Chapter 19: Journey to the Sea, Part Five
“Don’t mess around, don’t mess around! Hiss, ouch, my bones are going to break!”
Lu Xibei’s cries echoed in the empty underground parking lot.
After struggling for a while, with all her might, she finally broke free from the deadly hug of Jumeng, who was overly excited.
That embrace was definitely enough to cost most urban legends and humans their lives…
Just as she escaped Jumeng’s hug and steadied herself, her gaze met Jumeng’s resentful eyes.
“Good for you, you dog! You actually pushed me away? It’s only been a few days since we met, and you’ve started to disdain me? Let me see, who’s new around you? So new people triumph over old ones now?”
As she spoke, Jumeng looked around.
Seeing Jumeng’s aggrieved yet stubborn expression, Lu Xibei’s chest trembled slightly, and she hurriedly explained, “I didn’t push you away? If I didn’t, you’d suffocate me in your arms! Don’t you have any idea how strong you are?”
After saying this, feeling a chill from behind, she couldn’t help but glance back nervously.
“…”
Why? Why has it come to this? I’ve always kept myself pure, maintaining an innocent relationship with the beautiful girls. Why have I still fallen into such a terrible situation?
God of destined relationships! Open your eyes and see me, have some pity…
Wait, that’s not right! Stinky Sister seems to be the God of Relationships? Then it’s no problem.
Thinking this, Lu Xibei looked back again. Nanling Yaohua was quietly observing her profile with squinted eyes, giving off an inexplicable feeling of being a “stand-in.”
“Hey? I didn’t notice earlier, how did your hand…”
As Lu Xibei stole a glance at Nanling Yaohua, Jumeng suddenly noticed Lu Xibei’s empty right arm, and her expression turned serious.
“Who hurt you? Tell me, I’ll help you get revenge!”
“Ah! It’s just a small injury, what’s there to take revenge for? Besides, the one who hurt me has already been dealt with. Who are you going to take revenge on?” Lu Xibei nonchalantly replied.
“Don’t worry, before we set off to Huacheng, I already, uh… contacted Miss Du Sixian and asked her to help find someone to custom-make an alchemical prosthetic.”
Just as Lu Xibei said, she had secretly contacted Du Sixian and Meng Meng through the bloodline mark before the “Calamity of d*ath” video was released, partly to calm their emotions and partly to have Du Sixian find someone to custom-make the alchemical prosthetic.
With her previous experience of selling various low-level spirit energy items, Du Sixian was already quite familiar with the underground trade circles of spirit energy users and urban legends. For her, making a prosthetic without being noticed and bringing it back to Huacheng was not too difficult.
Now, nearly a week had passed since she last contacted Du Sixian through the bloodline mark. Counting the time, the alchemical prosthetic should be ready. Lu Xibei’s secondary reason for returning to Huacheng, besides meeting Jumeng, was to collect the completed prosthetic.
“Alchemical prosthetic?” Jumeng squinted her eyes, showing an expression of “detecting something,” and looked Lu Xibei up and down, then poked her left chest with a bit of jealousy, complaining, “Tsk tsk! I see, you’ve just got that guy, right?”
“Trying to have matching couple items even with something like the alchemical prosthetic? Don’t think I don’t know, if you want, you can always ask Wang Ying for help to fix this little injury!”
Upon hearing this, Nanling Yaohua’s face suddenly darkened.
“No, it’s not because of her!” Feeling Nanling Yaohua’s piercing gaze, Lu Xibei explained, “I’m keeping this injury for someone else. If I heal it so quickly, I’m afraid I’ll forget the promise I made to her.”
Lu Xibei genuinely worried she would forget…
Nanling Yaohua’s presence was so weak that if she went to Wang Ying to heal her severed arm, and after escaping the pursuit of various spirit energy organizations, everything returned to normal, she couldn’t guarantee that over time, she would still remember the promise she made to Nanling Yaohua that she would “definitely bring you back.”
Thinking of this, Lu Xibei’s gaze unconsciously drifted back.
Then, she saw Nanling Yaohua’s cheeks slightly redden as she turned her face away, lowering her head and fiddling with her arm.
Cute, yet strange.
At this moment, sensing that Lu Xibei’s gaze kept drifting back, Jumeng could no longer contain her curiosity and asked, “Dog! You’re acting oddly! Why do you keep looking back there? Is there something there?”
As she spoke, regardless of Lu Xibei’s attempts to stop her, Jumeng climbed onto her again, placing her hands on Lu Xibei’s shoulders, her head peeking over to look behind her.
Then.
Jumeng let out a voice of “civilization.”
“Oh wow? Dog, what on earth did you bring back from your outing? I can’t make sense of it!”
In her line of sight, there was a semi-real, semi-virtual red thread glimmering faintly, one end connected to Lu Xibei’s body, while the other floated off and, after extending a little distance, vanished into the void.
Such a bizarre scene was something even the God of Relationships had never seen.
It was as if an old professor researching a certain topic suddenly touched a blind spot in his field of expertise.
She only knew that Lu Xibei had many relationship partners, from urban legends to humans, to wild plants and animals, and even stones and tractors… a myriad of oddities, encompassing most of the known XP systems in the world, but she never expected that even the “void” wasn’t spared.
What is this?
The legendary “self-guided void”?
“Shasha… Shasha…”
As Jumeng was stunned, a sound like a pen scratching across paper rang out. Following that, words written in a small notebook appeared before her eyes.
【Hello, my name is Nanling Yaohua, and I am her fiancée.】
Nanling Yaohua chose to make a direct attack, and after a slight twitch in the corner of Jumeng’s mouth, she casually retaliated with a heavy punch.
“Turns out she’s just a fiancée? I thought she was some important figure! You don’t know yet? She has at least over three thousand fiancées!”
Nanling Yaohua, “???”
Just a fiancée? Over three thousand? Why hadn’t she heard of this before?
In an instant, the already low temperature around them seemed to drop even more.
As if experiencing an illusion, where Jumeng and Nanling Yaohua’s gazes met, intense sparks erupted, as if in a confrontation, and at the center of this confrontation was Lu Xibei’s head.
Lu Xibei, “…Should I just end it all and give a boost to the two of you?”
———
From the entrance of the Calamity Scare Irresponsible Company, Lu Xibei spent nearly an hour, along with half her life, before successfully diverting the topic and temporarily halting the war between Jumeng and Nanling Yaohua, thanks to Du Sixian, who sent her a wooden box containing the alchemical prosthetic.
In addition, she thanked Water Brother once again for saving her life!
Since she could remember, she had never expressed such sincere gratitude for Water Brother’s teachings in the past few days…
When two lovers clash and find themselves in a battlefield, never attempt to explain; instead, guide their conflicts with you into conflicts between them, and at the appropriate time, help both girls find suitable steps back, so they can each take a step back and publicly cease “hostilities”…
Although it sounds terrible, it must be said that it was incredibly effective!
Without the tactics taught by Water Brother, even if Du Sixian interrupted, it probably would not have been so easy to stop the war.
Looking at Jumeng, who finally sat down in the lounge enjoying Meng Meng’s specialty drinks, and Nanling Yaohua, who was quietly floating behind her, Lu Xibei secretly sighed in relief.
“You dog!” Putting down her cup, Jumeng licked the milkshake stuck to the corner of her lips and rolled her eyes at Lu Xibei, “Tell me what you’ve been through after parting in Shancheng?”
Though she had already heard of the events at Yumen Pass, she still wanted to hear the details from Lu Xibei herself.
“…”
After a brief hesitation, Lu Xibei nodded, “Alright! The story starts from when I went to Yumen Desert in the identity of Lu Qingyi to provide support…”
———
Inside the Huacheng Siye Society, Office No. 2.
After a brief cleaning of the battlefield between Jumeng and the Fragmented Hydrocarbon God, and waiting for members of the Special Action Team to deal with the follow-up matters, Li Xuan hurriedly returned to his office, opened his computer, and focused on writing a report.
Although he did not directly participate in the recently concluded battle and only played the role of a driver and observer, he still noticed some unusual details during the distant observation.
The originally solo-fightable Fragmented Hydrocarbon God had experienced a qualitative leap in strength within a short time, the subtle relationship between Jumeng and Calamity, and the unusually strange core of the urban legend that Jumeng harvested after successfully hunting the Fragmented Hydrocarbon God… All this information seemed necessary to report immediately.
“Ding——!”
With a prompt sound, the scanner completed the task, uploading the image data of the strangely drawn urban legend core completed by Li Xuan from memory to the computer, and Li Xuan also finished writing the report.
【…[Image][Image], failed to record visual data; this strange urban legend core image was drawn by Li Xuan, a secondary operator of Huacheng Siye Society, from memory and is for reference only.】
After finishing the writing and checking the various upload options, Li Xuan moved the mouse and clicked the [Complete Upload] option, uploading the report to the internal network of the Siye Society.
After completing all this, he leaned back in his chair and scratched the back of his head.
“Strange, I clearly checked it several times before uploading, why do I still feel like I’ve missed something?”
“Forget it, let’s leave it at that for now!” After thinking seriously for a moment and grasping no leads, Li Xuan stood up, walked to a corner of the office, unfolded the folding bed, lay down in a big shape, and closed his eyes.
Meanwhile.
In the parking lot behind the Huacheng Folk Culture Research Management Bureau.
Under the sunshade, the stylish Aston Martin DBS had most of its body swallowed by shadows. Thanks to the streetlight casting from afar, one could vaguely see a girl dressed in a floral coat bound to the roof of the car by several ropes.
The girl was Mushroom. When returning, Li Xuan, worried that her terrible vomit would splatter in the car, discussed things with her, and then tied her to the roof, bringing her back like cargo.
However…
After returning to the Huacheng Folk Culture Research Management Bureau, Li Xuan dove straight into the office and focused on writing his report, seemingly forgetting that his colleague Mushroom was still tied to the roof.
“Clang—Clang—!”
After waiting for a long time without seeing Li Xuan return, Mushroom struggled a few times symbolically before choosing to give up. She then flipped her small hand and magically pulled out a large black umbrella, silently opening it to shield her petite body.
After all, she was just a mushroom. Where could she not grow?
The small garden of the Huacheng Siye Society was fine, and the roof of the Aston Martin DBS was also fine!
Thus, under the cover of the large black umbrella, numerous small mushrooms of all colors emerged, tearing through the exquisite moon-white matte paint and spreading large patches of crimson rust…
———
Half an hour later.
In the underground parking lot of Happy Neighborhood, at the office lounge of the Calamity Scare Irresponsible Company.
“Ah! Our company is done for.” In the corridor, peering through the down-drawn blinds of the floor-to-ceiling glass, an eye couldn’t help but sigh, “Now that I think about it, Calamity is better!”
“Boss Eye, what do you mean by ‘done for’?” At this, a small urban legend extended its two-meter-long neck from a square box, puzzled.
“Do you have any idea?” The eye jumped up, using its huge and heavy body to sit the little urban legend back into the box, and then turned to the nearby crowd of small urban legends, saying, “Jumeng taking over from Calamity is undoubtedly fine; after all, they share the same bed and wear the same skirt. But…”
After a pause, looking at “Lan Yi” in the lounge, the eye sighed without sound, then changed the subject, “Jumeng’s mistake was in associating with that Lan Yi! Want to talk about cooperation? Do you know who Lan Yi is?”
A group of small urban legends shook their heads in unison, indicating they had no idea.
“I’ve inquired with friends from the Urban Legends Chat Group. This woman, Lan Yi, is a member of the Solar Eclipse Society and has unresolved conflicts with the Elders’ Council of the Solar Eclipse Society…” the eye explained.
“Getting involved with someone like that could not only attract the investigation from the Siye Society but also face retaliation from the Elders’ Council of the Solar Eclipse Society. Isn’t that asking for trouble?”
Hearing this, the small urban legends appeared terrified and began whispering among themselves.
Not far away, a half-human-high crimson Mafun stood together with an oversized False Teeth and a bl**d-stained lace skirt, looking at the eye, which seemed drunk, dramatically discussing the situation surrounded by numerous small urban legends, rolling their eyes in unison.
“Brother Mafun, how long do you think Eye will last before getting beaten up?” False Teeth asked Mafun.
“Five…” Mafun replied.
“Five minutes?” False Teeth asked.
“…Four, three, two, one!”
As Mafun completed the countdown, suddenly the lounge door opened, and Du Sixian walked out, hands on her hips, glancing left and right. After spotting the eye among the crowd of small urban legends, she quickly removed her high heels, took a few steps forward, and raised her leg for a powerful kick.
“Thud!” With a sound, the eye shot out, bouncing against the walls of the corridor several times before finally rolling back precisely to Du Sixian’s feet, where she stomped on it with force, rolling it back and forth.
Jumeng is Calamity Grade, and even the High Person has already gained the strength of Calamity; how could this guy dare to discuss her name behind her back? That’s just asking for a beating!
And now I can’t even hear about all the experiences High Person has had lately… This guy is truly consistent in seeking out trouble! Du Sixian thought resentfully.
Looking at the eye being stomped beneath Du Sixian’s foot, False Teeth voiced her confusion, “Brother Mafun, why is it, even though Eye clearly made a mistake, Director Du still rewards it?”
“…”
In silence, Mafun examined False Teeth, looking at her strangely.
Although this guy had always been a bit perverted, it seemed she had become even more so lately?
