LGHTNOVELBOOK 3: Troublemaker
Chu Sang’s eyes lit up. Black Wind Forest? Spirit beast tide? That’s indeed a great place to sell talismans!
“Thanks, brother. Here’s a talisman for you. If you find it useful, feel free to come back and buy more!”
Chu Sang stuffed a talisman with her business card into the man’s hand and quickly packed up her stall. The seemingly frail young girl hoisted a half-man-high bundle onto her back and disappeared in a flash.
“…” The passerby couldn’t help but twitch the corner of his mouth, thinking he’d encountered quite an oddity today. He unconsciously pocketed the Speed Talisman, shook his head, and quickly left.
Black Wind Forest indeed looked unsettled. Many trees had collapsed, leaving a mess. The ground trembled slightly, and occasional beast roars could be heard from deep within the forest. Chilling winds blew, making one’s hair stand on end.
Many cultivators were coming and going. Chu Sang, estimating her current weak and fragile strength, found a relatively safe corner on the outskirts and set up her stall again.
Before long, a young man in green clothes flew towards her. He looked about sixteen or seventeen, not much older than her. His clothes were ordinary rough linen, with narrow sleeves and legs making him appear tall and agile. His hair wasn’t carefully groomed, just tied in a simple ponytail with the rest falling down his back, giving him the air of a spirited young wanderer.
The young man was standing on a dark iron sword, careening out of the forest, wobbling unsteadily. It was clear he had just reached Foundation Establishment and wasn’t yet proficient in sword flight.
“Ahhh— Get out of the way, quick!”
He was heading straight for her!
Chu Sang was startled, throwing up her hands, “Damn, don’t come over here!”
“Run quickly, ahhh, I can’t control it!”
Chu Sang acted swiftly, slapping a Speed Talisman on herself, quickly packing up her things, and leaping back dozens of meters in a flash.
But the young man was about to crash into the mountain—
Although Foundation Establishment cultivators were strong and sturdy, they might not die from the impact, but they could still lose an arm or a leg and need half a month to recover.
Chu Sang didn’t have time to think. As a model youth raised under the red flag for two decades, she quickly pulled out a Binding Talisman and, just as the young man was about to smash a person-shaped hole in the mountainside, stuck the talisman on his iron sword.
“Pah!”
Both person and sword fell to the ground.
Finally, silence.
The young man was clearly frightened. He rolled off the sword and sat sprawled on the ground, running his hand through his messy hair, still in shock. “That nearly scared me to death!”
He immediately turned to look at Chu Sang, his slightly downturned puppy dog eyes sparkling with gratitude as if looking at his savior. He cupped his fists in a martial salute, “Thank you, miss, for your timely help. I nearly lost my life there!”
“It was nothing, no need to thank me.”
Chu Sang looked up at him and froze.
She saw a string of virtual characters floating above the young man’s head.
[Corruption Value: 13]
Chu Sang: ???
What’s this?
The young man was still chattering, “Ah, that was really dangerous. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have taken this commission. It’s not easy to earn a few spirit stones… Oh right, miss, my name is Tantai Ming. I don’t know your name yet. We seem to have a fateful encounter, why don’t we become friends!”
Tantai Ming?
Chu Sang came to her senses and couldn’t help but twitch the corner of her mouth. This name sounded familiar. Wasn’t he one of the tragic male supporting characters in that Mary Sue dog-blood novel?
Chu Sang quite liked this character when reading the original story. He was a carefree, simple-minded, sunny and cheerful boy, unaware of love and without guile. But after being injured and falling unconscious in a secret realm, he was saved by Qin Xixue and fell in love with her from then on, wholeheartedly devoting everything to the female lead. Unfortunately, a supporting male character is just a supporting male character. After all his devotion, he was left with nothing and even fell into the demonic path later on, truly a miserable fate.
Damn, was she destined to never escape the female lead’s devoted followers in this life?
A simple-minded puppy is cute, but she valued her life more.
Chu Sang wanted to flee.
[Congratulations, host has unlocked one of the target villains. The Good Person System upholds the ideal of world peace, with the ultimate goal of reforming villains who could cause planar collapse.]
[Please work hard to eliminate the Corruption Value of the various villains from the original story.]
[For every “1” Corruption Value eliminated from a villain, you can obtain an equal amount of “1” random attribute point to enhance your own attributes.]
The young woman was stunned for a moment. The next second, she retracted the foot she had just stepped forward and sat back down, her gaze falling complexly on Tantai Ming, who was casting a cleaning spell on himself.
The boy looked happy and simple-minded, not seeming to be troubled by love… She speculated that at this point in time, Tantai Ming probably hadn’t met the female lead yet, hence his low Corruption Value.
Hmm! Easy to reform.
“Boom!”
Just as she was deep in thought, the ground suddenly trembled slightly. It seemed something terrifying was approaching from afar. Tantai Ming sprang up like a carp, “Not good, it’s the beast tide. Those spirit beasts are chasing us again!”
“Beast tide?”
Chu Sang turned to look behind, and sure enough, a vast, dark mass like a black cloud pressing down on the city was thundering towards them at a terrifying speed, shaking the earth.
Both of them exclaimed “Damn!” in unison, their minds in perfect sync as they took to their heels.
The spirit beasts behind them pursued relentlessly like they’d lost their mothers.
How could two legs possibly outrun four?
Seeing that they were about to be caught by the beast tide behind and trampled into meat patties, Tantai Ming lamented that his fate ended here. Then his eyes lit up and he urgently said to Chu Sang, “If I’m not mistaken, you used a Speed Talisman just now? How many do you have left? I’ll buy them all!”
As he spoke, the young man tossed her a bag of spirit stones. It was heavy. Even while fleeing for her life, Chu Sang had the presence of mind to send a wisp of spiritual sense into the storage bag to count them one by one. There were over a hundred spirit stones, and they were mid-grade spirit stones at that.
It’s worth noting that in the currency exchange of the cultivation world, the most commonly used currency for ordinary low-level cultivators was spirit pearls. A thousand spirit pearls could be exchanged for one low-grade spirit stone, a hundred low-grade spirit stones could be exchanged for one mid-grade spirit stone, and a hundred mid-grade spirit stones could be exchanged for one high-grade spirit stone.
Chu Sang had worked diligently in Tianyan Sect for ten years and had only saved up a dozen or so low-grade spirit stones. Yet this young man casually handed over more than a hundred mid-grade spirit stones. It was clear… he was a rich fool!
She liked it!
Only then did Chu Sang notice that he seemed to be wearing a Daoist robe, with the sect’s emblem of two auspicious clouds encircling a spirit pearl on his sleeves. So he was from an established sect.
After applying the Speed Talismans, their speed increased significantly. They circled Black Wind Forest dozens of times before finally shaking off the relentlessly pursuing spirit beasts.
The two collapsed on the ground, gasping for breath, utterly exhausted.
Tantai Ming wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and pulled out an egg the size of a head, snow-white and adorable, from his storage bag. He grinned, “Luckily I was clever enough to grab this spirit beast egg while those beasts were lured away!”
He raised an eyebrow, looking smug, “Aren’t I smart?”
“You… you’re really a great genius!” Chu Sang’s blood froze the moment she saw the egg.
So that’s why the group of spirit beasts had been so relentlessly pursuing them. It was because he’d stolen their egg!
Damn it, why did you have nothing better to do than steal someone’s egg??
Sure enough, he had a villain’s black heart, so capable of courting death!
Chu Sang’s expression immediately changed as she coldly snapped, “Quickly throw away this egg, or we’re both done for today!”
As soon as she finished speaking, the ground beneath their feet shook violently again, nearly knocking her over.
The originally clear and cloudless day suddenly turned dark as night. A foul-smelling cold wind whistled, blowing their hair. Chu Sang’s heart seemed to stop for a moment as she saw a spirit beast as tall as a hundred zhang, like a small mountain.
When it appeared, it blotted out the sky, and the surrounding air seemed to freeze.
Each step it took was like the collapse of heaven and earth.
“Despicable human cultivators, how dare you steal my egg while I was away. Return my child immediately, or I’ll ensure you die a gruesome death!”
Holy cow!
It could even speak human language.
This was a Nascent Soul stage spirit beast. Brother, you’ve gotten yourself into big trouble. This doesn’t seem to be just any spirit beast egg, but the Beast King’s egg??
Only two words flashed through Chu Sang’s mind: It’s over.
—She shouldn’t have left home without checking her horoscope today, to encounter such a troublemaker.
The ground split open, and they fell into an abyss. This was her last thought before losing consciousness.