Chapter 11
Well fed and sleeping soundly, Xia Mo was jolted awake by the noise. It chirped several times in irritation.
Shu Li walked over and patted its head soothingly.
Xia Mo pouted in grievance, pushed aside his veil, and rolled into his arms. It was just about to howl and act spoiled when it looked up at his expression.
Every hair on its body stood on end.
Its entire body stiffened, and it rolled straight back out.
Shu Li was terrifying. Waaah.
The next morning, Yu Tai and Xia Mo stared at the half-raw, blackened object before them. They exchanged a glance and saw the same horror on each other’s face.
Was this fucking thing fit for a human-or a panda-to eat!?
Shu Li sat across from them at his leisure and asked in a soft, gentle voice, “Is it not to your taste?”
Yu Tai’s expression became complicated.
Who said the saintly male lead had no temper?
When he lost it, the consequences were deadly!
Depriving Yu Tai of good food was the same as taking her life.
Fine. She admitted that once she obtained the righteous qi last night, she should have stopped. She should not have gotten carried away and threatened something so important to the male lead.
Xia Mo sniffed. Remembering Shu Li’s expression the night before, it silently suppressed its own temper and stretched both paws toward the demon-beast pouch at Yu Tai’s waist.
Couldn’t it just chew bamboo instead?
Yu Tai looked at the meat before her, then at Xia Mo happily gnawing bamboo.
“Is it good?” she asked darkly.
Xia Mo gave her a wary look, hugged the bamboo, and moved farther away.
Yu Tai laughed in exasperation. “Look at you guarding your food. It’s not like I’m going to steal it.”
Then she turned to Shu Li and lied without changing expression. “I ate too much last night, so I have no appetite this morning. Thank you, Senior Brother, for going to the trouble of cooking.”
Shu Li shook his head. “It was no trouble.”
Once Xia Mo finished its bamboo, Yu Tai made a few simple preparations and rose.
Not far away, Mo Xiaowei and the others hurried to their feet when they saw her preparing to leave.
Yu Tai pretended not to notice. As before, she made Shu Li and Xia Mo walk ahead while she followed.
Most demon beasts in this region were not particularly high-ranked, and Xia Mo dealt with them effortlessly. It had also eaten beast cores throughout the journey, causing its strength to soar. Yu Tai felt increasingly reassured.
After Xia Mo disposed of a pair of Flamebirds that resembled doomed lovers, it showed no interest in their inner cores. It had eaten far too many along the way and left the corpses where they fell.
Yu Tai glanced back. Mo Xiaowei’s group was delightedly cutting the valuable parts from the Flamebirds and stuffing them into their spatial pouches.
Yu Tai’s lips curved. She called to Shu Li ahead, “Look at them. Don’t they resemble scavengers picking through garbage?”
At her words, Shu Li looked back without pausing. “Things we no longer need are simply being collected by those who do.”
Yu Tai nodded. “Yes, yes. You’re absolutely right.”
She quickened her pace until she walked beside him.
“When I asked whether you wanted to kill those people on the cloudship, why did you shake your head?”
Shu Li answered placidly, “I merely felt there was no point.”
Yu Tai scoffed. “If killing the people who once humiliated you has no point, then tell me what does.”
When Shu Li did not answer, Yu Tai controlled the chain and made it shorten. The force dragged him closer.
Her soft body pressed against his arm. She hooked a finger through the hanging veil and slipped it inside, twining her fingers around his. Her voice dropped to a murmur.
“Then do I have meaning to you?”
Do you want to kill me?
Surely the answer is yes. How could you not want to kill me, Shu Li? I’m the one who reduced you to this.
Why won’t you direct your killing intent at me and reveal your true ambitions?
The System fell silent.
Should it remind its host not to become too immersed in the role?
The original owner did all that! It had nothing to do with you!
Everyone else wanted to tear out their fresh new soul and show it to the protagonist as proof of their innocence.
Its host, meanwhile, was in a hurry to shoulder every terrible deed committed by the original owner.
The worst part was that the System could not interfere. It could only watch as its host traveled ever farther down the path of ensuring the vicious female supporting character would never turn over a new leaf.
It was over. Would it become the first System in the history of the Transmigration Bureau to be erased for failing its mission immediately after taking up its post?
Waaah.
Warmth from those delicate fingers seeped into Shu Li’s cool palm, leaving him unaccustomed to the sensation.
Fortunately, the veiled hat concealed his face. No one could see his faint frown.
Did Shu Li want to kill Yu Tai?
He did not answer, returning to the same serene silence he had maintained on the cloudship.
Yu Tai thought, *Keep pretending. Sooner or later, I’ll make you bare every fang.*
When Xia Mo grew tired, Yu Tai put it back into the demon-beast pouch. Perhaps Yu Tai imagined it, but the air around them was becoming drier, and the bizarre giant plants were growing scarcer.
Yu Tai had a vague premonition that they were approaching the desert from the original novel.
“Let’s rest here.”
Shu Li was only human now, and his stamina could not compare with a cultivator’s. Yu Tai had no intention of letting something go wrong at a critical moment.
They had barely sat down when Mo Xiaowei’s group, who had spent the day scavenging behind them, arrived as well.
Perhaps aware that his behavior was shameless, Passerby forced himself to address Yu Tai.
“Fellow Cultivator, could we also rest…?”
Before he finished, Yu Tai nodded and gestured for them to do as they pleased.
It should be about time, she thought.
Mo Xiaowei had been listless all day. Her Senior Brothers knew she was in a poor mood after the tantrum the night before, so they took turns coaxing her. When none of them could draw a pleasant expression from her, they eventually grew annoyed and left her to mope.
Sitting on a clean rock, Mo Xiaowei’s gaze drifted involuntarily toward the veiled “demon beast” beside Yu Tai.
Was he truly a demon beast?
How could he look like that? Was Yu Tai concealing his face to keep other people from coveting him?
It was not unheard of for people to do that sort of thing with demon beasts that had managed to take human form. They simply did not discuss it in public.
The thought of Yu Tai made her grind her teeth.
That shameless bitch!
The scene from last night flashed repeatedly through Mo Xiaowei’s mind, twisting her expression for a moment.
But if he looked like that, perhaps it would not be so bad…
As the thought arose, the person she had been secretly watching suddenly stood. Yu Tai did not even raise her head as he walked in the opposite direction, where the faint sound of running water could be heard.
Mo Xiaowei watched the chain between them extend with his every step and pursed her lips.
By the time she realized what she was doing, she had already risen.
“What is it, Junior Sister?”
Mo Xiaowei jolted. “I… I’m going to… get some water.”
With that, she hurried away in a panic.
As she passed Yu Tai, Mo Xiaowei deliberately looked at her. Yu Tai did not appear to care where Xiaowei was going.
Mo Xiaowei actually sighed in relief.
Only afterward did she wonder why she was afraid of Yu Tai in the first place.
The figure concealed beneath the veiled hat was crouching beside the river when Mo Xiaowei arrived.
She approached. “What are you doing?”
After speaking, she suddenly remembered that he could not talk.
Her Senior Brother had also said his intelligence might be no greater than a small child’s. Mo Xiaowei steeled herself and reached for the veiled hat that concealed the face occupying her every thought.