Marry First, Love Later With The White Cat Princess - Chapter 78

“What are you two doing?” Liu Fenyun approached, asking in confusion.

Qi Ran and Meng Nie were indeed engaged in a fair duel. Qi Ran hadn’t used her demonic energy, simply meeting Meng Nie’s blade with brute strength. Liu Fenyun had the system analyze the combat situation and, confirming Qi Ran held no malice, finally felt at ease.

“Sparring,” Meng Nie replied, sheathing his blade and greeting her. “Want to join?”

Liu Fenyun only had an ordinary saber as a weapon. She shook her head at the offer. “I’m used to practicing my breath-holding and internal energy cultivation in the morning. You two carry on.”

She turned to leave, but she didn’t actually go to find a place for cultivation. Instead, she returned to the old osmanthus tree where they had rested. Using her demonic energy to leap onto a branch, she crouched by a massive bird’s nest and gently nudged the twigs.

A gyrfalcon’s head quickly popped out of the nest, giving Liu Fenyun a start.

“Master, why didn’t you transform into your human form to sleep…” Liu Fenyun whispered a small complaint before recounting what she had just seen to Yu Qingyue.

Qi Ran’s change in attitude also struck Yu Qingyue as strange. After a moment of thought, she said uncertainly, “Perhaps she suddenly had an epiphany? Regardless, before we reach the Demon Realm, we cannot let our guard down, lest she tries to escape.”

Liu Fenyun complied and headed back down the tree. She scooped the cat up from a hollow in the trunk and carried her over her shoulder back toward the sparring grounds, intending to keep an eye on Qi Ran on her Master’s behalf.

Just as Yu Qingyue returned to the nest, she felt the person lying beneath her feathers stir. Before long, Luo Binglun parted the feathers and poked her head out, looking at her with concern.

“Did you sleep well?” Yu Qingyue asked softly, reverting to her human form.

Having realized that Luo Binglun had a preference for her beast form, she had followed Lian Yi’s example, transforming into a gyrfalcon to serve as a large, fluffy body pillow for Luo Binglun. Initially, Luo Binglun had refused outright, yet in the middle of the night, she had crawled under Yu Qingyue’s wing, burying herself in the softest down feathers.

A few feathers were still stuck in Luo Binglun’s hair. Hearing the question, she lowered her eyes, her face flushing as she gave a quiet hum of affirmation.

Yu Qingyue reached out, plucked the feathers from her hair, and with a squeeze of her palm, transformed them into a veil which she placed in Luo Binglun’s hand. “If you like my scent so much, then wear this.”

The veil was light and clean, as white as snow just like the feathers. Luo Binglun tried it on and was instantly surrounded by a refreshing herbal scent.

But thinking of Yu Qingyue’s words, she felt a bit embarrassed. Taking the veil off, she said, “It’s not just your scent that I like…”

“Then why are you so obsessed with my beast form?” Yu Qingyue countered testily.

Now that the two had opened their hearts to each other, Yu Qingyue naturally couldn’t allow her lover to care only about her animal form.

Luo Binglun was momentarily speechless. Others might not know about her habit of “huffing” the gyrfalcon, but Yu Qingyue who was constantly being rubbed and sniffed, felt it quite deeply.

“I like all of you, not just the beast form,” she hurried to soothe her, pulling Yu Qingyue into an embrace. She buried her face in the crook of Yu Qingyue’s neck, her slightly warm lips pressing against the slender throat. “Tomorrow night, you can just rest with me in this form.”

Luo Binglun realized a very important piece of information, she must not admit that she preferred pillows made of gyrfalcon feathers, or else Qingyue would get angry. Though she didn’t understand why Yu Qingyue would be upset for the Demon race, shouldn’t the beast form be considered the true self?

On the other side of the osmanthus forest, Qi Ran had just stopped her practice when she saw Liu Fenyun running toward them carrying a snow white beast. The image of a white lion instantly flashed through her mind, giving her a massive fright.

As Liu Fenyun got closer, Qi Ran realized the beast was just a large white cat and sighed in relief. Though she had only met the white lion once, that powerful and haughty presence had been forcibly imprinted into her spiritual consciousness, constantly reminding her of her status as an ordinary demon.

When used as a “body pillow,” the big white cat was as tall as a person. Hanging over Liu Fenyun’s shoulder, its back paws were barely half a palm’s width from the ground.

Having carried the “long cat” all this way, Liu Fenyun finally understood the saying “cats are made of liquid” the cat’s body was incredibly flexible.

Lian Yi had slept too comfortably, she hadn’t even woken up despite being jolted around the whole way. Liu Fenyun sat down under a nearby tree with the cat in her arms and said to the duo, “You two continue. I’ll watch and learn a thing or two.”

Qi Ran and Meng Nie exchanged a look but didn’t doubt her words. After all, Liu Fenyun had always focused on medicine. Even if she had learned martial arts and talisman techniques, in their eyes, her combat ability was indeed mediocre.

The sounds of fighting woke Lian Yi. She instinctively arched her back, preparing to take a defensive stance, but a familiar hand suddenly stroked her back, and her bristling fur immediately smoothed down.

“It’s okay, I’m just watching a spar,” Liu Fenyun said, rubbing the cat in her arms to put the wary feline at ease.

Lian Yi’s “waking up on the wrong side of the bed” mood hadn’t quite passed. She snuggled in Liu Fenyun’s arms for a moment before feeling something was off: “Has Qi Ran been possessed? Why is her temper so good today, even having the mood to spar with General Meng? Is she trying to use this to deceive us?”

Liu Fenyun couldn’t figure it out either, but the system had assured her that there were no issues with the current Qi Ran. She couldn’t see any problems herself, so she could only shake her head at the cat’s string of questions.

Lian Yi had little interest in watching people fight. After accompanying Liu Fenyun for a while, she patted Liu Fenyun’s face with a paw and suggested, “Since we aren’t leaving yet, why don’t we go for a stroll in the woods?”

The cat shrank down to a size that could be cradled in one’s arms. Liu Fenyun gave a shout to Meng Nie and then sprinted down a forest path with the cat.

“Why are you running so fa-fa-fa-fast!!” Lian Yi was so startled she scratched her, her voice shaking from the jolting. “No wild beasts are chasing you! Slow down…!”

Liu Fenyun simply wanted to try and reach the edge of the osmanthus forest as quickly as possible. When they landed here, the system had given her information about “an osmanthus forest” and “a human village surrounded by mountains.” However, once she was actually in the forest, she discovered many labyrinthine formations, and the so-called “human village” was nowhere to be found.

She suddenly stopped. Lian Yi finally caught her breath, poked her head out from Liu Fenyun’s arms, looked around, and asked, “Are you looking for something?”

Having spent so much time together, Lian Yi was somewhat familiar with her habits. Once she calmed down, she guessed what was on her mind. If she wasn’t looking for something, “A-Yun” wouldn’t be running around aimlessly like this.

Liu Fenyun paused, then nodded. “Don’t you think it’s too quiet here? Aside from the fish and shrimp in the river, there’s nothing, no humans, no demonic beasts, not even a single bird.”

In her experience, a forest should have some life, whether it’s sparrows or rabbits. But in this area, aside from them, there were no other active living creatures. As for the fish and shrimp in the stream, Liu Fenyun hadn’t sensed anything wrong with them yet; they had even stewed a pot of fish yesterday and were fine.

Hearing this, Lian Yi fell into thought as well. After a long silence, she said, “There are actually many ancient ruins in the Human Realm. The lotus pond in the Lotus Palace where we stayed during the spring hunt is one, and Qifeng City is another. But where exactly ancient ruins are located and what is inside them… that is often impossible to know.”

Reminded by this, Liu Fenyun thought for a moment and hurriedly pulled up the system database to check the definition of “ancient ruins.”

“Host, the original inhabitants of ancient ruins are mostly xenophobic. However, if the outsiders are ‘Gods’ like you, or someone who can provide them with benefits, they are still willing to accept them,” the system summarized while Liu Fenyun browsed the data. “By the way, the inhabitants can be any species, not limited to demons. Ancient humans could also occupy a treasure land to thrive and multiply.”

“In other words, this osmanthus forest might also be an ancient ruin?” Liu Fenyun asked Lian Yi after reading.

Lian Yi hesitated. “I haven’t had much contact with information on this, but Master and Priestess Luo should know more.”

They had traveled quite far by now. Liu Fenyun didn’t want to turn back just yet, so she kept the thought in mind and continued wandering through the woods.

She was a God, so her path was unobstructed. Even if she accidentally wandered into a labyrinth, she would quickly return to a safe zone.

After about an hour of wandering, Liu Fenyun found a clearing to sit down. She took food out of her medicine garden, breaking off a piece for Lian Yi first before taking a bite herself. They hadn’t eaten breakfast, having been too busy exploring the new map.

“There really are a lot of osmanthus trees planted here,” Lian Yi said, munching on a dried fish. “I’ve heard that some ancient ruins are slightly related to Gods. It seems that when Gods created the myriad worlds, they occasionally left ‘fragments’ in the mortal realm as souvenirs. I wonder which God left this forest behind. Although it’s quiet, it gives off a strangely nostalgic feeling.”

Liu Fenyun didn’t feel any sense of familiarity. After finishing breakfast and washing her hands, she continued exploring with the cat.

It wasn’t until noon that the pair returned to the resting site.

Seeing them return safely, Meng Nie asked in surprise, “What took you so long? I thought you’d been snatched away by demonic beasts.”

Liu Fenyun lied with a smile: “Didn’t I go to collect a lot of osmanthus? This forest is so big, surely it must have an owner? But we looked around and didn’t see a soul. Since we still have to travel, we decided to come back.”

“You came back at the right time. We just discovered something wrong as well.” Meng Nie sighed and pointed toward the sky. “Didn’t we descend from above? Just now, Physician Yu tried to fly up and found that an isolation barrier has appeared at some point. Although it’s only a single layer, even Physician Yu and Priestess Luo combined couldn’t break it.”

“If the barrier doesn’t break, we can’t leave through the sky,” Yu Qingyue took over. “Since you went to look for people, did you find a path leading outside?”

Liu Fenyun had indeed tried to reach the edge, but the forest seemed endless. There were paths, but following them never led to an end; even the range of the system map just kept extending along the road.

Seeing her shake her head, everyone fell silent.

“So… are we trapped here?” Lian Yi found it hard to believe. “But why trap us?”

No one could answer her for a moment. Only Qi Ran silently looked toward Liu Fenyun.

The aura of a God was too potent. Even a God who had not yet recovered their memories or full power would become a target for those with a mind to hunt.