Chapter 49: Revenge (Part 2)

Li Yaorao stepped forward to report, "Master, Jin Xiaodao has been tied up."

Meng Xiaoli straightened her posture, gazed at the dark, cloud-laden sky, and commanded, "Throw this little girl off the cliff, and send someone skilled in lightness kung fu to catch her at the bottom of the mountain." Then, lowering her gaze to the little girl, she said, "I do not want your life, but I will make you remember this pain for the rest of your days."

Bowing with cupped hands, Li Yaorao acknowledged the order, "Rest assured, Master, this disciple will preserve her life." With that, she reached out to pick up the child. The little girl cried even harder, screaming incessantly, "Mother, Mother..."

In a sudden trance, Meng Xiaoli saw her own daughter, Long Ze, reflected in the little girl. Without thinking, she called out, "Wait." Li Yaorao placed the child back onto the stone table, looking at Meng Xiaoli in bewilderment.

Meng Xiaoli cupped the little girl's chubby cheeks in her hand. Between her brows and eyes, she seemed to catch a glimpse of Long Ye's shadow, mingled with the likeness of little Long Ze. Though she could not pinpoint exactly what resembled whom, there was undoubtedly a striking similarity. Softly, Meng Xiaoli asked, "Tell me, what is your name?"

"Long Nianze!" the little girl sobbed, pronouncing her name syllable by syllable.

To Meng Xiaoli's ears, it sounded as though a thousand people were beating drums and ten thousand striking chimes. Whose hands were plucking at her heartstrings? A wrenching, acute agony twisted inside Meng Xiaoli's chest. A sudden sourness stung the bridge of her nose, and tears welled up in her eyes. With her chest tight and constricted, she stared blankly at the weeping child, before bursting into wild, maniacal laughter, swaying unsteadily as she took a step.

Li Yaorao quickly stepped forward to steady her, only to hear Meng Xiaoli laugh uproariously toward the heavens: "Long Ye, oh Long Ye, how calculating you are! Nianze, Nianze... you named the child you had with Jin Xiaodao after my daughter. Is it true longing, or were you afraid that if I ever returned one day, you would use this name to spare your daughter's life?"

Meng Xiaoli's eyes turned bloodshot. Staring fixedly at Long Nianze before her, a full reservoir of pent-up tears broke through the dam and streamed down her face. Stepping forward, Meng Xiaoli picked up Long Nianze, set her firmly on the ground, and crouched beside her. Turning the child's body to face the grand pathway outside the courtyard gate, she pointed a finger into the distance and said in a deep voice, "Now, follow this road straight ahead. Keep walking and do not look back." Turning to look straight into Long Nianze's eyes, she threatened, "Your mother has been killed by me. You need never return."

Rising to her feet, Meng Xiaoli gave Long Nianze a gentle push forward and ordered, "Go! Be even a fraction slower, and you'd better watch out—once I change my mind, you will die."

Looking back at the menacing, terrifying visage of Meng Xiaoli, Long Nianze panicked, paralyzed by fear and unable to move her feet. At a single stern roar from Meng Xiaoli, the child spun around, sprinted a few hasty steps toward the courtyard gate, and turned back to look at her through her tears. Then, she turned toward the road outside, walking and weeping, continually glancing back over her shoulder as she went. Knowing neither where she should go nor daring to return, Long Nianze could only flee as fast as her legs could carry her.

From afar, Meng Xiaoli watched the receding figure of Long Nianze. The tiny silhouette hurried away with lingering reluctance, growing ever smaller in the distance—so much like her own daughter, Long Ze. How Meng Xiaoli wished that were truly Long Ze! At least she would still be alive, and to live was to hold onto hope. It was a pity, however, that this was the child of Long Ye and Jin Xiaodao; her own daughter, Long Ze, could never, ever return.

Withdrawing her gaze, Meng Xiaoli lowered her head and wiped away her tears with her hand, her hatred for Jin Xiaodao compounding layer upon layer within her heart. Softly, she instructed a disciple, "Send someone to follow her. Do not let her die." A disciple acknowledged the order and departed.

Meng Xiaoli turned and walked into the house. Jin Xiaodao was bound to a wooden frame, her mouth still murmuring pleas not to harm her child. Approaching Jin Xiaodao, Meng Xiaoli gazed at the face she loosed such disgust upon, and a sudden, strange flicker of pity stirred within her. With a bitter smile, she said, "You wandered the rivers and lakes far and wide following Long Ye in search of me, yet you never spent a single day of happiness with him. When you finally became nominal husband and wife, you never won an ounce of Long Ye's love. The child you bore was named only to pine after my daughter. Every time you call your own daughter's name, it is a reminder of the wrongs you committed back then. The daughter you cherish so dearly is your lifelong nightmare. Jin Xiaodao, what on earth have you lived for all these years?"

Jin Xiaodao let her head drop in utter despair. First came a bout of agonizing weeping, followed abruptly by a string of shrill, cackling laughter. Raising her head to look at Meng Xiaoli, she laughed wildly and said, "If I have known no peace, how much better off have you been? Am I not your nightmare as well? You claim you do not hate me, yet why, even after nine years have passed, have you come back to torment me? You are mighty and surrounded by followers, but everyone in this world calls you a female fiend, the Rakshasa Ghost Princess. If your heart were upright, how could you have fallen into the demonic path? All the revulsion and spitting of the world are directed at you, not me."

Gazing deeply into Jin Xiaodao's eyes, Meng Xiaoli grabbed Jin Xiaodao's face with one hand and said, "I told you, I came back to give my daughter an accounting. I will not kill you. I want you to live in this world forever, because in my heart, you are simply not worth killing."

With a flick of her Golden Scale Blood Armor, a piercing shriek escaped Jin Xiaodao's lips as two deep gouges were slashed across her face, fresh blood gushing down her cheeks. Pressing the blood armor against Jin Xiaodao's face, Meng Xiaoli dragged it slowly downward. Following the motion of the armor, the flesh on Jin Xiaodao's face was shredded into a bloody pulp. Wracked with pain so intense that even her voice trembled, Jin Xiaodao still managed to scream, "Kill me however you like, Meng Xiaoli! But I beg you, spare my daughter."

Taking a perverse delight in mangling Jin Xiaodao's face, Meng Xiaoli smiled and said, "Just as my daughter died, so shall your daughter die. But do not worry, I will make her fully experience the agony my daughter suffered, and then cast her out to wander just like you—to be harmed, bought, sold, and even tortured by wicked men, walking the exact same old path as you, Jin Xiaodao."

Hearing this, Jin Xiaodao cast aside all concern for the wounds on her cheeks, crying out in heartbreaking despair, "No!" Her wide-open mouth pulled at the lacerations on her face, sending blood spurting forth in hot streams as her flesh peeled back in a horrifying manner, making her look entirely like a living ghost. Weeping bitterly, Jin Xiaodao shrieked, "Meng Xiaoli, you are utterly devoid of conscience, vicious and shameless! Even if you kill me today, I will return as a malevolent ghost to claim your life. I will murder you and hack you into a thousand pieces!" The wounds on her face and the wounds in her heart intertwined as she roared and cursed in a frenzy of hysteria.

Closing her eyes, Meng Xiaoli savored Jin Xiaodao's agonizing response and said flatly, "Think back to those years—the pain of having my love stolen from me, the enmity of my child being murdered, where did all that smug arrogance of yours go? When you were plotting against me, did you ever consider that I have hands and feet and would one day return to exact my revenge? Life is a circle; sooner or later, we were bound to cross paths again."

Spitting out the blood that had trickled into her mouth, Jin Xiaodao sighed with a bitter smile, "Meng Xiaoli, I never imagined that after all this time, this matter would still refuse to let me go. You have won after all. Perhaps you never truly lost at all."

The light in Jin Xiaodao's eyes dimmed as she smiled bleakly, "Though I tore apart your marriage, I never truly intruded upon the affection between the two of you. Long Ye never held an ounce of love for me. Had I not slipped a love potion into his wine, we would never have given birth to Nianze, nor could we ever have become husband and wife."

Hearing these words, the smile froze abruptly on Meng Xiaoli's lips. In an instant, all her accumulated resentment toward Long Ye dissipated. Pitiable Long Ye had been played for a fool by the woman before him, harboring self-reproach for half a lifetime without ever realizing the fault did not lie with him.

As Meng Xiaoli fell into contemplation, she heard Jin Xiaodao continue, "Even when he was lost in a fog of passion, he merely mistook me for you. Meng Xiaoli! You are loved, you have a home of your own, and even as you wandered the martial world, there were people who remembered and searched for you. Now you have become the master of a cult, supreme in martial arts, with countless followers adoring you. As for me? The wealth and glory I lost never returned. I have lived every day in terror, worrying that I might be cast aside once again at any moment. Perhaps meeting you in this lifetime was nothing more than a mistake on my part. I made mistake after mistake and reaped what I sowed. How I wish I could return to those days—back then, even if I, Jin Xiaodao, had starved to death, I would never have stepped foot across your threshold."

The more Jin Xiaodao poured her heart out in this manner, the more the thin veneer of pity Meng Xiaoli held for her was blown away like smoke. With a downward twitch of the corner of her mouth, Meng Xiaoli clamped a hand onto Jin Xiaodao's bloody face, leaned in close, and said, "Regretting it now? It is too late! Instead of acting like a decent human being, you chose to indulge in evil, utterly squandering heaven's good intentions."

With those words, Meng Xiaoli raised her other hand, extended two fingers, and thrust them straight into Jin Xiaodao's eyes. A sky-shattering, soul-rending shriek burst from Jin Xiaodao's throat, startling a flock of wild birds nearby. A jagged bolt of lightning cleaved the dark storm clouds in the sky squarely in two. Every disciple present turned away and closed their eyes—save for Li Yaorao, who glared resentfully at Jin Xiaodao.

Withdrawing her hand, Meng Xiaoli used a silk handkerchief to wipe the Golden Scale Blood Armor at her fingertips. Jin Xiaodao's face was twisted and deformed. Her mouth hung open in a soundless scream, the veins on her neck bulging violently. Bound to the wooden frame, her body twitched uncontrollably as a layer of cold sweat broke out all over her.

Meng Xiaoli sighed, "Slashed across your face to avenge my daughter, and blinding your eyes as a lesson to you. Back then you mistook my kindness for weakness, so remember for the future: when others show you kindness, you must know how to be grateful. Goodness in others is not something for you to trample upon, otherwise, when retribution comes for you, no one will show you mercy either."

After a long while, Jin Xiaodao finally caught her breath enough to produce sound once more, letting out piercing screeches, each one higher than the last. Turning to Li Yaorao, Meng Xiaoli commanded, "Cut her down and throw her into the bustling marketplace."

Acknowledging the order, Li Yaorao and another disciple stepped forward to untie Jin Xiaodao. Collapsing onto the ground, Jin Xiaodao raised her wide-open hands as if to cradle her face, yet she dared not touch it. Blinded, she swept her hands frantically through the air in panic.

Li Yaorao hauled her up from the ground, dragging her outside the courtyard like a dead pig. Turning back, she reported to Meng Xiaoli, "Master, how should we deal with this house?"

Standing in the courtyard, Meng Xiaoli cast her gaze around her surroundings. Every single object, every table and chair here bore the traces of the life Long Ye and Jin Xiaodao had shared. Imagining their mundane daily routines together, Meng Xiaoli felt an indescribable emotion stir within her. In a low, heavy voice, she sighed, "Burn it all to the ground." Cupping her fists in obedience, Li Yaorao left men behind to set the house ablaze.

Returning to the city with her entourage, Meng Xiaoli passed through a bustling marketplace. Li Yaorao tossed Jin Xiaodao onto the ground, and Meng Xiaoli instructed, "Leave men to watch her in secret. Do not let her die; I want her to live in eternal torment."

People milled back and forth through the busy market. Seeing the group from the Red Robe Cult approach, everyone panicked and backed away in terror. When they spotted the female disciples discarding a woman whose face was covered in blood and whose eyes had been gouged out—a truly horrifying sight—they cried out in alarm and scattered far away.

As soon as the people of the Red Robe Cult departed, everyone plucked up their courage and swarmed closer. Seeing the pitiful woman weeping on the ground—a truly heart-wrenching and tear-jerking spectacle—they vied with one another to curse the Rakshasa Ghost Princess on the woman's behalf, wielding their righteous indignation and spittle to dispense justice and champion the underdog.

Just as the crowd was working themselves into a frenzy of self-righteous rhetoric, the dark clouds that had been holding back for half a day finally unleashed a torrential downpour. In an instant, a violent rainstorm beat down mercilessly, forcing everyone to humble themselves before the deluge and scurry beneath the eaves of morality, casting sympathetic, benevolent glances from afar at the paralyzed figure of Jin Xiaodao lying helpless in the storm.