41 The Pride of Heaven (Part Thirteen)
A kiss? Not her.
How could this be? How did he get here?
Seeing that the person who came was not her clone, Ran Qinghe's heart, which had been hanging in suspense, finally settled down. Although she did not know why her clone had suddenly disappeared, it was indeed a good thing.
She folded the long whip in her hand and put it away, giving Lou Tinglan a slight nod awkwardly to avoid his direct gaze.
She had a gut feeling that Lou Tinglan seemed strange this time, but then she thought again, hadn't he always been strange and unpredictable?
Out of the corner of her eye, she involuntarily glanced at his forehead, where a headband still bound his forehead, completely obscuring the Dao Heart Tribulation Mark.
Overjoyed, Mingyu stepped past Ran Qinghe and said, "Junior brother, you're late. We just finished dismantling all the protective bodies in the Mirror Domain. If you had come earlier, you could have witnessed your senior brother's unstoppable prowess."
Ran Qinghe raised an eyebrow, and the provocative words slipped out again: "It should be Feng Zi, who was almost bitten to death by a spirit beast, right?"
When Mingyu saw that she had seen through her words, she was not angry. She continued to explain herself and boast, "If I hadn't commanded Hua Jin, how could Hua Jin have killed my clone so quickly, and how could she have gotten away to ambush Fu Ji's clone?"
"If Fu Ji's protective body hadn't been ambushed, how could you have killed it and also saved Fu Ji from being entangled with two women?"
Mingyu didn't want to take credit, but the more he talked, the more he felt that he had made an indispensable contribution. He stepped forward, put his arm around Lou Tinglan's shoulder, and began to dream: "Once this Mirror Domain is broken, the winner of the academy's selection will undoubtedly be us."
This year, he has finally seen the light at the end of the tunnel.
Lou Tinglan's face remained tense until she heard the words "the clone was killed," at which point her eyelids lifted slightly.
"Is that so?" Lou Tinglan said casually.
His tone was strange, completely different from his usual self, with a hint of indifference that was hard to detect.
Suddenly, Ran Qinghe's heart skipped a beat, and a strange sense of unease washed over her. She shouted at Mingyu, "Mingyu, get out of the way!"
However, these words came a little too late.
The instant she uttered Mingyu's name, Lou Tinglan's Tranquil Sword was drawn, swiftly and accurately slicing Mingyu's neck.
In the blink of an eye, blood spurted from her neck. Mingyu clutched her wound tightly, her eyes wide with disbelief as she collapsed to the ground.
All five of them clearly realized that the person standing in front of them was not the real Lou Tinglan, but a clone of Lou Tinglan.
Ran Qinghe lashed out with his long whip, and the cat that had been nestled in Hua Jin's arms suddenly broke free from his grasp, stood in front of Ran Qinghe, and snarled intimidating the newcomer. Fu Ji shielded Shui Rong'er behind him with one hand and activated the talisman with the other.
Even when a general was about to slit his throat with his sword, Lou Tinglan remained calm, as if the matter was nothing more than a trivial matter to him.
The sword of tranquility was stained with blood, which seeped into the ground beneath its feet drop by drop.
After a few seconds of standoff, Meow Meow was the first to rush forward, maintaining her stance and continuing to hold onto the Tranquil Heart Sword tightly, thus restraining Lou Tinglan's movements.
Ran Qinghe waited for his chance to strike. In just a few breaths, the tip of the whip had already wrapped around his left arm, while Fu Ji had bitten off his finger and used his blood as a pen to draw a talisman to attack Lou Tinglan's right side.
Three different attacks came from three directions. Lou Tinglan frowned slightly, discarded the Tranquil Heart Sword in her hand, and used the spirit beast that was biting the sword to block Fu Ji's fire scorching technique.
But when faced with Ran Qinghe's attack, he hesitated for a moment, paused for a breath, and then used his spiritual power to shake off the long whip that was wrapped around his arm.
Scorched by the fire spell, Meow Meow was forced to angrily release the Tranquility Sword. Summoned by Flower Ash, it returned to its original form, intending to swallow this troublesome clone whole.
The sword spirit within the Tranquil Heart Sword, without needing Lou Tinglan's summons, automatically engaged in combat with the spirit beast. Meanwhile, "he" withdrew to fight Ran Qinghe.
Although both were at the early stage of the Nascent Soul realm, Lou Tinglan alone was able to fight on par with her, the Heavenly Rank spirit beast, and Fu Ji. Ran Qinghe felt something was amiss. From the Mirror of Past Lives, she had already sensed that Lou Tinglan's spiritual power was far less than it appeared on the surface.
Taking advantage of the clash of their spiritual energies and the resulting dust, Ran Qinghe secretly gave Fu Ji a wink. Fu Ji understood and discreetly protected Shui Rong'er, moving her aside to avoid the attack.
She secretly mixed her own talismans into the talismans controlled by Fu Ji.
Then, she intensified the spiritual energy attack unleashed by the whip's tail, forcing Lou Tinglan to temporarily become unable to focus. Taking advantage of this opportunity, Ran Qinghe activated the talisman, scattering all the poison powder it emitted.
Lou Tinglan, as if anticipating this, raised his hand to create a barrier, firmly blocking the poison powder. A faint smile played at the corner of his lips, and he raised an eyebrow, as if to say, "This trick again?"
Provoked by "him", Ran Qinghe disregarded all rules and unleashed her spiritual power like a rain of arrows.
Lou Tinglan did not retaliate, but instead skillfully summoned a spiritual barrier to block.
She suddenly felt a strange sense of familiarity well up in her heart, and after a moment's thought, she pieced together his reaction.
She turned to Hua Jin and shouted, "Summon the spirit beasts, immediately!"
However, it was too late.
Beneath the spirit beast's feet, the binding array drawn by the Tranquil Mind Sword had taken shape. The overwhelming golden net tightly bound the spirit beast and its master, preventing them from moving an inch.
This scene feels just like it happened yesterday.
When she first met Lou Tinglan, he easily broke her usual trick—using talismans openly and poison secretly—and then, step by step, just like setting up an array to trap the spirit beast, he trapped her and put her in shackles.
She couldn't suppress her inner vexation; it was the same move again, yet she hadn't noticed in time. A moment of distraction slowed her dodge, and "his" spirit blade grazed her cheek, drawing a trickle of blood.
Whether it was her imagination or not, Lou Tinglan's spiritual power seemed to stagnate for a moment after injuring her face before resuming.
Currently, Hua Jin is controlled by the binding array, and Ming Yu taught "him" to slit his own throat. As for Fu Ji, he secretly moved to Ming Yu's side to treat Shui Rong'er, and was also too busy to be in two places at once.
Lou Tinglan was closing in step by step, while the spiritual energy in her body was being consumed continuously. If this continued, she would eventually collapse from exhaustion and be at his mercy.
She must come up with a solution as soon as possible.
Suddenly, Fu Ji's words rang out again: "The replicas in the Mirror Domain react in exactly the same way as the cultivators themselves."
She suddenly smiled, connecting all the awkwardness from before. He always stopped abruptly after hurting her, and even though it was just a tiny pause, it was enough for her to take advantage of.
The spiritual power she unleashed with the tip of her whip grew weaker with each strike, as if it were about to be exhausted. Lou Tinglan, however, calmly and methodically dealt with her attacks, and even began to gain a slight advantage.
Ran Qinghe was forced to retreat repeatedly, and her perfect defense inadvertently revealed a flaw. Lou Tinglan summoned his sword and took the opportunity to pierce through the bone in her hand that was holding the whip.
The moment the sword pierced through, "Lou Tinglan" paused almost imperceptibly for a second, and that was the opportunity Ran Qinghe had been waiting for.
Taking advantage of his unguarded close-range attack on her, Ran Qinghe did not hesitate to concentrate all her spiritual power into her left palm, which she then easily shattered his dantian.
All of this happened in the instant that Lou Tinglan paused. Before turning into fragments, his eyes were no longer so empty. For a moment, a mixture of surprise, confusion, sadness, and helplessness appeared.
But all these emotions eventually dissipated into dust and vanished without a trace as the covering shattered.
*
When Lou Tinglan first entered the Void Cauldron, he found himself in what appeared to be an ordinary-looking ruin.
He didn't quite understand the three elders' intentions. Since they had already secretly sent disciples from the Discipline Hall into the cauldron, why did they insist on having him enter as well?
Since he was assigned to protect the disciples of the five sects, he should at least have been informed of their exact locations beforehand.
He didn't think about any of these things carefully before rushing downstairs.
He hesitated, pursed his lips, and finally put the headband he had taken off back on his forehead.
The Dao Heart Tribulation Seal remained safely sealed on the spiritual platform. Lou Tinglan didn't care much whether it was visible or not. The reason he suddenly wore a headband was because he needed to preside over the academy's selection today.
He couldn't be so casual in front of the elders and the disciples of the five sects.
He glanced around at his surroundings; there were only messy weeds and bushes hidden in the shadows, nothing else.
He released his spiritual sense, and in the utter silence, he faintly sensed a fluctuation of spiritual energy slowly approaching him. As for the aura, it was all too familiar.
He lit a fire talisman, turned around helplessly, and in the firelight, the light and shadow on "Ran Qinghe's" face were intertwined, making her look like a ghost.
He took a step back, creating some distance between them, and asked, "What's wrong?" It seemed that she was all alone; had she gotten separated from Mingyu and the others?
Ran Qinghe, abandoning her usual cold demeanor towards him, stepped forward, stood on tiptoe, and looked up at him with a smile in her eyes.
Suddenly, Ran Qinghe brought the two of them extremely close, close enough for him to see her black jade-like eyes, long eyelashes, and slightly moist red lips.
She didn't answer him, but just kept looking at him in that position.
Lou Tinglan took another step back, creating some distance, but "Ran Qinghe" leaned forward again, staring at his lips. Lou Tinglan took a step back, and Ran Qinghe took a step forward, the two of them playing house, going back and forth like children.
Finally, Lou Tinglan reached out and placed her hand on her shoulder, stopping her from making any further moves.
She grabbed his shirt collar and ripped it off. Their breaths met, their noses touched, and their lips were only a finger's width apart.
His hands, which were holding her shoulders, began to tremble slightly. Through her clothes, he could feel that her usually warm skin was now icy cold.
However, this coolness was suddenly turned scorching hot by his slightly sweaty palms.
He closed his eyes, as if silently acquiescing to "her" action.
However, in the next second, he caught the blade she was thrusting at him.
"You're not her, so who are you?"
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