Queen of Ten Thousand Demons Insists on Marrying Me - Chapter 70

Lu Xiaoxiao felt her collar being seized by Tantai Jing. Tantai Jing twisted her wrist, and Lu Xiaoxiao was spun around like a little chick being hoisted up.

She turned to face the cold beauty, whose expression was as frosty as winter.

“Hey, what a coincidence! I was just looking for you, Sister Jing,” Lu Xiaoxiao smiled brightly, her eyes clear, her face radiating innocence.

But this time, Tantai Jing wasn’t falling for it. She had been worried that Lu Xiaoxiao might encounter danger alone. Relying on the Gu worm, she rushed all the way through the mist to find her, only to discover that the person she was anxious about was peeking at other women bathing.

“A coincidence? I spent a great deal of effort tracking you down through this mist.”

Tantai Jing smiled radiantly, but the hand gripping Lu Xiaoxiao’s collar suddenly released its hold.

Pulled and then released by her, Lu Xiaoxiao instantly lost her balance and staggered back two steps, forgetting that there was a hot spring behind her.

“Hey, Tantai Jing, you—”

“Plop—”

Tantai Jing’s face was cold as frost as she swept across the water surface, flying toward the center of the pool.

The Guichen Sword in her hand danced like a fire snake, lashing out at the several naked women in the pool. Instantly, the pool water was churned up, splashing everywhere, with thousands of water droplets suspended in the air.

The women, however, seemed completely oblivious, still giggling amongst themselves, scattering only when the Guichen Sword was about to strike them.

“What a fierce woman.”

Some rose lightly from the water, cloaking themselves in fine silk gauze before vanishing into the mist, not forgetting to look back and sweep Tantai Jing with their eyes. Other women, like water snakes, burrowed into the water, instantly disappearing. Some even swam towards Tantai Jing, only dissolving into a thin mist right before the Guichen Sword wrapped around them.

Lu Xiaoxiao hadn’t anticipated Tantai Jing would let go suddenly. She fell entirely into the hot spring, splashing several times before finally surfacing, completely soaked.

Her hair was messy and clung to her face, and water droplets hanging from her lashes fell into the pool when she blinked. Gasping for fresh air, she hastily wiped the water from her face, pushed aside the hair blocking her eyes, and looked up at Tantai Jing hovering in the air.

Just as she caught sight of Tantai Jing’s position, the water droplets suspended in the air rained down on her head again. Her recently organized hair stuck back to her face, making her look utterly miserable.

When Lu Xiaoxiao surfaced this time, she learned her lesson and swam back a few strokes to the shore.

A cold wind blew, making her shiver violently. She wrapped her arms around herself to cover her figure, which was clearly visible through her wet, somewhat transparent robes, then looked at Tantai Jing with an innocent, teary gaze.

“Sister Jing, I was wrong. I shouldn’t have been curious about their ‘Mysterious Mirror.’ They were the ones confusing me, saying they could see your location, which is why I couldn’t resist sneaking a look.” As Lu Xiaoxiao spoke, she looked pitiable, her large, moist eyes conveying profound weakness.

Tantai Jing slowly flew in front of her. Her gaze skimmed over the pale-pink skin showing through Lu Xiaoxiao’s robes, then settled on the grass swaying in the distance. She said coolly, “What wrong have you committed?”

The ‘pity card’ isn’t working?

Lu Xiaoxiao looked down at her white dress, which clung tightly to her due to the soaking.

Impossible. I can see through it a bit myself.

She decided to try again.

She took a step forward and hugged Tantai Jing’s arm, pressing her body against it: “My mistake was being so careless. I knew this place was dangerous, yet I so easily trusted strangers’ words. I was almost fooled by them! If you hadn’t come, Sister Jing, I’m afraid I would have fallen for their trap.”

Feeling the soft, warm touch transmitted through her arm, a trace of crimson spread across Tantai Jing’s earlobe. She tried to pull her arm away from Lu Xiaoxiao’s embrace, but since Lu Xiaoxiao was holding on so tightly and she didn’t want to use excessive force to shake her off, she could only speak first:

“You aren’t without magic. Dry yourself off first.”

Seeing Tantai Jing still speaking with a strained face, Lu Xiaoxiao felt deeply frustrated: Is my figure really that unattractive? Does it not appeal to her at all?

She glanced sideways at Tantai Jing’s chest and muttered to herself: It shouldn’t be too bad; it’s only slightly smaller.

Lu Xiaoxiao tried to gather spiritual energy to dry her clothes while feeling sad. It was only upon attempting to use her spiritual energy that she realized her normally abundant energy was now like a squeezed-dry towel—not a drop could be wrung out.

Seeing Lu Xiaoxiao’s face instantly turn pale, Tantai Jing calmly remarked: “What’s wrong? After seeing the naked beauties, have you forgotten even such a simple spell?”

“N-No… that’s not it. My spiritual energy seems to have suddenly vanished. I can’t even feel my Spiritual Ocean,” Lu Xiaoxiao said frantically, sensing the anomaly in her body.

“What?”

This time, Tantai Jing didn’t care about being angry. She reached out, grabbed Lu Xiaoxiao’s wrist, and probed her Spiritual Ocean. The discovery shocked Tantai Jing: Lu Xiaoxiao’s Nascent Soul stage Spiritual Ocean was completely dry, with not a trace of spiritual energy remaining in her body.

She released Lu Xiaoxiao’s hand, turned, and walked back to the hot spring. Gazing at the shimmering water surface, she reached out to probe the pool, but abruptly stopped before touching it. A stream of spiritual energy flowed from her hand into the pool.

Her brows furrowed instantly, and she quickly pulled her hand out of the water: “This is bad. This pool water is strange. It can silently absorb spiritual energy. All the spiritual energy I sent in vanished.”

With that, Tantai Jing looked at Lu Xiaoxiao with a mix of guilt and worry in her eyes.

“It was my own clumsiness; I didn’t stand still. If it weren’t for you, I might have been charmed,” Lu Xiaoxiao said, no longer feigning weakness, straightening her body against the cold wind.

“But…” Lu Xiaoxiao interrupted her before she could finish.

“What kind of monsters were those just now? Why were they so strange? As soon as I heard their voices, I was uncontrollably drawn over.”

Tantai Jing held her hand, drying her clothes and constantly transmitting spiritual energy to try and reawaken her Spiritual Ocean, but it was futile.

“I don’t know. This place is very peculiar. Those women, completely unclothed, seemed like succubi, but they didn’t appear to have real physical forms; they seemed to be connected to this mist,” Tantai Jing said, recalling how one of the women had dissipated into mist to escape.

The two did not linger here and continued walking in the direction Lu Xiaoxiao had been heading before.

Tantai Jing remained silent along the way, simply leading Lu Xiaoxiao forward. Lu Xiaoxiao was also afraid of saying too much and making things worse, so she didn’t dare to speak much.

They continued traveling for about half a day.

“Is it beautiful?”

Tantai Jing abruptly spoke.

“Huh?”

Lu Xiaoxiao was a little confused by her sudden question.

“Are they more beautiful, or… am I more beautiful?”

Lu Xiaoxiao suddenly understood and said urgently: “Of course you’re more beautiful! I’ve never seen anyone in this world more beautiful than you.”

As the words left her mouth, the hand holding hers abruptly let go.

“So you did see them.”

Tantai Jing had held in her guilt all this time, but the more they traveled, the more troubled she became, finally unable to resist asking: “Wasn’t that true?”

Lu Xiaoxiao had thought the matter was over, but was surprised Tantai Jing brought it up again.

“I definitely caught a glimpse when I first pushed aside the grass,” she then said anxiously, “but it was only a glance. I didn’t clearly see anything; I don’t even know what they looked like. I’m sorry! I know I shouldn’t have looked, but I really didn’t mean to. If I had known they weren’t wearing clothes, I certainly wouldn’t have gone to look.”

Tantai Jing’s voice became indifferent again: “Then when I arrived, which glance were you trying to take?”

Lu Xiaoxiao was stunned by the question, wanting to slap herself twice. She stammered: “Th-The second glance.”

The person walking ahead suddenly stopped. Lu Xiaoxiao’s mind was in chaos and turmoil, and she bumped into Tantai Jing without noticing.

“Why did you… stop, Sister Jing?”

Tantai Jing suddenly turned around and struck Lu Xiaoxiao’s shoulder with a palm strike. Lu Xiaoxiao was flung several zhang away, crashing into a tree, and then tumbling onto the ground. She lay on the ground curled up, her face twisted in pain, breathing with difficulty.

The blow was not lethally heavy; after all, with Tantai Jing’s Mahayana cultivation, taking her life with a casual blow would have been easy.

But it wasn’t light either. Since she couldn’t summon any spiritual energy to defend herself, she was hit hard and knocked to the ground, hurting so much that she couldn’t straighten up or speak for a long time.

Lying in the cold mud, half of Lu Xiaoxiao’s face sunk into the mud and water. Seeing only a thick layer of mist in the direction where Tantai Jing stood, her heart gradually grew cold. She knew Tantai Jing had a bad temper, but she hadn’t known it was this bad.

“You just claimed repeatedly that you didn’t see anything, yet in fact, you looked once, and even intended to look a second time!”

“The thing I hate most is liars! Bai Wu was like that, and so are you!”

Tantai Jing’s voice was frigid, every word like a cold arrow shooting at Lu Xiaoxiao.

Lu Xiaoxiao struggled to sit up, leaning against the tree. Anger welled up in her heart: “How can you compare the two? That monster said she could see your location, which is why I went to take a second look! Besides, I didn’t even see the second glance!”

Tantai Jing’s voice drifted out from the mist: “Then you definitively had the intention to look, yes or no?”

The Chaoyuan Sword, having learned its lesson from last time, felt that the two people were acting strangely, just like when Lu Xiaoxiao entered the illusion before. Seeing them argue loudly, it meekly interjected: “Are you two not in some kind of illusion again?”

“Shut up!” Lu Xiaoxiao then yelled back at Tantai Jing: “Yes, yes, yes, I wanted to look! I’m a pervert, alright! It wasn’t to find you at all; it was just to watch pretty girls bathe! Are you satisfied now!”

The Chaoyuan Sword, which had never seen Lu Xiaoxiao angry, felt even more that something was wrong after being yelled at: “You have no spiritual energy right now, and you still dare to make her angry! You are too brave.”

Suddenly, an object flew out of the mist towards Lu Xiaoxiao: “The affection between you and me ends here. This object can protect you three times. Take care of yourself.”

Lu Xiaoxiao looked at the jade bracelet in her hand, then slammed it against a nearby stone. Clutching her throbbing shoulder, she yelled back: “Who cares about your broken magic artifact! Let our relationship break off then! We are done for good!”

The jade bracelet struck the stone without leaving a single mark, bouncing lightly and landing in the mud nearby.

The more Lu Xiaoxiao looked at it, the angrier she got. She picked up the bracelet and slammed it several more times, but the bracelet remained translucent and showed no scratches. Finally, in a fit of rage, she flung it hard toward the direction Tantai Jing had vanished, and the bracelet rolled into the layers of mist.

Looking in the direction Tantai Jing had disappeared, Lu Xiaoxiao felt a dull ache in her heart. The surroundings were hazy and white, making her feel incredibly empty. She looked at the faint glow of the Chaoyuan Sword and suddenly felt an impulse to end it all right there under the tree.

She walked dazedly toward the Chaoyuan Sword, gripped the hilt, and stared blankly at the blade.

“Hey! Didn’t you really like that Demoness?”

The Chaoyuan’s voice rang out, and her eyes regained a sliver of clarity.

“She has a bad temper, is unreasonable, and abuses me. W-Why would I still like her? I lost all my spiritual energy, yet she abandoned me here alone and left me with a broken bracelet. I think she hopes I die here!”

Lu Xiaoxiao felt as if thousands of needles were pricking her heart, but the more she spoke, the angrier she became. In the end, there was no trace of sadness left, only anger and hatred.

The Chaoyuan Sword watched the whole incident. Although it felt the argument was sudden, it also seemed somewhat logical: “Are you really not in some kind of illusion? Or influenced by something?”

Lu Xiaoxiao vigorously wiped the side of her face that had fallen into the mud with her sleeve. Seeing that half of her body was miserable and covered in yellow mud, and she couldn’t retrieve a clean dress from her storage ring without spiritual energy, her rage surged to the top of her head.

“What illusion? I think she just exposed herself! She was never a gentle person; she was just pretending. It was always like this—if something didn’t go her way, she’d slap me a few times. This time was worse; that blow just now caused a burst of blood to rush up, and she almost made me cough up blood.”

The Chaoyuan Sword thought about it and felt she had a point: “Exactly. There are plenty of good women in this world. She’s just a beautiful-as-a-goddess Mahayana Demoness. I’ll find you an even better one later.”

Standing behind the mist, Tantai Jing’s eyes, filled with worry moments ago, gradually turned vicious. The jade bottle containing healing pills in her hand cracked under her increasing grip, finally shattering in her palm, and a stream of blood flowed out of her palm.

“Let’s go back to that hot spring. Anyway, those demons were chased off by her. We should go back, bathe, and wash my clothes first. I’m too dirty to be in the mood for anything else,” Lu Xiaoxiao said in a low voice.