The Vicious Beauty Faked His Death Three Times [Transmigration] - Chapter 34

Chapter 34: Deviation

“Big Brother.”

A voice so soft it was almost imperceptible fell into Lin Qinghan’s ear. He turned his head to see a look of rare instability on Hua Xueqiong’s face.

Lin Qinghan froze for a moment. Finally sensing the weight against him, he looked down and moved the person on top of him aside, then turned around, about to ask Hua Xueqiong about several matters.

Before he could steady his stance, she crashed into his embrace.

Lin Qinghan rarely had such close physical contact with anyone. Logically, he should have pushed her away, but the strength of the hands circling his waist was surprisingly great, causing him to lose the will to push back.

Lin Qinghan’s first reaction was that his clothes were going to be crumpled beyond recognition. He looked down at Hua Xueqiong in his arms, only to realize she was trembling.

“Why are you crying?” In the end, Lin Qinghan did not push her away.

Hua Xueqiong’s body stiffened in his arms. She looked up, her apricot eyes red and swollen, a lingering expression of shock still remaining on her face. She looked at Lin Qinghan somewhat dazed and asked softly, “Big Brother?”

“Mm,” Lin Qinghan responded.

It was a simple reply, but to Hua Xueqiong, no words could have been more reassuring.

She stepped back from Lin Qinghan’s embrace. Her arms, suspended in the air, trembled slightly, seemingly still carrying a trace of stiffness. Her fingertips pressed into his green robes with a slight force.

He was warm.

Not a patch of icy coldness in the snow.

Tears fell without warning, startling even Lin Qinghan.

Hua Xueqiong immediately raised her hand to wipe them. Her movements were rough and hurried; the rims of her eyes were soon rubbed into a crimson state, even faintly seeping with blood.

She needed to be steady. Only by being steady could she protect the Hundred Demons Sect.

Suddenly, her wrist was seized. A clear, refined voice, mixed with a trace of helplessness, fell by her ear.

“What happened?”

Hua Xueqiong looked up at Lin Qinghan. Staring into those incredibly familiar eyes, a wave of soreness surged through her own.

Three hundred years ago, when she was about to take human form, she had been captured, destined to be thrown into a furnace to become a tiny part of ten million pills. But a pair of hands had blocked the furnace.

The person was dressed in green, his tone indifferent: “May I purchase this piece of agarwood?”

Three hundred years later, Lin Qinghan had caught her frantic hand. There was no blame or scolding, only a helpless yet worried gaze looking at her, asking softly as he always did.

Hua Xueqiong realized that perhaps she was not as strong as she had imagined. In front of Lin Qinghan, she was always that agarwood piece that would throw a tantrum and shed tears.

“Big Brother, I missed you so much,” Hua Xueqiong said suddenly.

Lin Qinghan froze, offering no response.

He was not the original host; this was not a sentence he should answer.

However, Hua Xueqiong did not notice his odd silence. Instead, as if finally coming to her senses, she recounted everything that had happened previously, detail by detail.

With every sentence Hua Xueqiong spoke, the coldness in Lin Qinghan’s eyes deepened by a fraction.

Finally, Lin Qinghan spoke to ask, “Where is the white cloth?”

Hua Xueqiong seemed to finally remember the object. She looked back somewhat blankly to search for it, her gaze finally landing on the ashes scattered by the wind on the ground.

“It burned away. It burned up the moment the barrier broke,” Hua Xueqiong said, looking at the ashes. Then, as if remembering something, she immediately turned to look at the unconscious Ling Yanhe. “Big Brother, he is the Malignant Star that person spoke of.”

Lin Qinghan’s brow furrowed slightly; he made no reply.

A mysterious person? What kind of thing is that?

And what kind of setting is a white cloth that can prophesy?

Lin Qinghan immediately opened his panel and looked at the Hidden Plot section. As expected, the progress bar had moved.

It had changed from 1% to 5%.

“Is that white cloth a setting that exists in the original text?” Lin Qinghan asked the system.

The Hua Xueqiong of the original text did not appear in this segment of the plot. Had this white cloth simply never been used then?

Unable to detect relevant information. The system cannot provide a response.

“How far is the place where the original body died from here?” Lin Qinghan asked again.

This time, the system finally gave him a response, marking it on the map. Lin Qinghan looked closely; the place where the original body died was less than a hundred miles from Yellow Mountain Ridge.

Lin Qinghan asked, “System, what was Hua Xueqiong’s ending in the original text?”

The system pulled up a plot segment for Lin Qinghan—a minor, insignificant fragment. Had the system not pulled it out, Lin Qinghan would never have noticed it.

It was a small interlude from when Ling Yanhe was at his lowest point, attempting to gain a foothold in the Demon Realm. Someone had organized a group of demons to chase him into the Demon Realm to denounce him, only to be wiped out entirely with a wave of Ling Yanhe’s hand. He likely hadn’t spared those demons a single glance.

Lin Qinghan was silent for a while. “Was that group of demons organized by Hua Xueqiong?”

Yes.

Lin Qinghan withdrew the panel and looked down at Hua Xueqiong. “Where were you the day I returned to the sect?”

Hua Xueqiong didn’t expect him to ask this. She froze for a moment before answering, “Near Tianhai Pavilion. Something happened there, and I wanted to go there to find news of you, Big Brother.”

“But I didn’t find anything.”

Looking at her lowered head and disappointed look, Lin Qinghan felt a sense of reality regarding this world for the first time.

In the original text, Hua Xueqiong began having prophetic dreams after the original host left. While in a state of panic, a mysterious person suddenly appeared and gave her a white cloth that could glimpse destiny. Thus, Hua Xueqiong began searching everywhere for the original host. When the incident at Tianhai Pavilion occurred, she immediately went out to search but crossed paths with him.

Having found nothing, Hua Xueqiong returned to find the Hundred Demons Sect heavily damaged, and her brother, who had accompanied her for many years, dead at someone else’s hand. Thus, she began searching for the killer. Following their tracks, she witnessed an even more horrifying scene.

The corpse of the original host, scattered in the snow.

Afterward, Hua Xueqiong became even more determined in her heart for revenge, pursuing the killer all the way to the Demon Realm. Upon discovering Ling Yanhe’s tracks, she immediately organized many demons, prepared to fight to the death, only to be crushed by a casual strike, dying randomly in an unknown corner of the Demon Realm.

That was Hua Xueqiong’s ending in the original text.

It was truly laughable—missing each other by a twist of fate, a single piece of white cloth playing hundreds of people in the palm of its hand.

Lin Qinghan lowered his eyes, looking at the pile of ashes on the ground, yet a spark of anger was lit in his heart. Still, his tone remained calm: “Where is Wen Leyou?”

“In the room. Miss Ye and Miss Shen are also there. The effects of the knockout drug and the illusion aren’t long; they should wake up in a moment,” Hua Xueqiong replied. Then, looking at the youth on the ground, she asked hesitantly, “Should we kill him?”

Lin Qinghan followed Hua Xueqiong’s gaze and saw the defenseless Ling Yanhe.

If he acted now, the other would die.

“No need.” Lin Qinghan withdrew his gaze. He looked into the distance, a coldness in his eyes.

He did not like this kind of behavior of conforming to destiny; in fact, he loathed it to the extreme.

Hua Xueqiong wanted to say something more, but seeing Lin Qinghan’s serious expression, she stopped.

She should trust Big Brother.

The panic clouding her heart seemed to be pulled away in an instant, and her previously restless state was smoothed out. Hua Xueqiong suddenly had a feeling.

The her of right now was the true her.

“Take him and leave.”

Lin Qinghan spoke suddenly. Without giving Hua Xueqiong time to react, he raised his hand to form a seal. An indestructible barrier instantly enveloped Hua Xueqiong and Ling Yanhe.

Then, Lin Qinghan struck the barrier with his palm, pushing the two a distance away, appearing to want to send them away from this place.

But his movements were a step too slow. A powerful spiritual pressure descended, crushing the barrier in an instant.

Lin Qinghan was barely able to brace his body to keep from being flattened by the spiritual energy.

It was too powerful. He was already at the Middle Stage of God Transformation, yet he was powerless to resist this spiritual energy. The newcomer’s strength was at least at the Late Stage of Great Success, or perhaps the Tribulation Transcendence Stage…

At the thought of the Tribulation Transcendence Stage, Lin Qinghan’s face darkened.

In the original setting, the only person in the world with a Tribulation Transcendence cultivation was Perfected Yunyin the immortal who broke protocol to bring Ling Yanhe into the Lingxiao Sect after his Heavenly Demon Bone awakened. He was the person closest to a god in the text, claimed to be all-knowing.

Lin Qinghan did not want to run into this person right now.

First, the power gap was too large.

Second, he didn’t know Yunyin’s attitude toward Ling Yanhe.

In the original text, Yunyin didn’t appear often, but every appearance coincided with a major event. This person was impartial and had his own principles; one couldn’t tell if he would choose to strangle the demon seed in its cradle or carefully guide him onto the right path.

After all, the Heavenly Demon Bone in Ling Yanhe’s body had not yet completely awakened; strangling him might be a decent choice.

Lin Qinghan couldn’t afford to gamble on this. This world, including the system on him, seemed to favor Ling Yanhe in subtle ways; this bit of plot discrepancy might not affect Ling Yanhe at all.

The worst ending would be a world reset, starting all over again.

But he was different. He had no major guarantees in this world, and he couldn’t gauge this world’s tolerance toward him.

He had to get Ling Yanhe out of here.

Lin Qinghan formed a seal again, but this time, the barrier did not form.

Simultaneously, an elder with half-white hair suddenly appeared in the center of the courtyard.

Lin Qinghan’s heart sank completely.

Hua Xueqiong was pinned by the spiritual pressure, unable to move at all. A metallic tang had already surged into her throat; she couldn’t even clearly see the scene before her.

She only vaguely saw a flash of white. As she squinted to see clearly, a sharp wind suddenly blew toward her. she reached out, wanting to grab Ling Yanhe beside her.

Big Brother said to let them leave; she had to fulfill Big Brother’s instruction.

But when Hua Xueqiong exerted her strength to lift her fingertips, she only managed to brush against the corner of his robe.

Ling Yanhe was taken away by the elder.

“Clang—”

In a flash of lightning, a Mystic Iron sword suddenly blocked Perfected Yunyin’s path, forcefully cutting off the drifting mists.

“Put him down,” Lin Qinghan said, gripping the long sword.

Perfected Yunyin didn’t spare him even a glance. A powerful spiritual surge struck again.

Lin Qinghan felt his internal organs being squeezed. Bright red blood had already spilled from the corners of his mouth at some point, and the hand holding the sword trembled. Yet the sword remained in front of the elder, without a single inch of retreat.

Perfected Yunyin finally deigned to look at him: “This person is a Malignant Star of Heaven. Once he emerges, the world will suffer.”

Lin Qinghan, half-squinting his eyes, understood the other’s meaning.

Perfected Yunyin chose to strangle the evil seed.

“Put him down,” Lin Qinghan spoke again, showing no intention of backing down.

Seeing this, Perfected Yunyin finally looked at him squarely: “Are you going to kill him?”

Lin Qinghan frowned suddenly. He was about to speak, but meeting the other’s aged yet clear eyes, he froze abruptly.

It was as if the thoughts in the depths of his heart were completely seen through; the other had seen his inner self clearly.

“I will kill him, but not now,” Lin Qinghan spoke in a deep voice, averting his gaze from the other’s searching look.

This was not a good answer. He should have replied with a reason like “No, because he has not yet committed any crimes,” in an attempt to fool the person before him.

But Lin Qinghan answered the question according to his own heart anyway.

At worst, he would chase them to the Lingxiao Sect. Surely a prestigious righteous sect couldn’t simply take someone’s life at will? If he persisted, he could surely buy Ling Yanhe a few more days of life.

“He is but one step away from falling into the demonic path. He needs the Snow Spirit Ganoderma to suppress the wicked thoughts in his heart. Are you willing to come with me to the Lingxiao Sect to retrieve this item?”

Lin Qinghan looked up abruptly, meeting Perfected Yunyin’s smiling eyes.

This person hadn’t come for Ling Yanhe, but for him.

Why?

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