Chapter 103: Evil-Faced Cat Official (Part 1): Slept Even More Soundly Than Before Part 1

The cave could no longer conceal the shrieks. The two women opposite had clearly heard the commotion from underground.

Xiao Xian, who was activating the formation, had no spiritual power left to control them. Once these monsters emerged from below, they would be like a pack of mad dogs without leashes—mindless, attacking anyone in sight, utterly frenzied.

This meant that Xiao Xian and Dingxiang, who were right there within arm’s reach, would also die. But Xiao Xian did not care. Her mind was already filled with visions of a bloodbath flooding the city. A sinister smile gradually curled on her face, madness swirling in her eyes.

Dingxiang’s face was pale, her expression complex with a hint of reluctance. She clenched her fists tightly before finally lifting her head. She casually covered her wound with spiritual power to stop the bleeding and accelerated her charge!

“Want to fight? You want to fight, right!” Tan Que had never directly faced off against an immortal before. She paced back and forth nervously. Her mind raced through memories of childhood brawls in the village. She wanted to stand and gesture a few moves, but then remembered she was currently a dog. Her limbs flailed in panic as she charged forward heedlessly. “Come on! Come on! You dare beat up my Shan Big Sis like that! Watch me end you today!”

This massive black dog barreled forward while hurling curses. The sight and sound were both quite shocking. Everyone stared in stunned silence. Mu Qian Tan, meanwhile, looked toward the mountain. Her gaze roamed over the mutilated mountainside, locating the ruined site of the heavenly treasure land that reached to the skies and penetrated the earth. Then she pinpointed another location.

With the crisis temporarily averted, Qiu Shui released Penguin Tan. She tore off her sleeve to wipe the blood from around Shang Shan’s wound, applied medicine to staunch the bleeding—even as cold sweat dripped from her forehead, her hands moved as steadily and methodically as possible.

Mu Qian Tan tilted her head up to look at Qiu Shui’s profile. Knowing she was occupied, Mu Qian Tan turned and grabbed the nearest person. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be the old man from behind the counter at Playdream Pavilion. She felt a bit disdainful. But time was pressing, and all the younger ones were scared silly, so she had no choice but to rely on him.

She clamped onto his pant leg and shook her head wildly until he snapped out of it and looked down. Mu Qian Tan pointed at the horse beside them, hopped onto it herself, then pointed toward the woods. The meaning was easy to grasp. The old man gulped nervously, glanced at Qiu Shui, and saw her nod. He strode over and mounted the horse.

While the fight raged on over there, one person, one horse, and one penguin slipped away from the crowd.

Penguin Tan clung to the horse’s neck, occasionally pointing out the direction. She did not want to touch the person behind her, nor did she want to fall off, so she pressed her body as flat against the horse’s back as possible. Compared to the horse’s sturdy muscles, her body was far too soft. The jolting motion nearly shook her bones apart.

In her mind, she repeatedly cursed a certain immortal. Mu Qian Tan endured to avoid passing out—she just had to hold on a bit longer. After pulling away, the sounds of the fight faded. A little further on, an open clearing appeared amid the distant trees, where a fragmented blood-red curse array lay on the ground.

Her spirits revived. Mu Qian Tan waved her flipper, and the horse stopped. She jumped down, nearly face-planting in a dog-eat-shit tumble. It took her a while to flounder back up with her flippers and waddle unsteadily toward the formation.

Xiao Xian wanted to drag the entire city down with her, so she had depleted her spiritual power and could no longer restrain the monsters. This would trigger indiscriminate slaughter—that was her goal, and it seemed poised to succeed as she envisioned.

But it was not unsolvable. Mindless monsters without commands would be drawn to the most direct sources of blood and life force. Compared to the scattered people in Pot City right now, this place clearly had something far more suitable as bait: that summon evil array!

Once the monsters were lured up the mountain, Tan Que could keep tangling with Dingxiang. Soon after, Xiao Xian’s plot-kill moment would arrive. Once she died, those curse monsters would dissipate on their own!

So all they needed to do was stall for time.

The formation was covered in chunks of shattered pottery, all smashed by Dingxiang. Mu Qian Tan used her flipper to scoop them up and toss them out of the array. After clearing it, she parted the grass and found the summon evil array diagram she had drawn for Shang Shan to study and reference. She silently recited it once to confirm she had it right, then waddled to the center of the formation and bit the tip of her right flipper.

The formation had been disrupted by the little demon and Dingxiang together. To reactivate it now, she needed to overlay it entirely or fix the errors.

But she had no blood from Shang Shan to use here, so she had to use her own. Instinctively, she wanted to bite her finger, but only after biting did she realize that with her current teeth, forget biting her flipper—she would struggle to bite a fish.

She stood there awkwardly motionless. Mu Qian Tan pulled her flipper from her mouth; only the gray down at the tip was slightly wet, without even a mark.

She glanced back at the old man. He was scratching his head and bending down to inspect the formation, unable to make sense of it. A sickle hung at his waist, its blade reflecting light—seeming very sharp.

Penguin Tan chewed a few weeds into her mouth, steeled herself, and hopped to the old man’s side. She extended her flipper under the sickle blade and quickly swiped. Sharp pain stabbed straight into her brain as a string of blood pearls dripped down, soaking a large patch of fur.

The gray furball, not even knee-high, trembled and rolled back into the array. She listed to one side like a ball of yarn blown about by the wind, filling in the formation’s gaps. When the final stroke was complete, a deep red ring instantly lit up on the ground.

Shang Shan’s blood fused with hers—the combination of a legendary great demon and a formidable upper immortal. The formation drawn with such materials emitted a bewitching blood-red glow that seemed to warp one’s vision. Even to the naked eye, it reeked of evil, holding tremendous allure for those malevolent entities.

Seeing the formation activate, she collapsed to the ground in exhaustion. Her body felt so cold it was like returning to her home in Antarctica.

She had only modified parts of it, not redrawn the whole thing, and the blood loss was not much. But for a little penguin, even this amount was terrifying.

Her vision gradually blurred, her head growing heavy bit by bit. With her last shred of reason, she waved at the old man, signaling him to take her away quickly. The next instant, her consciousness slipped away, and she fell into a coma.

Darkness enveloped her eyes for a long time, and her ears rang with silence for ages.

She wandered in the darkness, walking aimlessly for what felt like forever until exhaustion weighed her down.

Each time she wanted to give up and stop, she told herself to hold on just a bit longer—maybe a different scenery lay ahead?

With that excuse, she encouraged herself countless times in the dark, trudging a long way until her feet could barely move and despair nearly overtook her. Finally, she spotted a deep blue ahead.

“Wow.” She ran toward it. The blue materialized into an aquarium, instantly filling her entire field of view.

She saw a whale skeleton occupying an entire hall, schools of brilliant fish swimming overhead, white dolphins blowing bubble rings, and penguin moms on the ice leading their little penguin babies into the water.

Splash. Two penguins dove in one after another, sending up sprays of water. At the same time, her phone vibrated. She opened the screen to a new message.

【Qian Tan, go in by yourself and look around. Mom has something come up.】

She tapped into the input box, poking at the screen finger by finger. She typed “Okay,” then deleted it. Typed “I’ll wait for you,” deleted it. Typed “When will Mom be done?” Hesitated a while, her fingertip hovering over delete.

After a moment, those words reflected in her eyes, shortening segment by segment until the box was empty.

In silence, she pulled two tickets from her pocket: one intact, one just a stub. Both had a little “7” written in the bottom right corner with a water pen.

She stuffed the phone back in her pocket with a huff, gripped the railing, rested her arms on it, and propped her chin on her hands, gazing at the penguins swimming in the water.

The seventh no-show.

She watched for a bit, tucked the tickets away again, sighed, took out her phone, typed “Mm,” and sent it.

As she pressed the screen dark again, light bloomed before her eyes.

The ceiling spun slightly, half-illuminated by candlelight.

A thick medicinal scent filled her nostrils, along with soft breathing sounds near her ear.

Mu Qian Tan’s consciousness drifted, as if her soul had left her body. It took a while before it settled back into her flesh, realizing this must be an inn.

She stared blankly at the ceiling, slowly recalling the scene before she passed out.

She had finished drawing the formation, and then…

Though she did not remember what happened after, since she was now lying peacefully, the troubles must have been resolved.

Not necessarily. What if everyone really died and they all went to hell together?

Impossible. True hell should be endless void, without a ceiling.

Her body felt heavy; moving anywhere hurt. Mu Qian Tan endured it and tried to sit up for a look when a girl’s voice suddenly sounded. “Did Master wake up?”

Mu Qian Tan turned toward the voice. Shang Shan lay beside her, closer to the wall. She wore no clothes, large areas of skin wrapped in bandages. Propped on the pillow in a side-lie, she gazed down with drooping eyes. Her face was bruised purple and blue, yet it did not diminish her beauty. Starry candlelight flickered in her eyes.

This stupid dragon dared to sleep in the same bed while she was out? Watch her kick her flying. Mu Qian Tan tried to kick with her feet, but after a couple flails, she sensed something off. From this head position, why were her feet so close?

She raised a flipper to her eyes and sat up in a rage.

Why was she still a penguin?!

Shang Shan must have seen her confusion and said, “Xiao Xian is gone. You don’t need to worry.”

It was this late, so Xiao Xian must be dead. But that did not explain why Mu Qian Tan was still a penguin.

She had a brief mental breakdown for a few seconds, then started guessing the reason. Was it because she was too weak to change back for now?

She had read plenty of books before, but hardly paid attention to transformation curses. With this situation, she could not pinpoint the issue. Though she had brought many foundational books…

No! Her books and money pouch were all left in hell!

Money, money! And so many treasures!

Mu Qian Tan’s heart stopped. The pain vanished as she rolled across the bed, about to jump down to retrieve her wealth.

But just as she reached the edge without falling, a warm hand gripped her and pulled her back. The girl’s voice was clear. “Where is Master going? You still have injuries. Best not to move.”

How did this stupid dragon know her anxious thoughts! Her storage pouch held many precious artifacts that could save her life at critical moments—worth more than money could measure! She had to go find them!

She wanted to peck at those hands. Shang Shan tilted her head, studied her for a moment, and asked, “Do you want to go get your things? Clothes? And the storage pouch?”

Mu Qian Tan’s struggles halted instantly.

Damn, when did this stupid dragon learn to read faces and minds?

Seeing her still, Shang Shan smiled. “Was that it?”

She glanced to the side and patted the headboard with one hand. “Later, they went down to dig people out, right? They brought everyone up. Worried about missing anything, they searched the bottom thoroughly and found your stuff. They sent it all here.”