The terrain of Chunshang Cave was intricate and complex, with numerous hidden passages resembling a maze of spider webs.
As Wen Jiao followed the others into the White Bone Path, his eyes became red with tears, feeling so aggrieved that he wanted to cry. However, he dared not shed tears, fearing that his identity would be exposed if tears were to roll down his cheeks.
He walked dazedly beside Kou Xinghua, listening to the cultivators behind them venting their suppressed anger and resentment in their words.
He remembered hearing remarks like, “I told you, how could he know something even the top sect in the world doesn’t know?” and “He nearly got us killed! Scoundrel!” and “What’s with the act of being a righteous person? I bet he was just a eunuch in the Chu Imperial Palace. He only looks decent, but he’s actually shameless, seducing his way in.”
Wen Jiao’s face alternated between red and pale, gritting his teeth, feeling both angry and disgusted. But he could only swallow down all the retorts he had in mind.
Is seducing men equivalent to being a whore? This face was given to him by his mother!
His foot hit a skull and he almost stumbled. Exclaiming in shock, he tried to grab the person next to him, but only heard a harsh “Get lost,” leaving him sitting on the ground.
His delicate arm was scratched by sharp stones. Unable to hold back anymore, Wen Jiao started crying, taking advantage of the darkness to conceal his tears. His sobbing was unmistakable in the darkness.
Everyone was burning with anger.
“Can’t you stop crying, you scoundrel? Shut up!”
A cultivator, one eye blinded by the bats, completely lost his temper. If not for Kou Xinghua’s presence, Wen Jiao might have been killed by now.
Wen Jiao covered his injured face, his eyes reddened, lips tightly pursed, teeth trembling, but he dared not make a sound. He felt humiliated and aggrieved, anger and resentment burning his rationality.
With no outlet for his resentment, it eventually turned toward Xia Qing, toward his mother.
He hated his mother for the first time, wondering why she lied to him.
Meanwhile, in another direction of the tomb.
Zhu Ji wore a black dress with white flowers, her body half ethereal, half corporeal, resembling an ancient ghost as she walked barefoot through the passage soaked in black water.
The blue flame floated quietly beside her, glancing around and saying, “Master, it seems like the young master didn’t take the route you taught him.”
Zhu Ji’s voice was gentle. “Hmm, Jiao Jiao must have been frightened by the bats.”
The flame was puzzled. “Huh? But those bats wouldn’t harm him at all, they only drive away outsiders.”
Zhu Ji smiled. “Jiao Jiao is very timid. Even though I forced him to remember all the routes, he wouldn’t dare to come alone. I guess many people have entered the tomb, so he chose to follow the crowd into the White Bone Path.”
The flame blinked. “The White Bone Path? Uh? If he goes there, won’t the young master have to face his inner demons?”
Zhu Ji replied, “Are you worried that Jiao Jiao won’t be able to overcome it?”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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Her voice was soft. “Let’s go, we don’t need to go fetch him. Let’s return to the mausoleum and wait for him.”
“Okay,” the little flame nodded obediently.
It had just gained intelligence and had been nurtured by Zhu Ji with blood in a transparent bead day and night. Zhu Ji was not only its master but also its mother.
As for Wen Jiao, the little master born from Zhu Ji, the small flame naturally adored him. No matter how it looked at him, it felt joy.
It didn’t think there was anything wrong with the little master’s personality. Being delicate and adorable was quite cute. Even if he had some bad intentions, with that face of his, no one would have the heart to get angry. Some people are just born to be pampered!
In the novels it had read in another world, the little master was a delicate and silly protagonist — of course, it overlooked the fact that the protagonist at least had some “sweetness.”
As for Zhu Ji’s manipulation of Fu Chang Sheng and Wei Liu Guang, the small flame didn’t see anything wrong with it either.
After all, every relationship needs a catalyst to develop, right? It believed that even without manipulation, all men would fall in love with the little master. After all, its little master was the best in the world. Any man who didn’t like him had a problem.
Thinking of this, the small flame thought back to the novels it had read last time.
Yeah! It definitely loves reading melodramatic stories!
Zhu Ji’s physical body had long since died, and she had used dark arts to preserve her soul in this dark tomb. The only one she could converse with was this flame.
Feeling good about the upcoming return to the surface, Zhu Ji casually asked with a smile as they walked back, “Did you bring the soul of that Peng Lai junior brother?”
The small flame proudly puffed out its chest. “Yes, I brought him over a long time ago! I even made up a story to calm him down!”
Zhu Ji chuckled incessantly. “Oh?”
The small flame said, “I lied to him and said this place is a book.”
Zhu Ji kept smiling. “Well said.”
The small flame nodded. “Yeah, since you wanted his soul, I made up a story, telling him that he could come back to life as long as he followed the plot. The plot involved him possessing the body of the Emperor of Chu and then giving his heart to the little master.”
The smile deepened at the corner of Zhu Ji’s lips as she gently asked, “Did he agree then?”
“No,” Little Flame pouted with a sense of grievance, shaking his body in frustration. “He didn’t agree. It’s really strange. Isn’t he afraid of death? I’ve read many novels from his time, and in those stories, protagonists would agree to follow the plot to come back to life. I don’t understand why he wouldn’t.”
Zhu Ji replied calmly, “It would be strange if he had agreed.” Life and death could never become shackles for him.
Little Flame softly exclaimed, thinking about his conversation with Xia Qing inside Zhai Xing Tower, then fell silent for a while.
In fact, it had said the wrong thing from the beginning— it lied to Xia Qing, saying that accumulating merits could resurrect him. As a result, Xia Qing, being a tyrant, ridiculed him thoroughly.
After that, it had to improvise completely.
After all, the little master’s experience was exactly like a melodramatic story it had read before. It grew more and more excited as it spoke, adding many embellishments based on the content of that book and its investigation into Lou Guan Xue. It thought that by doing so, it could convince Xia Qing, but it was of no use.
Sighing silently, Little Flame said, “Master, I’m still unsure whether Xia Qing will agree to take the place of the Emperor of Chu in three months.”
Zhu Ji smiled gently, “It doesn’t matter. Just bring him to the Emperor of Chu. When the time comes, he won’t have a choice.”
Little Flame blinked in confusion. “Why? And why is it certain that the Emperor of Chu will die three months later?”
It only knew this much at the time but had no idea about the reason behind it.
Zhu Ji smiled nostalgically, her eyes revealing a reminiscing gaze as she softly said, “Back then, the successful rebellion of the Divine Palace owed much to Song Guichen. If it weren’t for him summoning the Spirit of Peng Lai and using it as the eye of the Divine Palace’s array to exterminate the god, we wouldn’t have stood a chance against the god. As for the pagoda, it was nothing more than a formation set up by human cultivators for play. How could it trap the divine soul? When the hundred-year deadline arrives, the royal family of Chu will undoubtedly perish.”
Little Flame was even more puzzled. “Oh? Master, what is the hundred-year deadline?”
Zhu Ji’s expression became distant for a moment, then she smiled and said, “A hundred years, it’s the cycle of the gods. Forget it, why am I telling you all this? The god has long been banished to the depths of the sea, their soul scattered and their bones forever entombed. All you need to know is that at this time, the divine soul is at its strongest and most uncontrollable.”
Little Flame nodded obediently. “Oh.”
It was not very bright and couldn’t grasp the concept, so it didn’t dwell on it. Anyway, it never understood what its master was up to. Being only a year old, its only hobby was reading stories and enjoying the romance tales within.
When the master said the High Priest would bring the little master out of the palace to meet her, it guessed that the little master was here to save the master and itself.
Then they would leave together, defeat the evil villains, and live happily ever after as a family of three. It could stay by the little master’s side, watch the martial arts competitions, and be happy!
Little Flame’s mind was filled with romantic tales from human stories, happily envisioning the future beside Zhu Ji. Its fantasies were so beautiful that it forgot to tell Zhu Ji about the fact that the new Emperor of Chu would be able to see it.
Zhu Ji had never cared about who the new Emperor of Chu was because it was irrelevant to her. Her only goal was Xia Qing.
She didn’t want to die, nor did she want to lose her power. After scouring through the ancient texts of the Divine Palace, she found that only the resurrection technique could achieve this.
She poured her heart and soul into nurturing the divine pearl, refining one-third of the divine light into spiritual fire, all to ensure that Xia Qing’s soul would be brought back from wherever it may be.
Because the reincarnation technique had a drawback, her soul would be incomplete after reincarnation, and the only thing in the world that could fill this gap was the pure soul of this Peng Lai junior brother.
How nice it is.
When she resurrects from within Jiao Jiao’s body, consumes the divine fire to regain power, and then devours Xia Qing’s soul, everything will end…
The blood of the Lou family is cursed, but isn’t this just perfect? Even if it’s a “curse,” it still carries the aura of the divine.
The pure soul enters the darkest body, then the heart is carved out and swallowed alive by her.
By then, she will become the only new god in the world.
“Song Guichen, you ruined my plan, you made me fall to this point.
Then let your entire Peng Lai sect accompany you to your grave.
Take the lives of all your junior brothers.”
Zhu Ji’s fingers twirled her long hair, and a slow smile spread across her lips. Wen Jiao’s features were actually very similar to hers, but Wen Jiao was always timid and weeping, with only weakness and pity left in his red eyes. But Zhu Ji was not, she was arrogant and cruel, with a seductive charm in the corners of her lips and eyes, as if born to be a seductress in bed, effortlessly arousing lust in people’s bones.
Little Flame didn’t understand her thoughts, all it thought about was novels and love, eagerly waiting for its little master to come and rescue them from misery.
There were still many novels it hadn’t read yet, but it didn’t have the strength to go out.
Little master, please come quickly.
The little master couldn’t come, the little master was trapped in the White Bone Path, almost crying himself to death.
And one wall away, Xia Qing crossed through the smoke and saw a quiet room. A very strange room, illuminated by a faint blue butterfly, all walls empty. “What was this place?”
Is this Zhu Ji’s tomb? Why are there no switches, no doors?
As Xia Qing wandered around the room, puzzled, the door opened, and a faint red light seeped out from inside. According to ancient records, Chunshang Cave had once been a dwelling for the most wicked demonic cultivators, so it was normal to have some strange things. With the red light shining brightly, Xia Qing walked inside, and the door to the quiet room behind him closed.
In the quiet and narrow world that could drive people crazy with its silence, suddenly, as far as the eye could see, there were endless, varying lights, like fireflies and lanterns, covering all directions.
A thousand lanterns in the mundane world.
The butterfly flew into his sleeve, as if afraid of these lights.
Xia Qing muttered, “What is going on?”
Whelp, this plan of hers is going to fall appart quickly 😅
I knew it… the apple never falls far from the tree… I’ve never heard of a snake giving birth to a dog but this is a cultivation novel so nothings impossible 🤭 Thank you for the chapters!!! ❤️❤️❤️
So the ‘system’ is actually :<
It’s funny to see Zhu Ji’s narration, believing everything is following the path she thought out. Mc is an anomaly and his senior brother isn’t stupid. Ml is also another unstable factor.
I feel sorry for that little flame…
Zhu ji is really evil
Well no wondet lou guan xue could see the flame as well. He ain’t no system lmaoo. And if only xia qing knew of the truth, there’s no reincarnation, no book plot stuff. Have a feeling lou guan xue knew zhu ji’s intentions and plans all along…