Chapter 499 - 250: Stranger 2

Chapter 499: Chapter 250: Stranger 2

Bai Qiuyue smiled faintly. "Well, it’s time to go."

Inside the inn, Mo Kuang, who had been preparing for a life-or-death battle with the fetus in his belly, suddenly went still.

He closed his eyes, leaned back, and fell onto the bed.

A moment later, when Mo Kuang opened his eyes again, his eyeballs, which should have been black and white, had bizarrely turned pure black.

His black eyes were densely packed with even darker specks, like a honeycomb teeming with hungry, squirming larvae.

"Hee hee hee hee..."

In the room, all the oil lamps went out. An innocent, baby-like laugh escaped Mo Kuang’s lips.

"Goo goo ga ga..."

Mo Kuang babbled strange noises in a baby’s voice as he clumsily made his way outside.

In a flash, Mo Kuang was downstairs, where he came across the waiter dozing off at a table.

WHOOSH~

The candlelight in the main hall flickered without a breeze, then abruptly went out.

"What the hell is going on?"

The waiter shivered for no reason and turned to see an unfamiliar guest descending the stairs, teetering with a strange posture.

"Sir, are you...?"

The waiter rubbed his drowsy eyes and walked toward Mo Kuang.

"Hee hee hee!"

Mo Kuang curiously reached out a hand toward the waiter, touching his head.

"Hungry... hungry..."

The waiter froze, a sudden chill running down his scalp. At some point, the strange guest was holding a "bowl." Inside were red and white things, looking at first glance like a bowl of tofu pudding drizzled with red bean juice.

But where would a bowl of tofu pudding come from in the middle of the night?

’Their inn doesn’t sell tofu pudding, does it?’

The waiter’s head began to throb, his vision blurred, and his eyelids grew heavy.

Finally, he could see clearly that the "bowl" in the guest’s hand had a long lock of hair dangling from its bottom.

A thunderclap seemed to go off in the waiter’s head.

’That’s no bowl!’

It was clearly a skull.

"Whose... skull...?"

THUD!

The waiter’s eyes went wide as he collapsed to the ground, a look of disbelief frozen on his face.

With his pure black eyes, Mo Kuang stumbled out of the inn, cradling the "tofu pudding."

Red drool trickled from the corner of his mouth. He giggled at Bai Qiuyue, who was waiting outside, his smile filled with childish innocence.

"Alas, why must I always be forced to be the villain?"

Bai Qiuyue watched "Mo Kuang" emerge from the inn. His brow furrowed, but quickly smoothed out. With a soft sigh, he tapped the ground again with his bamboo pole.

On the solid ground, ripples vibrated violently, as if it had turned into a river.

"Stop eating. It’s time to go. Don’t forget who brought you ’here.’"

Bai Qiuyue reminded him kindly.

Mo Kuang frantically dropped the bowl, a look of confusion and helplessness on his face.

He walked toward Bai Qiuyue, step by step.

With each step, his feet sank into the "water." The newborn infant seemed to find it amusing, kicking the water and playing happily.

"Troublesome."

Bai Qiuyue tapped the "water’s surface" repeatedly, the sound a seeming exhortation.

HISS—

Suddenly!

A figure shot out like a bolt of lightning, moving from absolute stillness to extreme motion, lunging from a dark corner toward Bai Qiuyue.

"Who’s there!"

The sudden sneak attack made Bai Qiuyue break out in a cold sweat. Almost without thinking, he thrust his bamboo pole toward the approaching figure, striking from a distance.

HISS!

It was Snake!

Snake had been lying in wait, listening to the movements in the dark like the most dedicated of hunters.

Although she hadn’t seen the events inside the inn with her own eyes, the bizarre giggling, the faint sound of the waiter’s skull being removed, and the horrifying slurping noise, like someone drinking tofu pudding, had pieced together a terrifying picture in her mind. The strange happenings in the inn made Snake’s skin crawl, but the more it did, the calmer she became, lurking in the darkness until this very moment, when she unleashed her thunderous strike.

The long bamboo pole jabbed toward Snake’s face, but her body, as if boneless, twisted and turned, miraculously wrapping around the pole once before appearing right in front of Bai Qiuyue.

Bai Qiuyue’s pupils shrank. In that split second, he clearly saw a monster with a human face and a snake’s body. Its face was covered in fine scales, and two sharp fangs reflected a dim, eerie light in the darkness.

Snake had intended to bite through Bai Qiuyue’s neck, but his reaction was extremely fast.

Her sharp fangs tore off Bai Qiuyue’s long sleeve, leaving two bloody teeth marks on his arm.

...

「In Yan Chun Building.」

All the patrons had come happily, stepping into Yan Chun Building with the cheeky intention of leaving so spent they’d need to hold onto the walls.

But no one could have imagined the major performance accident that would occur at Yan Chun Building tonight. The sight of a Geisha, dressed as Fragrant Maiden, frantically strumming the zither with her severed fingers—sending flesh and blood flying—instantly sobered up most of the patrons, who hunched over their tables and began to dry heave.

The music stopped abruptly. The songstress closed her eyes and fainted, her breathing as faint as a silk thread.

The main hall descended into chaos.

Patrons fled outside in a frenzy.

In an empty room on the second floor, the terrified madam bolted the door shut. She pressed her back against it, slowly sliding down to a squat, trembling so violently she couldn’t utter a single word.

「At the same time.」

「Upstairs.」

The young man who had entered Fragrant Maiden’s private chamber with the bodice Token seemed to have fallen into a strange crisis.

Fragrant Maiden, the courtesan of Lu Town famous for her beauty and lusted after by countless men, now looked and sounded ancient in her expression, demeanor, and voice. Where was the beautiful Fragrant Maiden with peach-blossom eyes, whose every frown and smile could stir a man’s soul?

Walking up to Zheng Xiu, "Fragrant Maiden" knitted her brow. Her rouged, sensual lips parted slightly, revealing an expression of doubt and deep thought.

"You... who exactly are you?"

Translucent tentacles, like a fairy’s ribbons, emerged from under Fragrant Maiden’s dress, swaying bewitchingly behind her. A few of them, tipped with strange mouthparts, reached for the young man.

As the tentacles drew closer, Zheng Xiu stood motionless, ready in the next moment to let the beautiful Fragrant Maiden do as she pleased, do as she pleased, do as she pleased.

Just as the tentacles were about to slurp at the young man’s face, Zheng Xiu’s vacant gaze suddenly cleared. A lightning-fast slash of his blade lopped off several of the tentacles. SLASH! SLASH!

Coiling Dragon Eighteen Slashes—Double Dragon Water-taking!

The severed tentacles twitched and convulsed as if they had a life of their own.

"You!"

Losing several tentacles in the blink of an eye, Fragrant Maiden looked astonished. The aged appearance that had flickered for a moment vanished without a trace. Seduction returned to her incomparably beautiful face. She smiled enchantingly and winked at the young man.

"Young Master, why the rush?"

’Looking at that face, a chill crept into my heart. If I hadn’t heard that decrepit voice just now, I might have actually fallen for your tricks! The Evil Child’s Will Attribute is lower than Zheng Shan’s. A moment ago, Fragrant Maiden seemed to use a Miracle Technique similar to a Charm Technique, using her ’scent,’ ’voice,’ and ’appearance’ to momentarily cloud my consciousness.’

’The feeling of being hit by the Charm Technique was very strange. I clearly knew the Cloud Illusion Realm was fake, but I just couldn’t wake up. Out of desperation, I just jumped from the clouds in the illusion, basically committing suicide. Perhaps it was this resolve to be ’unswayed by beauty’ that allowed me to escape the illusion and wake up in just a few seconds. When I came to, Fragrant Maiden had just spoken in that hoarse, aged voice, and as my thoughts raced, a terrifying idea popped into my head.’

"Are you fucking Zhu?"

Fragrant Maiden’s charming and delicate laughter died in her throat. She stared at the young man in astonishment.

"You bastard!"

Zheng Xiu exploded with rage. Remembering how he was nearly devoured by Zhu’s bizarrely shaped tentacles, his killing intent soared. In a moment of inspiration, he slashed out with his blade. It was an almost instinctive strike, yet it concealed eighteen variations. He wished he could use every move of the Coiling Dragon Eighteen Slashes to mince the beautiful Fragrant Maiden before him into paste.

The fury that erupted from this new hatred piled atop the old was unimaginable.

[In your extreme rage, you were filled with grief and indignation, transforming your Anger into strength, and the eighteen slashes into one.]

[You have comprehended the nineteenth slash of the ’Coiling Dragon Eighteen Slashes’ on your own: "Sacrificial Dragon Slaying!"]

["Coiling Dragon Eighteen Slashes" has reached the state of "Peak of Perfection."]

Zheng Xiu’s slash cleaved toward Fragrant Maiden, who he suspected was Zhu. BOOM! The wind from the blade dispersed the Orchid Fragrance filling the room and blew the windows wide open.

SHWIIING!

The shadows of eighteen slashes merged into one, utterly shattering the tentacles Fragrant Maiden had frantically waved in defense.

"Impossible!"

A shrill scream escaped Fragrant Maiden’s mouth as she turned into a puff of green smoke and bizarrely vanished before Zheng Xiu’s eyes.

Zheng Xiu stared blankly at the spot where Fragrant Maiden had disappeared.

That familiar way of disappearing... he’d recognize it even if she were turned to ash.

A moment later, a thought even more absurd than "Fragrant Maiden is Zhu" popped into Zheng Xiu’s mind, and he blurted it out:

"This is a goddamn... Incarnation???"