Chapter 34: The Destined-to-be-Abandoned Good-for-Nothing (14)p1
Candy?
Su Mingxiu looked at the golden candy held between Gui Mian’s lips, the glistening trace staining her pale pink lips. Her pupils constricted, as if she could see through this scene and glimpse Yu Yinglan from the previous world, who always loved to act coquettishly around her.
Was this a mere coincidence?
Or was it something more?
Recalling what her little disciple had just said, “I saw Master kiss me last night,” Su Mingxiu calmly stopped Gui Mian from getting closer and asked softly, “When did I kiss you?”
After Gui Mian recounted her dream, Su Mingxiu instinctively wanted to ask the system if the two were the same person, but she quickly extinguished the thought.
Thinking about the system’s strong opposition to her relationship with the protagonist in the last world, and how, after entering this world, it had subtly mocked her for changing her heart when she started being kind to Gui Mian, and now, it was eagerly issuing the command to complete the final mission just as Gui Mian began to understand emotions and desires—
All of this felt like a cover-up.
Su Mingxiu knew that she had to verify these suspicions herself.
Gui Mian vaguely finished telling her master about her dream, but she didn’t see her master take the candy. After waiting for a long time, she couldn’t help but lean closer, wanting to taste again, to see if her master’s lips were as soft and sweet as she had tasted last night.
But she was pushed away.
“I don’t want it.”
Su Mingxiu rejected her casually. “I don’t want the candy, and I don’t want you.”
“Why?”
Gui Mian subconsciously bit down on the sweet candy, the crunching sound filling the air. She saw Su Mingxiu walking down the mountain and quickly followed, asking.
“Because I don’t want to.”
“Then when will Master want to?” The little disciple bumped her nose against her master’s back, who had suddenly stopped.
She looked up, staring at Su Mingxiu’s eyes earnestly and eagerly, not even bothering to rub her reddened nose.
The person in the ink-stained robe lowered her head, her long hair falling over her shoulders, giving her a casual and carefree air. Her dark eyes stared at Gui Mian. After a while, Su Mingxiu said: “After you form your Golden Core—”
“Then I’ll want to eat it.”
The little disciple, having received her answer, nodded seriously. “Okay, then I’ll work hard to form my Golden Core.”
Her clear eyes, when they looked at Su Mingxiu, were still filled with the same trust as always.
The little disciple would never know what forming her Golden Core truly meant. At this moment, she still thought that as long as she formed her Golden Core, she could get the reward she wanted most.
Thousands of miles away.
Eastern border, where demonic energy thrived, the Demon Realm.
The Demon Realm was located at the easternmost point of the continent. There was a boundless cliff that blocked out the sun. Legend had it that when the celestial beings from beyond the heavens cleaved the Chaos Beast in two with a single sword strike, it was here. That sword split heaven and earth, causing spiritual energy to rise and demonic energy to fall. And the place where the demonic energy fell was at the bottom of this cliff.
The more powerful the demons, the deeper they resided in the lightless depths. It wasn’t like this at first. But after tens of thousands of years of fighting with the cultivation world, the demons gradually lost ground. Due to conflicts with the yao race, the two races were divided and conquered by the cultivators, and now neither of them posed a significant threat. Moreover, places with abundant spiritual energy weren’t suitable for demons to thrive. Over time, this situation came to be.
The cultivation world didn’t even seem to take them seriously anymore, even lumping demons and yao together. Compared to fighting demons and yao, the cultivators in this world were more concerned about the severed connection between heaven and earth.
Therefore, before Su Mingxiu brought Gui Mian to the eastern border, she couldn’t find much information about the Demon Realm in the Sword Sect’s library. After tens of thousands of years of changes, few knew what the Demon Realm was like now.
This was precisely what she was worried about.
Originally, Su Mingxiu wanted to lure a demon as soon as they entered the eastern border and let Gui Mian kill it and absorb its demonic energy to increase her cultivation. But the system seemed to have anticipated her attempt to slack off on the job.
Even after killing countless demons, Gui Mian only acted like she had overeaten, burping but showing no signs of forming her Golden Core.
Hearing Su Mingxiu repeatedly asking Gui Mian how she was feeling along the way, the system suddenly sneered.
Just then, the little girl, who had been shaking her head at Su Mingxiu, suddenly looked up towards the east—
“We need to go there…”
She tilted her head and pointed east. “Only there can I become stronger.”
Seeing this, Su Mingxiu couldn’t shake off a sense of unease. Even though she had made many preparations for Gui Mian’s Golden Core formation,
Thinking about the connection between Gui Mian and those demons, and the unknown plot developments, she could only warn: “No matter what, don’t stray too far from me.”
“Okay,” Gui Mian nodded. Looking at her master’s expression, she suddenly added: “Master, don’t be afraid, I will protect you.”
“Hmm?” Su Mingxiu chuckled and poked her forehead. “Who’s protecting whom?”
The little disciple, caught off guard, tilted her head and smiled sweetly at her.
The closer they got to the Demon Realm, the lower the concentration of spiritual energy in the air became. In the end, even when Su Mingxiu was circulating her cultivation technique, she found it difficult to absorb spiritual energy into her body.
But Gui Mian continued walking east, oblivious—
Until they were less than a hundred miles away from the abyss.
Su Mingxiu had to stop her. She reached into her storage pouch and took out a spiritual vein. It was originally the earth vein beneath Mount Lingyu. But when she left the Sword Sect, she had used a spell to extract it and put it in her storage pouch.
A surge of dense white spiritual energy instantly broke through the barrier of red and black demonic energy in the air. If the smaller sects in the eastern border saw the Jade Elder’s extravagant display of wealth, their eyes would pop out of their sockets with envy.
But this was just a drop in the bucket for her. She took out countless talismans, even the ink strokes on her robe danced restlessly.
Pills, formations, spiritual veins…
If it were anyone else, they could be instantly boosted to the Nascent Soul stage with the treasures this former Great Ascension cultivator possessed.
Seeing that she was still taking out more things, the system was the first to lose its composure. It suddenly issued a command: “Host, please use the following lines when you extract the female lead’s Golden Core and spiritual roots… Time limit: half an hour. Failure penalty: Five thunderbolts, indefinitely.”
“Hmm?” A paragraph of text suddenly appeared in Su Mingxiu’s mind. She skimmed through it and saw that it was full of heartless lines, like “You’re no longer of any use to me,” “Rest in peace,” “A good-for-nothing like you, reaching Golden Core is already a great fortune. It’s better to leave your Golden Core and spiritual roots to someone who needs them more”…
She chuckled softly. “System, have I ever told you something?”
System: [?]
[You’re truly scum.]
The system took this as a compliment and readily accepted it.
But Su Mingxiu’s expression remained unchanged. She forcibly set up a sealing formation at the edge of the Demon Realm, restricting entry but not exit. She had Gui Mian sit in the center of the formation, lured demons towards her, and channeled spiritual energy into her body.
The little disciple was very obedient, her cultivation quickly reaching the peak of Foundation Establishment.
Even her Golden Core formation was much smoother than Su Mingxiu had expected. There was no celestial lightning, no obstacles, not even the high-level demons in the Demon Realm were alerted.
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