Return (Part 3)
"Tao Hua, Madam Xi is back?"
"Yes, he went to Lingxiao Palace as soon as he got back. He said he had something important to report."
"So anxious? Could it be related to the Northern Drought Demon..."
Heqi frowned upon hearing this, muttered to himself, then raised his head and ordered:
"Since Madam Xi has gone out for something... Taohua, take Heshu back to Linghua Xianque first and keep a close eye on him. Don't let him run around."
"yes."
Tao Hua nodded in acceptance. After He Qi disappeared, she turned to the still dazed He Shu and patted him on the shoulder.
"Why are you so uneasy? Did you go to the human world and even lost your soul?"
“No way…”
He Shu took a deep breath, suppressed his turbulent emotions, and forced a smile.
"I'm just worried about how Madam Xi will punish me when she comes back."
"Yeah?"
Tao Hua dragged out the last syllable of the word and suddenly moved closer, with their noses almost touching.
The suddenly approaching breath brought an unfamiliar sense of oppression. He Shu subconsciously took a half step back and raised his hand to block it.
"You were injured in the human world, so it can't be considered intentional..."
Tao Hua's voice was still gentle, her beautiful eyes were crooked, but there was no trace of the former gentleness. There was only a heart-pounding depth in the depths of her pupils.
"Madam Xi will definitely not blame you."
He Shu stumbled to his feet and turned his head to avoid the other person's sight, but alarm bells were ringing in his heart. This person in front of him... why is there something wrong...
He was not familiar with Tao Hua, although they came to work with Madam Xi at about the same time, but she was more capable than himself, so she was more valued.
The two of them had met quite a few times, but never before had she been as close to him as she was now.
"Is that so?"
Doubts swirled in He Shu's mind, and suddenly an idea flashed through his mind like lightning:
Even Heqi doesn’t know what happened to him in the human world, so how could Taohua in heaven know?
"But Tao Hua, how did you know about this..."
"Well..."
Tao Hua raised her eyebrows and took a step back calmly.
"I know a little bit about medicine. Your injury..."
Her fingertips lightly touched He Shu's heart, and a ray of purple spiritual light with a burning breath flashed across her fingertips.
"Bearing the mark of the heavenly thunder tribulation... it cannot escape my sight. This wound is quite large, it must be very painful..."
"You're so lucky that even the thunder can't kill you..."
The word "thunder" exploded in He Shu's ears, his pupils shrank suddenly, and his feathers stood up instantly, and dense down feathers emerged uncontrollably from the sides of his neck and the back of his hands.
His sea of consciousness felt as if it had been hit hard by a heavy hammer, and the severe pain made his vision go black.
The mysterious tree demon, the blinding lightning, the tearing pain... all the fragments of memory exploded, clearer than any previous recollection, almost as if you were there.
He groaned, his knees went weak, and he almost fell to his knees.
The tree demon's vines pierced through the muscles and bones of his heart, but did not kill him. Instead, they stopped in front of his heart.
When the thunder struck him and he lost consciousness due to the severe pain, all he could see was the tree demon's determined back as it took away the vines.
"You...how do you...know this?"
"Ah, have you forgotten? I was originally an ascended immortal from Luzhu Mountain. All the plants and trees in the mountains are my eyes and ears. If I want to know anything, isn't it easy?"
"Immortal Envoy?"
He Shu suppressed his discomfort, his voice trembling as he asked tentatively, but his fingertips had already secretly formed a seal, and a barely perceptible golden light suddenly flew out from his sleeves.
"But Xuan Tongzi said that the immortal envoy of Luzhu Mountain is transcending the tribulation and ascending to heaven..."
"Tsk, Xuan Tongzi isn't an old fool..."
Tao Hua chuckled softly, but that smile was devoid of warmth.
"I have ascended to heaven after completing my merits. Naturally, there will be someone to take my place. It's just a matter of immortal emissaries rotating duties. What's so difficult to understand?"
After she finished speaking, she turned around, not wanting to continue this topic, and led the way as Heqi had instructed before leaving.
"Alright, alright. You don't seem to be feeling well. Go back to Linghua Xianque and get some rest."
He Shu still had some concerns in his heart. He hesitated, but when he saw the man walking away, he still raised his feet and followed him.
But not long after he walked, his eyes were suddenly filled with a bright peach color, and the sweet and almost suffocating fragrance instantly enveloped him.
He Shu suddenly stopped and looked around, only to find that everything around him was extremely unfamiliar.
"Where is this?"
He Shu frowned uneasily, and the premonition of danger in his heart became stronger and stronger.
There must be something wrong when things are abnormal. Although I live a life of going to and from work in the fairyland and have not been to many places, the sudden appearance of such a peach forest in full bloom seems weird no matter how you look at it.
"somewhere I Belong."
He Shu quietly took a step back.
"Your residence? Why did you bring me here? Aren't we going back to Linghua Xianque?"
"How about it? It's beautiful here, isn't it..."
Tao Hua answered the question irrelevantly.
She smiled and pointed in the air in front of Heshu. The falling petals stopped in the air, and then with the movement of her fingertips, a gust of wind with the fragrance of flowers rolled up, surrounded Heshu, and wrapped him tightly little by little.
The petals in the wind became denser and denser, until they almost completely blocked He Shu's sight, and Tao Hua's figure gradually became blurred among the flying pink petals.
"Tao Hua, what are you doing!"
He Shu sensed something was wrong and immediately made hand gestures, golden light gushed out, but his heart twitched and his spiritual power stagnated, and the protective shield he had formed instantly dimmed a bit.
In a flash, the beautiful scenery of the peach forest disappeared, but the petals surrounding him got closer and closer, shooting towards him like blades, and the moment they touched the golden light, they turned into pink mist and exploded.
"What's wrong? Don't you want to see these? The petals flying around, it looks so much like the human world you've been dreaming of..."
"Peach painting..."
"Peach painting? Hahaha——"
The person hidden among the flying petals suddenly burst into a sharp and piercing laugh.
"Don't call me Tao Hua!"
Her laughter was filled with madness and resentment, causing the peach blossoms around her to scatter.
"...Chun Fei, calm down..."
Seeing Tao Hua suddenly lose control of her emotions, He Shu didn't dare to move and could only call her real name.
"Haruhi... heh..."
"Chun Fei, ah Chun Fei, even this little crane fairy knows who you are, but you yourself have forgotten? Become a fairy... Become a fairy..."
"What good is there in becoming an immortal? What good is there in becoming an immortal?"
Tao Hua lowered her eyes and flew into the air, the petals around her attacked He Shu even more crazily.
"Do you think you can abandon me like this... I won't let you succeed, never..."
No matter how slow he was, He Shu understood what was going on.
Just now he naively thought that Tao Hua was in a bad mood, so she behaved a little strangely, but now it seems that the situation is much worse...
Who on earth has such ability that he dares to disguise himself as an immortal servant and sneak into the heavenly palace?
Everything happened so fast that he had no time to react. He could only force himself to remain calm, trying his best to hide the trembling in his voice, and asked sternly:
"Who are you, and what's your purpose in pretending to be Tao Hua?"
All the unknown things made his heart beat violently in his chest, and his eyes were fixed on the person flying into the air.
Seeing her tilt her head and curl her lips, the madly spinning storm of petals suddenly stopped at this moment, and the rain of flowers in the sky seemed to have lost its life. They withered and fell to the ground, silently piling up at He Shu's feet.
"My name is Huaiguang, naturally it's for—"
"You come..."
Amidst her wild laughter, Huaiguang's figure began to twist and change. Her light pink fairy costume gradually turned into a black robe, half covering her beautiful face which was still exactly the same as Tao Hua's.
"It's you!"
He Shu took a deep breath and his pupils suddenly shrank.
This familiar black robe and answer—it was the tree demon on Luzhu Mountain that almost killed him!
"I never thought that you, who should have been reduced to ashes, would have such good fortune..."
Huaiguang no longer pretended. She sneered, and a strange dark green light lingered between her fingers.
With a light stroke, the golden light that protected He Shu's body, which condensed all his strength, shattered again like fragile glass, turning into fireflies that dissipated in the wild peach blossom wind.
He Shu gritted his teeth, flapped his wings rapidly, and his body shot backwards like an arrow.
This monster's magic power was already profound, and after just a few days of not seeing him, it had improved significantly. Now he was suppressed to the point where he had no chance of winning...
Fortunately, he had noticed something was wrong earlier and had already sent a message to Heqi. As long as he could hold on until reinforcements arrived, there was still a glimmer of hope.
"With such good fortune, no wonder he was favored by old man Xuan Tongzi..."
Huaiguang's voice was like a thorn in the flesh, full of teasing and playful tone. She always followed Heshu slowly and leisurely, like a shadow, and could not be shaken off no matter how hard she tried.
He Shu had no time to pay attention to Huaiguang's chattering. His ears were filled with the whistling wind and his own heartbeat as heavy as a drum.
"But why? Why would such a good opportunity fall to a loser like you? Why not... give it to me..."
The soft sound was like a poisonous snake spitting out its tongue, coming from behind He Shu, and then getting closer and closer, until it turned into a suppressed breath of excitement, pressing against his ear.
"He Shu... Thank you so much for blocking that thunder tribulation for me..."
The cold vines gradually approached his neck, then slowly gripped it, and suddenly tightened their grip, locking him in place and making him unable to move.
"Uh uh... cough cough cough——"
The larynx made a teeth-grinding "crunching" sound as the vines strangled it, and the air was cut off in an instant.
Every futile breath felt like swallowing hot gravel, and the burning pain went straight from the throat to the lungs.
Golden light flashed before his eyes, and his vision was quickly swallowed up by blood and black spots. The blood vessels on the side of his neck were pulsating wildly under his skin, bulging and about to burst.
Huaiguang, who was so close, looked like a ghost in the distorted and shaking vision, blurred into a ball. Only the vines tightly wrapped around his throat were clear as if they were about to embed into his flesh.
"It's a pity... that the thunderbolt didn't kill you. It ruined my plan, which is unacceptable."
The suffocation was like a cold wave drowning his head. He Shu subconsciously scratched the demon vine that was tightening around his neck, and he was unaware that his nails were breaking and bleeding.
Huaiguang's fingers slowly stroked his flushed and purple cheeks. His movements were gentle, but the corners of his mouth were hooked in a cruel arc, and his voice was poisonous:
"But it's not too late now... Then go to hell obediently..."
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