The crisp sound of tapping echoed through the empty ice cave.
The madwoman stopped her movements, seemingly sensing something unusual behind her.
She slowly turned around, revealing a horrific face to Li Zhaoye.
A hideous scar ran across her entire face; she was blind in one eye, leaving only a dark, hollow socket, while her remaining eye was clouded and weathered with age.
In the past, she had always worn that ugly bronze mask, killing everyone she saw like a lunatic.
But today, in her own home, she had taken it off.
The moment Li Zhaoye saw her face, he froze.
Though that face was ruined, the silhouette, that gaze...
"Senior... Senior Sister...?"
Li Zhaoye's voice trembled, and two streams of tears flowed uncontrollably from his wolf eyes.
Ten years.
Ever since that snowy night when his senior sister's cultivation was stripped away, her legs broken, and she was expelled from the sect, he had never seen her again.
Li Zhaoye had searched and looked all across the Northern Region, but he had found nothing.
He had always believed she had long since died in the freezing snow.
He never expected that the madwoman who struck fear into the hearts of the Heavenly Sword Sect was actually the Senior Sister Bai Ling he had thought of day and night, the one for whom he had felt guilty for ten whole years.
Bai Ling did not immediately recognize the wolf that had intruded.
She raised the broken sword in her hand, her single eye narrowing slightly as she spoke in a raspy, unpleasant voice.
"A wolf from the Heavenly Sword Sect?"
"Have you come to kill me again?"
"Just as well, my sword is still missing a wolf soul to sacrifice to the furnace."
Bai Ling dragged her crippled leg, approaching step by step, her killing intent locking onto Li Zhaoye.
"Senior Sister!"
Li Zhaoye could no longer contain himself. He suddenly prostrated himself on the ground, letting out a tearful human cry with all his strength.
"It's Zhaoye!"
"It's Xiaoye... I... I've come too late."
Bai Ling's advancing footsteps came to a sudden halt.
The broken sword hung in mid-air, trembling slightly.
A ripple of emotion suddenly appeared in her eyes, which had previously held only madness.
Bai Ling tilted her head as if she had heard something incredible, staring intently at the wolf demon before her.
"Zhaoye?"
She murmured to herself, her voice so soft it was as if she were afraid of shattering a dream.
"Xiaoye...?"
She seemed somewhat disbelieving and hesitant. She limped a few steps closer and reached out her hand to touch him, only to stop in mid-air.
Li Zhaoye raised his head, revealing a jade pendant hanging beneath his wolf neck.
When he had first joined the sect, he had been afraid of the dark and couldn't sleep. Bai Ling had personally carved that protective talisman for him, with the small character for 'Peace' engraved on it.
The moment she saw the jade pendant, the sword in Bai Ling's hand hit the ground with a clang.
"It really is you..."
Bai Ling did not feel fear because Li Zhaoye had become a demon. She slowly crouched down and gently embraced the massive wolf head.
Just like when she was sixteen, carrying Li Zhaoye through the snow for three days and nights after saving him from a wolf's jaws, finally holding him to keep him warm.
"So... they turned you into a wolf too."
Bai Ling's voice was very calm, with less madness and more pity.
"Don't be afraid."
She used her rough hand to gently stroke the wolf fur on top of Li Zhaoye's head, over and over.
"Senior Sister is here."
"Senior Sister will protect you."
Even though she was currently a cripple, even though she was covered in wounds.
Li Zhaoye's mental defenses completely collapsed at this moment.
"Senior Sister... I'm sorry..."
"I killed so many people... I ate so many people..."
"I'm a monster... I'm a beast..."
Li Zhaoye lay on the ground, wailing like a wronged child.
He let out all the fear, despair, and the guilt that had almost crushed him over these past few days.
Bai Ling did not speak. She simply held him quietly, letting his tears dampen her worn sword robe.
After a long time, once Li Zhaoye's emotions had somewhat stabilized, Bai Ling finally let go.
She picked up her sword from the ground and propped herself up to stand.
"Don't cry, Zhaoye."
"Senior Sister will protect you. Senior Sister will get revenge for you."
Bai Ling led Li Zhaoye deeper into the ice walls that sealed the corpses.
"Look, Senior Sister has already avenged our fellow disciples."
Bai Ling pointed at the ice-sealed corpses one by one.
"They are all wolves."
Li Zhaoye was stunned. "Wolves?"
"Yes." Bai Ling's gaze was sorrowful. "Human bodies, wolf souls."
She walked to a corpse wearing the robes of a Heavenly Sword Sect elder and gently wiped away the frost from the ice. Her movements were tender, as if she were brushing dust off a loved one's tombstone.
"This was the Elder Liu of those years. Do you remember?"
"That cranky, difficult old man. He always had a stern face, yet he was the most protective of his own, Uncle-Master Liu."
Bai Ling's voice was light, as if she were recalling something from a long time ago.
"Ten years ago, in that great battle against the invading Northern Region wolves, Xu Yunzi announced to the world that he had died in battle, his heroic soul forever dwelling in the sword stele."
"In reality, he didn't die. His soul was extracted by Xu Yunzi and placed into the body of a wolf demon, then sent to the Moon-Swallowing Wolf Court."
"And inside this body dwells a wolf soul."
Bai Ling turned around and looked at Li Zhaoye, the fire of hatred flickering in her single eye.
"After he died, I killed him again, dispersed the wolf soul, and snatched back this empty shell."
"I couldn't let Uncle-Master have no peace after death, and I couldn't let him be used by those villains."
Speaking to this point, the hatred on Bai Ling's face suddenly faded for a moment.
She slightly tilted her chin, her lips curving into a somewhat childish arc, and her single eye sparkled as she looked at Li Zhaoye.
"Isn't Senior Sister amazing?"
In that moment, Li Zhaoye seemed to see the Senior Sister Bai Ling of ten years ago again—the one who always stood in front of him, fearing nothing in heaven or earth, as brilliant as the stars.
Back then, every time she secretly took him down the mountain for training or helped him teach a lesson to the senior brothers who bullied him, she would always tilt her face up like this, with a bit of pride, and ask him boastfully:
"Isn't Senior Sister amazing?"
Separated by life and death for ten years, having crawled through hell and spent half her life sinking into madness, she had guarded Frost-Snow Fortress for ten years.
Bearing the infamy of betraying her master and sect, bearing the crimes of murdering her fellow disciples, bearing the title of a lunatic.
All to leave a complete corpse for these former fellow disciples, these poor people who had been treated as expendables.
So that they wouldn't be used while alive, only to become nourishment for the evil Buddha after death.
"Amazing..." Li Zhaoye's throat felt blocked as his jaws opened and closed, sobbing out the words.
"Senior Sister is the most amazing... she always has been..."
"So ten years ago, the reason Senior Sister rebelled against the sect was because she discovered this?"
"Yes."
Bai Ling continued to smile, though this time her smile held a hint of madness.
"I discovered Xu Yunzi's secret. I saw it, I saw it all."
"I saw him change into a wolf's heart and shed his human skin, hahahahahaha."
"I saved the people with wolf bodies and human souls, and killed the demons with human bodies and wolf souls, hahahahaha."
"He stripped me of my cultivation, severed my meridians, and threw me into the snow to die."
"Unfortunately for him, my life is tough. I wasn't willing to die!"
Bai Ling suddenly turned and walked toward the massive ice furnace.
The furnace fire was a ghostly blue, reflecting off her distorted face and making it look exceptionally terrifying.
Bai Ling pointed at the unformed sword embryo within the furnace.
"This is a sword forged from the unwillingness within thousands of corpses, from the resentment of tens of thousands of lost souls."
"They died too miserably, too unjustly. This resentment cannot be dispersed, so I gathered it all."
When talking about forging the sword, the madness in Bai Ling's eyes faded slightly, replaced by a few sparks of clarity.
"Once Senior Sister has refined this death sword..."
She gently stroked the cold wall of the furnace, her gaze as tender as if she were looking at her own child.
"I will be able to slay that evil Buddha and exterminate those wolf demons."
"I will return peace to the Northern Region."
"When that time comes, Zhaoye won't have to be a wolf anymore. Everyone can turn back into humans."
"When that time comes, Senior Sister will take you home."
Li Zhaoye looked at Bai Ling's broken body and at the sword that condensed countless agonies.
He suddenly understood what kind of life his senior sister had lived these past ten years.
She was in hell, looking up at heaven.
Her sword heart was dead, but her sword intent was alive.
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