"Don't worry!"
Nalan Sheng waved a hand. "That fellow has luck and fate on his side. He won't die. Let's head down too!"
As soon as he finished speaking, lightning flashed beneath his feet. He appeared beside Zhong Ling as though he had teleported, wrapped an arm around her slender waist, and leaped off the cliff with her.
"Aaaah-!"
Feeling the weightlessness of her plummeting body and hearing the wind howl past her ears, Zhong Ling no longer had any thought of scolding Nalan Sheng. She merely clung to his neck on instinct, screaming nonstop with her eyes squeezed shut.
"All right, we're already at the bottom."
Just when Zhong Ling thought she was certain to die today, the howling wind abruptly ceased, followed by a somewhat exasperated voice beside her ear.
Zhong Ling slowly opened her tightly shut eyes and discovered that Nalan Sheng was holding her beside a lake.
Someone was flailing in the lake. It was none other than Duan Yu, whom Nalan Sheng had kicked off the cliff.
Nalan Sheng patted Zhong Ling's pert bottom. "Girl, can you get down now?"
Perhaps out of fright, Zhong Ling was hanging from Nalan Sheng like a koala, her arms locked tightly around his neck and her long legs wound firmly around his waist.
⁄(⁄⁄•⁄w⁄•⁄⁄)⁄
Coming back to her senses, Zhong Ling flushed slightly and hurriedly hopped off Nalan Sheng, instinctively pressing her legs together.
Bungee jumping without a cord was far too intense. Zhong Ling had nearly wet herself with fright.
"Come out and search for the hidden cave dwelling here."
At Nalan Sheng's command, ten Shadow Ninjas sprang from his shadow, then scattered to search for the hidden cave dwelling.
"Brother Duan, are you all right?"
Seeing that Duan Yu had finally floundered his way to shore, Zhong Ling forgot her embarrassment and hurried over to help him up.
"I... I'm fine..."
Soaked from head to toe, Duan Yu looked utterly bedraggled. He forced a smile to reassure Zhong Ling while stealing glances at Nalan Sheng, a trace of fear and resentment showing in his eyes.
Had Duan Yu not been lucky enough to have an old pine cushion his fall, he would probably have fallen to his death despite the lake beneath the cliff.
Thus, in Duan Yu's eyes, Nalan Sheng was nothing short of a vile monster who treated human lives like worthless weeds.
"Hmm?"
Seemingly sensing Duan Yu's gaze, Nalan Sheng abruptly turned toward him.
The instant their eyes met, Duan Yu's conscience quailed. He hurriedly lowered his head, afraid Nalan Sheng would notice the hatred in his eyes.
Seeing Duan Yu's cowardly display, a flicker of contempt crossed Nalan Sheng's eyes. He shook his head with a cold laugh.
If Duan Yu truly dared to bristle at him, Nalan Sheng would not mind killing him. Slaying this world's destined male lead would presumably yield quite a few Villain Points as well.
Whoosh!
Just as Duan Yu felt a chill around his neck, a Shadow Ninja returned to Nalan Sheng and gestured with both hands.
Nalan Sheng immediately understood what the Shadow Ninja meant and nodded. "Lead the way."
The Shadow Ninja promptly led Nalan Sheng toward a huge boulder in a corner of the valley.
The boulder had already been pushed aside, revealing a cave opening roughly three feet high.
Without the slightest hesitation, Nalan Sheng bent down and climbed inside.
"Brother Duan, let's follow him and take a look!"
Zhong Ling looked around. "The cliffs surrounding this valley are over a thousand feet high. Even a supreme expert whose lightness skill has reached divine perfection couldn't run up those cliff faces and fly out.
"Perhaps Brother Sheng knows how to leave this place. We'll be safer following him."
Although Duan Yu did not particularly want to get too close to Nalan Sheng, Zhong Ling had already said as much, and he had no better ideas. He could only steel himself and follow.
Meanwhile, after passing through the long, narrow underground passage, Nalan Sheng's view suddenly opened up, revealing a simple, ancient-looking circular stone chamber.
A stone table stood inside the chamber, with a bronze mirror propped upon it. The mirror was already covered in green corrosion, and dust lay an inch thick on the tabletop. Who knew how many years had passed since anyone had cleaned it?
Since the stone chamber contained no valuable treasures, Nalan Sheng did not pause at all and headed straight for the stone door opposite him.
Beyond the stone door was a stairway only a few dozen feet long, with another stone door at its end.
When Nalan Sheng reached the end of the stairs and pushed open the stone door, which had been sealed for years, a lifelike jade statue of a beautiful woman appeared before him.
The life-size statue had been carved entirely from white jade. It wore a yellow palace gown and held a keen-edged sword, facing directly toward the doorway.
After looking the jade statue up and down, Nalan Sheng turned his attention to the two meditation cushions at its feet.
At Nalan Sheng's signal, two Shadow Ninjas hurried forward and brought him the cushions, one large and one small.
Riiip-!
Taking the two cushions, Nalan Sheng tore them open without hesitation, revealing the silk-wrapped bundle hidden inside.
The bundle was about a foot long. Several lines of small writing on the white silk essentially instructed whoever inherited its contents to master the divine skills within, then slaughter every disciple of the Free and Easy Sect.
Although the writing on the silk bundle differed greatly from that of the Dou Qi Continent, Nalan Sheng understood its meaning immediately.
Perhaps this was a hidden benefit of the instance card: whenever Nalan Sheng traveled to the world corresponding to an instance card, he automatically learned that world's spoken and written language.
Otherwise, even though Nalan Sheng had been Chinese in his previous life, he could never have understood what Zhong Ling and the others were saying.
After all, the language spoken by people of the Song Dynasty differed greatly from modern speech. The relationship between the two was much like that between a regional dialect and Mandarin.
That woman Li Qiushui really is a lunatic. Isn't she a disciple of the Free and Easy Sect herself? Does she expect me to kill her too?
Nalan Sheng shook his head in amusement, then opened the silk bundle and took out the silk scroll inside.
As Nalan Sheng slowly unrolled it, several lines of writing and a portrait of a naked woman appeared before him.
I have to admit, that fellow Xiaoyao Zi was quite a painter. This really is lifelike.
With the mindset of someone appreciating a work of art, Nalan Sheng admired all thirty-six portraits of beautiful women on the silk scroll before putting it away in his Storage Ring.
[Ding! The host has snatched the destined male lead's "Northern Darkness Divine Skill." Reward: 3,000 Villain Points!] [Ding! The host has snatched the destined male lead's "Lingbo Steps." Reward: 1,000 Villain Points!]
Hearing the system notifications sound in his ears, Nalan Sheng nodded in satisfaction.
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