Chapter 330: Get Up
The heavy, gray fog of the Whispering Woods didn’t just part; it was sucked backward as a massive shadow erupted from the canopy above.
"Look out!" Ji’an roared, her paranoia and survival instincts instantly overriding her desperate need for cosmic lore.
Plummeting from the petrified branches were three Rank 6 Red Mud-Serpents, built as massive, sixty-foot-long monstrosities covered in razor-sharp, glowing blue scales, their jaws unhinged to reveal rows of dripping, venomous fangs.
They had been masking their presence, waiting for the exact moment the two human cultivators were distracted by their dramatic conversation.
Ji’an didn’t have time to demand answers about Lin Feng.
She didn’t have time to interrogate Shen Zechuan.
The Official Sect Martial Ranking was a live-fire exercise, and the realm was actively trying to digest her.
"Do you mind?!" Ji’an shrieked at the falling serpents, her frustration reaching a boiling point. "We are having a highly sensitive, plot-critical family-ish drama moment! Wait for your turn, this bastard!"
She didn’t retreat.
Fueled by a potent cocktail of exhaustion, lack of caffeine, and the teeth-grinding irritation of having her interrogation interrupted, Ji’an went feral.
She gripped the handle of her heavy Black Iron Spatula with both hands, channeling the maximum output of her Qi.
She launched herself off the ground, meeting the first falling serpent in mid-air.
"Grand Banquet Technique: Tenderizing the Serpent!"
KRA-BOOM!
The flat of her heavy cast-iron spatula slammed into the side of the massive snake’s head.
The impact was so overpowering that it didn’t just crack the beast’s skull; it sent a shockwave rippling down the serpent’s entire spine, instantly paralyzing its nervous system and liquefying its venom glands.
The massive beast crashed into the mud, twitching uselessly.
Ji’an landed, spun on her heel, and prepared to engage the other two.
But she didn’t need to.
Shen Zechuan was standing exactly where she had left him.
He hadn’t drawn a weapon or assumed a martial stance.
He looked up at the two remaining serpents hurtling toward him, blinked his dark, bottomless eyes, and raised a single finger.
He didn’t chant an incantation.
He didn’t look malicious; rather, he looked mildly curious.
With a soft flick of his wrist, the space around the two massive serpents... folded.
An invisible bubble of the Void-Devouring Mantra expanded, swallowing the energy of their descent.
The serpents froze in mid-air, suspended in a vacuum, their jaws snapping uselessly.
Zechuan didn’t crush them.
He didn’t absorb their souls into a vortex of dark magic.
Instead, he casually twisted his fingers in a motion that looked exactly like someone wringing out a wet towel.
The void bubble constricted.
The two Rank 6 beasts were instantly compressed, their valuable glowing scales popping off in a perfect shower; their cores were neatly extracted and floated gently down into Zechuan’s open palm.
It was a display of butchery so fast, so bloodless, and so terrifyingly efficient that Ji’an’s jaw dropped.
Zechuan walked over to her, his pristine white robes completely untouched by mud or serpent blood.
He held out the two glowing purple cores, alongside a perfectly severed premium cut of the serpent’s tenderloin.
"Is this the correct cut, Ji’an?" Zechuan asked.
His head was tilted slightly to the side.
His dark eyes were wide, blinking with a childlike innocence. "I observed you slicing the boar earlier. I attempted to replicate the angle so the meat would not bruise. Did I do it right?"
Ji’an stared at the neatly butchered meat.
She stared at the man holding it.
The terrifying, abyssal villain of the Celestial Sword Sect was currently looking at her like a puppy waiting for a pat on the head because he had fetched the newspaper without tearing it.
"You... you just butterflied a Rank 6 beast using singularity," Ji’an stammered, entirely forgetting her anger.
"Yes," Zechuan smiled brightly, looking genuinely pleased with himself. "It saves time on peeling. Do you want me to do the other one?"
"No! Leave the other one alone!" Ji’an rubbed her temples, feeling a massive headache coming on.
She stared at his face, the face that looked so much like Lin Feng’s.
But Lin Feng was sharp, tactical, and bore the heavy, stoic weight of command.
This guy?
This guy had the raw power of a demigod and the situational awareness of a toddler who had just found a shiny bug!
"Just... put the meat in the wok," Ji’an sighed, gesturing to the heavy iron pan he was still carrying for her. "We need to keep moving. The fog is going to start shrinking soon, and I don’t want to get caught in the hazard zone."
***
As they hiked out of the ravine and deeper into the petrified, twisting roots of the Whispering Woods, Ji’an’s mind continued to spiral.
She had tried to hate him.
She had tried to bully him into snapping so she could reveal his true, villainous nature.
But the more she watched him, the more she realized that the "villain" was entirely a projection of the sect’s paranoia.
Shen Zechuan didn’t act like a corrupted monster.
He acted like someone who had been locked in a dark room for five years, completely isolated from human society, who had miraculously survived by absorbing magic, and had now been thrust back into the world with zero social skills.
Crunch!
Zechuan tripped over a glowing blue root.
He didn’t catch himself gracefully, but face-planted directly into a patch of glowing moss.
Ji’an stopped, turning around slowly.
Zechuan sat up, a patch of blue mud smeared across his nose.
He looked at the root, looked at his mud-covered hands, and then looked up at Ji’an, offering a sheepish, incredibly goofy smile.
"The ground here is very uneven," Zechuan noted cheerfully, completely unbothered by his ruined, priceless silk robes.
"You can manipulate the fabric of space-time, but you can’t walk in a straight line," Ji’an deadpanned, slapping her palm over her face. "You are an absolute disaster. Get up quickly. Wipe your face. We are being hunted."
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