The Card Apprentice

Chapter 77: Fright

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

Chen Mu had always thought that the demonic woman was far more familiar with the jungle than she was with the villa they lived in. She was moving ahead at a very high speed, which gave a feeling of power perfectly melded with agility. Although it wasn’t his first time seeing it, Chen Mu couldn’t help marveling. Compared to her, he moved like a clumsy water buffalo.

The demonic woman suddenly slowed her pace, and her movements became careful. Seeing that, Chen Mu calmed his breathing right away. After his first experience, he had an almost blind faith in her hearing ability.

The demonic woman moved ahead silently while carrying Chen Mu, like a concealed cheetah stalking its prey. They were both dressed in tight black clothes, and they melted into the deep night of the dense forest. The sounds of bugs made the surroundings feel extremely tranquil.

The demonic woman’s footsteps were gradually slowing, as was her overall bearing. When they got to a large tree, she climbed its branches like a leopard. Even while carrying Chen Mu her step remained extremely light, and she never made any sound of breathing.

The branches she was treading were much thicker than Chen Mu’s waist, and she put him down. He also stepped very lightly, not daring to show the slightest effect. It was a good thing that his training had greatly improved his balance by that time, as he stood stock still on the horizontal branch.

The demonic woman suddenly pointed ahead, indicating that Chen Mu should look.

Chen Mu quickly looked in silence.

There were two peoples’ silhouettes not far away. They were fiddling with a map card, seeming to make notations on it.

Their voices came through faintly.

“It should be in this direction, but it would be better if we didn’t continue on.” This was a male voice.

“Hmmm, the time is getting short, and we should go back. We’ll come again tomorrow night.” The one talking was a girl.

Chen Mu couldn’t help lingering on that girl’s voice that he’d heard before, when it came to him that it as that girl called Qing Qing. Looking closer, that did look like her body.

“Who’s there?” Qing Qing suddenly tilted her head, and looked in the direction where Chen Mu and the demonic woman were.

As fast as lighting, the demonic woman at Chen Mu’s side shot away with a whoosh.

Qing Qing’s normally placid eyes turned cold and dark, as she called out icily, “You want to run?” Like a wisp of smoke, her whole body suddenly flew in the direction where the demonic woman had shot off to.

A call reverberated back from the jungle, “There’s still one more, Chenjiu.”

Yin Chenjiu’s eyes which had always seemed to be in a daze, suddenly sharpened looking directly at Chen Mu’s position.

Chen Mu’s scalp tingled, and without daring to hesitate, he leapt bodily down from the tree and rolled into a run.

Zing, Zing, Zing.

Blade after wavy blade came darting like rain from behind him.

Chen Mu’s color changed in his high state of agitation, as he took a quick roll to the side, not daring to hesitate while these incredibly sharp wavy blades were being shot with a deadliness beyond deadly.

Chen Mu would be cut to pieces in an instant if he were hit, and he didn’t have any fish-scale cloak card to protect him.

He turned a different direction, mindless of his body being covered in mud, and ran like mad with all his power, for fear that he would make intimate contact with those wavy blades if he ran any slower.

An occasional blade would graze him as it flew by, raising his heart into his throat. He was only an ordinary person. Even though he’d done some training with the demonic woman, he was still just an ordinary person. So, when he encountered that kind of situation, his only reaction was fear. Fear of dying!

He ran wildly like a mad man, not caring that he was drilling through the dense undergrowth.

Hu Hu Hu, His throat was burning, and his chest was heaving like a case opening and closing, with his hands on his knees. His mind had been a blank up until then.

It was very calm all about, with even the insects seeming to have sensed the danger, stopping their chirps. Listening to the sound of his rapid breathing, Chen Mu wondered if it was safe. He looked around at a loss. He’d used up all his strength in that pell-mell run. He didn’t really know how long he had run, but when his exhaustion hit, he felt as though he would collapse.

Seeing that he had shed that scary guy, he calmed. After some thought, he set off again in a new direction, this time progressing very lightly and leaving no trace.

To even think of flying in the jungle, you would need extremely high skills with controlling the jet stream card to pass through its convolutions. Yin Chenjiu clearly didn’t possess such skills, and he didn’t know how his strength compared with Chen Mu. Watching Chen Mu disappear into the dense jungle, he could only pray that one of his wavy blades had hit his adversary.

But it didn’t seem that his luck was so good, and the wavy blades had all come up empty. His face was so gloomy that it looked as though it would squeeze the water out. And he didn’t have any sense of how long the two of them had been hiding there.

“Don’t pursue him, Chenjiu.” Qing Qing’s weak voice sounded at his ear.

Yin Chenjiu turned around quickly, and turned pale in fright when he saw the color of Qing Qing’s face.

Chen Mu zig-zagged through the forest for half a day, surprisingly maintaining his direction. He couldn’t help rejoicing that he had been blessed by escaping the catastrophe. But without the demonic woman, he could only enter through the city gate.

He took off the black suit and peeled off the strange face, and put them against his chest, and passed through the gate right in the open.

As soon as he had entered the city, he ran to the villa.

He hadn’t brought a key when he left the house, so he had to enter over the wall, which was child’s play for him by that time.

But when he went through the whole villa, he didn’t find any trace of the demonic woman.

Could it be that she still hadn’t returned? An ominous premonition arose in Chen Mu’s heart.

Chen Mu was sitting in the great room sipping some Sapphire Cloud Running Water, waiting for the demonic woman’s return. It was already broad daylight, and she still hadn’t returned.

His heart started to sink.

He fell asleep on the couch in the great room. The night’s intense activity had wiped him out, and the Sapphire Cloud Running Water had played some role with its slightly alcoholic content.

It was already Sunday afternoon by the time Chen Mu opened his eyes. The first thing he did when he got up was to go through all the rooms of the villa, where he found no trace of anyone. He tried connecting to the demonic woman’s communications card, but the ringing came from her room.

Chen Mu then remembered that she hadn’t had any apparatus with her the night before.

Could something have happened? Chen Mu’s heart sank ever lower. While he didn’t have any good feelings toward the demonic woman, he believed that letting him enter Eastern Wei Academy without any fear of his running away, she must have had some way to clamp down on him.

He wasn’t clear about how she might do that, but he did know that it would be some kind of deadly means.

If the demonic woman had died, then for him . . .

All of the blood drained from Chen Mu’s face.