256 Bottom Line

The blank look in her eyes made it seem as if she had lost her soul, as if her spirit itself had been injured.

Her pale skin did not seem to contain even the slightest trace of blood, like that of a corpse which had been entombed in a coffin of ice for a thousand years. The wind which blew across the pillar she stood on was incapable of blowing away her look of confusion.

Her garments were stained with blackened spots of dried blood that seemed to have been there for a very, very long time. Never having been washed away, they had dried and branded themselves onto the fabric.

On her forehead was a wound, a gash that had clearly been there for some indeterminable length of time. It looked like a sword wound… that hadn't healed.

As her garments fluttered in the wind, her right wrist became visible. It had a second sword gash on it.

Xu Qing was thinner.