Chapter 34 Part 2

Now was not the time to be picky. Li Xiangshui pinched her nose and put on the black robe, pulling the hood down extremely low. There were too many people on the shore. She absolutely could not show her face here!

Thus, under the watchful eyes of the crowd, four drenched women crawled out of the water. One had a snake tail; one was bundled tightly in a soaking black robe…

Even though no one could see her face, Li Xiangshui still felt utterly humiliated. Head bowed, she walked forward in a rush. Suddenly, the hem of her robe was tugged. Li Jiangying said helplessly, “You’re going the wrong way.”

They didn’t dare linger in the city. They kept walking and walking, until it was high noon, and they had left Chasing Moon City. As the population thinned out, Li Jiangying was so sleepy her eyelids were fighting a war, on the verge of collapsing into sleep the moment she was horizontal.

“We need to find a place to rest,” Li Jiangying said. “Xiangshui, weren’t you the City Lord? You know this area well. Do you know a suitable place to rest?”

Li Xiangshui pressed her lips together and glanced at the woman being carried on the snake demon’s back. “Of course I do. A little ways to the west, there’s an inn that sells peaches.”

Behind this inn was a grove of seven-leaf peach trees, rich with Devil Qi. The peaches were sweet and juicy, and eating them aided cultivation—though the effect wasn’t large, passersby nonetheless often stopped for lodging here because of it.

Following the direction Li Xiangshui pointed out, they quickly found this inn. It wasn’t very crowded. They paid a few Devil Stones for a single room. As they paid, the waiter looked at the four of them with blatant disdain.

Four people sharing one room? How unbelievably cheap!

Li Jiangying pretended not to see. She would never pay to save face. The trauma from being ambushed late at night at the inn in Fangping Town was still etched in her heart and hadn’t faded yet.

Li Xiangshui: Ostensibly joined the Spirit Vulture Palace for ascetic cultivation; in reality, a lowly little slave whose status had plummeted. She naturally had no right to speak.

Jiang Sujin: Deeply admired Sister Ying Suanli’s outstanding virtue of frugality and decided to carry it forward.

Li Yueying: Whatever Jiangying said was right. But it would be even better if it were just her and Yingying alone together.

Inside the single room, a problem arose: the allocation of the bed. Li Xiangshui lay down on the bed with incredible naturalness, propped on one elbow, habitually waiting to be served. Black-faced, Li Jiangying dragged her off. “Your clothes have soaked the bed!”

Li Xiangshui argued, “Can you blame me? It’s because you made me—”

Smack! Li Jiangying clamped a hand over her mouth. She bent down, smiling amiably, and spoke face-to-face. “Actually, I don’t really mind if you finish that sentence. But before speaking, you should consider the consequences, don’t you think? Hmm? Can you use that storage ring of yours?”

Li Xiangshui: “…”

She was forced to sleep on the floor. There was only one extra set of bedding in the room. Li Xiangshui lay on her side, slightly curled up, occupying the very center of the bedding without any intention of sharing.

Li Jiangying took off her outer robe and lay down on the bed in just her inner garment. She was too tired and exhausted. Even though it was broad daylight, she desperately needed rest.

Seeing this, Li Yueying immediately tried to pounce into her arms. Quick-eyed and swift-handed, Li Jiangying pulled the blankly standing Jiang Sujin over and raised her foot to block Li Yueying. “Stop!”

She assigned the bed spaces without a shred of mercy. “Sujin, sleep with me. You, go find Xiangshui.” If she let the little madwoman cling to her, she wouldn’t rest well again tonight.

Li Yueying hugged Li Jiangying’s foot pitifully. “But I want to be with Yingying.”

Li Jiangying was cold and heartless. “But I just want a good sleep.”

Jiang Sujin sneaked a glance at the snake demon. A little scared, she didn’t dare just climb onto the bed. Li Jiangying directly pulled her over and pressed her down beside her. “Alright, time to rest.”

At that moment, the snake demon’s eyes suddenly lit up. She cleverly suggested, “I can get smaller!”

Li Jiangying shot her a fierce glare like a flying dagger. “No randomly transforming!”

Her injuries hadn’t even improved much, and after the huge battle with Zhu Yue, everyone was exhausted. Rest was the priority.

Jiang Sujin, feeling both honored and startled, said quietly, “I can just meditate.”

“I don’t mind if you meditate on the bed,” Li Jiangying said.

Li Yueying bit her lower lip, very unwilling. She looked down at the calf she was holding—Li Jiangying was just about to pull it back—when suddenly, she happily wagged her tail in front of Li Jiangying. “Yingying, my tail is injured. I need to be on the bed to heal!”

Black-faced, Li Jiangying moved her tail away and brushed at the clothes dirtied by her scaly appendage, then pulled her leg back. She sneered. “If it’s injured, then it needs even more room to stretch out. Behave. I’m going to sleep. Don’t bother me!” Did she think she hadn’t seen it? That ring of scales on her tail had already scabbed over!

Pitiful and wronged, Li Yueying glanced at Li Xiangshui, highly unwilling. “Hmph! I’m not sleeping with this bad woman.”

Seeing that Li Jiangying had already closed her eyes and was falling asleep, Li Yueying struggled no more. She hugged a bedpost with her two claws, wound her tail around it, and climbed up to the ceiling beam.

Hmph! Now she was above Yingying. Rounding things off, that was almost the same as sharing a bed with Yingying again!

The sun slowly descended, darkness creeping in. Li Jiangying had a good, long sleep. Her spirits felt much better, but her body was starting to protest.

To put it simply, she was woken up by hunger.

Li Jiangying sat up, rubbing her eyes. As she opened them, she came face-to-face with a long-haired human head hanging upside down.

Li Jiangying: “…”

“SHIIIIIT! AAHHHHHHHH! Oh god, a ghost, I’m gonna die! AAHHHHHHHH!” In an instant, her back was drenched in cold sweat, her hair standing on end, her heart pounding so hard it nearly leaped out of her chest.

That moment, Li Jiangying was almost scared to death. She took a very, very long time to calm down enough to realize the upside-down figure was Li Yueying. The snake demon, sleeping soundly, had her tail hooked around the wooden beam above the bed. Hanging upside down, her hair cascading down, revealing a pale, pretty face.

Smacking her lips, she mumbled in her sleep, “Yingying… so fragrant…” As she talked, she swayed her body, making the wooden beam creak.

Black-faced, Li Jiangying got off the bed and walked to the table, her body still trembling with residual terror. Shakily, she poured herself a cup of cold tea. Besides that, there was a plate of small round cakes with peach blossom filling on the table. Each cake was only half the size of Li Jiangying’s palm, three in total. Eating two of them soothed her stomach a little.

Just then, she heard the person on the floor let out a groan of discomfort. Li Jiangying lit the oil lamp and crouched beside the one sleeping on the floor. To her surprise, she found her clutching her stomach, her face flushed a rosy red, a look of sheer agony on her features.

Li Jiangying reached out and felt her head. It was alarmingly hot.

“How did she suddenly get a fever?” Li Jiangying observed her carefully and reached out to pull back the damp black robe swaddling Li Xiangshui. She saw the clothes on her back were in tatters. Pushing aside the torn fabric revealed the wound beneath—a gnarly mess.

It was the place Li Yueying had savagely clawed. Now it was red, swollen, and clearly inflamed.

“Strange… The wounds on her face are almost healed, just some red marks left. Why is the one on her back getting worse?”

“Wh-what are you doing?” Li Xiangshui woke hazily, only to find the person she hated most crouching beside her, pulling at her clothes. Her voice, though intended as an outraged question, came out weak and feeble.

Li Jiangying shrugged. “Your wound has worsened. It needs treatment.” With that, she carried the lamp to the bedside and woke Jiang Sujin. Though Jiang Sujin wasn’t an exceptionally skilled medical cultivator, she had no shortage of common medicines.

Drowsily, Jiang Sujin retrieved the medicine. Li Jiangying patted her head. “Go back to sleep. I’ll handle it.” Jiang Sujin immediately flopped back onto the bed and fell asleep again.

Li Jiangying glanced again at Li Yueying hanging from the beam and sighed inwardly. It seemed everyone was utterly exhausted, especially the little madwoman. The fact that she still hadn’t been woken up probably meant her spirit was truly very weak.

Li Xiangshui propped herself up, trying to struggle. “I don’t need your false kindness.”

But she was now incredibly weak, with even less strength than Li Jiangying. Rolling her eyes, Li Jiangying forcibly pushed her back down and tore open the ruined clothes to reveal the wound on her back. “What do you think my reason is? If you die, I get hurt too! Behave!”

Li Xiangshui bit her lower lip in humiliation, a glistening sheen of tears welling up. After Li Jiangying applied the medicine to her back, she looked at her and—pfft—laughed. “Hey, what’s that expression? Don’t make it look like I’ve done something unspeakable to you, alright?”

“It is… it is because of you…” Whether it was due to her illness, the person who had fallen from the clouds into the mud had mentally collapsed right along with her. She choked out a fierce threat, “Sooner or later, this Venerable… I… I will make you pay back every ounce of humiliation I’ve suffered today! Ugh!”

Not knowing whether to laugh or cry, Li Jiangying looked at her and simply tore off a piece of cloth from her already-ruined clothes, handing it over. “Blow your nose,” she said.

Eyes rimmed red, Li Xiangshui snatched the cloth and turned her head. “Pfffft.”

Li Jiangying stood up and went to the table to eat the last remaining cake. Just then, the person behind her hesitantly said, “I think… I’ve been poisoned.”

Li Jiangying whipped her head around in shock. “Huh?”

Today’s Li Xiangshui was exceptionally fragile. In a hoarse voice, she said, “This Venerable One’s stomach hurts very much.” As soon as she finished, a series of gurgling sounds came from her belly.

Li Jiangying was silent for a moment. She looked at the peach-blossom cake in her hand, already with a bite taken out of it. She extended it toward her. “I think… you might not be poisoned. You’re just hungry.”

A dazed look immediately crossed Li Xiangshui’s face.

Hungry?

How many years had it been since she’d felt this sensation, to the point where she’d even forgotten the word “hunger”? Yes… she was hungry. Because the current Li Xiangshui could no longer be the adored Moon-Chasing Devil Venerable. She was already a puppet cauldron furnace, inferior even to a mortal!

A great sorrow rose in Li Xiangshui’s heart. She turned her head away, vowing to refuse food handed out in contempt. “Don’t think you can humiliate this Venerable One!”

Li Jiangying gave her a thumbs-up. “Well said!” She then opened her mouth wide and swallowed the peach-blossom cake in one bite.

Li Xiangshui’s stomach: Gurgle, gurgle…

After treating Li Xiangshui’s wound, Li Jiangying couldn’t be bothered to deal with her further. She climbed back into bed, ready for another round of sleep. With some distaste, she brushed aside the little madwoman’s dangling hair but couldn’t bear to wake her.

Forget it, forget it. She had contributed so much. Let her rest well.

The oil lamp had already gone out. On the floor, Li Xiangshui lay clutching her stomach, which emitted a rumble every so often. In the bed, Li Jiangying tossed and turned, yet couldn’t fall asleep.

The deep night was exceptionally quiet, amplifying every sound. Just as Li Jiangying rolled over, about to tell Li Xiangshui to drink some water to stop her stomach from growling, she heard an unfamiliar sound coming from the wall next to the bed.

First came the sound of a door opening, then someone entering lightly and quickly. A voice spoke urgently, “How did it go?”

The other person replied, “Don’t ask. I don’t know what happened, but Chasing Moon City suddenly issued an arrest warrant, claiming someone is impersonating the Moon-Chasing Devil Venerable and stealing a devil pet. The city’s in chaos. I didn’t dare stay long and had to get out fast.”

Eavesdropping through the wall, Li Jiangying: “…”

The conversation next door continued. “Did you get the item?”

The other person’s voice carried a hint of a smile. “Of course. If anything, Chasing Moon City suddenly becoming chaotic made my escape easier.”

“Excellent,” his companion laughed. “With this, you and I can participate in the Flying Swallow Auction.”

“It’s a pity there’s only one invitation.”

“What’s there to fear? When the time comes, we cooperate from inside and out. Do you really think we can’t steal a single Yin Wood Water Essence Pill?”

Yin Wood Water Essence Pill? Li Jiangying was suddenly alert. Wasn’t that the exact medicine Yueying needed! She subconsciously pressed her ear tightly against the wall, wanting to eavesdrop on more related news.

At that moment, the ceiling beam gave another soft creak. Li Jiangying impatiently looked up and saw the little madwoman drowsily opening her eyes.

Their eyes met. The demon instinctively spread her arms. “Yingying, huggy!”

She desperately wanted to embrace her Yingying, but she’d forgotten her tail was tightly wrapped around the beam. So Li Jiangying could only watch helplessly as the snake demon exerted a burst of strength… and pulled the ceiling beam down.

Li Jiangying: “NO!!”

BOOM! CRASH!