Cold winds cut like blades. Spots of blood bloomed and spread, chunks of flesh floated, breaking the water’s surface. What had happened?
How?
Cloudy sweat slid past a forehead. Unfocused pupils sharpened again. The sky was clear, the sun piercing.
Blood streamed from both ears, accompanied by a ringing buzz. Hedeban’s throat bobbed, parched raw.
Dead?
Bai Xingwen… was dead? Just like that… a single clash, a flash of lightning.
“Ah, ah…”
Firewood Dog’s throat seemed blocked, his chest and windpipe clamped tight. He wheezed out air like a mute, his lips like a shallow puddle dashed across a yellow-dust field in the dog days—evaporated in a blink, cracking into countless shreds of dead skin.
Thump! Thump!
Knees hit the deck. The hounds and attendants behind them recognized the head, collapsed onto the planks. Water stains spread across trousers, trickling all over the floor as their bodies trembled uncontrollably.
It was over.
All over.
Young Master Bai was dead! Should the old tribe leader learn of this, they would be reincarnated as five-generation serfs, five-generation prostitutes, their thigh bones ripped out for the Venerable Masters to refine into ritual thighbone trumpets—and still never repay the sins of this life! No. They had to drag the body back.