A City Swept by Wind and Snow GL - Chapter 37 1.3

◎…have already become the strongest Beast Tamers in history!◎

She still remembered the last experience of flying in the air.

The night was cool like water, with the smell of fresh snow. Xi Feng fell beside her, not looking at her, only gazing at the sky and counting the stars. Later—

“Little wolf cub, are you learning to fly?” Someone held up a bright lamp on the ground and looked at her with smiling eyes. That person’s expression at the time was both infuriating and reassuring. And, very… beautiful.

“She’s beautiful?—Impossible! She’s despicable!” Xue Qianxun frowned, thinking to herself. Damn it, in this life-or-death moment, it’s as if there’s another consciousness arguing with her about someone’s “beauty” and “despicableness.”

Yet, “She is indeed beautiful…” a voice said firmly in her heart.

That beautiful face was getting closer and clearer. Xue Qianxun’s heart trembled, her vision suddenly blurred, then became clear again. The person’s smiling eyes curved like crescent moons, shining like moonlight.

Wait! How could she be getting closer?

Before she could think, Xue Qianxun had already fallen into Jin Se’s ink-black embrace. The wide garment wrapped her in a sea of ink. Looking up, she could only see a face as bright as peach blossoms floating out of the darkness.

“Xue Qianxun, your sudden pounce like this seems a little ill-timed,” she teased her, with a wicked, shallow smile.

“I… I just saw something fall, and my body was involuntarily sucked down…” Xue Qianxun explained.

“Hmph! Something?” Jin Se frowned and sneered.

As the two were speaking, Little Wolf’s Heavenly Wolf battle team swept in.

“Don’t be attracted by any ‘something’ again. The bottom connects to the Cold Marrow Abyss; it’s not a fun place. Also,” a hint of warmth was hidden in Jin Se’s cool voice, “you’re not light either.”

“Am I heavy?” Xue Qianxun almost retorted in exasperation, but her body was already pushed out by Jin Se. Wu Ya (Dark Crow) flew past at the right time, catching her.

No one knew when, but the flustered Grand Yin Dolls and Wu Ya had regained their composure. Little Wolf could make them momentarily disordered, and Jin Se could also make them instantly recover, but no one noticed exactly what Jin Se did.

Xue Qianxun lay on Wu Ya’s back, instantly ascending high into the sky. Sunlight shone down. Ten thousand golden rays fell into the abyss, falling onto Jin Se in her ink-black robes—she resembled an emissary from the realm of darkness, calm, powerful, unfathomable, reflecting back not a trace of the sun’s warmth. However, around her, faint, straight, sliding, slender, enchanting red lights were subtly reflected, even more dazzling than the sunlight.

“What is that?” Xue Qianxun couldn’t help but murmur.

But she heard Little Wolf whisper in surprise, “Red Silkworm Thread?”

Xue Qianxun then recalled that Jin Se had given her a detailed explanation of the characteristics of the five divine silkworms bred by the Northern Nether Weaver Maiden. The Red Silkworm Thread was the most resilient and elastic of them. A single, extremely fine strand was enough to lift a hundred jin of heavy stone.

A ringing sound, like the clashing of jade pieces, echoed in the void—light, elegant, and rhythmic. In that instant, two Grand Yin Dolls suddenly crossed paths in the air, then flew towards the opposite cliff. At their intersection point, the first Heavenly Wolf that charged over instantly stopped flapping its wings. Bl00d flowed from its neck, staining its white fur red.

The slight breeze thus stirred up lifted Jin Se’s sleeve, revealing a fair wrist. Several small ring-shaped ornaments of various shapes trembled on a jade bangle. Bright red threads extended from Jin Se’s wrists, elbows, knees, ankles, and lower back, respectively, to the silver bangles on the wrists of the nine Grand Yin Dolls. Each silver bangle on the Grand Yin Dolls also had ring-shaped ornaments of different shapes and materials dangling from it, emitting a dīng dōng sound, remotely echoing Jin Se.

One Heavenly Wolf was injured and fell. The other two Heavenly Wolves quickly flew down to catch their companion. Little Wolf, however, suddenly leaped from the back of a Heavenly Wolf. His slender figure streaked across the sky like a meteor. His sharp fingernails shimmered with the sun’s halo, casting a terrifying reflection in Jin Se’s pupils.

Jin Se “floated” in mid-air, her sleeves billowing with the wind. The blurry ink color spread wantonly in the dazzling sunlight, like the most enchanting black tulip in the heavens and on earth, blooming elegantly with an air of arrogance and supremacy.

Following such a magnificent and blazing dance, a strange, ethereal fragrance wafted from Jin Se’s body, gently spreading until all living creatures within a hundred zhang were mesmerized by it. This was a unique scent belonging to Jin Se, a transformed scent that was different from her usual one.

However, this scent, slightly different from usual, evoked a sense of déjà vu in Xue Qianxun’s memory! Her hands tightly gripped the collar around Wu Ya’s neck. It was as if she had fallen into the vortex of the river of time, lost in direction and self.

“My memory…” Xue Qianxun couldn’t help but bite her trembling fingers, muttering a phrase that even she was shocked by, “It turns out there’s more than just one blank period!”

If the brief memory loss during the pursuit of Fifth Mei had left Xue Qianxun puzzled, then the hint of a lost period of time emerging at this moment filled Xue Qianxun with genuine fear—it shouldn’t have been as short as ten days or half a month; it might have been a year, or even longer.

Xue Qianxun stared intently at Jin Se, who was dancing gracefully in the air, attempting to grasp a clue to the lost segment of memory. At the same time, she frantically questioned herself: Did I see her before? Did I recognize her before? Jin Se! Jin Se… who exactly are you?

Jin Se’s dance was a world-shaking beauty. Her body was like a tall ink leaf, her face like a bright, pure petal. Coming like the thunder’s gathered wrath, ending like the sea’s clear stillness. The movement of every Grand Yin Doll perfectly coordinated with Jin Se’s dance. They leaped and soared across the two walls of the narrow ravine, one after another. The slender Red Silkworm Threads crisscrossed in the air, shimmering with beautiful radiance, without the slightest disarray. Jin Se and her tamed beasts seemed to be an organic whole, with every subtle movement and tendency controlled by a single consciousness. Their rhythms were perfectly synchronized.

Little Wolf and his Heavenly Wolf battle team also shared a deep, unspoken understanding. They did not lose their fighting spirit because one Heavenly Wolf was severely injured, nor did they abandon their companion who could no longer fight. Even knowing they were likely facing a much stronger opponent, they still followed closely behind Little Wolf, trusting him, obeying him, and fighting alongside him.

Xue Qianxun was carried by Wu Ya to a safe height, looking down at the stunning duel unfolding in the air. Every round was as swift as a flash of lightning. With Xue Qianxun’s eyesight, she couldn’t distinguish the change in every detail.

All living creatures in the mountain forest were shaken by this breathtaking battle, and an unsettling restlessness emanated from beneath the dense branches and leaves everywhere.

In the end, most of the Heavenly Wolves were injured and lost the ability to fight. Only Little Wolf, together with one of the strongest Heavenly Wolves, broke through the continuous, alternating interception of the nine Grand Yin Dolls and reached Jin Se’s proximity. He stood on the Heavenly Wolf’s back with one foot. Bl00d from the Grand Yin Dolls dripped from his fingernails. His eyes shot out the dominance of the King of Beasts. What set him apart from the Beast Tamer Jin Se was that he was the strongest combat force in his entire man-wolf team.

“Jin Se, when all your weapons are powerless, can you strike back yourself?” Glancing at the nine Grand Yin Dolls clinging to the cliff face, utterly exhausted, Little Wolf slowly uttered this sentence with a cold sneer, as if the energy within his own body had also reached its limit.

Jin Se was linked to the nine Grand Yin Dolls through the Red Silkworm Threads, but at the same time, she was inevitably constrained by this link. She was suspended in mid-air. At the end of the nine threads were the Grand Yin Dolls, barely able to cling to the rock face. Most of them were injured. Jin Se could not easily move her limbs and affect them.

Although a trace of pity flashed in his eyes, Little Wolf’s ten fingers still fiercely clawed at Jin Se’s shoulders—he ultimately did not wish to kill her, but definitely wanted to severely injure her so she couldn’t rise again.

In that moment of extreme peril, Jin Se suddenly raised the corner of her lips slightly, mocking, “Although you are unaware of it, you are already dead.”

Little Wolf’s arm stopped an inch from Jin Se’s shoulder, unable to move. His neck, however, was gripped by another pair of cold, slick little hands. Yet, just a moment ago, he had only seen a wisp of silver hair flash past the corner of his eye.

“The… the tenth Grand Yin Doll?” Little Wolf muttered in shock. Hot bl00d slowly flowed down his collarbone. He had been staring at Jin Se every single moment, yet he hadn’t discovered the “trump card” hidden beneath her flowing black robes. However, what was even more unexpected to him was that the Grand Yin Doll, which was even smaller than the other nine, was actually the leader of all the Grand Yin Dolls. By subjugating the strongest one, Jin Se had subjugated all its subordinates!

Jin Se reached out, casually took Little Wolf’s name plaque, and smiled sweetly: “Of course, I wouldn’t strike back myself. I will always let my tamed beasts attack the enemy. As for you, as a Beast Tamer, why do you degrade yourself to a beast?”

The beast-like light in Little Wolf’s eyes instantly dimmed, a complex mix of disappointment and relief. The tenth Grand Yin Doll quietly slid off his shoulder, darted back to Jin Se’s side, and wrapped its arms around her slender waist affectionately, gazing at Little Wolf, whom it had just severely injured, like an innocent and carefree child.

“Cough…” Little Wolf sighed weakly, falling backward onto the Heavenly Wolf’s back, “I didn’t degrade myself to a beast. I just couldn’t find a trustworthy kindred spirit among humans.”

All the Heavenly Wolves struggled to take flight, guarding Little Wolf as they flew away into the distance.

The spring breeze swept through the narrow ravine, carrying a sense of desolation.

In a certain corner, difficult for people to detect, a brush dipped in fresh ink soared across a brand new scroll: Hua Ding, Year Eleven, Spring. Little Wolf and Jin Se become the first generation of Beast Tamers to reach the second stage of Beast Taming. Their respective realms are “Concentricity” and “Synchronicity.”

“Concentricity” and “Synchronicity”—these were the methods the eleventh generation Jianghu Bi, Nan Gongqing, had hypothesized seven years ago for taming evil beasts. Little Wolf and Jin Se finally confirmed their feasibility. Without a doubt, they have already become the strongest Beast Tamers in history.