

“A court official, then?” she asked lightly.

Su Yuanbai remained silent.

“These magical implements were all taken from the hands of lawless prisoners who broke into the jail. They are now mostly unarmed—if you summon the jailers now, you could capture them all in one sweep!” she said, her hands now pressed together before her in a posture of abject humility.

“What is your name?”

Su Yuanbai gazed at her and asked.

“Liu Qinghua,” she replied without hesitation.

“Your real name?” Su Yuanbai smiled.

“Of course it is,” Liu Qinghua replied with a faint smile, the expression lending an oddly bewitching charm to her otherwise unremarkable features.

“Ah! Senior, you’re here at last!” Suddenly, Liu Qinghua shouted to someone behind Su Yuanbai.

He turned to look, but at that moment, a white glow flickered at the edge of Liu Qinghua’s cloud-patterned shoes, spreading along the very path she had traced with her nine steps back and eight steps in place—it matched the arrangement of the Nine Palaces and Eight Trigrams exactly.

“Boy, just make sure you never fall into my hands!” Liu Qinghua called out, biting her lip in frustration as she stood upon that spot.

A sudden flash of white light—and she was gone, along with the white cloth and all the magical implements that had lain upon it.

“Master, why do you always like to ask people their names?” Duan Lingqi, emerging from a nearby cell behind Su Yuanbai, asked with a puzzled look. He now bore the head and claws of a flood-dragon, his form humanoid—having lost three centuries of cultivation in the underworld, being able to maintain even this much was already quite an achievement.

“She was only stalling for time, waiting for the treasure beneath her feet to activate and help her escape,” Xi Chunxue said softly, stepping out from behind Duan Lingqi.