Chapter 26: Like

The old woman’s calls rang out bright and clear. Gu Sheng stared blankly at her as she cooked the noodles, and He Wenzhou happened to step in front of her.

He blocked her view, tugged over the QR code hanging from its cord, and held it out. “There. Pretty cheap, isn’t it?”

Two steaming bowls of hand-pulled noodles, one large and one small, each topped with a few paper-thin shreds of beef. Eighteen yuan’s worth of humble warmth, a cheap comfort belonging only to this corner of the night.

......

Reality truly was merciless. Just as Mother had said, when you ignored life, life would give you the most direct lesson. That was exactly what was happening to her now: hastily marrying someone, only to be heartlessly abandoned or ignored.

Jiang Se sat on Gu Qingcheng’s thigh, both arms wrapped around his neck. With her hazy eyes level with his, she tried to read something in them, but unfortunately, they were not even on the same level. She could make out nothing at all.

Of course, he had not come away empty-handed. The essence cores and strange spirit materials he had acquired along the way were countless, as plentiful as hairs on an ox.

Gu Qingcheng kicked him in the leg, finally bringing him back to his senses. Conditions again—always conditions. This time, he had to think carefully. “Give me a hint.” She genuinely could not figure it out. She had no interest in money, and she knew she was hardly lacking in it. As for anything else, she truly could not think of a thing.

Seeing the Demon Venerable blazing with fury, Rong Fu’er, no matter how unwilling she was, could only leave in disgrace. Clenching her fists, she blamed Liu Ningyou for everything that had brought her those scoldings, and therefore failed to notice Xuan Luoli gradually approaching.

Xu Dinglin said, “When I encountered them, they were indeed within the borders of the Wuyu Kingdom, and not far from the Blissful Sect. I even found it strange. How had several people from the Huayang Sect ended up in the Wuyu Kingdom?”

“Could it be that the military had taken an interest in the enormous energy contained in that substance, and that was why they intervened in this operation?!” The words had been written in extreme haste, revealing the diary’s owner’s profound unease.

Hei Zi’s sluggish mind finally realized that this was the girl being introduced to him. Good heavens, she was unbelievably beautiful. He was doomed. He had been scowling the entire time just now—what was he supposed to do?

Meng Diexian could not explain where this thought had come from, but she simply refused to let the Crown Prince of the Wuxi Kingdom manipulate her and Gu Juexi. Her meaning was unmistakably clear: she did not want Gu Juexi to marry Feihong. Yet she expressed it as concern for the Emperor, forcing the Crown Prince of the Wuxi Kingdom to retreat in the face of difficulty.

While Wang Yiqing was breaking through the restriction, Ouyang Can had been constantly hoping to recruit other cultivators to join their group. Unfortunately, there were simply too few cultivators nearby, and Golden Core cultivators of roughly the same cultivation level were rarer still. Thus, by the time Wang Yiqing successfully broke through the restriction, Ouyang Can had still found no new companions.

It was just that artifact refinement was truly a monumental challenge for him. Perhaps his talent for it was genuinely nonexistent.

They had personally witnessed Zhou Fan enter this valley, and assumed he had merely gone somewhere secluded within it.

At the same time, he was becoming increasingly adept at the art of balance—lifting the Crown Prince up one moment, then knocking him back down the next.

Jing Luo swayed unsteadily. Before she could regain her footing, she was pulled into another embrace. The scent filling her nostrils was entirely composed of that reassuring fragrance which made her feel at peace. Darkness clouded her vision, and she allowed herself to sink into sleep.

“So this is the person you found?” After a brief, cursory appraisal, Ye Ziqing gave a cold snort, rose, and walked away without looking back.

Yet when the words “heavenly tribulation” appeared in his mind, he ultimately turned around and gazed toward the Central Heaven Great World. His eyes were deep and distant, as though they could pierce the endless flow of space and time and reach all the way to the end of heaven and earth.

Overall, nothing had gone particularly wrong anywhere, and there was nothing especially noteworthy. After all, the army had only just set out on its expedition.

If they ever learned that, in Yun Jun’s eyes, they were nothing more than tools for taking yin to nourish yang, they would surely faint from anger.