Chapter 218: So I’m the Protagonist After All (14)
Sui Yihuan raised her hand and pressed it against Su Mingxiu’s shoulder, pushing them apart. The force she used was actually not that strong.
But at the moment of resistance, the person leaning in took the initiative to retreat and even concluded her actions—
With the soft pad of her index finger, she wiped away a trace of crystal from the corner of Sui Yihuan’s lips.
When her gaze touched the mark on her fingertip, Sui Yihuan’s ears turned as red as a copper kettle on a stove, about to whistle along with the boiling water.
She lowered her gaze and squeezed out two words from between her teeth, “Frivolous…” What decent cultivator would be so dissolute! This Su Mingxiu must be a flower demon!
But when she glanced at her clothes, she realized that the robe she had been wearing, which had a dust-repelling charm and simple defensive spells, was long gone. She was only wearing a moon-white undergarment. The red on Sui Yihuan’s face couldn’t be concealed, almost reaching the point of wanting to die of shame and anger.
Su Mingxiu watched her many changes and, in order to prevent her from being repeatedly hit by the demonization of her body and the changes she had inflicted, she finally showed some kindness and explained in time, “Your clothes were stained with blood, so I changed them with a spell—I closed my eyes, I didn’t take advantage of you.”
Sui Yihuan’s expression improved a little.
Realizing that her beloved was currently rather conservative about love and affection, Su Mingxiu didn’t tease her further. As long as Sui Yihuan wasn’t immersed in that unnecessary guilt, she was happy to take it slow. At this moment, she naturally followed up and asked, “This inn is on the bustling main street. Do you want to go down and have a look around?”
According to Su Mingxiu’s plan, this place was not very wealthy, and there were no incidents of spirits disturbing the people. They only needed to use a simple spell to go out, and they didn’t even need cloaks to hide their spiritual power.
However, as soon as they reached the lobby of the inn, Su Mingxiu saw several people holding extraordinary weapons. Judging from their attire, they didn’t seem to be from near Zhenhai City. She paused and casually stopped a waiter who was serving dishes.
“Waiter, I remember there weren’t so many people yesterday. Why is it so lively today? Is there a big event in town?”
“You’ve asked the right person! We just got the news too. It is said that some kind of immortal realm… is about to open nearby, so the immortals who got the news are all rushing here. In less than half an hour, I heard that the inns in the city are all full, so we’re also picking up the slack.”
The waiter was beaming and was polite even though he was stopped. It was clear that this grand event had brought considerable profits to the inn’s business.
Su Mingxiu thoughtfully released her hand and looked at the moon-white figure that had just come down the stairs. The color of this robe was called moon-white, but it was the light blue reflection of the moon in the night sky illuminating the clouds, so the color was rather dark. But Sui Yihuan’s skin was delicate, like the finest sea sand, and the darkness set off the brightness of her features.
But no one else could see this beauty. This was a treasure that only Su Mingxiu could appreciate. Her eyes moved, and she quickly hid the emotions she couldn’t reveal in the blink of an eye.
Although it was a small town outside Zhenhai City, today was the day when all the villages came to the town for the market. Not only were there many mountain delicacies on the street market, but there were also many unique handmade pastries of various flavors. The fragrance mixed with the medicine of rogue cultivators who had come from all over for the secret realm, making it even more tempting.
Su Mingxiu originally wanted to buy some easily digestible rice cakes for Sui Yihuan, but found that the other person’s steps unconsciously stopped in front of a stall selling dried goods, staring at a bamboo basket of green rice balls, her expression unreadable.
The stall owner naturally greeted her, “Homemade green rice balls, with red bean paste, cured meat, and mushroom fillings. Would you like to try one?”
After listening to the stall owner introduce the fillings one by one, the light in Sui Yihuan’s eyes shattered. She was disappointed but unwilling to move her feet. In the end, Su Mingxiu saw that the stall owner’s face had darkened and pulled her sleeve, dragging her to her side.
“What flavor do you want to eat? I can give it a try.”
Sui Yihuan was about to speak when the surroundings suddenly became noisy.
“Zhenhai Tower has opened!”
Someone shouted, and the people on the long street all looked up to see the spectacle. Countless spiritual energies from all directions flew towards the azure sky. Swords, flutes, and all imaginable and unimaginable magical artifacts carried their owners’ weight, rushing towards the faintly visible mirage in the sky.
Su Mingxiu looked at this mirage and finally remembered what this Zhenhai Tower secret realm was…
The next moment, her expression suddenly changed.
Oh no.
As the towers in the mirage became clearer, a bright sunny day suddenly turned to rain. The pattering rain fell on the mortals, having the effect of ordinary rain. But when it splashed on those magical artifacts, it instantly made those colorful spiritual artifacts lose their light.
Where the raindrops fell, Sui Yihuan was still a little dazed. Instead, the owner of the green rice ball stall, who was holding an umbrella and watching the excitement in the sky, reacted the fastest. He raised his hand and took a piece of clothing, rolled up his dried goods and baskets, and quickly ran towards the nearby eaves.
A drop of rain fell unimpeded on Sui Yihuan’s face as she looked up at the sky.
In an instant, the spell covering it lost its effect, revealing her original delicate face, like a camellia or a jasmine.
At that moment, a cultivator happened to fall nearby. Because he almost bumped into someone when he fell, the unlucky cultivator got up and bowed to Sui Yihuan. He wanted to apologize, but was stunned by her face washed by the rain.
After looking carefully for two seconds, he shouted, “You are the one on the wanted poster—”
The second half of the sentence was blocked by the pill that Su Mingxiu threw into his mouth. He blushed and struggled on the spot, but couldn’t spit out another word.
Sui Yihuan turned her head and was covered by the cloak thrown at her. Before she could react to what had happened, she was already being pressed into someone’s arms by the cloak, “Let’s go, this rain can deplete spiritual energy!”
Until she was taken to the eaves of a nearby restaurant, Sui Yihuan was still a little dazed. When she lifted the cloak, she asked Su Mingxiu in a low voice, “What wanted poster?”
“Nothing.”
The woman in black was also wearing a cloak, her voice casual. Guessing that the treasures in the Zhenhai Tower secret realm had made the cultivators restless, and now that who knows how many people from the nine continents were coming to Zhenhai City, the risk of going out was too high. So she suddenly changed her mind and asked, “Do you want to go to Zhenhai Tower to have a look?”
“Zhenhai Tower…” Because Zhenhai City was in the Southern Region and near the sea, although it was not as spectacular as the sea of the Thirteen Schools, Sui Yihuan was still familiar with the legends related to it.
“Legend has it that this tower was specially built by a powerful cultivator to suppress a black dragon that was causing trouble in the sea. He suppressed his magical artifact here. But after he fell, this artifact disappeared. This Zhenhai Tower has ninety-nine and eighty-one floors, and each floor is filled with the most heinous monsters from all over the nine continents.”
“Yes.”
Because she had been there in the previous life, Su Mingxiu knew some of the monsters inside. Speaking of which, the material for her spiritual sword was made from the bones of that evil jiao. And this monster that caused trouble in front of Zhenhai City was only in the middle of Zhenhai Tower.
The reason why it attracted so many people from the nine continents was that after entering this secret realm, cultivators were randomly sent to one of the floors. They could neither go up nor down.
If they could defeat the monster on the same floor, they could take everything on that floor as loot and be teleported out of the secret realm.
This Zhenhai Tower only appeared once every thousand years, and many of the monsters in it were no longer found in the nine continents. Therefore, both artifact refiners and alchemists wanted to go in and get some rare materials.
Not to mention the cultivators who wanted to temper themselves, there were even many cultivators who wanted to go in and try their luck.
【Enter the Zhenhai Tower story, please cooperate with the male protagonist to get his opportunities—the thousand-year-old jiao core and the ten-thousand-year-old dragon bone.】
Su Mingxiu, who had taken these two things out in her previous life, smiled and responded to the suddenly appearing Heavenly Dao:
【Fuck off.】
The rain in the sky gradually stopped, and the originally illusory and ethereal Zhenhai Tower, which seemed to be out of reach, had now revealed its physical form. Countless golden lights shone through the small windows of the tower, showing that the evil beasts were still vigorously suppressed in the tower’s formation after thousands of years.
After the rain, a rainbow bridge was erected from the top of the tower to the outside of Zhenhai City. This was the only way to enter the secret realm.
With the first person taking the plunge, the rest followed, even fighting on the rainbow bridge.
Outside the restaurant, Su Mingxiu took out a red string from her interspatial bag at some point and wrapped it around Sui Yihuan’s little finger.
Sui Yihuan: “?”
“What is this?”
“I don’t know, a little trinket.” Su Mingxiu answered very frankly. After all, this was something she had confiscated from the interspatial bag of an unlucky pursuer from the Joyful Union Sect on the way after she and Sui Yihuan fled from the Hundred Flower Sect. She could only vaguely sense its effect, but didn’t know the name of this treasure.
“But the two people tied together, their spiritual power can be connected through this red string. I guess it can trick this secret realm into sending us to the same floor, so we don’t have to be separated.”
Sui Yihuan heard the undisguised “not wanting to be separated” in her words, and felt her heartbeat suddenly speed up. As a result, she heard Su Mingxiu continue smoothly, “After all, without you, who will protect me?”
The blush that had just appeared on her face was frozen. Sui Yihuan: “…”
Looking at the woman who was quietly approaching her, as if she were a delicate and pitiful little bird, Sui Yihuan looked outside, stammered, and replied, “Um, yes, I said I would, and I will protect you.”
—She had already forgotten the memory of being bullied by someone at the table in the morning.
After the first wave of cultivators entered the tower, Su Mingxiu took her onto the rainbow bridge. In the blink of an eye, they were pushed into the tower by the rainbow bridge, and their eyes suddenly went dark.
“Ouch, who squeezed me?”
“Where is this?”
“Which blind turtle grandson used a knife to cut your grandpa’s ass!”
“Sorry, sorry, I was too vigilant and took out my spiritual artifact. Daoist friend, please forgive me, I can compensate you.”
……
The chaotic voices came, and it was even more lively here than the long street in the small town.
Oh no.
Su Mingxiu felt the number of spiritual powers nearby and realized that she and Sui Yihuan had been thrown into a crowd. From time to time, cultivators tried to use their spiritual power to condense fire, or took out illuminating objects. Unfortunately, it was pitch black all around, and nothing could be lit.
She moved her mind, and the red thread on her right little finger appeared. She wanted to find Sui Yihuan’s position. Her intuition told her that the other person was nearby.
As a result, her left hand searched along the front of the red thread, but an inch away, she found three or four forks. And after taking a step, Su Mingxiu heard a very artificial voice nearby:
“Aiya! Brother Xiao, what is this? I seem to be entangled in something, please save me.”
“Chan’er, don’t be afraid, I’m coming.” A gentle male voice answered her.
Su Mingxiu: “…”
She woodenly began to untangle the red thread from her little finger, and said two words from the bottom of her heart, “Bad luck.”
She didn’t know if she was cursing the Heavenly Dao.
Or these lovebirds who were ruining her love life.
Leave a Reply