Chapter 49 - Professional Designated Driver, Even Provides the Car
Su Huanhuan felt she must definitely be mad.
She had followed Gu Jing's advice, found a suitable opportunity to go up this back mountain, and planned to quickly slip away.
But the Remnant Moon Sect's pursuers had arrived far too quickly; just running was already too late.
Su Huanhuan had no choice but to temporarily hide in this bamboo forest, managing the utterly rotten state within her body as much as possible before making further plans.
Upon sensing the abnormality at the entrance, Su Huanhuan couldn't even believe she had been exposed so quickly.
After gritting her teeth and deciding to risk exposure by condensing and throwing out blood spears, Su Huanhuan had already prepared for a fight to the death.
But...
Who could tell her who this man before her was, looking at her with such an innocent face?
Moreover, that wasn't even the main point; even the fact that her blood spears had passed directly through his body wasn't the main point.
The main point was... she was certain she had absolutely never seen this man's face before, but... but...
His eyes, that pair of eyes that seemed to have always been calmly watching her... the feeling they gave her was too strange, too bizarre.
This should have been something completely impossible.
"Heh..."
Su Huanhuan, whose blood qi was surging due to forcibly mobilizing her spiritual energy, let out a contemptuous cold laugh, though the target of her mockery was herself.
"I must be mad, to actually think of that short-lived ghost at a time like this..."
"It seems my time of death might really be approaching..."
Su Huanhuan murmured while lowering her gaze.
The strike just now had already exposed her position. The Remnant Moon Sect's pursuers had previously paid a heavy price at her hands; they knew very well they absolutely couldn't give her a moment's respite.
She estimated that in less than a few minutes, they would immediately rush over and surround her completely.
At this moment, Su Huanhuan couldn't be bothered with what on earth this thing before her was.
She took out a medicinal pill from her bosom, covered in blood-red symbols and emitting an ominous aura, and without hesitation, planned to swallow it...
Swish.
But the next moment, that medicinal pill flew into Luo He's hand.
"......"
Su Huanhuan said nothing, but Luo He sensed her gaze.
It was a gaze that intended to explode with him in the very next second.
But on Luo He's side, he also instantly sensed several auras entering the bamboo forest, so he immediately realized that Su Huanhuan might have encountered trouble.
Now was not a good time to reminisce.
"Relax, I can help you."
The sky gradually darkened. Luo He put away the A'Jiao Umbrella and slowly walked towards Su Huanhuan.
Su Huanhuan coldly watched Luo He approach him, neither responding nor moving aside.
Six years had passed…
She really hadn't changed much.
Long black hair, red clothes, the black flower on her forehead.
Still short, still flat, still a bit naughtily cute.
It's just that she looked much more haggard, much more tired.
Luo He felt he had to help her now; after all, he still owed her a favor from six years ago.
There were a total of five auras that had entered the bamboo forest, all at Golden Core cultivation or above; the most powerful one was at the peak of Golden Core, already considered a mainstay fighting force within a sect.
Of course, Luo He knew these few were just the advance party; the truly formidable ones hadn't arrived yet.
If based on Luo He's own current level, without even thinking, he definitely couldn't withstand them; his soul power wouldn't allow him to fully unleash the might of the Autumn Maiden Sword Soul.
But he had an idea, one that would most likely be useful.
After repaying this favor, he still had a business deal to discuss with her.
A long-term business deal.
"Long time no see."
Luo He met her ice-cold gaze, walked up to her, and said with a light smile.
Su Huanhuan stared into his eyes; the tips of her previously arched eyebrows actually lowered a bit unconsciously.
This was the first time Luo He had seen so many emotional changes in her eyes.
She opened her mouth several times as if wanting to say something, but under Luo He's gaze, she swallowed it all back down, ultimately saying nothing.
But what Luo He could see was that a few traces of loneliness and coldness had been wiped from the corners of her brows, replaced by a bit more reassurance and a hint of a smile.
"Stupid fox, back then I always felt that although you were stupid, you weren't stupid enough to get yourself killed."
"Looking at it now, I guessed right."
Yes.
This little demoness, speaking like this, her tone carrying a smile that was hard to tell if it was praise or mockery—this was the Su Huanhuan Luo He knew.
Six years wasn't long, yet both had experienced great vicissitudes of life.
But when they met again, it was still the feeling of how they knew each other back then.
This feeling was very good.
Luo He watched the corners of her mouth curve into a smile and said to her:
"Let's not talk about these things first. It seems you're in some trouble."
"Relax your mind, open your spiritual platform; I'm going to repay that favor I owe you."
Luo He's idea was actually very simple.
He was a ghost; she was a human.
A ghost possessing a human body—that was all too normal.
He didn't have the spiritual energy to wield the Autumn Maiden Sword Soul for a fight, but didn't Su Huanhuan?
Time to log in!
...
"The traitorous woman's aura was exposed here just now, Your Lordship, but we've searched for a whole circuit and still haven't found any sign of her."
"If you haven't found her, then keep searching! Do I still need to teach you? In her current state, she can't have run far. This concerns the inheritance of the Sorrowful River; you must apprehend her for me!"
"Yes.”
After arranging for his subordinates to continue turning the bamboo forest upside down, this leader-like man sat to one side with a stern expression.
Only he, who had always been on the front line of the manhunt, knew just how difficult to deal with this traitor Su Huanhuan was—a person who in the past was merely an unremarkable True Disciple.
Clearly just a Golden Core stage cultivator not much different from them, yet within the three years since the pursuit order was issued, she had caused him to lose more than ten small teams.
One small team consisted of five people, meaning she alone had finished off nearly sixty to seventy cultivators of the same rank as her.
Whether it was strength or mental fortitude, it all made him shiver with fear.
But fortunately, she was finally showing signs of exhaustion now, beginning to be constantly injured and exposed.
She had forcibly seized the Sorrowful River inheritance back then and had been suffering from backlash all these years; moreover, this time he had also brought a Dharma tool specifically designed to counter her Remnant Moon Sect's cultivation methods.
If he could capture her alive and bring her before the Sect Master... his Golden Core Realm, where he had been stuck for several hundred years, might perhaps see some movement.
As the leader thought of this, he suddenly sensed something amiss.
The people who should have returned to report the situation by now... why hadn't they come?
Battle-hardened, he immediately became alert. He took out a small black-backed mirror with his left hand, and with his right, instantly drew the long sword from his waist, guarding his surroundings.
He glanced at the token on his chest... the soul positions of those few subordinates had all shattered.
Such a method of killing so silently and without a trace... how come he hadn't seen her use it in the past three years?!
Did she still have other moves?
Just as he was thinking this, a beautiful silhouette walked out from the bamboo forest.
Her expression was gentle, her face bearing fresh, warm blood that had not yet been wiped away.
What was even stranger was that in her hand, she carried a long sword formed of blood-red spiritual energy, yet what emanated from that long sword was an incomparably pure Supreme Clarity Sword Intent.
The leader had confronted Su Huanhuan before and knew almost all her moves.
Such a Su Huanhuan, he had never seen before.
But his intuition allowed him to sniff out a deeply hidden sharpness and danger from her peaceful temperament at this moment.
Su Huanhuan looked at him and, without wasting words, casually waved her hand; blood spears, like a forest, emerged without reason from the ground and stabbed towards him.
The leader immediately held the small mirror in his hand before him; the blood spears instantly dissipated as if they had evaporated.
Afterwards, he attacked with a sword strike, but Su Huanhuan nimbly dodged it.
She created distance, looking thoughtfully at the small mirror in his hand.
So that's how it is; a treasure capable of neutralizing the Remnant Moon demonic arts. No wonder he dared to bite down so tightly, unafraid of an ambush.
If it weren't for him, Su Huanhuan might really have suffered a great disaster.
Su Huanhuan, or rather, Luo He within Su Huanhuan's body, thought this secretly.
At this moment, looking inward at Su Huanhuan's dantian and meridians, the situation could not be described as good.
Years of fleeing had left her in a prolonged state of relatively deficient spiritual energy; a long period without conditioning and rest had also considerably slowed down her speed of mobilizing spiritual energy.
Most crucially, for some unknown reason, her dantian seemed to contain a blood pool, a blood pool that was currently boiling.
The steam produced by that blood pool would adhere to the spiritual energy within her body, making it viscous and even more difficult to utilize, while also faintly scorching her meridians.
It was like a person walking through a scalding hot swamp; the more one tried to mobilize spiritual energy, the heavier this feeling became.
But, how to put it.
If for Su Huanhuan, this was indeed a very significant negative state.
But for Luo He, the moment he took over Su Huanhuan's body…
He felt he had never fought such a "wealthy" battle before.
No matter how deficient her spiritual energy was, it wasn't as deficient as his had been when his dantian was pierced.
No matter how strong the debuff from that blood pool was, it wasn't greater than the oppressive feeling brought by even a wisp of his malevolent qi.
What's more, within Su Huanhuan's body, there was still a good thing.
It was that black lotus flower, currently floating quietly in her spiritual platform, slowly revolving.
Luo He raised the Autumn Maiden Sword condensed from spiritual energy in his hand and drew a semicircle in front of him.
Boom...
When the tip of the sword once again pointed towards the ground, the blade was already burning with intermingled black and white flames.