Chapter 237: Su Youwan's Palace Scheming Tactics
Chapter 237: Chapter 157: Su Youwan’s Palace Scheming Tactics
“Shen San, the power of these Major Sects… it’s truly terrifying!” A cultivator in gray robes took a deep breath, unable to hide the excitement on his face. “I-I can feel my bottleneck loosening. I’m about to touch the threshold of the Third Realm…”
The gray-robed cultivator turned his head excitedly, only to see his companion, the one called Shen San, still in a meditative posture, his head bowed, letting out long, even breaths.
He was asleep!
“Hey! Shen San!” The gray-robed cultivator was both anxious and angry, giving him a shove. “How can you be so carefree? This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! Instead of seizing the chance to absorb the energy, you fell asleep?”
Seeing no reaction from Shen San, he couldn’t help but pat his cheeks a couple of times. But Shen San’s breathing remained steady as he slept soundly, as if he were in his own warm bed.
“It’s like casting pearls before swine!”
The gray-robed cultivator resentfully pulled his hand back. Sensing that Shen San’s breathing was steady and he didn’t seem to be in any trouble, he decided to leave him be and immersed himself in cultivation once more.
BOOM!
A world-shaking explosion erupted from the distant sky. A dazzling radiance, accompanied by heart-pounding fluctuations of Spiritual Power, illuminated half the Celestial Vault in a splendid display.
The gray-robed cultivator shot his head up, looking toward the source of the roar. Even from such a great distance, he could feel the terrifying might that made his very soul tremble, and he couldn’t help but murmur to himself:
“Is… is this the power of a cultivator from the Nine Gates and Twelve Palaces?”
The acrid smoke of gunpowder mixed with the swirling ripples of Magical Power. Even the twenty-four stone pillars began to tremble slightly, letting out a low hum in the aftershock.
“What are the people from Lu Ban Palace doing? Causing such a commotion.”
Li Qingcao scratched his head. With a sweep of Sword Qi, he knocked the person in front of him off the platform, only then finding the time to look next door.
The giant wooden man from Lu Ban Palace had raised its wooden arm, revealing a massive cannon within. The earlier commotion had been a blast from that very cannon.
“These contraptions from Lu Ban Palace… they look… pretty impressive.”
Li Qingcao kind of wanted to sit in that giant wooden man and play around with it. He wondered if Lu Ban Palace ever lent out their magical wooden-man treasure.
‘Forget it.’
He shook the wine gourd in his hand; it was empty. ‘I wonder if Lu Ban Palace has some kind of device that turns water into wine… I’ll have to go ask them someday.’
The fiery blast looked as if it would punch a hole in the sky. By the time the light faded, the sun had begun to set.
Li Qingcao breathed a sigh of relief.
The three days were almost over.
Once the sun had fully set and night arrived, the twenty-four spots for the first round would be decided. After that would come the group competitions, which would continue until a champion was chosen.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lu Changyuan looked at Su Youwan with a complicated expression.
The young woman was washing her hands in the clear spring water.
She had pressed down her cyan Daoist robes, her delicate figure hidden within. Now, she knelt by the stream, scooping up water with her hands to wash them.
She looked as ethereal as a goddess descended from the heavens.
‘Who would have guessed that this goddess had, just a short while ago, done something utterly sacrilegious while chanting scriptures?’
Su Youwan stood up and used Mei Zhaozhao to dry her hands. Her fair, tender hands gliding across the fox’s red fur looked exceptionally beautiful and delicate.
“Young Master Lu, why are you looking at Youwan like that?”
Lu Changyuan found it hard to explain what he should say. It was as if he had a thousand things on his mind but didn’t know where to begin. His relationship with Su Youwan was incredibly strange.
It wasn’t wrong to say they were intertwined, as a part of Su Youwan was inside his body. But thinking about it carefully, it still seemed to fall short of a true ‘you in me, and me in you’ connection.
But to call them mere friends… they had been skin-to-skin back in the Nether Palace.
“Are you thinking about what just happened? Just forget it,” Su Youwan said matter-of-factly. “I was just helping Young Master Lu dispel some distracting thoughts. Hmm, anything more excessive will have to wait until after we’re married.”
‘You’ve certainly thought it all through.’
Su Youwan seemed to notice Lu Changyuan’s complicated feelings and added, “Hasn’t Noodle Granny already promised Youwan to Young Master Lu? It’s going to happen sooner or later, so Young Master Lu needn’t worry about it.”
‘I seem to recall refusing at the time.’
“Or perhaps… after being entrusted by Noodle Granny to care for Youwan, after consuming Youwan’s most important emotions and making it so she can never love another for her entire life… after all of that, Young Master Lu doesn’t plan to take responsibility?”
Aside from Lu Changyuan, Su Youwan could no longer feel affection for anyone.
Lu Changyuan felt a headache coming on and sighed.
Just then, he had felt his heart beat erratically. He didn’t know if it was because Su Youwan had called out that name, or if it was because her emotions were surging so powerfully that they made his own heart pound fiercely.
“Miss Su, don’t forget, I have a wife.”
‘The Little Fairy in a White Skirt had said back then that the Physician and the noodle shop owner’s young daughter were a good match. It seems those words dug a pit for me. If Tang’Er finds out about this, she’s going to fight Su Youwan.’
‘Who would I help then?’
‘Better not to help either of them. Then I can just watch another catfight.’
“Mhm, I was right there when you two performed your wedding ceremony. Miss Xia even asked me to take care of you, Young Master. She also asked Youwan what she thought of the marriage, and Youwan answered that she thought it was wonderful.”
Su Youwan seemed completely unconcerned. “Young Master Lu, Youwan comes from the Royal Family. It’s very common for several women to share a husband. Besides, Miss Xia has already agreed. Otherwise, how could Youwan have a house on Celestial Mountain?”
Lu Changyuan was a little stunned, because he couldn’t tell if Su Youwan was telling the truth or lying.
It sounded about ninety percent true.
‘There really is a room for Su Youwan on Celestial Mountain, which the Little Fairy must have approved… Could Su Youwan and the Little Fairy have made some kind of deal behind my back?’
The Silver-haired Maiden’s eyes were covered, so Lu Changyuan couldn’t see her expression. He had no way of knowing that she was actually twisting the facts.
‘This must be the kind of scheming they teach in the Royal Family’s palace intrigues!’
Su Youwan said softly, “Let’s go, Young Master Lu. We’re about to reach the Cloud Sea.”
In truth, she was still savoring the feeling from moments ago. While Lu Changyuan was lost in thought, she had perceived a long-lost emotion, one that was as dizzying as storm waves crashing against a shore.
Her time cultivating the Supreme Path had been so long that she had forgotten what emotions like joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness felt like. No, in fact, what she had just experienced was far more profound than any emotion she had felt before her Cultivation.
Before she had given up her emotions, they had been weak to begin with; otherwise, she wouldn’t have been able to strip them away so easily. The feelings she had just experienced through Lu Changyuan were far more intense and passionate than her own had ever been.
‘By placing my emotions within Young Master Lu’s heart, it’s as if my own emotions have grown.’
Su Youwan narrowed her eyes slightly and took a deep breath.
‘Such surging emotions… they’re truly addicting.’
Lu Changyuan finally snapped back to his senses. “How did you know that name?”
“Which one?”
The air fell silent for a moment. It was a long while before Lu Changyuan spoke.
“Ling Zhichou.”
He was actually quite reluctant to mention that name.
The Silver-haired Maiden had just used that name to break Lu Changyuan’s concentration, seizing the opportunity to take hold of him and leaving him unable to resist.
Su Youwan tilted her head, the delicate tip of her elegant nose curving up charmingly. The lines of her profile and jaw were breathtakingly beautiful.
“The name of the Sun and Moon Palace Master is written in the records of the Compassionate Palace. I guessed that Young Master Lu has a deep connection with her.”
Lu Changyuan frowned. “That shouldn’t be possible. After the Sun and Moon Palace was founded, everyone within the palace went by codenames.”
Left Guardian, Right Guardian, Palace Master.
Not even the people inside the Sun and Moon Palace knew their three names. Only the three of them knew each other’s real names, the better to hide their identities while slaying Demons.
“Actually, Youwan… hmm, when I was young, I fell off a cliff and found a book on Needle Techniques. That name was written in it.”
Lu Changyuan raised an eyebrow.
This Little Ancestor of the Compassionate Palace was messing with him, and she wasn’t even trying to hide it.
“This is Youwan’s secret. I’ll have to ask you to keep it for me, Young Master. Don’t let anyone else from the Compassionate Palace find out.”
‘She likes to answer questions with questions, and she loves to mess with people.’
Lu Changyuan saw a shadow of himself in Su Youwan.
‘What a disaster.’
“I imagine Young Master Lu was fond of her back then. Youwan could be considered her successor. If Young Master Lu would like, you can treat Youwan as if she were her. You can vent all your resentment for her onto Youwan. Youwan wouldn’t mind.”
Su Youwan leaned close and blew a puff of hot air into Lu Changyuan’s ear. Her ethereal, fractured voice seemed to carry a sense of depravity that could make one’s blood boil.
Perhaps because Su Youwan’s emotions were inside Lu Changyuan, she could always find his weaknesses with ease.
This was something that neither the Little Fairy nor the Nether Monarch could do.
[The Chang’an Daoist is about to emerge]
‘What’s that?’
‘I’m asking you, what’s that?’
Lu Changyuan stared, mesmerized, at the words before him.
‘The Chang’an Daoist is about to emerge? Aren’t I right here? *I’m* about to emerge?’
‘Who said I was dead?!’