As the humming of the Ziwei Sword faded into the air, Shen Xitang’s silver silk remained coiled around Xiao Heng’s bleeding wrist. Gray-blue sleet drifted over the ruins of the Xiaoling Guard, settling on A-Qing’s tattered dragon robe and turning the gold-embroidered cloud patterns a ghastly white.
"Sister’s Return to Void Gu grows ever more refined," A-Qing leaned against a fragment of a stone statue, the starlight in her double pupils dimming. "To think you could even neutralize the sword qi of the Purple Star..." She coughed suddenly, and the blood leaking between her fingers congealed into the shape of the Big Dipper. "A pity, in the end, you miscalculated the human heart."
Shen Xitang used her silver hairpin to lightly lift the jade pendant at A-Qing’s waist. The markings of the Chiwen Seal glinted with a ghostly blue light under the snow, as if hiding endless secrets.
Chapter 117