Chapter 43: To be ghost husband and wife and raise a litter of little ghosts!

Li Wenxuan looked at those small hands, their ten fingers completely covered in calluses...

These were not the rough calluses formed from heavy physical labor, but rather the result of year-after-year of playing the pipa, with skin constantly rubbing against the strings.

This was indeed a completely harmless blind girl.

Li Wenxuan leaned his head forward.

The blind girl's slightly chilled hands moved from his forehead, across his brow bones, eyes, nose, cheekbones, cheeks, and both sides of his face, and finally traced down his neck to the back of his head, reaching the crown before slowly retracting...

A faint flush of shyness had already appeared on the blind girl's face, as if this were the first time she had ever touched a stranger's body with such intimacy.

"Sir does not have the physiognomy of one who dies young..."

Li Wenxuan did not notice the sudden maidenly shyness the blind girl displayed; he merely poured her a cup of rice wine.

"A free meal and drink should be enough. Don't speak such deceitful nonsense to comfort a dying man. Drink this cup of rice wine to warm your body, and then be on your way."

"Be on my way? Actually, I've long since wanted to die."

The blind girl sighed, and the yearning for death on her face did not seem feigned.

Li Wenxuan patted his pockets, feeling awkward—he was out of money...

Hearing the movement, the blind girl suddenly let out a soft, giggling laugh. "Is sir about to give me money? I am a blind person. Even if I got money from you to buy some food and survive for half a year or a year, in the end, I would still starve to death..."

Li Wenxuan sighed, "You are still young, there is truly no need to seek your own death like this. There is always a way out..."

"Then why don't you marry me? If you support me from now on, I won't have to worry about starving to death."

The blind girl suddenly arched her brows and smiled. There seemed to be a spark of light within her empty, unseeing eyes, but her face grew even redder.

Li Wenxuan shook his head. "Putting aside whether I can even survive tonight... Furthermore, I like beauties..." He added, "Those flamboyant and vulgar women with pretty faces are my absolute favorite."

As he said this, he and the blind girl laughed together.

The blind girl picked up her cup of rice wine and sipped it slowly, speaking in the flat, detached tone of someone narrating another person's tragic fate:

"I was born blind. My mother cried until she lost her sight, and my father grew more and more disgusted with her. I heard that one spring, when she smelled the fragrance of flowers, she threw herself into a well and died..."

"Clink..."

The wine cup hit rock bottom, but there was no bottom to sorrow and heartache.

The blind girl set the cup down casually and lightly brushed the strings of the pipa.

"I feel like I shouldn't have been born into this world. Otherwise, my father wouldn't have abandoned my mother, and my mother wouldn't have died."

"You..."

Li Wenxuan desperately wanted to take back his previous words advising the blind girl not to seek death.

So much so that all the hackneyed cliches he had prepared—such as even a lowly ant clings to life, or cherish the moth by the gauze lamp, sweep the floor with care lest you harm the lives of ants—were all instantly swallowed back down.

"Therefore." The blind girl turned her head, fixing her empty, unseeing eyes... no, rather, aiming them directly at Li Wenxuan:

"I truly want to die."

"Very well, if I manage to stay alive and see tomorrow's sun, I will marry you."

Li Wenxuan's hand rested upon the hilt of the three-foot official saber on the table, and he felt a presence known as killing intent.

The blind girl also heard the footsteps approaching, and she grinned. "Though I know you're just humoring me..."

"Hold on, I am not humoring you. I am completely serious."

Li Wenxuan's saber left its scabbard.

The blind girl could see nothing, but she immediately heard the sound of a sharp blade tearing through the air, followed by the screams of men collapsing to the ground.

Warm liquid splattered across her face, sticky and reeking; she knew this was human blood.

She had smelled human blood many times before and was long accustomed to it.

There were many people, locked in a chaotic melee.

The clashing of blade against blade made her ears ring with pain.

Then came the roar of many people fighting desperately.

Countless figures fell to the ground.

The blind girl could not see, but having lived this long, she had long since unconsciously cultivated the ability to pick out the specific sound she wanted from amidst a cacophony of noise.

For instance, the young man currently wielding his blade to kill—she could clearly hear the youth's breathing and anger, and above all—his killing intent!

Whether the youth's blade was being blocked by an opponent's weapon or cleaving through flesh and blood.

She could not see it, but she could hear it.

*Clang—*

Another blade was drawn from its scabbard.

This was the youth's secondary weapon, hanging at his waist.

One blade for offense, one blade for defense.

Until finally, all the chaotic breathing faded away, leaving only a single heavy panting sound drawing close to her side.

His feet sounded as though they were wading through muddy ground, stepping down with a squelching sound of liquid.

Inside the Qingyun Pavilion, there was the faint sound of liquid flowing, like a drying trickle of a stream.

The young Centurion tore off a piece of his own garment, expressionlessly wrapped the wound on his left calf, and then looked up, panting as he smiled at the blind girl before him:

"Little girl, do you realize now that this isn't a joke? People really do die. Hurry and leave!"

"More people are coming."

The blind girl cradled her pipa, her fingers sweeping powerfully across the strings.

*Clang!*

The grand pipa melody, *Ambush on Ten Sides*.

Li Wenxuan looked at the figures in black rushing out from the back kitchen, a ferocious expression twisting his features. Gripping the three-foot official saber in his left hand and the dark iron blade in his right, he hauled himself to his feet and let out a roar:

"Come on then, you beasts!"

The pipa strings rang clear and sharp.

The sound of swords and sabers was ferocious.

Inside the Qingyun Pavilion, another floor of corpses lay strewn about.

Li Wenxuan slumped heavily over the table, stroking the inner armor on his body that had been hacked out of shape.

He had no experience wearing armor; otherwise, he would have put on the set provided by the Eastern Depot long ago.

Of course, part of it was also due to this body being far too weak...

Well, casting a glance at the corpses blanketing the floor, calling it "too weak" might not be entirely accurate, but compared to the perfect battle physique he desired in his heart, it fell far short.

Under conditions of physical exhaustion, putting on armor to face this wave of wheel-tactic combat would have worn him to death.

Furthermore, hampered by heavy armor when his stamina was depleted, his exquisite dual-blade killing techniques could not be properly unleashed.

Inner armor was much better, as it could protect vital areas like the chest and back.

However... after enduring too many blows, the inner armor was already warped, and he remained slumped over the table for a long while, panting heavily before breaking into a fit of coughing.

Though the blades had not pierced through this top-quality inner armor, the shockwaves had bruised his internal organs.

The saliva he coughed up was streaked with blood.

" Lass, I wasn't just toying with you. If I truly survive, I really will marry you tomorrow."

*Clang—*

A pipa string snapped.

The blind girl's finger was grazed, drawing blood.

Calluses had long since formed on her fingers from years of playing the pipa day in and day out, so they typically wouldn't be easily cut. Clearly, it was caused by the wild, reckless words of the dissolute youth, which had provoked violent emotional fluctuations deep within her heart.

Li Wenxuan broke into a goofy grin, wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, and smiled as he looked at the blind girl:

"Though you're a bit lacking in the looks department, you play this pipa quite well... If I may be so bold, all women under the cover of darkness look the same—*cough, cough*—"

The blind girl covered her wounded finger, "staring" at the heavily coughing young man before her, and asked, "Have you slept with many women?"

"In this world, not a single one."

"Then how do you know..." The blind girl blushed, but remembering she was about to die anyway, and realizing she had been the one to initiate the talk of marriage, she no longer felt anything was too brazen to voice.

She asked again, "Then how do you know that all women look the same with the lights out?"

Li Wenxuan leaned back against the chair, watching as another group of men in black silently and coldly approached from the back kitchen's serving hatch.

Panting lightly, he replied, "I heard it from someone else... But truly, I never expected to die alongside someone I've known for less than an hour. You... what is your name?"

The blind girl froze. What was her name again?

Li Wenxuan used his twin sabers to hoist himself back to his feet, a smile breaking through his blood-stained face.

"If people really do turn into ghosts after dying, then perhaps we could become a ghostly couple down in the underworld and raise a litter of little ghosts?"

The blind girl let out a soft, teasing laugh, tugging at the broken pipa string.

"Then listen well, my name is..."

*Boom—*

The tightly closed doors were suddenly shattered by a massive, towering figure as robust as a black bear.

A desperate outlaw, wrapped from head to toe in black garments, revealed only a pair of bloodshot, murderous eyes blazing with fire, glaring at Li Wenxuan like a demon.

Li Wenxuan caught the scent of death.

A yearning smile graced the blind girl's face as she shouted without a shred of hesitation or fear:

"My name is Sirou! Li Wenxuan, you must remember this. Once we reach the underworld, we're going to raise a litter of little ghosts!"