Stepping in for the Heroine to Crush the Protagonist Group [Transmigration] - Chapter 11

Outside the bridal chamber, time stood still. Everyone was frozen in place, utterly motionless.

The Lust Demon slowly walked out of the chamber, carrying Xie Qingyang over one shoulder and He Shiqing over the other. Trailing behind him were the four disciples bound by red ropes.

The four women all looked distressed. Only Hu Li was pale from fear; the other three were fuming with anger.

The Lust Demon’s cultivation was far beneath theirs. If not for this illusionary realm, any one of them could have easily captured him. Yet now, they were completely at his mercy.

[The Lust Demon is about to become the biggest winner in this entire book. He captured the entire main cast.]

[Great, this plot line has completely overturned the original novel. I have no idea where the story goes from here.]

[The second half of the original novel has been taken down. I heard the author plans to rewrite the entire book because the revised version got too popular.]

[Too popular? It was obviously “too flamed.”]

[This book is now a joke across the whole internet.]

[A fan of the original novel started a poll on Weibo to re-elect the main CP.]

[Oh really? I’m going to vote.]

[Voted for the Dual Heroines. Hope they start being affectionate soon.]

[Who voted for the Dog-Chicken pairing, that evil CP?! Oh, wait, it was me.]

[Dog-Chicken, love-hate relationship. It’s so addictive.]

******

Hu Li had grown used to the sudden book reviews popping up, but she couldn’t figure out what the heck “Dog-Chicken” was supposed to mean?!

And “love-hate relationship, it’s so addictive.” Hu Li gave a death smile, only finding roast chicken to be the most addictive thing in the world.

Roast chicken smells good. Hu Li’s breath hitched. She scanned the three-story pavilion the Lust Demon had brought them into. Faintly, she thought she really did catch a whiff of roast chicken.

Gulp! She couldn’t help but swallow.

The Lust Demon’s ears twitched. Hearing the sound, he chuckled, “I almost forgot, my takeout arrived.”

Takeout?! Hu Li frowned, puzzled by this overly modern word. “What takeout? What are you talking about?”

Ever since the ‘Model 67 Hand Grenade,’ she had noticed a strangeness permeating the Floating Life Pagoda. It was supposed to be a place full of cultivation natives, yet it had things that shouldn’t exist in this world.

Could someone else have transmigrated here like her?

Doubts formed in Hu Li’s mind, but before she could think it through, the Lust Demon put his hands on his hips and said proudly, “Little brother, you just haven’t seen much, have you?”

With that, he waved his hand, and a table appeared, laden with a KFC Family Bucket.

Hu Li: ?!

Her eyes widened in shock. “Where did you get that from!”

This cultivation world was too bizarre. She was momentarily overwhelmed, even completely forgetting her fear of the Lust Demon.

The Lust Demon smiled. “This is from ‘Can’t-Afford-KFC,’ made by a demonic brother on the seventh floor. He said it’s a specialty from his hometown. Smells great, doesn’t it?”

Hu Li swallowed, then hesitantly asked, “And the takeout?”

The Lust Demon untied the four of them, invited them to the table, and slowly explained, “The demonic brother said it was too much hassle for everyone to run around to eat, so he started a delivery service, which he calls ‘takeout.'”

He pushed a bucket toward the bright-eyed Hu Li.

Hu Li eagerly took it, eating as she asked, “Where did your demonic brother’s ‘hometown’ actually say it was?”

She reasonably suspected that all these odd items in the Floating Life Pagoda were the work of this fellow transmigrator.

The Lust Demon gestured to the three disciples other than Hu Li, then laughed at Hu Li. “Little brother, asking that question will only make a ghost laugh. I said he was a demonic brother, so his hometown is naturally the Demon Realm. Oh, right, the new demonic fellow on the seventh floor also brought a new specialty from the Demon Realm. I think it’s called some kind of ‘Model 67 Egg’ or something. You’d probably love that too.”

Hu Li choked, coughing a few times, and quickly said, “You really shouldn’t eat that thing.”

If she ate it, she feared she’d achieve literal, physical ascension right there.

However, based on the Lust Demon’s words, the problem seemed to lie with the Demon Clan, not the Floating Life Pagoda itself.

After the meal, Hu Li learned from the Lust Demon that before these demons entered the Floating Life Pagoda, it was a turbulent place filled with violence. But after these new, emergent demons moved in, everyone had tacitly chosen to “lie flat.”

As for fighting in groups, they felt that: Everyone’s a friend. What problem can’t be solved with a bucket of ‘Can’t-Afford-KFC’?

However, the Lust Demon wasn’t entirely convinced about the “Floating Life Pagoda Peace.” He waved his hand, conjuring an iron plate, and pointing to the text on it, said earnestly, “Little brother, peace is an illusion. This is the truth.”

Hu Li gave an “oh,” and focused her eyes on the iron plate. It read:

[Could a certain demon please have some self-awareness? Everyone else is asleep in the middle of the night, but you’re still making noise. Do you have no sense of decency?]

[A certain demon should not take offense. If I’m cursing you, I’ll do it to your face.]

[To the idiot who stole my takeout: I laced it with something special. Good luck.]

[The old man on the sixth floor caught me again. This is the tenth time. He insists he doesn’t remember picking up any ‘trash.’]

*******

Hu Li raised an eyebrow. “Is this… a Friend Circle?!”

She took the iron plate in both hands, flipped through it, and asked the Lust Demon, “Which one of those demonic heroes came up with this?”

The Lust Demon shook his head. “Not sure. But—”

He paused, then spread out his left hand, revealing a whole sleeve full of iron plates. He smiled. “Little brother, these iron plates are called ‘Hand-Irons.’ Just inject a thread of spiritual energy, and you can communicate with all your friends who have a Hand-Iron. Why don’t you get one?”

Hu Li pursed her lips, hesitating for a moment before asking, “How many spirit stones?”

The Lust Demon: “One hundred spirit stones per plate.”

Hu Li fell silent, turning her back to the Lust Demon.

Poor dogs don’t deserve Hand-Irons.

Gu Sheng, sitting beside Hu Li, had also grasped the general idea. After a moment of consideration, she spoke. “If I buy them, will you let us leave the third floor?”

The Lust Demon waved his hand. “That’s a separate price.”

Gu Sheng calmly replied, “I’ll take all of these Hand-Irons.”

The Lust Demon was ecstatic. He quickly asked, “Do you, honored elder, require this humble one to carry you to the second floor?”

Gu Sheng answered with composure. “You just need to let us leave right now.”

“Right now?” The Lust Demon lowered his hand, shaking his head repeatedly. “No, if I let you go now, I’ll be mocked to death by the upper floors.”

This Floating Life Pagoda trial had been a hot topic on the Hand-Iron for a while. Whoever was the quickest to be beaten by a Tianyan Sect disciple would be pinned on the Hand-Iron’s front page for a month.

He was not keen on that.

However, patrons like Gu Sheng were rare. So, after some internal struggle, the Lust Demon conceded. “But if you can help me accomplish one thing, I can let you leave early.”

With that, he wasted no time on riddles. He waved his hand, and the surrounding scenery abruptly shifted, transforming into a painting studio.

This studio was filled with thousands upon thousands of portraits. Rolls of scrolls of varying lengths were spread out before them, a truly spectacular sight.

Hu Li snapped back to reality, glancing around, then immediately plopped down onto the floor, having a déjà vu moment. “Holy crap, you draw Japanese manga?!”

In a daze, she wondered if she had truly transmigrated into a novel.

It doesn’t make sense! It simply doesn’t make sense! Looking at her left hand saying, “The truth is always one,” and her right hand saying, “I’m going to be the Pirate King’s man,” Hu Li felt like she was splitting in two.

Ghosts can’t, or at least shouldn’t, do this.

Seeing Hu Li look as if she’d seen a ghost, the Lust Demon simply assumed she was stunned by his masterpieces. He folded his arms proudly and explained, “These drawings are called ‘merchandise,’ and they also came from the Demon Clan. Little brother, would you like to buy a set?”

Hu Li mechanically shook her head, turning to stone on the spot.

Gu Sheng interrupted the two of them, asking the Lust Demon, “What do you want us to do? Don’t waste time.”

The Lust Demon pouted and looked at her. He reached out and conjured a man-height sketchbook on a nearby desk. He then pointed to the still-unconscious Xie Qingyang and He Shiqing and said, “What I need you to do is to complete the faces of these two people in the style of these portraits on this sketchbook.”

Gu Sheng scanned the sketchbook, replied, “Alright,” and sat down, picking up a brush to start drawing.

The nearby Min Xiuhe, who had just recovered, and Shang Miaoyun, who was too socially anxious to speak, immediately followed suit, sitting at the desk and beginning to draw.

The Lust Demon leaned in, peering at their brushwork. He nodded in satisfaction, then looked at Hu Li, who had finished a single face in mere seconds. His breath hitched. He snatched the brush from her hand and urgently cried, “Let go!”

Hu Li didn’t let go. Instead, she looked up, confused, and asked, “Is there something wrong with my drawing?”

As a veteran anime fan, she had always harbored a dream of becoming an artist. Now that the opportunity had arrived, she decided to seize it.

But clearly, the Lust Demon didn’t want to give her that chance.

“Little brother, I still want to chat with you. Stop drawing,” the Lust Demon said, his smile looking worse than a cry.

With just a single glance, he no longer wanted Hu Li to touch his artwork.

He truly couldn’t compliment her style of drawing two lines for eyebrows and two dots for eyes.

Hu Li, however, refused. “I have to help them! I can’t drag everyone down!”

The Lust Demon gave a pained smile. “I thank you on their behalf.”

Hu Li pushed him away, frowning. “Thank me for what?”

The Lust Demon grabbed Hu Li’s hand before she could put the brush to paper again and stated plainly, “As long as you don’t draw, they will have half as much of the sketchbook to finish.”

Hu Li’s gaze fell on the other three, who had abruptly looked up behind the Lust Demon. Receiving the silent signal, she relented. “O-okay, I agree.”

She was confused. Was her drawing really that bad? The Lust Demon would make such a request.

But the Lust Demon, hearing her agree, let out a deep sigh of relief.

With her brush set aside, Hu Li started to look through the blank-faced sketchbooks in front of her out of boredom. Seeing that the plots were all scenes that had happened during the day, she couldn’t help but ask the Lust Demon, “So, the disciples who fall down here are responsible for filling in the faces in your sketchbooks?”

The Lust Demon leaned on the desk with one hand, crossing his legs as he replied, “I don’t get inspiration for faces, so I just use those handsome little faces from the Tianyan Sect disciples.”

As he spoke, he lay down on the desk, propping the brush on his mouth, silently pondering which sketchbook the next disciple to fall to the third floor should be assigned to.

Hu Li didn’t disturb him, instead looking through the other sketchbooks nearby on her own.

Halfway through, she noticed a peony illustration in one sketchbook that looked very familiar. She read the sketchbook from start to finish.

Then, she remembered the single-strand peony hairpin the old man on the sixth floor had given her.

“Big Brother Lust Demon,” Hu Li took the jade brush from his mouth and shoved the sketchbook in his face. “How did you draw the peony hairpin in this book?”

The Lust Demon’s thoughts were suddenly interrupted. He reluctantly opened his eyes, about to scold Hu Li, when his eyes were filled with the image of the peony hairpin in the sketchbook.

He shot up, took the sketchbook, and stared at Hu Li with shining eyes, asking, “What, you’ve seen it?”

Support Stepping in for the Heroine to Crush the Protagonist Group [Transmigration]