Chapter 60: The Dog Couple Caught in the Act

The dog couple faced each other, covered tightly, four eyes meeting, pressed extremely close, each able to feel the other's breath, numb and itchy.

They could also feel Xiao Bai Mao's heaving chest, quite soft, more substantial than it appeared on the surface.

Lu Xingzhou knew it was wrong to press down like this, yet he couldn't climb up.

It wasn't because of his legs; it was because of the severe injury to his Soul Sea just now. Leaping forward had been his last strength. Now he felt dizzy and disoriented, his vision blurred. He tried to push himself up with his hands, but he couldn't summon any strength at all.

Du Gu Qingli, with blue eyes like dark ice, quietly watched Lu Xingzhou pressing down on her and asked calmly, "The injury to the soul is somewhat difficult to treat... Do you have any related pills on you?"

Lu Xingzhou's thoughts were sluggish. He thought hard, his head throbbing painfully: "Anuo's lucky bag, help me..."

Du Gu Qingli was stunned. You yourself can't even refine pills related to the soul, yet that one Anuo gave you is actually effective?

She reached into her robes, took out Anuo's lucky bag, fished out a pill, and stuffed it into Lu Xingzhou's mouth.

Her fingers touched his slightly chapped lips, and she recoiled as if struck by lightning.

Seeing Lu Xingzhou take the medicine and his expression of pain ease slightly, Du Gu Qingli pressed her lips and asked, "Does it hurt?"

Lu Xingzhou tried hard to think. What was she saying again... Oh, right, my lower leg is shattered.

The place that already had no sensation, how could pulling it hurt? It wasn't even one-thousandth as painful as the blood flowing from my seven orifices just now.

So he grinned: "I was going to replace this deformed leg bone anyway. Helping me smash it saves me a step."

Du Gu Qingli, expressionless: "Since it doesn't hurt, what are you still doing pressing on me?"

Lu Xingzhou: "..."

Want. Can I say that?

But although the atmosphere was romantic, the question seemed even more romantic, and Lu Xingzhou felt Xiao Bai Mao was colder than before.

Mainly because her expression was too calm, without any hint of shame, anger, or joking. From asking for the medicine to taking the medicine to the final question, her eyes were like an ice glacier of ten thousand years, showing no emotion whatsoever.

Before, she was a machine trying hard to learn human thought; now she was a block of ice, the little bit of humanity she had painstakingly learned had regressed.

It seems the ultimate move that sealed the Soul Sea just now had some side effects?

The medicine took effect quite well. He recovered a bit of spirit and had no business lingering. He pushed with both hands on the ground on either side, preparing to rise.

A cry of shock came from the passage: "You... what are you doing?"

Lu Xingzhou: "?"

Du Gu Qingli: ""

Shen Tang's head poked out from the passage entrance, looking around in shock.

Lu Xingzhou: "I, we are not, that..."

"Roar!" A corpse puppet's roar came from the passage. Shen Tang flashed aside swiftly as the corpse puppet rushed past her. Shen Tang followed up by stabbing a sword into its back.

Lu Xingzhou pushed off the floor, flashed back into his wheelchair. Du Gu Qingli, disregarding her shame and anger, thrust her sword straight into the corpse puppet's Spirit Platform.

Counting from when the two of them accidentally entered the secret passage, it was a long story, but in fact only about a cup of tea's time had passed, not long at all. Yet looking at the corpse puppet now, its whole body had been stabbed by Shen Tang into pieces; the originally seemingly intact muscle and flesh were already pitted and cratered.

It was clear that after being dealt with by the Soul-Stabilizing Array and the Ghost-Driving Talisman earlier, it was much weaker, its reactions even slower. Under Shen Tang's kiting and hit-and-run tactics, it was increasingly no match.

Give Shen Tang some more time, and she should be able to solo-kill it...

But suddenly noticing the door open, Shen Tang, worried about these two, rushed in quickly to check. This time the door was fixed open, and the corpse puppet followed in.

Shen Tang was furious in her heart. I thought you two encountered some difficulty inside. I came in to check, and you were playing stacking blocks! You even specifically opened the door to stack them for me to see, right?

So this is the kind of person you are, White Hair!

The corpse puppet noticed that Shen Tang, who had been kiting it, had now gone berserk. Her momentum was ferocious, as if she were the corpse puppet harboring hatred and wanting to kill everyone.

The purple sword whistled, suspended in mid-air, its qi piercing Shanhe, surging forward in a fierce charge.

The corpse puppet "clang"ed, smashing the purple sword back, but large chunks of its own muscle were sliced off its hand.

Shen Tang wasn't doing well either fighting this thing with brute strength, stumbling backward. Lu Xingzhou, forcing himself to endure the chaotic discomfort in his Soul Sea, barely managed to summon a talisman.

He only had enough strength now to use the most ordinary talisman, the Slowing Talisman... Perhaps it would only be enough to take effect on a corpse puppet of this level for a moment.

But it was enough.

Du Gu Qingli's sword arrived at the corpse puppet's back of the head in an instant. Sensing the peerless sword qi, the corpse puppet tried to dodge, but its already very slow movements were delayed even further by the Slowing Talisman, making it half a beat slower. It completely failed to dodge and was pierced solidly.

Earlier in the fight, the corpse puppet had completely ignored Du Gu Qingli's attacks, unable even to break her defense. But now, its broken body and weak soul fire could no longer maintain its previous protective power. Du Gu Qingli's sword qi directly pierced through the Spirit Platform and soul fire location, and the Soul-Freezing Ice Soul technique fully activated.

With a "crack," the soul fire seemed to freeze, turning from the phosphorescent blue-green of will-o'-the-wisps to the deep blue of a glacier.

Shen Tang finally found her opening. Holding her sword in her right hand, she parried a punch, then slammed her left hand hard onto the corpse puppet's forehead.

"Bang!" The soul fire finally shattered, scattering like green smoke with the ice flowers.

The corpse puppet crashed to the ground: "I... am unwilling..."

Shen Tang spat out another mouthful of blood, propped her sword on the ground, and collapsed.

Du Gu Qingli hurriedly supported her: "What's wrong? Fighting with brute strength like this suddenly..."

Don't you have any idea why I suddenly fought so bravely! Shen Tang was so angry she almost spat out a second mouthful of blood, but forced herself to stop: "Because you two were here. Fighting with brute strength to expose its flaws is the simplest method."

"Oh." Du Gu Qingli nodded, agreeing with this combat strategy, then criticized: "Don't do that again. Your life is important. Don't let me fail my mission."

Shen Tang's expression twisted. She turned her head, not wanting to speak, afraid that if she did, she would break character.

Turning her head, she saw the blood from Lu Xingzhou's seven orifices and his flesh-and-blood-blurred leg. Her heart chilled: "Your injury..."

"The leg is fine, and I found a suitable thing to replace the leg. Once we get out, we can try to refine it." Lu Xingzhou took out a silk scarf to wipe his face, realized it was Shen Tang's, coughed dryly, and put it away: "By the way, this place can now serve as a passage connecting to our Sun Moon Lake. For the short term, we can use this route and don't need to go through the middle of the mountain valley every time, which is too conspicuous."

This clumsy topic shift probably wouldn't even fool Anuo. Shen Tang's eyes darted back and forth between their faces, and she didn't speak for a long while.

So you two smashed your legs just to play stacking blocks?

Du Gu Qingli finally couldn't maintain her ice-block face and turned her head away.

"Let's go, outside first." Shen Tang turned expressionlessly and entered the passage: "During the kiting just now, I found something over there. We can take a look."

She walked very fast, as if she didn't want to watch the dog couple perform.

Du Gu Qingli silently picked up the Spirit Water Condensed Crystal from the ground and handed it to Lu Xingzhou: "It's yours."

Lu Xingzhou took it, feeling the dense innate water spirit power, and couldn't hide his excitement in his heart.

Not easy at all... This battle was far more difficult than imagined. Now the Soul Sea is still injured, and the magical treasure is half-damaged; fixing it later will also be a headache.

But obtaining the bone-replacement material, everything is worth it.

Even with only one leg, at least I can practice the Heaven-Disabling Kick, and it can also improve my cultivation physique and bone structure; this is the most important.

After all, the damage suffered by the body in childhood was too great. Even though these years of hard maintenance have healed it, the physique and bone structure can never compare to the geniuses among people like Shen Tang and Miss Qingli; in fact, even my own disciple, A'nuo, is far superior.

Huh, wait, something is wrong...

Turning to look, Gu Qingli silently passed him and entered the passage, showing no intention at all to push the wheelchair.

Lu Xingzhou couldn't help but shout: "Hey, hey, what about me?"

Gu Qingli, expressionless: "Can't you paddle yourself? My mission is to protect Shen Tang, not you. So the object of pushing the wheelchair is only Shen Tang, not you."

Lu Xingzhou really wanted to say, do you know what this looks like? It looks like the guilt of a mistress caught by the wife, trying to cover up...

But he wouldn't say that; he knew how to deal with an NPC: "Besides the mission, we are still comrades-in-arms."

"Do comrades-in-arms have a requirement to push wheelchairs?"

"No. But shouldn't one offer a helping hand to a comrade's request?"

Gu Qingli thought for a moment, then silently walked behind the wheelchair and pushed it out at high speed.

With all this hugging and pressing, how can we meet in the future... and we were even called a dog couple.

I am female, Lu Xingzhou is a dog; where is the male?

"Actually, Qingli..." Lu Xingzhou suddenly said: "It was all an accident; in battle, there are many accidental contacts. If you don't take it to heart, then it's not an issue."

You should ask first if Shen Tang takes it to heart?

Gu Qingli pressed her lips together and didn't say it out loud. Actually, the logic was correct; just now when she was tackled, she felt mostly gratitude... If Shen Tang misunderstood, just explaining it clearly would suffice. More importantly, it was the one before when she sat in the wheelchair and was jostled; there were all kinds of feelings, and also... it was really hard to regard that as a combat accident.

Whose combat accident is like that!

She held it in for a long time, then blurted out: "I understand that even the wheelchair is a hidden weapon magical treasure, but I can't understand why you hide a sword hilt in your crotch! No wonder Shen Tang was so angry that I threw her into your arms."

Lu Xingzhou: "???"

No, what sword hilt?

Before he could figure out how to answer this laughable yet frustrating question, Gu Qingli said softly again: "Just now... thank you for risking your life... if that vine had pulled up a bit higher, it wouldn't have been a broken leg..."

"It's nothing; you saved me first."

After one sentence each, silence finally fell again.

It could be seen that the glacial feeling Gu Qingli had when she was pinned down earlier had faded, and she had returned to her usual self, but that moment of coldness made Lu Xingzhou start to feel a little worry in his heart—according to her cultivation, if she goes deeper, won't she really turn into an ice block?

That wouldn't be as cute as the current NPC girl.

————

PS: Begging for monthly tickets~

(End of this chapter)