Chapter 15: Fifteen Cuts
Luo Mingshu was also shocked by this situation, but the Soul-Calling Bell was still ringing crisply, which meant that the thing in the cage was indeed their target for this trip.
"Senior sister, I'm too scared to move, waaaaah!" Lu Yaoyao was so frightened that tears streamed down her face.
Even the system that used to prompt her about the plot in her mind fell silent, a situation no one had anticipated.
"Don't move." Luo Mingshu took a deep breath and calmed down; she was much braver than Lu Yaoyao.
In addition, she herself was curious about what was in the cage, so she went forward and pressed down on Lu Yaoyao's shoulder.
Luo Mingshu swiftly and decisively lifted the black cloth covering the large cage, revealing the owner of the black paw that was grabbing Lu Yaoyao.
"Gugua—" A furry little creature jumped onto Luo Mingshu's arm, its four paws frantically scratching at her hand, seemingly in fear. Luo Mingshu reacted quickly and caught it in her palm.
"Senior Sister Luo, what is this?" Lu Yaoyao screamed.
Luo Mingshu never expected that she would pull out a small mouse-like thing from the cage. The thing was dark and furry, but its two front limbs were particularly powerful. It was this thing that had scared Lu Yaoyao to death.
"This is your senior brother." Although Luo Mingshu didn't understand what was going on, it didn't stop her from lying through her teeth.
She scratched the little black mouse's belly: "Come on, Wei Qing, say something to your junior sister."
The little black mouse struggled frantically in Luo Mingshu's palm, squeaking wildly.
Lu Yaoyao covered her mouth, tears of grief streaming down her face: "My poor senior brother, what exactly did the Demon Realm do to you?"
Luo Mingshu: "..." You actually believed what I said.
"Lu Yaoyao, what are you showing off?" Luo Mingshu thought to herself that she spent three million to get this thing, and she was probably as much of a sucker as that anonymous cultivator on the Spirit Network. "Who was it that swore that the hair belonged to your senior brother?"
She held the little black mouse in one hand—it cost her three million, and she couldn't throw it away—and took out the medium she had stuffed into the Soul-Summoning Bell, which was the "green hair" that Lu Yaoyao had carefully handed to her, the so-called Wei Qing.
A short black hair lay in Luo Mingshu's palm. At the same time, many similar hairs fell from the little black mouse struggling in Luo Mingshu's palm.
There was no Wei Qing's hair at all; it was clearly the fur from the little black mouse.
She explained why she found it so difficult to track the owner of the black hair: the spell she initially used was for tracking human souls, and the owner of the hair wasn't human, so how could she find him smoothly?
Luo Mingshu felt like a fool for having stubbornly insisted on finding the answer, and the culprit behind it all was—
"Lu Yaoyao!" Luo Mingshu called her again, pushing the little black mouse in front of her. "Take him back to be your senior brother, or tell me the truth, choose one."
She felt she couldn't wait for the scene in the original book where she was locked up in the dark prison; she was about to be driven crazy by Lu Yaoyao.
"I...I..." Lu Yaoyao trembled, on the verge of tears.
At this moment, the system's voice also rang in her mind: "Host, I am also very curious. Before I was fully bound to you and could not fully perceive your situation, I gave you a task to find Wei Qing's hair when you had time, which might be useful. How exactly did you get this hair back?"
"Waaaaah!" Lu Yaoyao laid her cards on the table, no longer pretending. "That jerk of a senior brother of mine, I was worried about the dangers he faced while training, so I asked him for some of my hair to make a sachet for him, but he..."
"He was so clueless about romance, repeatedly saying, 'Junior sister, there are witchcraft techniques in the cultivation world that can harm people through personal items. I can't just give you my things rashly. Of course, I'm not saying you should try to harm me, but boys must protect themselves when they go out.'" Lu Yaoyao vividly described Wei Qing's face when he refused her.
"Pfft—" In such a tense atmosphere, Luo Mingshu burst out laughing.
“But… but I was really worried that my senior brother would encounter danger when he went out (actually, it was a system task), so while he was meditating, I plucked a strand of loose hair from his shoulder and carefully kept it… but, but, how could that hair be from a mouse?” Lu Yaoyao said with a sob in her voice.
Luo Mingshu pinched the bridge of her nose. She hadn't expected the truth to be like this, but she wasn't stupid. With a little reasoning, she roughly guessed the whole story.
Firstly, this little black rat—who knows what kind of demon it is, but it might have been following Wei Qing back then, so Wei Qing has some of its shed fur on him. This little guy really sheds a lot of fur.
Secondly, Wei Qing's initial purpose in coming to the border between the human realm and the demon realm might not have been to find a magic weapon for Lu Yaoyao to break through. In any case, Lu Yaoyao is quite good at making things up. He probably left the sect under the pretext of going out for training in order to send the little black rat back to the demon realm.
So... where Wei Qing went is currently unknown, but it is a certainty that they went through all that trouble and found the wrong person.
"Lu Yaoyao!" Luo Mingshu began to rage in a fit of impotence. "Do you know how many spirit stones I spent to buy your senior brother? Three million! And you? You wouldn't even spend 30,000 spirit stones."
She remembered that there might be some truth to the original book's distortion of her deep feelings for Wei Qing, since she was indeed more diligent than Lu Yaoyao in spending money.
There was nothing she could do; she always liked to show off. Before they set off, the sect leader even presented her with a banner, and on top of that, those demon cultivators carrying the large cage had just offended her.
After all this, she's probably on Fengshadu's blacklist now, so how will she ever find clues about her origins in the Demon Realm again?
Lu Yaoyao was still sobbing, and Luo Mingshu was at her wits' end. But at this moment, the little black mouse that she had been holding in her hand suddenly gave up struggling and scratched Luo Mingshu's palm with its little paws.
"What are you doing, trying to act cute? I'm telling you, I'm not buying this." Luo Mingshu was furious and started cursing.
She looked down at the little black mouse she was holding, and the little creature pulled out a shiny little thing from its body. Upon closer inspection, it was a dark purple crystal fragment, shimmering in the sparse sunlight filtering through the forest.
The little black mouse had resigned itself to its fate, and used its two tiny paws to present the broken crystal to Luo Mingshu in a fawning manner.
“Oh, my little darling.” Luo Mingshu’s tone immediately softened. “You’re so cute.”
After being bribed by the little black rat with a crystal shard, Luo Mingshu regrouped and decided to clean up the mess in front of her.
She had Lu Yaoyao carry the large cage that was originally used to hold the small black mice and follow her. They found a clean cave in the mountains and temporarily settled down there.
"So—what exactly is this rat? Those demon cultivators are risking their lives to protect him, and it seems they only started competing with me for the Crimson Copper Lotus under his guidance." Luo Mingshu sat in the cleaned cave, brewed himself a cup of fruit tea, and said as he drank.
——
"I never expected they would dare to bring out the Earth Moon Mole." In a tall building in Fengsha Ferry, Zhou Ziyun, a handsome young man who looked like a young master, stroked his chin and said, "And they even lost him..."
“The Earth Moon Mole.” Shui Qingsi, who was sitting in her room playing with a deep blue crystal ball, looked up, a puzzled expression on her face. “Ziyun, who are you talking about ‘them’? And who would dare to disturb the Earth Moon Mole’s peaceful life? Even I—humph, Princess of the Demon Realm—would not dare to disturb them, after all, the Earth Moon Mole has powerful backers…”
“I know, it’s the demon god Yinglong. The Earth Moon Mole race was in a terrible situation back then. They were exploited by humans who used their species characteristics to control them, coveting their powerful earth magic and digging ability, turning their entire race into laborers mining veins,” Zhou Ziyun said lazily. “We will never forget this part of the demon race’s history.”
"But it was the Earth Moon Mole, such a humble and insignificant race, that became the pioneers in exposing the evil deeds of the human race. In their suffering, they prayed to the demon gods in the sky, hoping to get rid of their predicament." Zhou Ziyun's voice was languid when he talked about that history. "Of course, the compassionate demon god Yinglong was the first to hear their prayers."
"Yinglong bestowed upon the Earth Moon Mole a special talent—of course, it is also an ability unique to Yinglong. From then on, their race had unparalleled ability to appraise and explore treasures. Moreover, Yinglong is more willing to protect the weak, so the younger the individual in their group, the stronger this treasure-hunting ability is."
"At the same time, they also paid a price. The Earth Moon Mole race never sees the light of day. If they are exposed to sunlight, they will die. The Earth Moon Moles are a race that lives underground, so this price is insignificant to them. Moreover, once they cultivate into human form, they will no longer be affected by this. Yinglong was merciful enough to them, and even provided them with protection while they were still living in the lower realm. As long as Yinglong was nearby, the Earth Moon Moles were not affected by the price of never seeing the light of day."
Zhou Ziyun recounted all the stories about the Earth Moon Mole, touching the tip of his nose with a hint of helplessness: "But they seem to be looking for something special, and they 'invited' the Earth Moon Mole out of the ground, and it was a baby Earth Moon Mole. Baby Earth Moon Moles are more capable of finding treasure than adults."
"What are they looking for? No, no, who are they? And why did you suddenly take me away today? Ziyun, can't you beat that man in black?" Shui Qingsi was confused by Zhou Ziyun's words.
“Your Highness, don’t bother thinking about these things. Your brain isn’t big enough to understand them,” Zhou Ziyun said with a wry smile. “They’ve lost the Young Earth Moon Mole, which is a real problem.”
Shui Qingsi also witnessed what happened in Fengsha Ferry today, but she has not yet figured out what the turmoil means.
Of course, Luo Mingshu was also scratching her head in frustration, just like her.
"Do you—know Wei Qing?" Luo Mingshu rested her chin on her hand and poked the little black mouse on the table. "What's your relationship with him?"
"Croak, croak?" The little black mouse tilted its head and looked at Luo Mingshu with a puzzled expression. He was a demon, but still in his juvenile form, with an intelligence similar to that of a human child.
"Why would a mouse be making a lonely, squeaking sound?" Luo Mingshu was completely baffled.
"Senior Sister Luo, what should we do now?" Lu Yaoyao asked hesitantly.
"Let's look for him." Luo Mingshu still had her own things to do, and the search for Wei Qing's whereabouts had ended with the little black mouse.
"Croak—" The little black mouse stood up, hands on his hips—his chubby body actually had a waist. He poked Luo Mingshu's hand and pointed to the large cage where he lived.
"You're inviting us in?" Luo Mingshu realized that she could now communicate with him, albeit with some difficulty.
The little black mouse pointed at Lu Yaoyao and shook its head.
“Don’t take her in.” Luo Mingshu suddenly realized, “Okay, I’ll go in with you by myself.”
The little black mouse tugged at Luo Mingshu's finger, leading her towards its "home." The cage was almost as tall as a person, and Luo Mingshu could step inside by bending her head slightly. When she stepped in, she felt the space around her change.
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