The Heroines I’ve Flirted With Are Bound to Go OOC - Chapter 7

The sun rose in the east, its morning glow tenderly illuminating the distant village.

Suffering from insomnia, Xiao Tiao stared out the window with glazed eyes. His mind was entirely preoccupied with the cultivation technique Ye Naitang had promised to teach him, and his hands trembled slightly.

How could he not be excited? It was his life-saving straw, his passport to a bright future. With it, he could bid farewell to this barren desert and live a life where he was well-fed and warmly clothed.

Finally, the sky turned the color of a fish’s white belly. He withdrew his gaze and scrambled out of bed, impatient. After a quick grooming, he set off toward her house. The scenery blurred past him; the shorter the distance became, the more his excitement surged. Upon arriving, he didn’t even bother to knock and burst straight inside.

“Immortal Master!”

“How is the transcription coming along—”

He asked, struggling to suppress his racing heart, but his voice stopped abruptly when he saw the empty room. He stood frozen on the spot as if struck by lightning.

The window was wide open, and the biting wind blew in. The freezing temperature of the room was chilling to the bone. That person had fled. She had not kept her promise.

To have cast aside his dignity to plead for help, only to be met with this end—it felt like a bucket of ice water had been poured over him, cooling him from head to toe.

He turned his gaze toward the door. Two servants were leaning against the doorposts, sleeping fitfully. Their lips were pale and chapped, and their exposed limbs were so thin they were nothing but skin and bones. Xiao Tiao couldn’t bring himself to blame them; instead, a nameless despair rose in his heart.

His only hope had turned out to be a fleeting phantom. He could see no light in his life—not in the past, not now, and the future remained a dark unknown.

Xiao Tiao looked as if he had aged ten years in an instant, his expression vacant. As the village chief, he handled all sorts of affairs and saw the physical condition of the residents every day. They were all sallow and emaciated, often sharing a single ladle of water. Because they could barely keep the pot boiling for themselves, life was even harder with more mouths to feed. Few were willing to give birth, leading to a sharp decline in the population. If this continued, they would eventually die out.

Even if he accepted his own fate, he could not remain indifferent to the survival of his daughter and the other villagers. It wasn’t that he hadn’t thought of taking his family to the Eastern Territory, but his ancestors had warned their descendants never to go. Those who had gone to scout always reappeared at the border the next day—either dead or driven mad. None of them met a good end.

Suddenly, a cold wind blew, causing the sheets of white paper scattered on the floor to rustle. The sound caught Xiao Tiao’s attention.

What is this?

He leaned over and picked up the papers. His sorrowful expression instantly transformed into one of immense joy. Outside the window, a few green sprouts quietly bloomed, adding a touch of color to the barren wasteland.

After walking for a long time, Ye Naitang felt exhausted. Fortunately, she had finally reached the border.

Before her, a high wall piercing the clouds blocked her path. Its surface was smooth, with no doors or windows. Shaped like a giant oval egg, it possessed a milky-white opacity with a faint shimmer of flowing light.

Ye Naitang approached and touched it. Knowledge corresponding to the structure surfaced naturally in her mind; she realized this object was built from the refined dregs of spiritual energy. It was hard yet brittle—sufficient to keep out mortals.

To enter, one would have to destroy the entire wall. However, doing so would surely alert the cultivators inside.

Ye Naitang hated trouble and was uncertain how she would be treated if discovered. One thing was certain: the residents were not welcoming. They had built this wall to completely isolate outsiders; they had never intended to let the villagers of the Western Region in.

Though she didn’t technically come from the Western Region, she had no way to prove her identity. Even if she could, it was possible the locals simply discriminated against all outsiders regardless of status.

She weighed every possibility but could find no way in, yet she was unwilling to return in disgrace. She needed the figs of the Eastern Territory to sustain her life, but with her cultivation lost, she was powerless to cast spells and stood stranded outside the gates.

The more she thought, the more irritated she became. She decided to stop thinking and looked for a tool, intending to simply smash the wall and take her chances. If it caused a riot, as long as she ran fast enough, they would have a hard time catching the culprit.

Having made up her mind, she picked up a convenient piece of rubble. As she looked up, she happened to spot a “dog hole” near a mound of earth. The entrance was well-hidden; if she hadn’t been crouching, she never would have noticed it.

After a moment of silence, Ye Naitang tossed the stone aside and crawled into the hole with a calm expression.

The scenery inside the hole was “lovely”—pitch black, with layers of soft, sticky spiderwebs plastered to her head and the fluids of soft-bodied insects rubbing against her palms. The air was thick with the suffocating scent of damp earth.

After crawling for thirty minutes, just as she began to doubt the path, a light appeared ahead.

She moved forward and gently pushed aside a cluster of rocks, peeking through the gap. Her field of vision was small; a few meters away, a piece of fabric hung down, and further ahead, she could see the legs of an exquisite table and a vanity mirror.

Clearly, this was a lady’s bedchamber.

Ye Naitang brushed the spider silk off her hair and shoulders. She held her breath and listened for a moment. After scanning the room and confirming there was no movement, she shifted her body to exit.

The main point of irritation for her was who on earth would dig a tunnel that connected to a girl’s room. Furthermore, judging by the sheer volume of spiderwebs in the tunnel, it must have taken at least a hundred years to accumulate that much. Had no one checked it?

Lost in thought, she accidentally bumped against the edge of the bed during her exit.

Creak—crunch—

A grating sound rang out, and the bed shook violently. Immediately after, the vigorous voice of a young woman shattered the silence.

“Who is it?! Come out for this Young Miss!”

Of all the calculations she had made, she had neglected the fact that there might be someone… actually on the bed.

Ye Naitang froze, genuinely startled by the piercing shout.

“Don’t huddle under the bed! If I have to come down and catch you myself, there will be no good fruit for you to eat!”

“Then come down yourself,” Ye Naitang replied.

“Get out here!”

“No.”

Ye Naitang remained unmoved, letting the girl shout. She took the opportunity to adjust into a more comfortable position, wiped the dirt off her hands, and focused on thinking of a counter-strategy.

To be safe, she should probably comply. She was currently weak and helpless; if she angered the girl and the situation escalated, the consequences would be dire. Or, she could go back the way she came and pretend nothing happened.

But more than that, she wanted to know how the “Original Host” of this body had survived the trials of fate to live until the later stages of the story—even falling off a cliff to meet the Male Lead and sacrificing everything for him.

Thump, thump-thump.

With the sound of movement, a pair of porcelain-white bare feet touched the floor. Then, pink light gauze fluttered down, making the long legs look exceptionally white, like a blooming rose standing in the center of delicate petals.

Ignoring whether the floor was dirty, the girl rolled up her sleeves, pulled back the bedsheets, and leaned down to peer under the bed. The light caught her sexy figure and her beautiful face, while her black hair traced the elegant curves of her body.

Seeing the aggressive approach, Ye Naitang didn’t think twice—she immediately turned to crawl back into the hole and escape.

From the perspective of the girl in red, all she could see was a girl in a blue dress with silver hair shrinking back into the corner. She was covered in dust and grime, and her face wasn’t clear, but her thin, pale chin was visible. It looked as though a mouse had encountered a cat, fleeing in a panic—a complete contrast to the calm tone she had used moments before.

Unfortunately, she fled in the wrong direction.

“How many years has it been? Two hundred? You people still haven’t learned your lesson,” the girl said, placing a finger to her lips and blowing a whistle.

The whistle was clear and sharp. As if a mechanism had been triggered, the wall in front of Ye Naitang shuddered with a clatter-clatter sound, as if water were boiling inside. In an instant, a mass of wriggling yellow slime oozed from the wall, sealing the exit completely. Countless maggots twisted within the vomit-like sludge; they were plump and juicy, nearly brushing against her nose.

Ye Naitang recoiled in shock, instinctively covering her nose and mouth—even though the substance didn’t smell bad; in fact, it had a medicinal fragrance.

“Stop looking. It’s not just that wall; the entire house is filled with the Gu insects I raise. You can’t escape.”

“What do you want?”

“What kind of attitude is that? Still acting tough?” The girl raised an eyebrow. Her “waking-up rage,” which she had barely suppressed, was sparked again by Naitang’s aloof tone. She said sinisterly, “You disturb someone’s sleep and act like you’re in the right? You were lucky; I haven’t lacked ‘white mice’ for experiments lately. If you had just apologized, I might have let it go.”

“Now, I’ve changed my mind. I want you to crawl over here and lick my toes. If I’m satisfied, I might let you leave.”

Hearing this, Ye Naitang turned her head to look at the girl’s bare feet and said calmly, “Alright.”

With that, she began to crawl forward, making sure not to bump the bed again. The bed made such a loud noise with one touch; another might make it collapse.

“You… you stay back!”

Now it was the Medicine Saint, Liu Mengxi, who panicked. Her playful expression froze instantly. Like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, she jumped up and scrambled to find her shoes. Her movements were fluid, but she was clearly shaken.

That person… what is wrong with her! Is that a normal person’s reaction?!

“You were the one teasing me, so why does it seem like I’m the one messing with you?” Ye Naitang finally crawled out from under the bed and stood up, staring at her face.

She feigned confusion, while inwardly trying to recall the plot involving this character. However, it had been too long, and she couldn’t remember anything no matter how hard she tried.

“You!” Liu Mengxi instinctively wanted to talk back, but when she looked up and saw the girl’s face, she froze again.

Even covered in grime, the girl’s beauty was undeniable; the dust could not hide the brilliance of the pearl. After a moment, Liu Mengxi snapped out of it, feeling a sense of utter humiliation. She wished she could find a crack in the floor to hide in.

Today, she had lost face twice in front of a mere slip of a girl.

“This tunnel was dug by me. You can stay here as a backup test subject—consider it your toll for using the road.”

She feigned a few coughs, her tone brookng no argument as she tried to salvage her image. “You people from the Eastern Territory really are all carved from the same mold. So ‘dry’ and thin.”

The word “dry” seemed to carry a double meaning. Ye Naitang glanced at the girl’s curvaceous figure but remained silent.