Chapter 276 - Punishment?
Princess Shan had a smirk on her face knowing that she could kill Xuefeng if she wanted, but then she heard a soft chuckle from Xuefeng, making her tense. She suddenly realised that something was weird. She somehow felt as if Xuefeng was different, not like his usual self. The warmth he gave her was similar but the way he acted was off.
Before she could think too deep into it, Princess Shan suddenly felt the chuckling sound disappear from behind and instead reappear in front of her. Just as she expected, Xuefeng was standing in front of her with a small grin on his face. With one click of his fingers, the body that was hugging her loosened its grip and began dissipating, turning back into Spirit Qi which it was created from.
"Did you like my clone? I found quite a useful method thanks to you." Xuefeng asked as he started walking up to her while crushing the Ice Spikes on his way. He was glad he kept a safe distance at the edge of her barrier else he would be unknowingly impaled by them in the process.
When Xuefeng activated his invisibility, he thought of a genius plan of baiting her with his clone and it worked. With Ling's space as a medium, a clone was created momentarily and he used it to sneak up on her. It was quite troublesome as they had to infuse Fire Qi as well as Fate Qi into the clone to pass on all of his abilities onto it.
Even without him exposing the clone, it would disintegrate at the same time because the energies inside of were creating chaos. There was a reason that a dantian was separated into nine segments and that was to prevent such chaos from happening. Elemental Qi could only be mixed for a short amount of time, which is why these combinations were only used during battles and attacks.
"Sigh, so it was your clone… I guess it is my loss… I really wanted to bring you back with me…" Realising that she lost, Princess Shan sighed deeply, really giving it her all to win.
Now that Princess Shan thought about it, if she activated her ability at the start, there was a high chance of her winning which made her depressed. Just like Xuefeng, she hesitated from the beginning as she didn't want to hurt him. What would be the point of winning if she accidentally killed him? Would she bring back his corpse?
"It's okay. I'm actually very impressed with you. To think that you grew up this fast over the last couple of months. I am really proud of you." Xuefeng praised her the moment he reached her and patted her head to cheer her up. Princess Shan's coldness was quickly melted under his touch and she leaned over to him to enjoy it more.
She was still kind of down, because of her loss so she muttered, "But I still lost… We will soon separate once again and I hate it…" There were many things Princess Shan would actually give up to prevent this from happening. She felt really lonely for the last three months she was away and when she finally met Xuefeng again, she realised how true that was.
Seeing her this sad, Xuefeng suddenly smiled playfully and asked her, saving his surprise for last, "What if I still go with you even after your loss?"
"Really?!" Xuefeng's question immediately made Princess Shan's eyes shine brightly as she looked up at him with hope, pleading internally that he wasn't joking with her.
"Mhmm, I will try to convince your Master. If I won against you, it shouldn't be that hard to join knowing that I already got such an offer proposed as a reward. Jiao should be fine with it already." Xuefeng didn't tell her the real deal so she doesn't feel bad and instead just gave her more hope, keeping her in the suspense a little longer.
He didn't expect that Princess Shan would suddenly get super excited and dive into his arms while crying out, "That's great!" Xuefeng felt the tight hug and could only reply with the same, embracing her while rubbing her back a few times.
In the end, it wasn't that strange for friends to hug each other. Nuwa was watching the whole battle from above and since she didn't come down to stop him, everything was legal, right? After all, they already had some steamy actions together and even kissed before so it was normal.
Outside the steamy area, everyone was eagerly waiting for the results of the battle as they already saw that the ice barrier disappeared and the steam started to thin out, leaking outside. Most of the cultivators in the Training Grounds didn't have a way to peek at the battle but it didn't mean that everyone couldn't.
The six sexy ladies who were standing together were the second scene that gained a lot of attention from the crowd. Many of them saw the ladies already in front of the Clan Leader Mansion, but they wouldn't reject ogling their bodies some more. It was, after all, rare that they could see top quality beauties like those.
With a big crowd like that, they could stare at them without any consequences and many used that opportunity in exchange for losing some scenes of the battle. When they couldn't see the battle because of the steam, the White Lotus Sect's disciples became the number one topic.
"Sigh, to think that Senior Sister lost. She really tried hard to win but at the same time, we can all see she was holding back a bit. Senior Sister seems to have genuine feelings for this boy." One of the ladies commented before she turned to their master and asked sweetly, "Master, I guess we will have our first Senior Brother in the sect, right?"
Jiao only smiled at that question and nodded, quite intrigued with Xuefeng's abilities. She was surprised that Xuefeng actually had so many Elements mastered to a basic stage. They only saw Fire, Lightning, Air and Earth Element but how much more did he hide?
At this point, Jiao wouldn't be surprised that he mastered even more, having some kind of secret with him. It was extremely hard to learn and cultivate using Elemental Qi but Xuefeng did it all in a few months. Some people couldn't even do in years on what he did in months.
"Yes. We need to get him into our Sect. His abilities and talent would be quite useful to the sect even though he is a man." Jiao admitted as he watched her disciple hugging Xuefeng tightly to which the five ladies immediately nodded, also sharing the same thinking.
Without feeling shy at all, one of them commented, "Honestly, having a sect without males is quite boring… I wish there were some in our sect to release our stress, hehe. Playing alone is quite tiring… If only there was someone nice available..."
Just as she said so, one handsome cultivator who stood closest to them happened to overhear the conversation and suddenly approached her, calling out cooly, "Hey~ My name is Jeff."
The boy didn't expect that before he could even introduce himself, a sharp sword was already aimed at his face, halting his approach and cold words entered into his ears with a thick killing intent behind them, "Get lost or I will kill you and feed your body to the rats."
Just this one exchange made a lot of the guys closest to the ladies to take a step back and return their gazes towards the battlefield. The ladies already looked cold before, but everyone was thinking they just acted like that to avoid unnecessary contacts with them, but in the end, they behaved exactly as cold as they looked.
"If the Sect suddenly had males, they would only become slaves because of girls like you. If you are so brave, go ask Senior Brother to entertain you later, hehe." The other ladies immediately laughed at her behaviour and proposed a challenge as they giggled to which the lady couldn't help but blush.
She knew that it was almost impossible for her to be with Xuefeng so she just shut up, not accepting anything. She would have to first best her Senior Sister before even trying.
Nuwa who was watching the whole battle from the sky didn't actually have a happy expression on her face. It wasn't because of Princess Shan hugging Xuefeng, as that did not even bother her, but the reward for the winner did. Even when Princess Shan lost, Xuefeng still decided to travel with them and join their Sect, which made Nuwa quite upset.
She really smelled trouble from Jiao, but Xuefeng didn't listen to her. The only thing Nuwa could do was stay close to Xuefeng the whole time and protect him in case anything happened. There was nothing else she had to do at the moment and Xuefeng couldn't do anything to stop her from following.
Having decided what to do, her good mood came back to her and she landed next to Xuefeng. Even while having Nuwa's agreement to openly pursue Xuefeng, Princess Shan forced herself to separate from him, deciding to act more in private.
At the same time, the steam already thinned out completely and Nuwa announced loudly to the crowd, "The sparring is finished! Young Master Liu wins!" This announcement made the crowd cheer loudly, obviously having more of Xuefeng's supporters in their ranks.
"Nuwa—" Xuefeng knew that Nuwa heard everything he said and tried to talk to her about it but Nuwa only placed her finger on his lips before whispering into his ear seductively, "Don't worry… You will get your punishment at home."