Chapter 48
The commotion from Arena Eighteen completely drowned out the cheers around all the other platforms.
The spectators chanted Yu Tai’s name with the fervor of fanatical worshippers.
What man had never fantasized about a goddess like her?
She possessed peerless beauty, overwhelming strength, and a pair of lovely eyes that regarded people as though they were garbage.
“Goddess! Step on me!”
Yu Tai nearly stumbled when she heard that.
What was wrong with the male cultivators of this world?
Did the men in cultivation novels not usually prefer untouchable beauties and delicate little rabbits?!
What was this supposed to be?
The System: [If my guess is correct… you’ve awakened their masochistic tendencies.]
“Huh? What happened at Arena Eighteen? Why is it so lively?”
“Holy shit! Who defeated Zhuang Han at Arena Eighteen?!”
“What? Someone at Arena Eighteen defeated Zhuang Han with a single strike?”
“I heard it was a female cultivator!”
The commotion grew so great that even the spectators below the other arenas, where the matches had not yet been decided, were drawn over.
They stared at the blood-covered Zhuang Han lying on the ground. The wound across his abdomen looked deep enough to have spilled his intestines, and it seared itself into everyone’s memory.
Some competitors whom Zhuang Han had knocked out earlier even borrowed image-recording stones to take pictures with the defeated man.
Yu Tai, who should have been at the center of the storm, slipped away without a trace while everyone’s attention was fixed on Zhuang Han.
By the time the crowd reacted, she was long gone.
“Where’s my goddess?!” someone shouted.
But the two most excited people were undoubtedly the Qingshan Sword Sect disciples who had bet on Yu Tai.
Holding a vast fortune, the two stood frozen in place, unable to recover their senses for a long time.
“Senior Brother…”
“Junior Brother…”
They stared at each other, then suddenly embraced in excitement.
Who could have imagined it? One moment, they were ordinary outer disciples of modest means. The next, they were rich!
Who had said their Junior Sister was only a pretty face? Step forward and let them beat the bastard to death!
“Oh, right. Where did that senior who admires Junior Sister go?” One of them suddenly came to his senses and looked around, but the imposing man was nowhere to be found.
They had earned a fortune from betting only two low-grade spirit stones. Just imagine how much that senior had won after wagering an entire pouch of high-grade spirit stones.
He had made an absolute fortune!
In the spectator stand-
“That Yu Tai has some skill.”
“To think she defeated that body cultivator with only one strike.”
“What is it, Elder Li? Has your appreciation for talent made you reluctant to kill her?”
“According to my investigation, her cultivation was unremarkable only a few years ago. But since leaving the Bishui Secret Realm, not only has her cultivation soared, but her swordsmanship and control of spiritual power have improved as well. There must be something wrong here.”
Listening to these important figures discuss the matter, Xiao Xin pursed her lips. Confusion filled her eyes as she asked softly, “Elder, what’s wrong with that Yu Tai?”
The elder glanced at her and answered in a low voice, “She may be connected to the annihilation of the Chengtian Sect.”
Xiao Xin was shocked.
One truly could not judge a person by appearances. That made it even more intolerable that Jiang Li had taken an interest in her!
Pouting, Xiao Xin asked, “Elder, where did Jiang Li go?”
Could he be hiding somewhere and secretly watching that female cultivator?
Impossible. Jiang Li was not the sort to skulk around. If he wanted to watch, he would do so openly. He would never wrong himself by hiding in the shadows.
She had to admit, she understood the object of her affection well.
The elder stroked his sparse beard, a meaningful look in his eyes. “He… has something more important to do.”
…
It took several medicinal pills from his fellow sect members before Zhuang Han finally regained consciousness.
The wound across his abdomen had already scabbed over, but the pain remained clearer than anything he had ever experienced.
The memory of Yu Tai’s merciless expression as she swung her sword surfaced in his mind, twisting Zhuang Han’s face.
“That damned bitch!” She had dared to injure him.
He clutched his wound and tried to rise, but a disciple who had just entered exclaimed, “Senior Brother, your wound has only just scabbed over. You shouldn’t move!”
Zhuang Han glanced at him. The clean-cut disciple was a stranger whom he had never seen before.
“Get lost! Since when do you get to tell me what to do?!”
Ignoring the disciple’s attempts to stop him, Zhuang Han insisted on standing. He cursed all the way to the door, only to discover that he could not open it.
What kind of joke was this? With his strength, he could knock down a mountain peak with one punch. How could he fail to open an ordinary door?!
“Damn it! What’s going on?!”
After pounding the door several times with his fists, Zhuang Han inexplicably felt a trace of fear toward the unknown.
“Didn’t I tell you not to get up?” a gentle voice suddenly said behind him.
Zhuang Han turned. At the sight of the young man behind him wearing a tender smile, he roared, “Who are you?!”
The young man’s clear eyes reflected Zhuang Han’s terrified face. He said softly, “Don’t be afraid. I merely want to take a few things from you.”
*Only those disgusting eyes of yours and the limbs you can’t keep under control.*
“Aaaaaaaah!”
An incomparably wretched scream rang out from the inn where the Xuanwu Sect was staying.
Yet strangely, although the busy inn was filled with cultivators, not a single person heard it.
…
Only after returning to her cave dwelling did Yu Tai suddenly realize that she seemed to have left something behind.
*Where was my reserve supply of righteous qi?!*
The System: [… I suddenly feel great sympathy for the male lead.]
Yu Tai caught Xia Mo as it pounced toward her and rubbed the panda. Shu Li would not have taken advantage of her inattention to run away, would he?
The thought filled her with inexplicable irritation.
The high-ranked Demon-Concealing Pearl and the saber could wait. Chains that even Xia Mo could not break had to be placed on the agenda immediately!
“Chirp! Chirp!” Xia Mo suddenly cried.
Yu Tai pinched its little nose and said apologetically, “Baby, what am I supposed to do when I can’t understand you?”
“It says it sensed something delicious,” a familiar voice said behind her.
Yu Tai turned around resentfully. “Why did you take so long to come back?”
*Were you trying to run away?*
Despite being the one who had forgotten Shu Li, she was now complaining to him first.
Shu Li did not grow angry. He removed his veiled hat, revealing the handsome face that she could seemingly never tire of, and shook the spatial pouch in his hand. “Because the sum was so large, the bookmaker went out of his way to find a spatial pouch. That delayed me a little.”
Yu Tai nodded without much concern. “Be more careful next time.”
After bathing, Yu Tai walked to the bed and lifted Xia Mo down from it. “If I catch you eating bamboo on the bed again, I’ll stew you.”
Xia Mo gave an aggrieved chirp.
*Liar! She always threatened to stew a panda, but she had never actually done it!*
Yu Tai casually tossed a length of cloth to the man sitting nearby, then took her seat like a lord and let the good-tempered Shu Li dry her hair.
It was something a single spell could accomplish, but she simply liked troubling Shu Li.
She had recently figured it out. While the male lead remained her captive, she needed to squeeze every last drop of value out of him.
Otherwise, if she let the saintly male lead eat and live here for free every day, what would she do if his conscience started bothering him?
As she enjoyed being served by the chosen son of heaven and male lead of this very novel, Yu Tai suddenly opened her eyes.
A voice-transmission talisman floated into the room from outside.
It was from Li Shijie.
Incidentally, she had left Jiang Wenyi’s voice-transmission talisman blocked outside the formation.
“Junior Sister! Congratulations on passing the elimination round! I heard everything. You were incredible! You destroyed Zhuang Han’s Indestructible Vajra Body with a single strike! I wasn’t nearly as capable. I ended up in the same arena as Senior Brother Jiang and lost after only five moves…”
“There’s more! You left too quickly, so you probably didn’t hear. The prizes for the top three places in this Martial Tournament were just announced! Everyone is talking about them!”
When Li Shijie finished describing the prizes, Shu Li stopped drying Yu Tai’s hair. Both of them looked at Xia Mo at the same time.
Second place: a supreme-grade Transformation Pill!