Chapter 159 : Chapter 159
Chapter 159
"A-Qing~" Yuan Lan's smile was brilliant as he waved and greeted Lin Changqing, who was downstairs.
Bai Xuechao also stood beside him and nodded at Lin Changqing.
The scene was very friendly.
Lin Changqing was just saying hello to them. After getting a response from both of them, he waved at them again and was about to leave.
Just then, Yuan Lan called out to him, "A-Qing, come on up!"
Lin Changqing stopped in his tracks, his expression slightly stunned and tinged with surprise. He hadn't expected Yuan Lan to call him at this time, thinking he should be busy with other things.
Although puzzled, he didn't hesitate, pointing towards the castle's main entrance and then walking away, indicating he would come in through the main door.
After Lin Changqing's figure had walked some distance away, Bai Xuechao and Yuan Lan exchanged another glance, their synchronization at 100%.
Yuan Lan asked, "Should we talk about our idea?"
A cunning smile flashed across Bai Xuechao's eyes, like a little villain about to pull a prank, "I think we should have a consensus on this matter, right?"
"In that case," Yuan Lan smiled and clapped his hands once, "I'll count 3, 2, 1, and we'll say it together. Let's see if we have a tacit understanding?"
Bai Xuechao thought to himself: I don't want to have any tacit understanding with you.
But Bai Xuechao still agreed, "Fine."
"3, 2, 1—" Yuan Lan said, "Pretend there's a ghost."
At the same time, Bai Xuechao said, "A supernatural event."
The two of them said more or less the same thing; they both wanted to use a ghost to scare Lin Changqing.
"It seems we do have quite a bit of tacit understanding~" Yuan Lan's eyes were smiling, his voice soft and sweet as he asked happily, "What's your idea?"
His "pretend there's a ghost" was easy to understand, but Bai Xuechao's "supernatural event" was more vague. He wanted to know Bai Xuechao's specific idea.
Hearing this, Bai Xuechao took the initiative to move a little closer to Yuan Lan and whispered concisely, "Later, when the three of us are chatting, use your puppet threads to secretly touch Lin Changqing. Then we'll pretend we didn't see anything and let Lin Changqing doubt himself."
It was a good opportunity for him to see just how perversely skilled Yuan Lan's control over his puppet threads could be. To touch a level 8 special ability user without being detected as puppet threads was extremely difficult.
"It can be integrated with mine," Yuan Lan said with a smile. "Little Xuechao, next, it's all up to your tacit understanding with me."
Bai Xuechao couldn't help but retort, "There's no such thing."
Yuan Lan pouted, leaned against Bai Xuechao, and said in a coquettish tone, pressing his arm against his, "How can you say that—"
Bai Xuechao directly changed the subject, "Hasn't Lin Changqing come up yet?"
"Don't change the subject!" Yuan Lan shook like a pestering child, rubbing his arm against Bai Xuechao's, being extremely clingy.
Bai Xuechao: "..."
Dude, how old are you?
Bai Xuechao waited patiently for five seconds but still hadn't heard Lin Changqing's footsteps, and Yuan Lan was still acting coquettishly and rubbing his arm.
He had no choice but to reluctantly pat Yuan Lan's head, as if patting a dog's head, "Alright, we have a tacit understanding."
Yuan Lan instantly returned to normal, stood up straight, and gave him a peace sign.
Bai Xuechao was speechless, thinking he was too childish.
Just then, Yuan Lan suddenly said, "I'll show you the token for the Sky Floating Island later."
"Oh, you still remember?" Bai Xuechao's tone was sarcastic as he crossed his arms and looked at Yuan Lan. "You haven't mentioned this at all. I thought you were trying to get out of it."
"How could I forget something I promised you?" Yuan Lan blinked innocently and added, "I don't carry the token with me, but A-Qing does. I'll let him show it to you when he comes."
This was also one of the reasons he had called Lin Changqing up.
Bai Xuechao was a little curious, "Why don't you carry it with you?"
"The token is like a one-way ticket. If you hold the token, you can only teleport from the token's location to the floating island." Yuan Lan gave Bai Xuechao an analogy and then continued, "Tao Ru has many tokens. When a person leaves the floating island, they can choose to teleport to the coordinates of any of the tokens."
Finally, Yuan Lan asked, "If it were you, would you carry the token with you, or would you leave it somewhere?"
"I'd choose to leave it somewhere," Bai Xuechao said.
Tao Ru's tokens couldn't be unlimited; there must be a certain number of them.
If one chose to leave it somewhere, it would add another departure coordinate and also allow for round-trip teleportation, making the most of the token.
Carrying the token around seemed a bit like a chicken rib, with the only advantage being the ability to teleport back to the floating island at any time.
Thinking of this, Bai Xuechao immediately understood why Lin Changqing would carry it with him.
At the same time, Yuan Lan was also explaining, just as Bai Xuechao had thought, "A-Qing's special ability isn't an offensive type, but he often goes out to negotiate business as a representative of the Apocalypse Society. You know, business negotiations can sometimes run into a few accidents. He carries the token with him for a quick escape, hahahaha..."
Towards the end, Yuan Lan started laughing, seeming to find the matter very funny.
Bai Xuechao: "..."
It's Lin Changqing's bad luck to have a boss like you.
Lin Changqing's special ability was Oath. Only those who broke the oath they made would be punished. A special ability user like him going out would usually be no different from a reinforcement-type special ability user; they could only fight with their fists.
Yuan Lan laughed for a while. Seeing Bai Xuechao looking at him with a blank expression, he stopped laughing.
At this moment, Bai Xuechao heard Lin Changqing's footsteps approaching.
"Isn't it funny?" Yuan Lan poked the corners of Bai Xuechao's mouth with the tips of his two index fingers, mimicking a smiling arc and lifting them up. "I think it's very funny. You should smile too."
"Sorry, have you been waiting long—" Lin Changqing walked into the piano room in a hurry.
Today, he was wearing a black stand-up collar suit with a front placket and frog button design. Paired with his half-bun hairstyle and classical, handsome face, he had the charm of a noble young master from the last century.
Seeing the two of them in their current posture, he finished his sentence with a numb expression, "...I took a call on the way."
Why is it that every time I see these two, they're always up to this kind of thing?
Yuan Lan put his hands down and smiled, "We haven't been waiting long."
Lin Changqing was still very considerate. His dark phoenix eyes looked at Bai Xuechao as he asked with concern, "Is your fever gone?"
"No," Bai Xuechao said.
Lin Changqing's eyes widened in an instant. He looked at Bai Xuechao, then at Yuan Lan.
He said to Yuan Lan, "You're really something, taking a sick person around all day. Do you even want him to get better? If Miss Mu sees this, she'll scold you to death."
"She already gave me a scolding before you came," Yuan Lan said with an indifferent smile.
Lin Changqing laughed speechlessly and cursed, "A dead pig isn't afraid of boiling water, are you."
Bai Xuechao took the initiative to speak, "I was the one who wanted to come out for a walk."
Hearing this, Yuan Lan seemed as if his heart had been struck. He clutched his chest dramatically and said in an exaggerated tone, "A-Qing, did you hear that? Little Xuechao is defending me. It's a miracle!"
Lin Changqing looked at him with dead-fish eyes and said, "I heard, I heard. I heard it with both my ears."
Just then, he suddenly shivered and looked back.
Bai Xuechao asked, feigning ignorance, "What's wrong?"
Just now, he had seen that while Lin Changqing was speechless and not paying attention to what was behind him, Yuan Lan had controlled countless puppet threads to quietly twist into one and strike Lin Changqing's back.
Yuan Lan withdrew in an instant, and the puppet threads disappeared into the air, regardless of whether Lin Changqing reacted or not.
But thankfully, Lin Changqing did react.
"...It's nothing." Lin Changqing put his hand behind him and touched his back, a hint of confusion on his face.
Am I hallucinating from exhaustion? Why do I feel like someone just patted me?
Yuan Lan asked, "What's wrong with your back?"
Lin Changqing couldn't help but ask, "Boss, did you see anything behind me just now?"
"Nope," Yuan Lan replied with a smile.
"Alright." Lin Changqing didn't dwell on it, but he couldn't help but touch his back again with the back of his hand, at the same time asking Yuan Lan, "Didn't you say you'd be busy with experiments these few days?"
Hearing this, Yuan Lan turned to look at Bai Xuechao and said in a tone that seemed to be begging for praise, "You see, I've been working overtime for you. Everyone knows it."
Bai Xuechao tilted his head and looked at him, "Would you not do experiments if I wasn't here?"
"Alright," Yuan Lan sighed. "It's so hard to get a compliment from you."
Lin Changqing did a tactical lean back, his expression complicated as he complained, "Boss, you've become a stranger to me.
"Hahahahaha..." Yuan Lan suddenly burst out laughing, who knows what had hit his funny bone.
Bai Xuechao watched him laugh with a straight face, thinking to himself: He's faking it.
He could guarantee that Yuan Lan didn't find that sentence funny at all.
Yuan Lan only laughed for a short while before returning to his usual self. He beckoned to Lin Changqing with his finger, "Take out your token for a look."
"Huh?" Lin Changqing didn't know why Yuan Lan suddenly wanted to see his token, but out of trust, he didn't hesitate, reaching for the red string around his neck with his finger.
Yuan Lan held out his palm to Lin Changqing.
Lin Changqing and Yuan Lan had some tacit understanding. He decisively undid the clasp on the red string and placed both the string and the "pendant" attached to it in Yuan Lan's palm.
He asked, "What's wrong?"
"Little Xuechao hasn't seen the token yet. Let him have a look," Yuan Lan said as he handed the token to Bai Xuechao.
Bai Xuechao took the so-called token and examined it.
To be honest, it looked like a small, white pebble with ornate and intricate golden patterns painted on it with a very fine brush.
Bai Xuechao pressed his fingertip against the metal frame around it. In order to wear it like a pendant around his neck, Lin Changqing had specially found someone to set the "pebble" in a gold setting. The gold and the golden patterns complemented each other perfectly. But to someone who didn't know the function of the token, it would seem that the value of the gold setting was more expensive than the pebble pendant itself.
After looking at the token, Bai Xuechao stepped forward to return it to Lin Changqing.
In his peripheral vision, he saw several puppet threads appear more than a meter behind Lin Changqing. They quietly weaved and intertwined, quite nimbly.
—This required extremely strong control over one's special ability.
Bai Xuechao acted as if nothing was wrong and handed the token to Lin Changqing.
As Lin Changqing reached out to take it, he spoke to distract him, "Yuan Lan told me you carry the token with you for a quick escape."
Lin Changqing: "??"
Just as he was about to turn his head and curse at Yuan Lan, he suddenly jumped up in place, "Holy shit!"
He felt someone touch his ankle!