Chapter 214 : Unpleasant Encounter
When the spirit boat plunged into darkness, the Little White Tiger had no idea what was happening. She felt only a momentary blackness before falling unconscious. When she awoke, she found herself in a prison cell, or more accurately, a cage.
The metal cage was four feet square—somewhat small for a human, but more than spacious enough to contain a tiger cub.
The Little White Tiger woke up feeling dizzy, struggling to stand as her limbs felt weak. She shook her head and collapsed again. Vaguely, she heard the "clang clang" of metal scraping against metal. It took her quite a while to escape the dizziness. Opening her eyes to look around, she immediately realized the situation was dire. Her first response was to call the system in her mind: "System, what's going on? Where is this place?"
At this moment, she was the only tiger in the prison, with no sign of her Senior Sister within sight, but thankfully the system was always present. Seeing the host finally awake, the system was also excited: "Host, you're finally awake! This is a demonic ship—you and your Senior Sister have been captured by demonic cultivators."
The Little White Tiger was genuinely stunned by this answer: "What?"
The system hurriedly explained: "After your Master left, your spirit boat fell straight into a trap prepared by the demonic cultivators. Both you and your Senior Sister were caught, and the elder escorting you couldn't defeat them, so you were all captured together. You're now on someone else's demonic ship, and you've been unconscious for three days." Even electric shocks couldn't wake you up!
After hearing this concise explanation, the Little White Tiger finally gained a simple understanding of what had happened. But she couldn't comprehend why the demonic cultivators would pursue them so far. Besides her and her Senior Sister, there was only one escorting elder on that small spirit boat—who were they after?!
Oh, perhaps it was her. Everyone had said that exposing her identity would bring trouble...
Thinking of this, the Little White Tiger felt inexplicably frustrated, but there was no time for guilt. She quickly asked again: "What about Senior Sister? She's not here. System, do you know where she is?"
The system manifested as a ball of light, brightening the dark cell slightly: "I don't know. You were imprisoned separately."
The Little White Tiger's heart inexplicably tightened, fearing her Senior Sister might have suffered misfortune because of her. She instinctively tried to break free from the cage to find her, but when she attempted to stand again, her limbs remained weak. Moreover, when she tried to mobilize her spiritual energy, she discovered that all the spiritual energy in her body seemed frozen and sealed, impossible to summon even a trace.
In other words, she was now no different from an ordinary tiger cub, unable to use spiritual energy and thus helpless against the metal cage. So she could only turn to the system for help: "System, has my spiritual energy been sealed?"
The system didn't respond verbally but silently opened a data panel for her to see, which prominently displayed a poisoning debuff.
The Little White Tiger sighed. After unsuccessfully trying to open her innate space to find medicine, she said to the system: "System, help me find some antidote pills in the mall." Before the system could respond, she added: "Never mind, help me find Senior Sister first."
The system seemed to pause before responding somewhat dejectedly: "I'm sorry, host, but I can't scan for her. The construction materials of this demonic ship seem special, causing significant interference with the system's signal. Especially this prison cell, which seems to have special treatment that completely blocks the system's signal—I can't scan anything outside."
This was the first time the system had failed in scanning, and hearing this, the Little White Tiger's heart sank. But there was no time to investigate further, so she suppressed her impatience and said: "Then quickly help me find medicine."
Fortunately, the connection between the mall and the system used an internal network, unrelated to external signal blocking.
The system quickly found antidote pills, and the Little White Tiger bought them without even checking the price. The pills went directly into her mouth, and a moment later, a warm current flowed through her limbs and body. Her previously powerless hands and feet gradually filled with strength again. She extended her claws, wrapped them in spiritual energy, and swiped at the cage. Deep claw marks immediately appeared on the bars, and in a few moves, she completely tore the bars apart.
For the White Tiger divine beast, metal objects were no match for her. If they hadn't sealed her spiritual energy early on, those demonic cultivators wouldn't have dared to confine her in a metal cage.
The cage had been suspended in midair by chains, and as the Little White Tiger broke through and leaped down, the iron chains again made a "clang clang" sound, quite jarring in the otherwise quiet room.
Perhaps startled by this noise, the previously tightly closed door of the cell suddenly opened, and a tall, thin figure stepped in to check the situation. He hadn't expected the Little White Tiger, whose cultivation had been sealed, to break free so quickly, nor had the Little White Tiger expected to face a demonic cultivator so soon. They stared at each other for a moment, then both moved simultaneously.
Obviously, the Little White Tiger at Void Crossing stage, after recovering her power, was far more formidable than the ordinary guard. Almost instantly, the man fell to the ground, his pale face beneath the Little White Tiger's paw.
Seeing this, the system had no time to praise her, instead saying as it looked at the open door: "Host, stop stepping on him—let's run first."
༻༺❀༻✧⋆｡°✩☽༓☾✩°｡⋆✧༺❀༻༺
Unlike the prison cell that the Little White Tiger saw when she woke up, Yun Qingyue awakened in a luxuriously decorated room.
The first thing she saw upon opening her eyes was an ornate bed canopy above her head. She was covered with a finely crafted brocade quilt, and when she sat up, everything in sight was exquisitely beautiful. If not for the emptiness of spiritual energy in her body and the weakness in her limbs, she might have thought she was a guest... but this was clearly impossible—she'd never heard of anyone inviting guests by kidnapping them.
Yun Qingyue remained silent for a moment, then pulled back the covers and got out of bed. As she rose, her body staggered, almost unable to stand. Fortunately, she grabbed the bedpost in time, barely stabilizing herself.
However, given her current physical condition, it seemed nearly impossible to leave this place without alerting anyone.
So she sat back on the bed, not bothering to investigate where she was or what had happened before. She sat cross-legged, preparing to meditate—her advantage over the Little White Tiger was that the Ice Soul Condensation Pearl in her body continuously released ice spiritual energy. Even with her spiritual energy sealed, this rich ice spiritual energy was constantly leaking. Even just a trace was enough for her to capture and utilize.
Of course, without a cheat like the system, it was impossible for Yun Qingyue to neutralize the poison in a short time. Moreover, she had discovered upon waking that all her storage equipment was gone, so even if she wanted to find antidote pills, there was no way.
Fortunately, her mindset was stable and patient, so she calmly did what she could.
Time slowly passed, and whoever was observing from the shadows couldn't match Yun Qingyue's patience, gradually growing restless. After some unknown period, there was a soft "creak" as the tightly shut door opened.
Yun Qingyue might have heard it, or perhaps not, but she never opened her eyes—or rather, whether her eyes were open or not made no difference. Given her current physical condition, she was essentially at the mercy of others.
That being the case, there was no need to care who had arrived or what they intended to do to her.
Only when a soft female voice reached her ears—"Miss, are you awake?"—did Yun Qingyue finally open her eyes. What she saw was a beautiful woman in purple clothing, carrying a tray with tea and snacks, wearing a gentle smile... Someone else might have been captivated by the sight.
However, Yun Qingyue clearly had no opinion about beautiful women. She silently stared at the woman, until the purple-robed woman could barely maintain her smile. Only then did Yun Qingyue speak, her voice cold as ice and snow: "Where is this place?"
Hearing her speak, the purple-robed woman inexplicably sighed in relief, hurriedly putting down the tray to answer: "This is my young master's place."
After saying this, the purple-robed woman waited for Yun Qingyue to continue questioning, but surprisingly, after hearing the answer, Yun Qingyue didn't speak again, as if satisfied with such an ambiguous response. This left all the purple-robed woman's prepared words stuck in her throat. She didn't know whether to continue or not, feeling extremely uncomfortable and finding the person before her extremely difficult to deal with.
Her already somewhat forced smile became even more strained. After waiting a while longer and seeing that Yun Qingyue remained silent, the purple-robed woman finally continued awkwardly: "Aren't you curious about who my young master is?"
Yun Qingyue raised her eyes to look at her again, stared for a moment, then shook her head: "Not curious."
The purple-robed woman: "..."
This answer was absolute—how was she supposed to continue? The purple-robed woman nearly suffered internal injury from the frustration. Just as she was about to force herself to continue, a hearty laugh came from the doorway: "Senior Sister Yun, long time no see. You're still so unapproachable."
Hearing this voice, the purple-robed woman immediately lowered her head and retreated to the side.
Yun Qingyue raised her eyes toward the doorway and saw a young man in fine clothes stepping in. His expression was somewhat arrogant, his face somewhat familiar—who else could it be but Chu Yang, who had once infiltrated her Xuanqing Sect?
It truly had been a long time since they'd seen each other. Although Chu Yang had also entered the Canglán Secret Realm and had repeatedly targeted the Xuanqing Sect members, by then Yun Qingyue had already been injured and unconscious. Later, when they encountered Chu Yang in the canyon, she had been placed in the Little White Tiger's innate space, so they had never actually met face to face. But seeing him again now, this person was still... as unlikable as ever.
Of course, in Chu Yang's eyes, the current Yun Qingyue was probably equally displeasing.