Glaze Fairy

Cold, shaking...

Li Muyang froze in the darkness, then instantly regained consciousness.

Where am I?

The moment he opened his eyes, Li Muyang discovered that his surroundings had changed.

He was no longer in the thatched hut of the Demon Refining Sect's outer sect. Instead, he sat in a carriage slowly making its way along a mountain road.

The driver wore a conical hat and hummed a mountain song in a northwestern accent as he urged the horses onward.

It was a vegetable cart. Its completely open bed was piled high with vegetables and fruit, along with several enormous jars of wine.

Li Muyang was sitting amid the vegetables, his body rising and falling with the swaying carriage.

Did I... transmigrate again?

Or am I... inside the game?

Li Muyang lowered his head to examine his hands and found that his clothes had changed as well.

He now wore a dark black constable's uniform, with a long saber hanging at his waist—a full constable's outfit.

A conspicuous quest bar hovered in the upper-right corner of his vision.

[Please proceed to Horse Post Pavilion outside Loushan City and rendezvous with Glaze Fairy]

All right, so I really am inside the game.

This game was incredibly realistic.

Curiously, Li Muyang looked around, feeling the dry, warm mountain breeze at dusk as he gazed out at the bald mountain ranges surrounding him.

Before long, the driver guided the cart up a mountain pass and turned back to speak to Li Muyang.

"Constable sir, Horse Post Pavilion is just ahead."

A warm smile hung on the dark-skinned driver's face as he reminded Li Muyang.

Only then did Li Muyang look ahead. Sure enough, beside the mountain road stood a two-story wooden building, likely an inn where travelers could rest. Four horses were tied in the stable outside, and three carriages were parked nearby.

It looked somewhat deserted.

Li Muyang flipped down from the cart and walked toward the inn with his saber at his waist.

The quest bar said to meet Glaze Fairy here, so where was she?

Li Muyang climbed the wooden steps, pushed open the inn's doors, and entered.

Yet the empty inn was deathly silent. There was no one inside.

Instead, a faint scent of blood drifted through the air.

Having spent more than half a month herding sheep, Li Muyang was all too familiar with that rank, bloody smell.

He stopped instantly at the doorway, his right hand resting on the saber at his waist. His wary gaze swept across the empty inn as he tried to locate the source of the bloodstink, when a blood-red dialogue box suddenly popped up in his vision.

[Glaze Fairy has died. Quest failed.]

"Huh?"

The sudden dialogue box left Li Muyang dumbfounded.

What the hell? I hadn't even found her yet, and Glaze Fairy was already dead?

Could the bloody smell in here be Glaze Fairy's? Had she died in this inn?

Li Muyang scanned the inn before him in alarm, trying to find Glaze Fairy's corpse.

But the next second, an immense force sucked him away, as though he had fallen into a whirlpool.

When he opened his eyes again, he found himself lying in the Demon Refining Sect's thatched hut. His clothes had changed back into the stinking Soul Refining Sect servant uniform.

"Fuck! This game's failures are way too arbitrary, aren't they?"

Li Muyang sat up in bed, somewhat speechless.

What happened to the beginner tutorial? I had barely entered, hadn't even seen Glaze Fairy's face, and she was already dead?

Shouldn't a beginner tutorial be easy?

With a thought, Li Muyang saw the game interface again: Loushan City beneath the moonlight, grim and sinister, with ghostlike black shadows wandering the city streets.

At the center of the image was an option.

[Continue beginner tutorial?]

[Yes/No]

Li Muyang considered it for a moment and selected confirm.

The world around him fell into darkness once more.

As the darkness around him receded like the tide, Li Muyang again felt that cold, shaking sensation.

He opened his eyes and found himself sitting in the bed of a carriage, surrounded by baskets of vegetables and fruit.

The driver wore a conical hat and sang a mountain song in a northwestern accent, his voice echoing among the mountains.

The opening was exactly the same as before, even down to the quest bar in his vision.

[Please proceed to Horse Post Pavilion outside Loushan City and rendezvous with Glaze Fairy]

But Li Muyang had already failed once, so this time he rose directly to his feet.

Without wasting words on the driver, Li Muyang jumped straight from the carriage with his saber at his waist and sprinted toward the mountain pass ahead.

The driver's startled voice rang out behind him.

"Hey? Constable sir!"

The driver was shocked by Li Muyang's sudden leap from the cart.

But Li Muyang ignored him and charged down the steep mountain road.

The carriage rocked and swayed along at a tortoise's pace, like one of those kiddie rides. By the time it wobbled its way to Horse Post Pavilion, Glaze Fairy would already be dead.

Li Muyang ran directly along the steep mountain road. This body's cultivation was higher than his own, though not by much. To reach Horse Post Pavilion as quickly as possible, Li Muyang activated Time Stop.

When time stopped, the entire world lost its colors and became a monotonous black and white.

Li Muyang raced through that black-and-white world. After four consecutive uses of Time Stop, he finally climbed the mountain pass and saw Horse Post Pavilion by the roadside.

After running all the way here, Li Muyang was slightly out of breath. He stood by the road and took a deep breath. Once he had steadied his breathing, he walked toward the inn ahead with his saber at his waist.

Rather than immediately activating Time Stop, he approached the inn cautiously.

Judging by his previous failure, Glaze Fairy should not have died yet.

Sure enough, when Li Muyang pushed open the inn's doors, the hall before him was completely different from last time.

It was not empty. Several people sat scattered about the inn hall. The shopkeeper in a dogskin hat was calculating accounts behind the counter, while a smiling waiter came forward to greet him.

"Constable sir, are you stopping for a meal or staying the night?"

The young waiter's smile was radiant, but Li Muyang stepped past him and looked toward the inn hall's northwest corner.

A light green dress of understated elegance outlined her lovely curves. Her skin was as white and tender as a freshly peeled egg, without the faintest freckle or wrinkle. Though she wore no makeup, she possessed the breathtaking beauty of a fairy from a painting.

She sat quietly there, her indifferent gaze sweeping toward him, giving off an aloof air that warned strangers to keep their distance.

Glaze Fairy...

Li Muyang recognized the fairy's identity at a glance.

Mostly because of the enormous health bar floating over her head, making her impossible to miss amid the crowd.

[Glaze Fairy Chu Qingxue]

Glaze Fairy actually had a health bar. That eliminated any chance of Li Muyang mistaking her for someone else, which was rather convenient.

Li Muyang walked straight past the waiter and toward the fairy who radiated an aura that kept strangers at bay.

But before Li Muyang could speak, the cold-faced Glaze Fairy cast him an indifferent glance.

"You're the helper sent by the Imperial Observatory?"

Glaze Fairy's eyes were full of suspicion. Clearly, she felt Li Muyang was not strong enough.

But before Li Muyang could reply, Glaze Fairy pointed to a seat and said, "Sit first."

Though she seemed somewhat disdainful of him, and her tone and gaze were cold, Glaze Fairy did not say anything deliberately cutting to Li Muyang.

So Li Muyang accepted her invitation and sat down, discreetly surveying his surroundings.

Some kind of danger had to be lurking within this inn. If he had not arrived in time, Glaze Fairy would have died miserably within the next five minutes.

Now that he had arrived early, would the murderer who killed Glaze Fairy still make a move?