ILDV Chapter 77

Jiang Mingyue deliberately chose to visit Xu Rong when the wounds from her punishment had not yet faded, and it was close to evening when everyone returned to their rooms.

The protagonist of “Defying Heaven,” the Child of Destiny of this world, the Divine Sovereign who was destined to ascend in the future.

Such an excellent man—if she didn’t hurry to occupy a place in his heart while he was still insignificant, did she have to wait until this man dominated his domain with three palaces, six courts, and seventy-two consorts before rushing over to curry favor?

The original host was just foolish. Apart from the sect, there was nothing else in her eyes. She had such excellent figure and temperament, yet insisted on covering it up with mourning clothes, wasting her heaven-gifted beauty.

Fortunately, she had transmigrated at a time that wasn’t too late. The male lead currently only had some ambiguous relationship with a junior martial sister within the sect. Once she got rid of Li Shuihe, who held the ‘legitimate’ title of fiancée, with such a chaste and noble ice-mountain beauty taking the initiative to show favor and throw herself into his arms, how could he not be moved?

First deal with Li Shuihe, then kill Ji Chang’an. Lin Xinqiao wasn’t much of a threat. The demonic path’s young lady Yan Shu seemed to still be far from their first meeting… Mm, she needed to pay more attention to the ‘female lead’ Li Baisu who was staying at Taihua Immortal Sect…

Silently planning in her heart the order in which to eliminate the male lead’s romantic interests, Jiang Mingyue tiptoed to the area where Taihua Immortal Sect’s visitors were temporarily residing.

This location was specially arranged by her. Among the various immortal sects’ residences, the spiritual qi here was the most abundant. Although those old fossils had removed the cold jade bed and other excessive items she had secretly placed there after reprimanding her, it was inconvenient to readjust the residence in front of the sects that had already arrived.

Just around the corner was Xu Rong’s courtyard. Jiang Mingyue reached up to touch her reddened cheek, and when her fingers touched her fair skin, the pain made her features twitch.

That old fossil had struck too hard!

She forced herself to endure the pain and adjust her posture and expression. Feeling that she was beautiful from head to toe, like the Goddess of Luo descending to the mortal world, she gracefully moved forward with light steps, swaying as she turned the corner.

Sensing the familiar aura not far ahead, Jiang Mingyue adjusted the details once more, casually revealing her reddened cheek, and slowly raised her head. “Xu…”

“!!!”

She stared in disbelief at the two people with their hair tangled together and fingers intertwined, letting out a nearly broken scream from her throat. “What are you doing!” 

Jiang Mingyue rushed forward to tear apart the two people stuck together, raising her hand to slap the little slut who dared to snatch the man she had her eye on. “You little slut, you dare—”

Then she was kicked out, her face covered by cascading hair.

Jiang Mingyue clutched her abdomen in pain. This kick was much harder than the slap the Sect Master had given her in anger. Even breathing was mixed with severe pain, almost making her lose the ability to think.

She struggled to push aside her hair and raised her head. The handsome youth with somewhat familiar features frowned at her and opened his mouth to speak. “You…”

Kicking away the intruder was purely combat instinct. Only now did Yin Lang clearly see who had come, and besides annoyance, couldn’t help but feel the urge to facepalm.

These inexplicable intruders—were most of them missing something in their brains? Behaving so differently from the original host, were they afraid acquaintances wouldn’t notice the abnormality?

Yin Lang crossed his arms and looked down at her, actually wanting to see what new tricks these intelligence-dropping intruders could pull.

Then he heard Jiang Mingyue say in a voice that sounded like she was about to die—

“You… are male, so… could it be that Xu Rong likes… men?”

“…”

This lord should have just kicked you to death earlier.

Xu Rong jumped up as if his butt was on fire and declared loudly, “Shizun, don’t listen to her nonsense! From the first moment this disciple arrived at Jietian Dao Sect and saw her, the Saintess’s mental state has been very confused. Shizun saved this disciple from danger and destitution. This disciple only has deep admiration for Shizun—how dare I have such disrespectful thoughts!” 

“Shizun?!”

Jiang Mingyue was even more shocked than him, pointing at Yin Lang and screaming, “You’re Li Baisu? Impossible! Li Baisu is clearly a woman! You don’t have breasts or a butt at all!”

Her spirit in a trance, she murmured, “Could it be that the female lead had a gender swap… no, this is too terrifying…”

“…”

“…”

This lord is tired. Let the world be destroyed.

Fortunately, before Yin Lang’s patience was completely exhausted, people from Jietian Dao Sect arrived in time to end this farce.

Before Jiang Mingyue could say anything else in public that couldn’t be salvaged, Yin Lang neatly delivered a hand-chop to knock her out, grabbed her by the waist, and casually tossed her to the person from the Dao Sect. “Your sect’s Saintess seems to have suffered trauma at the consciousness level. Before her injuries heal, she should rest peacefully in her cave dwelling.”

This explanation was relatively tactful, but it was only slightly better than pointing at her head and saying she was crazy and needed to be locked up so she wouldn’t disturb the public.

The face of the person from Jietian Dao Sect didn’t look good, but seeing Tianji Daojun’s even worse expression and their own Saintess who didn’t know what trouble she had caused, they still swallowed what they wanted to say. After bowing and expressing apologies, they obediently took the person and left.

Xu Rong lowered his head and shuffled a few steps closer. “Shizun…”

Yin Lang said indifferently, “It’s late. Go back and rest.”

Xu Rong raised his head in alarm, explaining helplessly, “Shizun, I truly have no relationship whatsoever with that Jietian Saintess. When I first came to this place with the sect, the Saintess showed me exceptional enthusiasm and kindness. I’ve never seen her before, and I don’t know why she would—”

“It’s late.”

Yin Lang repeated it again, softening his tone slightly to comfort him. “You still have a match tomorrow. If you sleep too late, you’ll lack energy. Go back and rest quickly.”

Xu Rong looked up.

Shen Muxuan’s expression was very normal, and the inquiring gaze he cast over when he sensed his eyes was no different from usual.

He breathed a slight sigh of relief. Recalling this person’s usual way of doing things, he indeed wouldn’t take such obvious nonsense seriously. After bowing again, he obediently returned to his room to rest.

Yin Lang also turned and entered the small courtyard. His courtyard was separated from his disciples’ by quite a distance, with only a few clusters of green bamboo planted in the direction the window faced.

He waved his hand to close the half-opened window, then turned and left the room to sit down in the courtyard.

“Come out.”

After some rustling sounds in the shadows atop the wall, a figure tumbled out, landing in the courtyard in a not-so-graceful manner.

“Cough…” Ji Chang’an coughed twice somewhat awkwardly. Opening her mouth, facing the Demon Venerable who already knew where she came from, she still couldn’t bring herself to call out the words “Martial Uncle.”

Yin Lang said, “Thank you for the warning tonight.”

Ji Chang’an was flattered and shook her head repeatedly. Just as she was about to say “It’s just a transmigrated intelligence-dropping Saintess—even if I hadn’t called anyone, she’d be no match for you,” she heard the second half of Yin Lang’s sentence—

“Otherwise, Martial Uncle might not have been able to resist drawing his sword to cut down this woman, and then provoking that old thing Wu Daozhu wouldn’t have been worth it.”

Ji Chang’an: “…”

After all this, why do I still have this kind of filter for the villain boss! This person isn’t the type to back down at all!

She nodded woodenly. “…Since you already know what happened to Jiang Mingyue, this martial niece won’t say more.”

The transmigrated version of Jiang Mingyue making contact with the protagonist and such—Ji Chang’an, who had seen through it all, had long stopped caring. Running out to find someone in the middle of the night was originally meant to remind Yin Lang to be careful, but after watching this “fellow transmigrator’s” fierce-as-a-tiger operations, she knew all her prepared subtle reminders could be saved.

Suppressing the yawn that had reached her lips, Ji Chang’an bowed again and nimbly climbed up the wall. Just as she was about to jump down, she turned her head back as if possessed.

Under the clear, water-like moonlight, the corridor’s accumulated water was clear and bright, bamboo shadows crisscrossed, and the youth sat straight-backed at the stone table, his figure so thin it seemed he could be blown away by the wind at any moment.

Seeming to sense that Ji Chang’an hadn’t left yet, he raised his head to glance over from afar, his dark eyes peaceful and calm, untainted by malevolent qi.

The night wind blew down loosened bamboo leaves, spiraling as they were about to fall on his shoulder.

Ji Chang’an’s brain heated up, and in that split second, she thought of a detail from the original work. By the time she regained consciousness, she was already standing across from the stone table again, on her tiptoes with her upper body leaning forward, two fingers pinching a bamboo leaf, meeting Yin Lang’s puzzled gaze.

………..!!!

Have I gone mad…

However, having already returned, she could only pretend nothing had happened and hide the bamboo leaf behind her back, sit down and pick up the teacup on the table, stammering as she tried to find a topic, waiting for an opportunity to slip away.

From the achievements Taihua Immortal Sect’s disciples had made in the trials these past days to the customs and culture of the Southern Region—no matter what she said, Yin Lang could listen calmly, occasionally responding with a word or two, showing no signs of irritation.

Until there was really nothing left to say, and she felt that anything more would touch the other’s sensitive points, holding the teacup that had just been refilled and feeling her stomach bloated with tea, Ji Chang’an finally couldn’t sit still.

She put down the warm teacup, her toes shuffling on the ground, not daring to look into Yin Lang’s eyes as she lowered her head. “Um… I quite like the fragrance of bamboo. If Mar-Martial Uncle doesn’t mind, could you… could you let me cut down the bamboo grove in your courtyard and take it with me?”

When there was no response for a long time, her face instantly turned completely red, feeling that her brain must have short-circuited to come meddle in Yin Lang’s business.

“Well… actually, never mind, I don’t really like it that much…”

From across the table came a soft laugh, so light it seemed like Ji Chang’an’s own imagination.

Yin Lang said, “Go ahead and cut it.”

Ji Chang’an shot out like flying, drew the Xiehong sword and went on a wild cutting spree.

Bamboo leaves rustled down, her face buried in her chest, almost ready to fold herself in half and suffocate. 

Carrying a large bundle of bamboo as she climbed over the courtyard wall, she was nearly mistaken for some kind of monster by the female disciples in the same courtyard.

With great difficulty confirming who had returned, the female disciple said with both laughter and tears, helping her pick off the scattered bamboo leaves from her back, scolding, “What are you doing, running out in the middle of the night to cut someone else’s bamboo? I never noticed you particularly liked this thing before…”

Ji Chang’an scratched her head, her voice soft, “I just felt… in that moment, he must have been very sad.”

“Huh? What did you say?”

The rustling sounds covered her already quiet voice. The female disciple raised her voice and asked again. Ji Chang’an shook her head, putting on a smile. “Nothing, just doing a good deed for the day! Hurry up and pick them off, it’s very late and you still have a match tomorrow!”