The Bet

Ran Qingmo had arrived.

Half of the veil covering her face was torn away. In the breeze atop the mountain, her flawless, breathtaking beauty was faintly visible beneath it.

One glance, as if ten thousand years had passed.

Coming back to himself, Xu Yuan slowly rose to his feet, his brows gradually furrowing.

Aside from the faint calm in her eyes, unchanged since their first meeting, the battered state of her body was plain to see.

Her right arm, the one holding her sword, hung limply at her side. A large section of her black robe was torn away, and the cloth over her left shoulder was almost completely shredded, exposing skin so fair it seemed it would bruise at a touch. A few trickles of blood seeped from the wound on her arm, spreading like several scarlet little snakes to her fingertips before dripping down.

He glanced at the enormous snake head at Ran Qingmo's feet, as tall as a three- or four-story building.

Seven lotus flowers grew atop its massive head. Six had already bloomed, each lifelike.

After a moment's thought, Xu Yuan's pupils suddenly contracted.

He recognized the giant python before him.

The Seven-Life Python.

A Seven-Life Python could shed its skin and cultivate anew seven times. On the seventh, it could truly take human form, and its cultivation speed became entirely equal to that of the human race.

A natural ruler among snake demons. If this was her, it wasn't hard to understand why that Flame Spirit Python had tried to kill him at all costs.

But...

Why was she dead?

How could she have died here?

Xu Yuan stared at the enormous snake eyes, already clouded with death. An absurd, unruly feeling gradually spread through his heart.

This giant python was one of the future heroines!

After shedding her skin for the seventh time and taking human form, she would head to the Great Yan Dynasty, become a legal big-breasted loli, assume the alias "Ji Qingyue," and meet the protagonist in Jingjiang City.

And now, at this point in time, Ran Qingmo had just casually chopped off her head?

The gears of the plot he had once known so well had already begun to shift with his arrival.

As Xu Yuan stood dazed,

the black-clad woman atop the snake head quietly moved her sword hand and swung it down.

A streak of blood-red light flashed past. Xu Yuan came to his senses and looked over.

A deep gash suddenly appeared atop the snake's head, where the seven lotus flowers grew. A small blood-red lotus was then drawn out of the wound and suspended in midair.

The moment it appeared, a vast stench of blood swept across the entire mountaintop.

The Snake Heart Lotus.

More precisely, a Six-Turn Snake Heart Lotus. It was priceless, one of the finest alchemical ingredients in Cangyuan, and could be used to refine either a Golden Scale Pill or a Blood Spirit Reincarnation Pill.

The Golden Scale Pill could be used to break through a cultivation boundary.

The Blood Spirit Reincarnation Pill, on the other hand, could calm the soul and fuse it with the body. It was also what Xu Yuan needed most right now, to completely unite his body and Will Soul without leaving any flaws.

But at this moment, Xu Yuan couldn't bring himself to think about any of that.

While playing Cangyuan, Xu Yuan had liked Ji Qingyue, that mischievous little loli, but his affection had only ever been the protective love one felt for a fictional wife.

Compared with the death of a fictional wife, what concerned him more now was whether the chain reaction caused by her death would affect the direction of the entire storyline.

The Wanxing Mountain Range stretched for tens of thousands of miles along the southwestern border of the Great Yan Dynasty. Farther west lay a forbidden region called the Ancient Abyss, where dozens of tribes of all sizes made up of strange demons had joined together to form a loosely organized demon kingdom.

Ji Qingyue had come from there.

Now that the Snake Demon Clan's princess, a woman of noble status, had been beheaded by Ran Qingmo, would the Demon Emperor, under pressure from the Snake Demon Clan, make some move that contradicted the original plot? Xu Yuan had no idea.

But it didn't take long for Xu Yuan to realize he had no need to think so much.

Because he might not live long enough to see that happen.

After cutting the Snake Heart Lotus out of Ji Qingyue, the black-clad woman atop the snake head suddenly went limp and rolled down the python's massive curved head toward the ground.

The instant Xu Yuan came to himself, he hurried forward and caught the woman's falling body. Frowning, he called out softly twice:

"Mr. Ran? Mr. Ran?"

He gently shook her by the shoulder, trying to wake her, but her clear, beautiful eyes remained tightly shut.

After her fierce battle with Ji Qingyue, the calm, ink-black-clad woman had reached the end of her strength.

Gradually,

Xu Yuan noticed the woman's faint breathing growing more rapid in his arms. The fair skin visible beneath her torn veil flushed red, her chest rose and fell quickly beneath her black robe, and her body temperature climbed at a speed he could see.

Seeing Ran Qingmo's body change, countless thoughts flashed through Xu Yuan's mind, but in the end, he let out a long breath.

He remembered that the Seven-Life Python didn't seem to have the kind of lewd poison people loved to hear about.

So Ran Qingmo's condition was probably caused by something else.

Perhaps she was circulating her qi to heal her injuries, or perhaps the symptoms of some poison were setting in.

But whatever the cause, Xu Yuan could only watch helplessly.

He had learned basic first aid in his previous life, but there was no way it could treat a superhuman in this world.

It was no pleasant feeling to wait helplessly while others decided your fate.

If Ran Qingmo died, or if Ji Qingyue's subordinates or his original body's father's men arrived while Ran Qingmo was healing, he wouldn't escape death.

But all he could do now was wait.

Xu Yuan carried her to the foot of a large tree atop the mountain and helped her sit against it. Then he sat quietly beside her, keeping watch.

Time passed, second by second.

At some point, the newly risen sun had climbed high into the sky, yet Ran Qingmo's flushed complexion still hadn't faded.

Some unknown time later,

a desolate, chilling wind swept past. Ran Qingmo's calm voice came from beside him:

"Where's the cave you mentioned?"

She was awake, but her voice could hardly hide her weakness.

At the sound, Xu Yuan immediately glanced at her condition and answered:

"Below Hanging Heaven Cliff."

After a pause, he asked, "How are you feeling?"

"..."

Hearing his answer, Ran Qingmo said nothing. She slowly closed her eyes again.

After a long while,

with her eyes closed, she murmured:

"Xu Changtian's father's men are almost here."

"..."

At those words, Xu Yuan's pupils suddenly contracted.

Her voice was soft, yet it rang through Xu Yuan's mind like a bomb going off.

"What did you say?"

Ran Qingmo repeated herself with her eyes closed, her voice revealing no emotion:

"Xu Changtian's father's men are almost here."

His heartbeat quickened, one beat at a time. Xu Yuan slowly got to his feet.

"How long?"

Ran Qingmo answered softly:

"Less than a quarter of an hour."

A quarter of an hour?

Xu Yuan's mind jolted. He took a deep breath and asked again:

"How is your body now?"

Leaning against the tree roots, Ran Qingmo opened her eyes and glanced at Xu Yuan. Instead of answering, she asked:

"You seem very uneasy. Why? I won't tell anyone about you."

Xu Yuan looked around at the clouds and mist on the mountaintop, forcing his wavering composure to steady. He said in a grave voice:

"Don't you know that possession can be detected?"

"..."

Ran Qingmo stared at Xu Yuan, utterly confused.

It seemed she knew only that possession could cause Alienation Syndrome, not that there were ways to detect it after the syndrome had passed.

Xu Yuan didn't explain how this world worked. Speaking faster, he asked again:

"Can your body fly right now?"

Ran Qingmo fell silent, then shook her head.

"I'm badly injured."

Xu Yuan raised a hand and rubbed his brow hard, then asked, puzzled:

"Then how can you sense someone coming?"

"Physical injuries don't affect the Will Soul much."

Xu Yuan said nothing more, his mind racing as he thought of what to do next.

What should he do?

Should he stay here and wait for his original body's father's men to arrive, then start acting?

At this point in time, his original body's father's men didn't know Ran Qingmo had abducted him. He could pin the blame on Ji Qingyue.

He could say Ji Qingyue had kidnapped him and Ran Qingmo had rescued him. After all, Ji Qingyue was dead and couldn't contradict him.

But the problem was that Cangyuan had only mentioned in passing that Xu Changtian was a spoiled wastrel who excelled at drinking, whoring, gambling, and everything in between. It had never gone into detail about his habits.

If they noticed something was wrong, he could only wait to die.

What should he do? What should he do?

Countless tangled thoughts flashed through his mind.

After a moment,

Xu Yuan suddenly let out a long breath, as if resigning himself to fate.

He gave up.

Xu Yuan glanced sideways at the black-clad woman leaning against the tree.

"Can you walk?"

"..." Ran Qingmo didn't understand why Xu Yuan had suddenly asked.

"Can you walk?" Xu Yuan repeated, his voice calm.

Ran Qingmo was silent for a moment, then shook her head.

Without a word, Xu Yuan bent down and picked up the Snake Heart Lotus from the ground, tucking it into his robe. Then he slipped both arms beneath Ran Qingmo's knees and behind her back. Under her slightly surprised gaze, he lifted her into his arms.

Ran Qingmo's body was as limp as if it had no bones, and she was very light. Even this kidney-deficient young master could easily carry her.

"..."

The air fell silent for a moment.

Ran Qingmo didn't struggle. Even as he held her in his arms against her will, she simply gazed at him calmly.

Ran Qingmo looked at Xu Yuan, but Xu Yuan didn't look back at her.

Carrying Ran Qingmo, Xu Yuan walked toward the edge of Hanging Heaven Cliff and asked softly:

"Mr. Ran, do you want to die?"

"..."

Ran Qingmo didn't understand his question, but she didn't want to die, so she shook her head.

Xu Yuan caught the motion from the corner of his eye and smiled faintly.

"Good. If we stay here and get taken back by Xu Changtian's father's men, it's just a question of whether we die sooner or later."

As he spoke, Xu Yuan had already carried Ran Qingmo to the edge of Hanging Heaven Cliff.

The cold wind stirred his robes. The bottomless abyss lay just one step away.

Ran Qingmo pondered briefly. She seemed to realize what Xu Yuan intended to do, and asked, her voice tinged with confusion:

"You want to take me and jump down?"

"Scared?" Xu Yuan laughed.

Ran Qingmo glanced sideways at the abyss, where immortal mist churned, and looked at him as if he were a fool.

"But this is Hanging Heaven Cliff."

Xu Yuan met her gaze for a moment, then chuckled.

"Falling to our deaths is still better than being tortured to death by people from the Prime Minister's Estate, isn't it?"

Ran Qingmo thought it over seriously, then said:

"Oh. Then jump."

Xu Yuan didn't hurry. Instead, he looked at Ran Qingmo and said with a smile:

"Mr. Ran, want to make a bet?"

Ran Qingmo didn't understand why the man before her was being so fussy. Her gaze calm, she nodded.

"Go on."

Xu Yuan said:

"If we survive, you'll owe me a favor. You'll have to do one thing for me."

Ran Qingmo glanced down at the abyss again.

"But we won't survive."

"I mean, if we happen to survive." Xu Yuan smiled faintly.

Ran Qingmo fell silent for a moment, then slowly came out with:

"Why would I owe you a favor if we happen to survive?"

"..." Xu Yuan.

Xu Yuan was at a loss for words. With death staring him in the face, he had already lost many of his inhibitions:

"If we survive, it'll only be because my cave dwelling saved us. I think your life should be worth one favor, don't you?"

Ran Qingmo thought it over for a moment, decided he had a point, and nodded.

"Fine. If we survive, I'll owe you a favor."

"Remember what you said."

As soon as the words left his mouth,

Xu Yuan stepped forward without hesitation.

The frigid wind atop the mountain swept the gauzy veil from the black-clad woman's face.

It was as if everything in the world fell silent in that instant.

The flying shuttle sped through the clouds and mist. His senses seemed to fade away bit by bit, until all Xu Yuan could hear was the wind whistling past his ears and feel the warm, soft body of the woman in his arms.

After an unknowable time among the clouds and mist,

he lowered his eyes to look at her, her eyes already closed as she waited for death.

It suddenly came back to him:

Ran Qingmo's fortune seemed to be ninety-three.