Chapter 48: Slacking Off Day 48
[Mission Failed.]
A mission prompt box popped up, followed by a small line of text below.
[Host, why did you go?! Why!]
Wen Ying glanced at it and dismissively flicked it away.
Xu Huang, who had been hiding well, was now completely exposed.
Murong Mo looked at the disheveled, seemingly crazed Xu Huang, falling silent for a moment.
His silence wasn’t due to Xu Huang’s current words or demeanor. He was silent because he didn’t understand why she had followed him.
In Murong Mo’s heart, he felt indebted to Xu Huang. She was a good wife, but heā¦ couldn’t reciprocate her feelings.
He never hid anything from Xu Huang. He believed honesty was crucial in a marriage. Even though he didn’t love her, since he was already her Daoist partner, he should fulfill his duties as such.
For example, after receiving Wen Ying’s letter, he confessed everything to Xu Huang.
It was Xu Huang who told him to go alone and face it all.
But why did Xu Huang secretly follow him?
She could have gone with him openly; Murong Mo saw no problem with that.
Hearing Murong Mo’s thoughts, Wen Ying, while slacking off, disliked unnecessary misunderstandings. She was slacking, but she wasn’t mute. Whether he believed her or not was something she didn’t bother with.
So, Wen Ying pulled out the letter from her sleeve: “Senior Brother Murong, I suspect you don’t know, but you invited me out tonight, right?”
“Ah?” Murong Mo turned his head in surprise.
“Here, this is the letter that invited me out.” Wen Ying handed the letter to Murong Mo.
Murong Mo took the letter, skimmed it, and almost threw it away, just like Wen Ying had nearly done.
“Thisā¦thisā¦” Murong Mo’s face visibly reddened, even his neck. After a long pause, he managed to say, “I didn’t write this!”
“From what you just said, Senior Brother, I thought the same.” Wen Ying nodded.
Murong Mo quickly stuffed the letter back into Wen Ying’s hand: “Butā¦ you invited me out.”
“Oh? How did my letter read?” Wen Ying curiously asked.
“I burned it. Because I thought it best to sever ties, soā¦” Murong Mo said somewhat embarrassedly, “but the general content was the sameā¦ I was thinking, Junior Sister Wen, you clearly have no feelings for me, why would you write such affectionate wordsā¦”
“No, no, no, Senior Brother Murong, I must clarify something.” Wen Ying firmly waved her hand. “I absolutely could not write something so sickeningly sweet. This writing style is something I could never achieve even after living fifty-two times.”
Wen Ying enjoyed reading over-the-top romance novels but absolutely couldn’t stand writing them.
It would make her want to vomit.
Murong Mo looked at the letter in Wen Ying’s hand, his expression darkening.
Indeed, the writing styles of the two letters were too similar.
Meaning, they were written by the same personā¦ but who?
Wen Ying must have sensed it, prompting him indirectly.
“Junior Sister Wen, youā¦ have become much smarter,” Murong Mo smiled. “That’s good. People need to grow up to survive better. Even the strongest backing cannot be relied upon for a lifetime.”
Murong Mo had mentioned these things to Wen Ying before, but she hadn’t accepted them back then.
He was glad that Wen Ying had finally changed and grown.
Perhaps this meant he could finally let go of those messy feelings.
Wen Ying: “…”
Why do these male leads always think she’s giving them adviceā¦
Wen Ying was just clarifying herself.
Xu Huang, after laughing, shouting, and raging for a while, finally exhausted the backlash of her own true energy and regained her senses.
In that instant, she fell into a long silence, a stark contrast to her previous boisterous laughter.
The Lunatic Powder could break down someone’s psychological defenses but didn’t cause amnesiaāthat’s why Xu Huang used it. She wanted Murong Mo to remember her outrageous behavior, to make him feel guilty!
But now, it had become the source of her greatest shame.
Wen Ying remembered a saying:
“Passing out drunk isn’t scary; what’s scary is getting drunk, acting crazy, and not passing out.”
Wen Ying had never been drunk, but in this moment, the saying was perfectly illustrated by Xu Huang.
Today was a good day; it verified some truths Wen Ying had heard.
But Xu Huang was still Xu Huang. After a long silence, she quickly recovered.
Now that she was exposedā¦
Soon, she thought of a solution.
Adversity wasn’t terrifying; the key was turning danger into safety. Only those who could utilize adversity would be true winners.
Xu Huang slightly curled her lips.
Author’s Note:
I, with all my might, finally caught up, QAQ!! Consider my effort! I… I don’t know how it is, haha, so please continue to follow the updates~
Chapter 49: Slacking Off Day 49
Having been exposed, Xu Huang knew that hiding again was not only impossible but would make her look even more guilty.
Wen Ying didn’t mind, but Murong Mo would surely suspect something.
Soāshe would turn the tables.
The best way to hide a crime was to let herself be consumed by it.
Although she didn’t know why she had also been affected by the Lunatic Powder, this was a good opportunity.
Victims should be innocent, shouldn’t they?
Xu Huang hid the cunning smile in her eyes and replaced it with a fresh look of bewilderment.
As if she had just emerged from a difficult situation.
She looked around vaguely, at the surroundings, and finally at Murong Mo and Wen Ying not far away.
After a moment of surprise, Xu Huang suppressed her fear, maintaining her composure, and walked towards Murong Mo and Wen Ying.
The garden floor wasn’t very even, and with Wen Ying and Xiao Hei digging around, it was a perfect environment.
While seemingly calm, Xu Huang’s steps were unsteady, she even stumbled several times, revealing her inner fear.
Inner pain and forced strength easily gain sympathy, especially from someone as kind and righteous as Murong Mo.
Murong Mo was the perfect tool Xu Huang had chosen. Like Wen Ying, Xu Huang knew every detail about him.
Xu Huang could accurately grasp Murong Mo’s every little thought.
Sure enough, seeing Xu Huang’s actions, Murong Mo’s expression changed subtly.
Could there be something more to this?
Xu Huang’s words were as steady as she could manage, but her voice trembled slightly with fear at the end of her sentences: “Murong, how did I get here? What justā¦”
At this point, Xu Huang was about to reach Murong Mo. She had precisely calculated every step, timing it perfectly.
Now, Xu Huang planned to stumble again, forcefully pushing away Murong Mo’s hand as he reached to help her, ending her performance perfectly.
Xu Huang took a step, just as she was about to pretend to tripā
She stepped on something that suddenly sprung up: a wooden stick-like object that hit her forehead.
“Bang! Thump-thump-thump~”
The stick hitting Xu Huang’s head made a loud noise, followed by a continuous trembling sound.
It wasn’t exactly a stick.
To be precise, it was the wooden handle of a shovel.
That’s right, Xu Huang’s last step had coincidentally landed on the shovel part of Wen Ying’s shovel, which was lying on the ground.
The shovel part was stepped on, and the wooden handle naturally sprung up, hitting its target, Xu Huang’s forehead, squarely.
It was a coincidence, but also quite normal.
Before Murong Mo appeared, hadn’t Wen Ying placed her shovel at her feet to get a shovel for Xiao Hei?
Later, Wen Ying hadn’t moved it; Murong Mo walked over, so the shovelā¦ was naturally in front of Murong Mo.
Xu Huang hadn’t expected to step on such a thing. A moment before, she was thinking about how to feign weakness, so she had let down her protective true energy, and the next momentā¦
She became truly weak.
Xu Huang saw stars, and with the trembling sound of the stick in her ears, her head buzzed, and a large bump quickly formed on her forehead.
Murong Mo saw Xu Huang about to stumble and had already reached out his hand, but thenā¦
It seemed Xu Huang didn’t need help anymore.
Murong Mo withdrew his hand.
Xu Huang indeed understood Murong Mo very well.
Unfortunately, she didn’t understand shovels very well.
It’s unclear how long the stick “thumped,” how long Xu Huang’s head buzzed, but finally, her eyes rolled back, and she fell backward along with the shovel handle.
“Ah, that’sā¦”
Wen Ying was somewhat familiar with the direction Xu Huang fell.
Because Wen Ying disliked the strange smell of that clump of hair, she had casually thrown it away using her true energyā
She seemed to have thrown it to where Xu Huang’s head landed.
The next moment, Xu Huang stood up sharply.
Uh, with that clump of strange hair accurately stuck to her face.
“Xu Huang? Whatā¦ happened to you?” Even Murong Mo could sense that something was wrong; it wasn’t simply a case of a hidden motive as he had initially thought.
“I’m not okay!” Xu Huang turned around, and despite the hair covering her face, her tone was vicious towards Murong Mo. “It stinks! This thing stinks! It smells so bad! Like it was fished out of a latrineā”
“Aaaaaah! Someone help me get this thing off! What is this? Why can’t I see anything, whyā!” Xu Huang screamed again, tearing her hair and clothes in despair. The stench hadn’t dissipated, and she dug her hands into her messy hair, nearly collapsing as she cried, “Why won’t this smell go away! It smells so bad, how could I be defiled by such a foul thing! Get away, all of youā!”
Seeing Xu Huang go crazy, Wen Ying just wanted to say one thing:
The source of the stench is on her face; grabbing her clothes won’t make it disappearā¦
Xu Huang losing her mind wasn’t part of her perfect plan.
She had really been knocked unconscious by the shovel.
But because of this, the last bit of backlash from the Lunatic Powder, which had been suppressed by her self-awareness, manifested itself again.
In other words, Xu Huang was affected by the Lunatic Powder’s backlash twice.
Compared to the first time, this time she was more like an idiot.
After all, this time, there was no self-awareness to restrain her, so losing her rationality and completely revealing her twisted inner self was normal.
Murong Mo reached out, seemingly wanting to remove the strange thing from Xu Huang’s face, but he was afraid it might be problematic, so after much hesitation, he didn’t dare.
“It stinks, it stinks, it stinks, it stinksā!” Xu Huang lay on her back, roaring repeatedly.
Just then, the young disciple, out of curiosity, after changing his pants, came back.
Sometimes, terrifying things are like this: the more afraid you are, the more you want to see them clearly.
Was it really a witch? He had never seen what a real witch looked likeā¦
Curiosity overcame fear, and he couldn’t help but come back to take another look.
This time, he wanted to get closerā¦
“Oh my god!” The witch turned her head, completely terrifying the young disciple.
The witch had not only hair all over the back of her head but also the front!
This wasn’t just a witch; she was the most terrifying witch from the storybooksāSadako! (Japanese horror character, often associated with a well)
And those torn and tattered clothes, that awful smellā¦
His curiosity was satisfied, and fear took over again.
The young disciple’s hand covering his nose trembled; he ran away, afraid that Sadako would chase him.
Wen Ying thought Sadako might have felt offended.
Whoever wrote that storybook even got Sadako’s profession wrong.
Since Xu Huang kept screaming, and Murong Mo dared not remove the hair from her head, he had no choice but to carry her up.
An extremely unromantic gesture, as if he were carrying a sack of bricks.
If Murong Mo were to move bricks, he would probably be quite good at it.
“I’m sorry, Junior Sister Wenā¦ my wife doesn’t seem well; I have to take her back.” Murong Mo politely apologized to Wen Ying.
“It’s fine, it’s fine.” Wen Ying waved her hand indifferently. “Go ahead.”
It’s better for them to leave early; she still had to continue digging.
Although Murong Mo was carrying Xu Huang, the hair on her face remained, likely caught on her hair ornaments.
Therefore, Xu Huang continued to yell loudly, uttering words like “stinking to death” and “get those bugs away from me.”
This scene reminded Wen Ying of the aunties carrying radios to go square dancing.
Others brought the wind; Murong Mo brought the noise.
Only Murong Mo’s expression wasn’t very good.
He wasn’t annoyed by Xu Huang’s noise or smell.
It was just that this foul-mouthed Xu Huang was completely different from the Xu Huang he had always known.
What happened to Xu Huangā¦
Or was this her true selfā¦?
After Xu Huang and Murong Mo left, Wen Ying picked up the shovel.
Looking at the two shovels in her hands, Wen Ying guessed that Xu Huang probably clashed with shovels.
After thinking for a while, she couldn’t bear it and gave a shovel to Xiao Hei.
“There’s no one here; change back to human form and dig with the shovel.” Wen Ying’s voice was still tinged with disdain, “But don’t make strange movements in human form; at least look like a normal person.”
“Meow!” After a cheerful meow, Xiao Hei changed back into the ragged boy. “Okay! Thank you, master!”
Probably because he was very happy, Xiao Hei worked very hard.
With Wen Ying and Xiao Hei’s efforts, after digging up the 39th broken sword, the 100th talisman, and the 70th bottle of pills, they finally found the bottle of Great Strength Pills that matched Wang Xiaole’s description.
The Great Strength Pill bottles were easy to identify.
Because the bottle had two large characters on itā”Great Strength.”
Seeing the pile of trash, Wen Ying naturally had to bury it back.
However, as Wen Ying gathered her true energy, she suddenly saw something half-buried in the dirt but still gleaming near the Great Strength Pills.
No one can resist the appeal of something shiny; Wen Ying was no exception.
She curiously used her true energy to unearth the shiny object and brought it to her.
After cleaning it with a cleansing spell, Wen Ying finally saw what it was.
It was a delicately carved small mirror, but unfortunately, the mirror surface was broken.
After so many reincarnations, this was the first time Wen Ying had seen such a delicate mirror.
So delicate thatā¦ the mirror surface was actually made of glass with a coating.
Compared to the bronze mirrors of this era, Wen Ying had to sayā
“Sir, times have changed.”
Unfortunately, the mirror was also completely shattered; the reflection looked like a kaleidoscope.
Interesting.
After thinking for a while, Wen Ying put the mirror in her sleeve.
Then, Wen Ying gathered her true energy again, waved her hand, and the surrounding trash obediently returned to the pit, and the dug-up soil quickly filled the holes.
ā¦
The next morning, the news of “a witch appearing in the garden last night” spread throughout the Xunxian Sect.
This wasn’t the work of the war reporters. After all, war reporters never tell lies.
Witches are mysterious, and in the Xunxian Sect, a righteous sect of cultivators, they are regarded as evil spirits, as demons.
It is said that yesterday, Senior Sister Xu Huang happened to be in the small garden and became a completely different person, as if possessed. Perhapsā¦ she was cursed by this demon!
Wen Ying didn’t know much about the other things, but on her way to the dining hall, she heard a few of the Xunxian Sect’s cleaning staff talking about something quite interesting.
They were complaining that lately, the latrines were constantly clogged, forcing them to unclog them every day.
And every time, it was a large clump of hair clogging the latrine. After removing the hair, they had nowhere to throw it, so they could only bury it in the garden’s trash pileā¦ but now that there was an evil spirit in the garden, where should they throw the hair afterward?
Ahā¦ Wen Ying felt a little relieved after hearing this.
Luckily, she knew early on that the trash pit was full of trash and had never touched it.
Wen Ying bypassed the dining hall and was about to enter the kitchen through the back door when she saw a boy in ragged clothes in a corner not far from the kitchen.
Wen Ying wanted to unlock new characters and maps, but there were countless people and things unrelated to the plot; as long as they were unrelated to her goal, she didn’t bother with them.
Wen Ying was going to pretend she didn’t see him and directly push open the kitchen door.
At that moment, the task box popped up again.
[New mission! The Second Female Lead in the Substitute Novel, Mission Three, be careful! Do not accept the male concubine Xu Huang deliberately sent!]
There was a small line of text below.
[PS: Host, this time I, the little system, specifically told you about the mission in advance, so please don’t fail this time!]
Oh, ho.
Wen Ying’s eyes suddenly filled with interest.
As for the small text below, she naturally pretended not to see it.
This is the male concubine plot?
Previously, to complete the mission, Wen Ying had eliminated this hidden danger before even seeing the male concubine. This time, she couldn’t do that again.
Male concubines are so fun; why not? Of course, she would!
It must beā¦ that boy.
Wen Ying immediately changed her mind and turned towards the boy.
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