Do You Like Me That Much? Miss Villainess

Qingqiu Demon Territory, Canghai City.

The two prodigies from Heyang noble families had already figured out the current situation.

Because of that newly advanced eighth-rank's challenge declaration, aside from those two saintesses who had already advanced to eighth-rank and awakened their destiny traits, the other four candidate saintesses stayed behind closed doors, making them difficult targets.

So in the short term, they could probably only go cause trouble for that newly advanced eighth-rank.

Roadside teahouse.

Su Yunfan handed the refined iron long sword he had just bought to Wan Hong.

This was a horizontal blade, over two feet long, with a silver-white blade bearing the unique scale-like patterns from demon clan fire-tempering techniques. The blade edge was sharp enough to cut through hair with a breath.

Wan Hong flicked the blade with his finger.

Ding—

A clear, pleasant ringing sound exploded in the teahouse.

'Not bad.' Wan Hong was surprised.

He hadn't expected demon clan forging techniques to be not much different from human ones.

Su Yunfan smiled: "This blade cost us half a year's budget. Good thing we're only staying here seven days, or we'd have nothing to eat in a few days."

"What about the medicine?" Wan Hong asked.

"All here," Su Yunfan's expression became more serious. "One Tiger Form medicine, one Leopard Form medicine, one Seven-Step Drop, and several healing medicines."

"Seven-Step Drop?"

Wan Hong frowned. He remembered Su Yunfan saying before entering the Human Gate that he could even prepare Five-Step Drop.

Su Yunfan knew what Wan Hong meant and explained:

"The ingredients for Five-Step Drop can only be bought by the great clans in the city. Pharmacies don't sell them."

Wan Hong's expression improved somewhat. Even without Five-Step Drop, secret medicines prepared by ninth-rank pharmacists using their transcendent abilities were far superior to ordinary secret medicines.

Moreover, the Su family had hereditary medical arts, and Tiger Form and Leopard Form were their closely guarded secrets.

He nodded:

"Then we'll wait here. Looking at the time, it should be about right."

"No need to worry. I carefully inquired last night—demon clan saintess selection requires facing enemies alone. Even if there are assassins, the city guards are forbidden from protecting them. It's all about free-range upbringing." Su Yunfan smiled.

"So wild?" Wan Hong murmured. "Aren't they afraid excellent talents will be killed by others?"

The two obviously didn't understand demon thinking.

Demons were good at fighting and martial arts. Even the fox clan, the least combat-inclined among them, had such ancestral teachings.

The teahouse fell quiet.

After a long while, he said: "That's good—it makes things convenient for us. With my Wan family's ultimate techniques plus your secret medicines, catching them off guard, even eighth-rank isn't unkillable."

"But remember to provide support. While killing people, the city guards theoretically won't interfere, but after killing, I'll be a wanted criminal to be captured. Though the Human Gate assessment lasts seven days, if there's a chance, naturally the earlier we kill the better. Then we can kill some demons in the following days to improve our score."

After Wan Hong finished speaking, he looked at his pharmacist friend across from him.

Su Yunfan was carefully applying poison to his blade. Poison carefully prepared by a ninth-rank pharmacist would be bad news even for eighth-rank demons if they got contaminated.

As his words fell,

The other party nodded in agreement.

After all, Su Yunfan was a pharmacist profession with weak combat ability. Only his healing arts and medicine preparation skills were worth mentioning.

He came in this time to ride on Wan Hong's coattails.

After all, this was the second son of the Wan family, also a famous young talent at the Hundred Flowers Banquet who had mastered the Wan family's ultimate technique "Ten Thousand Layers of Force." Ordinary ninth-rank fighters weren't his match in a single exchange.

With his secret medicines, even eighth-rank wasn't untouchable!

His evaluation depended on him!

Su Yunfan nodded and carefully sheathed the horizontal blade before handing it over.

"I'm counting on you."

"Heh," Wan Hong smiled confidently. "Don't you trust me?"

He smiled back. Indeed, with the Wan family's ultimate techniques and various martial arts, the Wan family's young master didn't need his worry.

Even if no match for eighth-rank, escaping wouldn't be difficult.

After all, this was the premium support he had painstakingly chosen. Su Yunfan laughed happily, victory assured.

○

Another tea's worth of time later.

Wan Hong left the teahouse alone.

Because of the demon clan's bold customs, carrying a sword on the street didn't prompt anyone to question him. If this were Heyang, the city guards would already be mobilized to suppress him.

This person with a bamboo hat carrying a sword wasn't anything special.

Looking around, there were even two-meter-tall strongmen carrying large hammers, swaggering about.

'The target lives in the north of the city. The saintess she was challenging today should have returned by now. Just don't know if she won or lost.'

Wan Hong's eyes flickered as he moved through the crowd.

Soon, he flashed into a small alley beside the saintess's mansion.

Creak—

The saintess mansion's main gate slowly opened.

A cold laugh with Soul Hall characteristics reached his ears.

"Kekeke, is that all? Weren't you quite capable before? How is this your level?"

"You've been eighth-rank for so long yet still so weak! How are you qualified to be a saintess! How are you qualified to lead the clan against humans!"

The voice was clear and pleasant, carrying a righteous tone.

Wan Hong frowned.

A white-haired girl in a wheelchair was pushed out by a maid. The white-haired girl's expression was indifferent, while the maid looked helpless.

Sobbing sounds came from inside the mansion. Follow current novels on Novᴇl_Fire(.)net

'Do foxes cry like this?' Wan Hong was extremely surprised.

What surprised him even more was that the newly advanced eighth-rank saintess seemed to have won this contest.

He gripped his sword hilt tightly:

'Purple destiny trait…'

The long sword slowly unsheathed.

However.

Wan Hong didn't notice that in the shadows behind him, a blood-red eye slowly opened, staring intently at his back.

North of the city, at the saintess mansion, Mu Qinglan looked at her defeated opponent, the eighth-rank demon candidate saintess, with an arrogant expression, beginning to mock.

"Is that all, is that all, is that all?"

Don't misunderstand—Miss Mu Qinglan had always been a person full of quality. The reason she was so arrogant was purely because she needed to quickly build reputation and establish her persona.

Things like aloofness or warmth... these personas needed time to ferment.

But arrogance didn't.

As long as you stayed arrogant, others would always remember you.

If you kept winning, people would call you confident; but even if you lost, at least people would remember your stubborn characteristics.

A true little demon girl.

Arrogant inside the saintess mansion, but once outside, she gradually returned to her previous indifferent expression.

Supporting her face with one hand, eyes slightly raised, expression lazy, revealing her fair and beautiful jawline.

The maid pushed the wheelchair, saying helplessly:

"Speaking like this might affect your reputation."

The girl in the wheelchair looked at her questioningly, blood eyes calm:

"What use is reputation? Isn't it enough if you fight your way to recognition? Look how many people knew my name before versus how many know it now?"

"As long as you're happy." Seeing she couldn't persuade her, Xiao Zi simply stopped trying.

She was just a maid after all.

The saintess had her own ideas, and she could only execute them.

Mu Qinglan lowered her head, thinking that with such a big commotion she'd caused, many people must have their eyes on her. She just didn't know who would make the first move.

'Willing fish will bite.'

Fishing naturally involved the possibility of coming up empty.

She closed her eyes and leaned back in the wheelchair, putting on an appearance of being exhausted after a great battle.

At this moment.

A very low, thin voice suddenly sounded in Mu Qinglan's ear: "Mama."

Her blood-colored eyes opened a crack.

Glancing toward the roadside.

"An assassin?" Mu Qinglan's voice was lazy.

Yet this lazy, powerless voice made the Wan family young master, who had unsheathed his sword and was about to burst into killing action, feel great alarm.

How did she discover him?

Wasn't he hiding in the shadows? He had specifically lowered his breathing, and with so many people on the street, how did her gaze penetrate the crowd and lock precisely onto him?

Truly worthy of an eighth-rank demon.

Wan Hong's toes heavily stamped the ground. With a muffled thunder-like explosion, he directly burst through the panicking, scattering crowd and chopped down with his sword!

Wan family ultimate technique [Ten Thousand Layers of Force]!

The blade cut through air, producing a sharp, fierce cry.

This charged-up strike—Wan Hong was confident that even eighth-rank couldn't easily receive it! Let alone an eighth-rank fox clan member sitting in a wheelchair!

Clang!!

The long sword struck against a pitch-black staff, producing a clear ringing sound.

Wind pressure raged, blowing white hair strands in the wind, but her eyes never blinked once from beginning to end, and her posture never changed.

As if...

As if she regarded everything as insignificant!

!

How!

Suddenly, Wan Hong's pupils contracted as he sensed fatal danger. He was about to raise his sword horizontally in front of him, but no matter how hard he tried, the long sword in his hands wouldn't budge!

Too late!

His heart jumped in alarm.

Then, with a bang and explosion, tremendous force smashed into his chest.

Like hitting a baseball, his entire body was struck flying sideways, exploding a large spray of blood mist in the air.

Only then did he realize.

The thing that had blocked his charged strike layered with ten levels of Ten Thousand Layers of Force wasn't a staff at all! But a pitch-black shadow tentacle!

One tentacle had such power.

Then...

Wan Hong's pupils were greatly shocked as he looked at the dozens of pitch-black tentacles slowly extending around the white-haired demon girl, feeling bewildered, as if all his self-esteem had been shattered by this whip.

This... was this still human?

No, this... was this really a demon?

Were demons this strong? If demon saintesses were really this powerful, what future did the human race have?!!

He had sparred with his eighth-rank brother before!

His biological brother, Wan Chao, first at the Hundred Flowers Banquet, who broke through the Human Gate in two months and had been tempering at eighth-rank for over three months—even he wouldn't be this strong!

And he had taken medicine!

Tiger Form secret medicine, strength increased by thirty percent; Leopard Form secret medicine, speed faster than others.

With both enhancements, plus his body condition from childhood medicinal baths, he was probably not inferior to eighth-rank.

Yet he couldn't even withstand one-tenth of her power?

"Save me!"

Wan Hong shouted desperately. The movement aggravated his injuries and he couldn't help spitting more blood.

Su Yunfan quickly ran over, stuffed some medicine in his mouth, picked him up and ran, also scared out of his wits—

The premium support he had painstakingly found was slapped to near-death by someone?

Damn!

Don't be so ridiculous!

Only then did Xiao Zi react to what had just happened.

Slap!!

She forcefully slapped herself in the face, but her expression was still somewhat dazed.

No.

If she hadn't seen wrong, the saintess had just casually beaten an eighth-rank assassin to bloody retreat? Using only ten or twenty percent of her power?

She didn't know Wan Hong's true rank.

But seeing his dragon-like sword work and having taken medicine, his strength couldn't be too different from ordinary eighth-rank.

"Let's go."

Seeing her spacing out, Mu Qinglan forcefully pinched her thigh.

"Saintess..."

Xiao Zi wanted to speak but hesitated, her expression resentful, thinking why didn't you say you were this strong earlier, and beginning to doubt whether the saintess was really eighth-rank.

"Ah..." Mu Qinglan sighed.

Xiao Zi's expression immediately became tense, wondering if the saintess suddenly being so powerful came at a huge cost? Was she injured? Should she quickly find a doctor?

But Mu Qinglan's next words made her instantly change expression.

Her species changed from Qingqiu fox to Tibetan fox.

"I'm too weak."

Are you kidding me! Xiao Zi was angry but didn't dare speak.

○

In a deserted alley.

Su Yunfan carried the barely breathing Wan Hong, gasping for breath, finally managing to carry him back to his small courtyard.

Closing the door tightly, he immediately took out wound medicine to apply to his chest.

Looking at Wan Hong's nearly caved-in chest, his expression was bewildered. What kind of force was this? One tentacle could have such power—what about the dozen or so remaining around her...

Su Yunfan shuddered.

'Must contact superiors! This kind of genius must be killed if there's any chance! Just reporting this information could probably earn considerable contribution.'

'Such a terrifying demon saintess!'

Lying on the bed, Wan Hong stared at the ceiling beams, expression bewildered.

He had to tell his family when he returned—stop saying demons weren't worth worrying about!

They absolutely must be careful of demons!