Chapter 419 - 200: Here at Last
The old woman's voice was flat and direct, as if she were merely stating a fact rather than making a threat.
Fang Shuwen glanced at her. Then, just as the old woman's killing intent flared, he suddenly turned and left.
"You insect."
The old woman sneered and looked at the other woman.
"Eat. When you're finished, you leave."
A hint of confusion crossed the woman's face, but she obediently continued to eat.
Footsteps sounded from the second floor. Looking up, they saw Fang Shuwen and Miao Feichan walking out of their room together.
"Wait for me here," Fang Shuwen told Miao Feichan.
Miao Feichan nodded. In the next instant, Fang Shuwen vanished from her sight.
The old woman's expression changed abruptly. She let out a sharp, furious cry:
"You're courting death!"
Her withered palm, wreathed in black and red energy, shot out.
But a hand suddenly seized her wrist, stopping it cold. Her withered palm couldn't advance another inch.
The black and red energy, however, shot from her fingertips like arrows, flying straight for the face of Fang Shuwen, who had abruptly appeared before her.
Fang Shuwen simply tilted his head, and the two streams of True Qi missed.
They struck the inn's wall.
The thick wall was pierced through without the slightest resistance.
Her attack having failed and her right hand still caught by Fang Shuwen, the old woman flipped her left palm, preparing to strike again.
But at that moment, Fang Shuwen tightened his five fingers. With a sickening CRUNCH...
...he snapped her sagging wrist.
A bloodcurdling scream erupted from the old woman's mouth, and the True Qi she had gathered in her left hand instantly dissipated.
Then, Fang Shuwen jabbed two fingers forward. With two soft SQUELCHING sounds, he gouged out both of the old woman's eyes. Tossing them aside, he followed up with a kick to her waist.
BANG.
The old woman's body flew sideways out of the inn and landed in the mud.
Only then did Fang Shuwen finally speak, his voice slow.
"You dare threaten to gouge out my eyes? Are you even worthy?"
The old woman was a ghastly sight.
She had always been a tyrannical sort; if anyone so much as glanced at her the wrong way, she would gouge out their eyes.
Who would have thought that after a lifetime of dominance, in her old age, her own eyes would be gouged out by another?
Her wrist, snapped by Fang Shuwen, throbbed with a pain so intense she wished for death.
Blinded and hopeless, yet even now, beyond venting her own misery, she still spoke to Fang Shuwen with a harsh and vicious tone:
"Who in the hell are you?"
"How dare you treat me like this... I'll turn you into a human swine!
"I'll leave you in a state where you can't live, but you can't die!"
Fang Shuwen scanned the other patrons in the inn and spoke softly,
"Would any of you be willing to lend me a saber?"
The patrons exchanged glances. Immediately, one man stood up, unslung the saber from his waist, and tossed it to Fang Shuwen.
"Demon Evil God, please use it!"
Fang Shuwen drew the saber as he stepped outside the inn. The blade flashed.
A series of sickening slices followed.
The old woman's four limbs were instantly severed from her body.
Fang Shuwen sheathed the saber. He glanced at the old woman, who was howling in agony in the mud, and sighed softly.
"I'm still too soft-hearted."
As he finished speaking, the blade flashed out again. With a flicker of cold light, a head rolled from its neck.
The howling stopped abruptly. Fang Shuwen felt things were much quieter now.
Returning to the inn, he tossed the saber back to the Jianghu man.
"My thanks."
"Not at all."
The man lowered his head slightly, not daring to meet Fang Shuwen's gaze.
Fang Shuwen's eyes swept the room. He met Lin Fan's gaze for a moment before Lin Fan leaped out the window and vanished in the blink of an eye.
'Looks like the kid actually took my advice this time.'
Miao Feichan came down from the upper floor.
"Should we leave too?"
Sometimes, she was even more concise than Fang Shuwen.
Fang Shuwen shook his head and looked at the woman, who had already stood up.
"You know me?"
The woman smiled faintly.
"Of course I do."
Fang Shuwen raised an eyebrow slightly.
"So this is what you look like."
"...You know who I am?"
Hearing Fang Shuwen's words, the woman's face was filled with astonishment.
Miao Feichan didn't understand the riddle the two were speaking, but seeing that Fang Shuwen was in no hurry to leave, she called over a waiter and ordered some food and drink.
Fang Shuwen calmly sat down as if he wasn't the one who had just committed murder.
He then said softly,
"Your eyes... I find them very familiar.
"But your face is one I've never seen before.
"I've thought it over carefully. With a memory like mine, if someone's eyes are familiar but their face is not, there's only one possibility: that person was wearing a different face when we met.
"But their eyes... those they cannot change.
"And among all the people I know, only one possesses such a shapeshifting ability.
"Isn't that right, Pavilion Master Ye?"
"Neither mist, nor flower, nor what meets the eye. Like a whisper, like a thought, like a thousand faces passing by."
Miao Feichan looked up in surprise.
"You're Ye Feihua?"
"To think you actually recognized me."
With those words, she clearly admitted her identity. Ye Feihua sat down and looked at Fang Shuwen.
"Is there anything in this world that can be hidden from you?"
"Far too many things..."
Fang Shuwen shook his head helplessly. He still couldn't make heads or tails of the matter concerning Dragon Abyss.
But of course, there was no need to tell Ye Feihua that.
"What happened to you? After we met at your so-called Jinghua Pavilion, where did you go? Why have you appeared here?
"And what was the deal with that old crone who didn't know her place?"