Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Meng Yingying nodded, looking at her: "Is your hand alright?" Cong Rong glanced at it casually, moved her arm and only felt a slight pain, then replied: "It's fine."

Meng Yingying carefully put away the calamity and said, "I'm going up the mountain. Do you want to come with me or rest here?"

Cong Rong said, "I was planning to go find them after you woke up." This meant she was going. Meng Yingying didn't try to stop her and started to walk out. Cong Rong grabbed her arm and reminded her, "Your clothes."

Meng Yingying glanced down at her clothes, which were still draped over her shoulders and soaked through after wearing them for so long in the rain. She then thought that going out like this, looking like a drowned rat, would be too unimpressive. She nodded and said, "Go and see if there's anything that can shield you from the rain."

Upon hearing this, Cong Rong immediately bent down, her expression unchanged, and picked up the bamboo hat from the human skin. Meng Yingying glanced at it and said, "There's only one."

Cong Rong shook her head: "I don't want to, you wear it."

Without hesitation, Meng Yingying went into the house and quickly put on her Taoist robe. She styled her hair into a bun, inserted a wooden hairpin, and resolutely walked out. She glanced around the room, then took out a talisman and broke off a table leg. Using the talisman, she propped one leg up in the middle. Satisfied, she held it, muttering to herself for a while, "Isn't this just a simplified version of an umbrella? I'm so clever." Holding it up, she walked out the door. Cong Rong, unusually puzzled, looked at her. Meng Yingying explained, "This is an umbrella."

Cong Rong paused for a moment, then said, "You..."

It seems she had been underestimating Meng Yuan's strength. Her appearance was so frail, like a bamboo pole, that her arms seemed like they could break at any moment. Yet, she could easily lift a wooden stick thicker than her arm, and that strange umbrella as well. It seems she, like Zhou Xiuqi, was someone who liked to hide her true abilities.

Meng Yingying, holding her "umbrella," walked up the mountain. The rain pattered on the wooden planks, making a pleasant sound. The mountain path was muddy and slippery, the soil so soft that it felt like you were instantly sucked in when you stepped on it. She looked at the sky. It should still be some time before nightfall. Cong Rong followed closely behind her; the princess's order to her was to keep a close eye on Meng Yuan, so she couldn't let anything go wrong with her.

Meng Yingying looked down at her cloth shoes, which had become unrecognizable as their original color. She sighed and lamented. Other people who transmigrate into books have luxurious identities or are given special advantages, but she has nothing and has been given an unexpected rebirth script with added difficulty.

She was never particularly curious about the world, but what Tan Yuhua said sparked her curiosity. She always understood the principle that the more deliberate something is, the more it hides some underlying reason.

She squinted at the road ahead, where the rain curtain stretched out, and the sky was slowly darkening, a cool sensation on her forehead.

Meng Yingying raised her hand to wipe her forehead, and found that fine beads of sweat had appeared there at some point. Meng Yingying was too nervous and had been walking with her head down, so she hadn't noticed this abnormality. If it were normal, she would have noticed something was wrong long ago. There was indeed something wrong on this mountain.

Meng Yingying was about to ask Cong Rong for her reaction when she realized everyone was gone. She threw away her umbrella, which fell into a mud puddle and slowly seeped in, a little mud splattering onto her face. Meng Yingying summoned the Calamity spell and gripped it tightly in her hand, a sense of unease rising within her. She frowned, looking at the ground beneath her feet. She was clearly also stepping on mud, yet she hadn't been sucked into it. The one who controlled everything had taken Cong Rong away, leaving her behind. She could only pray in her heart that Cong Rong was alright.

All around was quiet, and the rain had stopped. It was as if she had entered another place. She stamped her foot, and the ground beneath her feet was hard. Meng Yingying grasped the Calamity and plunged it into the ground. The shadows of the trees swayed, and suddenly her vision blurred. The road beside her broke off and crashed down below. She could only hear the sound of stones crushing grass and snapping dead branches.

Meng Yingying had a premonition that if the novel's plot unfolded as it would, she would inevitably fall too. She quickly thrust her sword into the wall beside her. Although the Calamity was made of wood, it was incredibly sturdy and could easily support her weight. Meng Yingying neither moved forward nor backward, inexplicably stuck in a stalemate. Everything needs a reason to unfold, and the world of novels was no exception. Meng Yingying had been here for so long and learned that many events in this world required a reason. For example, Li Zhaodi's death was due to Zhao Qiao'er's inner dissatisfaction and resentment, accumulated over time by Li Youde's oppression.

In the real world, things might happen by chance, but in this world where everything needs to follow a storyline, everything is preordained. Since Meng Yingying didn't move, there was no reason for the path to be broken; after all, it had to conform to common sense.

Meng Yingying wasn't sure if what she was doing would work, but she decided to give it a try.

The soft, fragmented sounds reached Meng Yingying's ears, causing her to unconsciously tense up and clutch the Calamity in her hand.

The next second, the ground beneath her feet shattered. She grabbed the sword hilt, her entire body suspended in mid-air, her lower body swaying precariously. Meng Yingying, still shaken, raised her other hand to grab the Calamity. Sure enough, her guess was at least half right. If she fell, she would be injured, but she shouldn't die. After all, this was a mountain path. Unless she was extremely unlucky and hit a rock on the fall, smashing her head, the branches and weeds here could provide some cushioning.

Meng Yingying took a deep breath to calm herself down and think things through.

"What kind of pose is this?" A voice suddenly rang out above her head, abruptly interrupting Meng Yingying's train of thought. She was startled; the tone was all too familiar. Meng Yingying looked up and saw Shang Mang hanging from a tree, staring at her. What she couldn't ignore was that his eyes had turned blood red. And these blood-red eyes were exactly the same as the ones she had seen in that flash of inspiration earlier. Tan Yuhua was right; it seemed those flashes of inspiration were fragments of her past memories.

When Meng Yingying touched the wetness, she looked back in surprise and saw the sword being spat out the next second. She had clearly stuck it in the wall, but her arm had been spat out.

Meng Yingying instinctively reached up to grab something, but instead grabbed a smooth piece of fabric. She froze, and Shang Mang chuckled. Without hesitation, he lowered the hanging device, and the two of them plummeted downwards. Meng Yingying looked back and saw no weeds or withered branches behind her, only a huge, bottomless black hole.

Meng Yingying was shocked. She shouted angrily, "Why did you let go! Do you want to kill me that badly!" Her voice was mixed with the howling wind. Meng Yingying gripped his collar tightly. Shang Mang laughed and stretched out his arms to pull her into his embrace. As Meng Yingying was embraced by him, she felt the stench of decay emanating from him growing stronger and stronger.

Meng Yingying panicked. A thought popped into her head: she shouldn't have dragged him down with her. Meng Yingying blamed herself for being too lenient. She pushed him forcefully: "You can go up, Shang Mang. You can go up, hurry up." Even though he killed her in her past life, Meng Yingying still didn't want to drag him down with her.

System: [Warning! Warning! Host's health is rapidly decreasing! Warning! Warning!] The deafening electronic sound rang in her ears, making them tingle.

A chill ran down her neck as Shang Mang buried his face in her neck, breathing deeply. She heard him whisper, "To be buried with me is your honor." His hand covered the back of her head, and the two turned over. As they descended, Meng Yingying could hear his body being bumped repeatedly. Meng Yingying's heart pounded with each beat.

It is unknown how long they have been missing.

The moment she hit the ground, Meng Yingying felt a tingling sensation in her skull. Even with someone cushioning her fall, she felt this way. In a panic, she propped herself up. It was pitch black; she couldn't see anything, only able to touch with her hands, feeling the damp fabric beneath her. She dared not apply pressure. She touched it gently.

In the darkness, Shang Mang could see her expression clearly. Her brows were furrowed, her clear eyes were filled with tears, her nose twitched, and his blood stained her cheek. He felt a sense of pleasure; she was truly beautiful.

Shang Mang raised his hand and rubbed her cheeks hard to clean the blood. He said weakly, "It's a pity you didn't die. You can't be buried with me."

Meng Yingying frowned, feeling a sharp pain in her abdomen. Touching her lower abdomen, she could vaguely guess what it was.