The outskirts of Star Dou Great Forest.
Xiao Wu clung tightly to Su Chen's arm with both hands, practically hanging off him. With every step, her soft curves brushed against him, deliberately or not.
"Boss, why are we going back to Star Dou Great Forest?"
Xiao Wu tipped her face up, blinking her big eyes, curiosity written all over her.
"Obviously, to take care of some business."
Su Chen tugged at his arm, but couldn't pull it free.
After graduating early from Nuoding Junior Spirit Master Academy, Su Chen had planned to have Xiao Wu go to Suotuo City on her own, find a hotel, and book a room for him.
But the moment he made the suggestion, Xiao Wu shook her head like a rattle drum and refused outright.
She looked ready to say, "If you dare leave me behind, I'll die right here."
With no other choice, Su Chen had to bring the clingy little pest along.
He was here to intercept someone in Star Dou Great Forest.
What was he supposed to do with a rabbit tagging along?
The instant they stepped into Star Dou Great Forest, Xiao Wu underwent a complete reversion to her wild roots.
One second, she was hanging off Su Chen's arm, pretending to be too weak to look after herself. The next, she'd transformed into a hundred-thousand-year-old big sister.
She bounced around in the grass, as excited as a patient just released from a psychiatric hospital.
She poked around in the grass on the left, then kicked a tree trunk on the right.
She even caught a ten-year-old Wind Baboon and unleashed a flurry of Big Slaps.
"Take that for being ugly!"
Smack!
"Take that for blocking my way!"
Smack!
"Take that for stepping off with your left foot first!"
The poor Wind Baboon was beaten black and blue, clutching its head and squealing.
It probably couldn't understand why, despite its potential to become a peerless Ferocious Beast capable of killing a God King on its own, it was being ground into the dirt by a rabbit today.
Who the hell could it even complain to?
Su Chen rubbed his temples and couldn't be bothered to stop her. That rabbit was getting more and more abstract by the day.
As he walked, he ran through his plans in his head.
Going by the original timeline, that little kitten from the Star Luo Empire should be chased all the way to the outskirts of Star Dou Great Forest sometime in the next few days.
Compared with Dai Mubai, that lecherous tiger who spent every night carousing at the Rose Hotel in Suotuo City, one woman in each arm, Zhu Zhuqing had it far worse.
The Star Luo Imperial Family's inheritance system was like raising venomous insects in a jar. It was downright deranged.
Brothers had to fight each other to the death: win, and become emperor; lose, and become fertilizer. Worst of all, they dragged other people into the contest by force.
Even in his previous life, it would have been utterly outrageous.
Dai Mubai couldn't stand the pressure, so he ran off and hid in the Heaven Dou Empire like a coward.
His fiancée was playing a real-life battle royale in the wilderness, while he was playing two-person poker in a hotel.
Come to think of it, Zhu Zhuyun didn't seem to be trying to kill Zhu Zhuqing, either.
But that wasn't important.
What mattered was rescuing a beautiful woman from peril. The person he saved would be so grateful for his kindness that she'd have no choice but to give herself to him.
Su Chen touched his face.
With looks like his, she definitely wouldn't say something unlucky like, "Young master, I can only repay your life-saving kindness by serving you as a beast of burden in my next life."
He wandered around the outskirts for half the day without so much as spotting a single cat hair.
Luckily, fate still favored people who came looking for fun.
From deep in the woods ahead came the crisp clash of blades, followed by several muffled grunts.
A dozen black-clad figures, armed with blades, surrounded a young woman.
The woman in the middle wore tight black leather. The outfit accentuated her wildly exaggerated curves, utterly out of proportion with her age.
It was Zhu Zhuqing.
She looked a little battered. Several slashes had torn her leather outfit, exposing her fair skin, which was streaked with fine scratches and blood.
There were many wounds, but none was fatal. If anything, they made her battle-worn beauty all the more striking.
She panted heavily, chest rising and falling as she stared coldly at the edge of the encirclement.
"Zhu Zhuyun, at a time like this, do you still need to hide?" Zhu Zhuqing said with a sneer.
At her words, the black-clad crowd parted, opening a path.
A woman with an even more outrageous figure than Zhu Zhuqing's came out, swaying her curvy waist.
She pulled off her mask, wearing an expression of heartbroken dismay.
"Zhuqing, wouldn't it be better to come home with your big sister? I promise I'll take good care of you."
Zhu Zhuqing sneered, her chest heaving. "So you can slowly torture me to death?"
Zhu Zhuyun immediately clutched her chest, looking as if her heart had been shattered.
"Zhuqing, how can you think that of your big sister? We're sisters by blood! You've only got a few superficial wounds, and I'm so worried I can't even eat!"
That sickly-sweet act was enough to make your eyes burn.
In his previous life, she could've easily had a million followers on some social media app, teaching people how to tear their best friends apart while hawking some man-catching perfume on the side.
Feeling the commotion, Su Chen immediately left Xiao Wu behind, tapped his Flying Soul Guidance Device, and shot straight toward the scene.
"Boss, wait for me! I haven't gotten on yet!"
Xiao Wu turned and saw Su Chen flying away. She jumped anxiously and hurried after him, her long legs carrying her as fast as they could.
Just as the two sisters were putting on their "deep sisterly affection" act, the black-clad man on watch suddenly raised the cleaver in his hand and pointed up, loudly reporting the situation.
"Miss, we've got a situation! There's a birdman flying in from above!"
As soon as he finished, a clear, resonant male voice rang out from the sky.
The voice came before its owner.
"Beans boil over burning stalks; in the pot, the beans weep.
"Both sprang from the selfsame root. Why should one hasten to destroy the other?"
The moment the poem rang out, the tense atmosphere froze.
The black-clad man scratched his scalp and turned to Zhu Zhuyun, utterly baffled.
"Miss, what's he going on about? We didn't have beans for lunch. Who's crying in a pot?"
Zhu Zhuyun's face darkened. She swung around and smacked the black-clad man hard on the back of the head.
"If you're ignorant, read more books! Quit embarrassing yourself!"
Her own education wasn't much to brag about, but as the crown princess of the Star Luo Empire, she had at least read a few books.
The black-clad man clutched his head and muttered pitifully, "Miss, you don't know what it means either, do you?"
"You dare talk back?!" Zhu Zhuyun ground her teeth in anger.
Then everyone looked up in unison.
A young man was slowly descending from the sky.
The king had descended from the heavens!
Su Chen landed on the ground and casually brushed back his wind-tossed fringe.
He cleared his throat, swept his gaze across the scene, and finally fixed his eyes on Zhu Zhuqing.
He had to admit, the Zhu Family's genes were outrageous.
The little kitten wasn't even eleven, yet her body had developed like a twenty-two-year-old's.
And Zhu Zhuyun beside her had pushed that outrageous figure to the extreme.
"Amitabha. I am Su Chen, a Daoist known as Go with the Flow. Greetings, ladies."
He naturally ignored the grown men picking their feet.
Su Chen pressed his palms together, then raised his head and flashed a wide, toothy grin. "It's broad daylight, beneath a clear sky, and a crowd of grown men picking their feet is bullying a defenseless girl. Don't you feel ashamed?"
At those words, every black-clad man there, along with Zhu Zhuyun, felt as if a chunk of their brain had gone missing.
Did this kid not understand the situation?
They had so many people, and he still dared to jump in and get himself killed.
[ Ding, you have caused an instance of absurdity. Gained 500 Abstract Value. ]
Zhu Zhuyun narrowed her eyes and sized up the boy in front of her, who hadn't even grown his body hair yet.
"Where did this brat come from? Trying to play the hero? Have you even weighed your own worth? This is a family matter of the Zhu Family of the Star Luo Empire. You dare interfere?"