Chapter 148
After toying with them, Yu Sui still let the injured Zhang Xiangyan and Luo Fu board the Spirit Bird.
Nian Qiuyan led the way ahead, avoiding crowds as he climbed to a corner passage at the stern. Just as he turned back, Luo Fu grabbed him by the collar, forcefully yanked him over and slammed him against the railing wall with a loud thud.
Luo Fu didn't even care whether this would attract other people. He bent his arm against Nian Qiuyan's neck, forcing him to look up at himself.
Nian Qiuyan's head hit the wall hard. He frowned and looked up, his eyes reflecting Luo Fu's cold face filled with anger.
"You'd better give me an explanation for what just happened." Luo Fu's gaze carried fury, staring unblinkingly at Nian Qiuyan, his words faintly carrying killing intent. "Why didn't the School of Names Word Command in the water attack you?"
Luo Fu usually had an indifferent demeanor as if nothing mattered, but the underwater attack just now had nearly cost him and Zhang Xiangyan their lives at the bottom of the sea. Such a heart-stopping variable made Luo Fu both fearful and extremely angry.
Zhang Xiangyan was injured most severely. After boarding the ship, his face was deathly pale as he busily took medicine from his mechanism box. His expression was gloomy as he glanced at Nian Qiuyan being controlled by Luo Fu, saying in a deep voice: "You brought other people and wanted to make a move in the sea?"
The mockery in his words made Nian Qiuyan unable to suppress his laughter. He looked at Luo Fu and Zhang Xiangyan as if looking at idiots: "Why would I go to such trouble? If I wanted to kill you two, would I need help from others?"
Luo Fu was enraged by these words. Golden lightning flickered at his fingertips as he reached to strangle Nian Qiuyan's neck, his killing intent revealed, but he saw Zhang Xiangyan block in front of Nian Qiuyan.
Both were stunned, quickly realizing it was the Love Parasite.
Zhang Xiangyan and Luo Fu's faces became even uglier.
Nian Qiuyan touched his own neck, cleared his throat unhurriedly, then said: "It's fine if you don't like to use your brain normally, but not using your brain at this kind of time, even dying in the sea wouldn't be unjust."
Standing behind Zhang Xiangyan, he looked up at Luo Fu with the same look of watching an idiot: "The Love Parasite on Zhang Xiangyan hasn't been removed. It would be easy for me to order him to kill you or make him commit suicide right now."
Zhang Xiangyan grabbed Luo Fu's hand, his eyes indicating for him to calm down first, then turned to stare at Nian Qiuyan: "Then who was it?"
"How would I know?" Nian Qiuyan simply leaned against the wall with his arms crossed: "Since it was School of Names Word Command, the caster couldn't be too far from us and must have been on scene, but we couldn't see where they were. Maybe we were just unlucky, no one wanted to kill you two at all, and we simply triggered mechanisms on this ship."
"Mechanisms?" Luo Fu obviously didn't believe, sneering: "What kind of mechanism only attacks the two of us with killing moves while ignoring you?"
"I told you, I don't know." Nian Qiuyan smiled slightly: "Even if you killed me, I still wouldn't know."
Zhang Xiangyan, with his deathly pale face, stared at him with dark eyes: "Then divine it."
"You want me to use today's final divination on such a thing?" Nian Qiuyan raised an eyebrow. "Impossible."
Zhang Xiangyan also laughed coldly: "Then how do you expect me to trust you?"
"Whether you trust me or not is up to you." Nian Qiuyan said, "My task this time is only to bring you to find the Silver River Water. I don't have time to do other things."
"Isn't the Silver River Water gone?" The pale-faced Zhang Xiangyan stood in the shadows, his gaze gloomily fixed on Nian Qiuyan like a cold, slippery snake rearing up. "Shouldn't you use this final divination to find where Mei Liangyu, who took the Silver River Water, is?"
"How do you know he took it?" Nian Qiuyan asked back. "You also saw the abnormalities in the abyss sea. Sea whirlpools suddenly appeared, maybe a sea whirlpool swept away the Silver River Water. Besides, I already divined before coming, I can't calculate Mei Mei's position."
Luo Fu said mockingly: "Maybe Mei Liangyu and the other two are already dead in the sea whirlpools."
Nian Qiuyan looked over with smiling eyes: "Wouldn't that be perfect? It saves a lot of trouble."
Luo Fu stared at him coldly, as if judging the truth of these words.
Zhang Xiangyan was injured and feeling irritable. After thinking for a moment, he still decided not to conflict with Nian Qiuyan for now. What Nian Qiuyan said wasn't unreasonable, if he wanted to kill himself and Luo Fu, it wouldn't need to be so troublesome.
He walked past Nian Qiuyan to a corner to treat his wound first. Blood was dripping from his sleeve onto the ground, looking shocking.
Luo Fu also followed to help, occasionally looking up at Nian Qiuyan with wary eyes.
Nian Qiuyan surveyed the surroundings, paying attention to nearby movements, not turning his head back as he said: "What's the plan next? This ship looks like the Mechanism families' handiwork. They probably sensed the sea whirlpool movements and sent people to the underwater Mechanism City to make contact."
"The upper levels are probably full of Mechanism family people now." Nian Qiuyan glanced back with his peripheral vision. "Maybe quite a few Academy Saints came too."
"Then we won't go up for now." Zhang Xiangyan had his back to Nian Qiuyan, his expression unclear, his words sounding ice-cold.
Nian Qiuyan said bluntly: "Can you hide your current condition?"
Zhang Xiangyan laughed lowly: "If I can't hide it, we'll all die together."
Nian Qiuyan said gently: "There's no need to be so extreme. Being discovered by the Mechanism family people won't kill us."
Zhang Xiangyan shut up, not planning to discuss further with him.
Luo Fu opened his mechanism box, looked at the bottles and jars inside, casually glanced and quickly took out a bottle to open, pouring the powder on Zhang Xiangyan's shoulder wound.
Nian Qiuyan heard Zhang Xiangyan gasp, this time he was the one who didn't turn back: "You're letting the person who ranked last in Medical School classes apply medicine to you?"
Veins bulged at Zhang Xiangyan's temples as he snatched the medicine from Luo Fu's hand to look at it, nearly fainting.
Luo Fu turned to glare at Nian Qiuyan: Why are you being a busybody?
Yu Sui crouched in a corner, supporting her chin with one hand, watching Zhang Xiangyan's three argue with great interest.
When she saw Zhang Xiangyan questioning Nian Qiuyan, she couldn't help covering her nose and laughing quietly.
Li Jin Shuang, standing beside her and peering toward the passage outside, heard the girl's quiet laughter and looked back puzzled: "What's wrong?"
"Nothing." Yu Sui buried her face in her arm, waving her other hand at Li Jin Shuang, laughing in a muffled voice: "I just suddenly remembered something funny and couldn't help it."
Li Jin Shuang said helplessly: "You can still think of funny things right now?"
Yu Sui said: "I can't help myself."
Li Jin Shuang asked: "What funny thing?"
"I'm afraid I'll make you laugh too." Yu Sui looked up with eyes full of mirth. Just as she turned to look at Li Jin Shuang, she sensed someone approaching and got up: "Someone's coming from ahead, let's retreat further back."
The person coming was Situ Jin. He was heading to the observation deck, walking with his head down looking at the Wind-Listening Ruler in his hand. Halfway there, he suddenly remembered something he forgot to mention, hissed, and turned back.
After walking back just a few steps, he encountered Hu Gui and Lin Chenghai.
"Where are you going?" Lin Chenghai, wearing Wenyang Zhou's face, naturally greeted Situ Jin.
"Back to the helm," Situ Jin was familiar with the Wenyang family children. Although Wenyang Zhou was a few years older than him, he wasn't hard to get along with, so they conversed naturally as peers. "How come you're here too?"
"I was also planning to go to the helm to check on the sea whirlpool situation." Lin Chenghai said, "Let's go together then."
Yu Sui and Li Jin Shuang silently retreated to the very back of the passage, where many discarded mechanism boxes were piled up. The Spirit Bird had departed in haste with no time to deal with this garbage.
Now these mechanism boxes were stacked into a small mountain, casting a huge shadow. Yu Sui and the other hid in this shadow.
Yu Sui watched Lin Chenghai chat and laugh with Situ Jin as they walked together, while Situ Jin didn't notice anything wrong at all. This made her narrow her eyes slightly. If she hadn't seen the possession scene through the Five Elements Light Cores, based on Lin Chenghai's current performance, even Yu Sui couldn't distinguish between the real and fake Wenyang Zhou.
What kind of outrageous Nine Schools Arts was this?
Yu Sui fell into thought.
Lin Chenghai went to the observation deck with Situ Jin and saw quite a few newly formed sea whirlpools near the Spirit Bird. Fortunately, they could perfectly avoid them without being swept into the sea whirlpools, but each time was a close call, making people's hearts race.
If they failed to dodge in time and happened to sail into a sea whirlpool's center, they'd be finished.
Yu Sui and Li Jin Shuang didn't move from their position, staying in the passage where discarded mechanism boxes were piled. Only those going to the observation deck would take this route, and generally no one would go to the observation deck.
About an hour later, Situ Jin and Lin Chenghai's three finally left the observation deck.
Li Jin Shuang, who had been resting with her eyes closed, opened them to look ahead when she heard movement, watching the three walk past without noticing her and Yu Sui's presence, finally breathing a sigh of relief.
Just as these three were about to leave, they encountered Agricultural School Saint Ou Rushuang in the front of the passage.
"Elder Ou." Situ Jin was first to greet him. "Are you also going to the observation deck to take a look?"
Ou Rushuang nodded and asked with a smile: "It looks like you just came from there. How's the situation?"
"The sea whirlpools' growth rate is the same as estimated. Though somewhat fast, we can effectively avoid contact in the sea using the golden conches' echoes." Situ Jin said, "No need to worry for now."
After pondering for a moment, Ou Rushuang asked: "Is it possible for the underwater Mechanism City to be swallowed by sea whirlpools?"
Situ Jin was stunned by the question, then shook his head: "How could that be possible? We still know the location of the underwater Mechanism City. There are no sea whirlpool movements there."
Ou Rushuang smiled and stroked his chin, his gaze turning to Wenyang Zhou beside Situ Jin as he spoke: "If that's the case, then these two friends beside you are here for the underwater Mechanism City, right?"
Situ Jin couldn't understand what this meant.
Even Yu Sui was stunned for a moment.
Lin Chenghai saw the golden butterfly poking its head out from behind Ou Rushuang's ear. Before the golden butterfly revealed its full form, when only half a wing was showing, Lin Chenghai had already reacted.
He swept his sleeve robe, tearing off the white cloth wrapped around his wrist while igniting golden protective energy. The white cloth flew forward, meeting the golden butterfly that had grown huge and was about to spread its wings, filling the entire passage space.
The golden butterfly's wings were half-hidden, half-visible in transparency. When it flapped its wings, golden powder spread overwhelmingly toward Lin Chenghai.
The two streams of Five Elements energy violently collided before others could react, the resulting golden air wave shattering doors and windows on both sides of the passage. The pile of discarded mechanism boxes stacked like a mountain was also affected, continuous shattering sounds arose, forcing Yu Sui and Li Jin Shuang hiding behind to retreat repeatedly.
Situ Jin still wanted to turn to look at Wenyang Zhou, wondering what Ou Rushuang's words meant. Before his peripheral vision could even reach Wenyang Zhou, Hu Gui grabbed his neck first as a hostage, instantly retreating far away.
With his throat gripped, he was forced to look up ahead, his eyes reflecting the scene of the golden butterfly spreading powder, but his head was full of question marks.