Chapter 8: Spring Love
Although the deputy general's true form was incredibly abstract and difficult to discern, it was indeed a genuine male. Tian Xinshu ignored the deputy general's anger and said coldly, "Although Panmu is a male, he has never struck me as rude or arrogant."
"I understand." Cang Ming said with a smile, "Why are you holding that unknown boy hostage?"
Tian Xinshu said expressionlessly, "That night I went to teach that dog official a lesson, but you stopped me. You can't take this living person away with you."
"What did that dog official do?" Cang Ming asked curiously.
"He relied on his wealth and power to steal my senior sister's good article. With this article, he won praise and embarked on his official career, getting promoted and making a fortune!" Tian Xinshu grabbed the wine glass and played with it, then suddenly threw it out.
"Senior Sister?" Cang Ming was confused. "Didn't you say that women are no good either..."
"Shut up!" Tian Xin's face turned pale, and his pupils, carved from snow, were devoid of pupils. "My feelings for Senior Sister are more than just admiration; they transcend reverence. We're like master and disciple, like soulmates, like mother and daughter, like siblings... Do you understand?"
Cang Ming nodded and replied, "I understand."
"What do you know?" Tian Xinshu was furious again. "My senior sister taught me how to recite poems, write calligraphy, and dance to music. My talent is entirely due to her enlightenment. You, a vulgar person, only rely on men!"
Cang Ming, who had been holding up his face to admire her beauty, immediately leaned forward with a smile and said, pretending to be dumbfounded, "I don't want to rely on men. How about letting me rely on a beautiful demon king like you?"
"?"
Wei Ci reached out and gently pulled her back. Tian Xinshu's expression was filled with surprise and uncertainty.
Cang Ming asked unexpectedly, "I see you are arrogant and aloof, why would you drive something as lowly as embroidered shoes?"
"What low-quality embroidered shoes?" Tian Xinshu stood up and walked into the hall. "Are such crudely made ordinary embroidered shoes worthy of being the symbol of me, Tian Xinshu?"
"..." Cang Ming advised, "Please let us take a look at the boy and make sure he is safe, then we will leave."
Tian Xinshu raised a finger, and the stone wall above suddenly became transparent. Cang Ming and Wei Ci looked up and saw the boy, dressed in a red robe and black boots, in the upper cave, reading a book to relieve his boredom, seemingly oblivious to the chaos below.
Tian Xin's whispers echoed in Cang Ming's ears: "Is a mortal you don't even know worthy of your attention?"
Cang Ming turned his head and saw Tian Xinshu's snow-white pupils were close to him, and her long hair like icicles fell on Cang Ming's shoulders.
"Speak! Is this thing of a human worth doing this to?" Tian Xinshu roared, shocking Cang Ming and making him shrink his neck. The deputy general shouted at the side, urging Cang Ming to kneel down and answer.
Cang Ming said calmly: "I never doubted it."
Tian Xinshu glanced at Wei Ci and said, "What about you? You don't look like a good person. Why did you follow her to save her? To please her?"
Wei Ci crossed his arms and said lazily, "I really don't like people. It's good enough that I don't kill anyone."
Cang Ming resisted the urge to look at him and whispered to him, "I understand. Sometimes I also feel that people are worse than dogs."
Wei Ci added, "But I understand what she wants to do. I think it's interesting and I want to play with her. Is that not okay?"
Cang Ming looked at Wei Ci in surprise and said, "Wei Ci, thank you! Today I feel that you are the first soulmate I have met in the past ten years."
Wei Ci asked, "Why?"
Cang Ming hesitated for a moment and said, "Because I think the most precious thing in this world is not even having someone accompany you, but having someone who understands your heart."
Wei Ci said, "I mean, why only in the past ten years? What about before that?"
Cang Ming said: "Before that, there were two soulmates whom you didn't know. They were..."
Tian Xinshu whispered, "Fuck, you're actually here with me..."
Cang Ming interrupted her and said, "Excuse me, can you let us see the real guy?"
Tian Xinshu smiled gently: "And then you snatch him away, huh? I'll kill you."
"This..." Cang Ming was inconsolable, "Why are you so moody..."
"Deputy Commander, hold steady."
Cang Ming was startled when the ground beneath her feet suddenly became empty. She only had time to yell "Hello" before she and Wei Ci fell into the cave on the next level.
Before they hit the ground, Wei Ci's fingertips had already touched Cang Ming's arm, and in a flash, he pulled her into his arms. The two of them embraced each other, rolled twice in the air, and suddenly fell to the ground, raising a cloud of dead branches and leaves.
Cang Ming lifted his head from his shoulder and neck, and found that he was lying on top of him and had not fallen at all.
Wei Ci met her eyes and asked in a low voice, "Are you okay?" Cang Ming hurriedly shook his head, "Of course I'm fine. Did you hurt your head or waist?"
The moment she landed, she clearly felt Wei Ci flipping himself over.
"Of course I'm fine." Wei Ci said, imitating her tone.
Cang Ming haphazardly placed his hands on his chest, trying to prop up his upper body, but something immediately hit his back and he fell back on top of him: "Ouch!"
In the blink of an eye, the two of them were firmly trapped by several vines thrown out from the ground, and the stone wall of the ceiling was sealed again.
The two of them remained stuck together in this confusing position, tied up in an unknown layer of cave.
"You sneak attack!" Cang Ming was immediately furious. Her voice echoed in the cave, and Tian Xinshu's voice could no longer be heard.
"It's okay." Wei Ci's breathing was so deep and close, almost touching Cang Ming's ear, "I'll break free."
"Wait a minute," Cang Ming said quickly, "This vine is a lizard vine. It grows entirely in the ground. If the branches are torn or pulled out, the ground will crack along with it."
If we fall down one more level, who knows what cave we'll find ourselves in. So far, Tian Xinshu has shown an unusual enthusiasm for decorating the cave, and it's not surprising that the next level of the cave has been decorated with a sea of fire and swords.
"Oh?" Wei Ci indeed stopped moving.
"I shouldn't be mistaken." Cang Ming turned his head to stare at the vines that were as thick as bowls. "To be honest, this thing used to grow on my roof. When I pulled it out, the roof collapsed..."
"Really? How could it be growing on your roof?" Wei Ci let out a long breath, his voice still clear and gentle.
"Well, I'm homeless, living in shabby rooms, hahaha." Cang Ming barely maintained his dignity, suddenly feeling so ashamed that he wanted to kill himself. This was something he had never experienced before. Normally, Cang Ming would walk into a restaurant, sit down, ask the price, and then leave without batting an eyelid, drinking a free cup of tea and nodding goodbye to the owner.
Wei Ci didn't say anything, but just looked at her silently with his eyes downcast.
Cang Ming said: "It's like this in our line of work. We go wherever there are ghosts, and our residence follows the demons..."
Undecided: "Yes."
"Oh, right," Cang Ming suddenly remembered that he still had a gem leaf in his arms, "I wonder if I can use the edge of the hidden weapon to slowly cut the vines?"
She barely twisted her body, and moved the hand that was pressing on Wei Ci's chest into her clothes and groped around. This slight struggle made the vines tighten a little more.
Wei Ci's body gradually grew hot. The two breaths intertwined, swirling and intertwining, like the sea breeze following the waves, surging and undulating, entangled endlessly. Cang Ming's breathing was light, rapid, and bewildered, mixed with low cries of pain from the vines and the pain from the hard body. Wei Ci's breathing was deep, restrained, and occasionally revealed a rough smell. He silently wrapped his arms around Cang Ming's waist and back, doing his best to resist the vines with his arms.
Cang Ming used the sharp edge of the gem leaf to target the vine beside his face, patiently and slowly cutting it. The vine and the ground did not move, but the effect was also unusually slow.
Wei Ci raised his head, his Adam's apple rolling up and down. Cang Ming's face flushed with anxiety: "I'm very heavy, right? You should have let me lie on the ground."
"Forget it," Wei Ci said, "let me try to break it." He grasped a vine on Cang Ming's back, trying not to pull it, and slowly clenched his palm.
With a snap, the vines broke, and the other vines quickly let go of them as if frightened, and collapsed to the ground.
"Really?" Cang Ming stuffed the leaf back into her clothes and hurriedly climbed up from him. Wei Ci suddenly lifted her a few inches away from him, and Cang Ming quickly retreated wisely.
"Okay, let's--" Cang Ming knelt down, but before he could finish his sentence, the ground beneath them suddenly cracked.
Cang Ming thought that he should write it down when he got back, but breaking it was not a good idea.
The two men fell rapidly into the collapsing sand and rocks, and the bottomless pit was unfathomable.
Cang Ming raised his arms and said, "Fix!" Then he thought to himself, "Not good!" and changed his words, "Release!"
It seemed as if there were many huge stones and hidden weapons falling down from above their heads, and the two men who were suspended in mid-air would be smashed on the head and bleed.
Amid the whistling of the wind, there was another kind of whisper, rising and falling, circling and echoing.
"Nothing accomplished, nothing accomplished..."
"Your parents don't exist in the underworld..."
"Your master...it's all because of you..."
Cang Ming's face turned pale in an instant, and the spell that had reached his fingertips collapsed in an instant.
Purple limbs protruded from the surrounding stone walls, followed by bodies and heads. Their torsos crawled along the walls like spiders, each face with eyes wide open in death.
The rotting smell of zombies filled the tunnel. Long, rotting arms emitting green light suddenly stretched out from all directions, their sharp claws reaching for Cang Ming's throat.
The Thousand-Year Floating Corpse, formed by soaking fallen soldiers in a sea of ice for thousands of years, is an ancient evil, ranked fourth in the list of demons and ghosts. The various historical texts that his master had once forced Cang Ming to recite rushed into his mind, one sentence after another. Cang Ming stared blankly at the authentic zombie before him, unable to move.
Amidst the rolling stones and zombies, a leisurely whistle suddenly echoed. Rays of white light suddenly flew in like snowflakes, splitting into three groups: lower, middle, and upper.
A swath of white light rapidly expanded, firmly supporting Cang Ming and Wei Ci. Another swarm of white light danced around the area, engulfing the thousand-year-old floating corpse. The remaining slivers of white light transformed into shields, blocking the falling rocks overhead.
Cang Ming gasped for a while, trembling all over. A huge feeling of drowning came over her, and her heart began to beat uncontrollably. Wei Ci turned his head cooperatively, without even looking at her or asking any questions.
After a while, Cang Ming recovered his breath, reached out and touched the white light under his knees, and asked curiously, "Like a piece of paper?"
The white paper was speckled with silver light, almost transparent, like butterfly wings, with faint ink-colored lines flowing.
Wei Ci sat cross-legged beside her, one leg bent and his arm resting on it. Another whistle was heard, and the large paper under the seat carried them slowly to the ground.
As soon as the two men stepped on the ground, the big paper rolled over, like an open page of a book, flapping its wings and flying away.
In this cavernous, slate-stoned floor, patches of dark green or dark purple were dissipating and fading. Silvery-white flames streamed past and vanished in an instant, reducing everything to ash. A few pages, like white birds with outstretched wings, soared around the cave floor, then turned and vanished.
Cang Ming glanced at him and said, "Those traces...are they from those floating corpses just now?"
"Yeah." He nodded casually.
The white light overhead lifted the huge rocks and sand, which crashed down to the corner of the wall, forming a statue that looked like a deputy general. Then, the white light transformed back into the form of pages and vanished with a flap of its wings.
In a moment, the three white paper army formations at the top, middle and bottom had disappeared without a trace, as if they had never appeared.
Cang Ming clapped her hands: "It came like a spring dream, and left like the morning glow. Is this your hidden weapon?" She turned her head to Wei Ci: "Nakano Hiou?"
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