Love from the Male Protagonist's Harem

Chapter 102-Mentally Deranged Part 2

Once the enraged Jianfeng disciples had made their gratifying departure, the master allowed his consternation to show: “The [Command] token, how……”

Xia Ge: “Senior Sister’s Bixi gave it to me.  I too……ai, we shouldn’t be talking about this now.  Do we have the materials for refining Baihun dan in the storehouse?”

The master smoothed his goatee: “We do indeed.  You……”

Xia Ge: “Bring all of it!”

The master gave her an assessing glance, but asked nothing further, leaving to get the materials.

Wound bandaged, a blue-lipped Mao Qing lay on her back with her eyes closed, cold sweat beading on her forehead.

Crouching down, Xia Ge wiped Mao Qing’s brow with a wet cloth and whispered: “……you’re going to be fine.”

Mao Qing did not respond.

Xia Ge put the cloth back in the basin.  Thinking for a minute, she then took a candy out, peeled off its wrapper, and put it into Mao Qing’s mouth.

Her eyes slightly opening, moist and beautiful under delicate eyelashes, Mao Qing looked at Xia Ge.

Xia Ge asked: “Sweet or not sweet?”

Gaze hazy, Mao Qing answered somewhat hoarsely: “……sweet.”

“If you know it’s sweet, stop looking for trouble,” Xia Ge threw the candy wrapper into a basket, “You could have easily avoided that arrow.”

Mao Qing appeared full of sincere contrition: “I’m sorry.”

Xia Ge: “Why are you apologizing to me?  I’m not the one who’s hurt, you are.”

“There’s no one who isn’t hurt,” Mao Qing innocently asserted, “And if they think they aren’t hurt, it’s just because they haven’t suffered enough cruelty yet.”

Xia Ge wiped Mao Qing’s brow again: “……do you really have to argue with me right now?”  Nevermind that you completely missed my point.

Soul poison made a person act strange?  No, this wasn’t strange, it was completely deranged.

Mao Qing: “Aiya, my wound kinda hurts.”

Xia Ge changed the subject: “……your eyelashes are very long.”

Mao Qing: “Huh?”

Xia Ge: “Does it still hurt?”

Mao Qing laughed in spite of herself: “It still hurts.”

While the two talked, the master came back with the materials and a dan for Mao Qing.  Pouring her a cup of water, Xia Ge helped Mao Qing take the dan.

After eating the dan, Mao Qing’s complexion slightly improved, although she still appeared very tired, her eyes only half-open.

The master directed Xia Ge’s attention to the materials he’d brought: “You wanted these?”

Xia Ge picked up the materials, saying in a low voice: “There’s a furnace in this pavilion, right?”

The master was astonished: “Don’t tell me you want to……”

“Mmm,” Xia Ge answered, “I’m going to try.”

But before Xia Ge and the master could finish their discussion, a different Jianfeng disciple barged in, making the master’s goatee curl.

“Who are you trying to harass now——”

Plop——

The Jianfeng disciple was down on one knee, saying: “More than half the Jianfeng disciples who fought against the Demon Sect today are poisoned.  We have suffered heavy losses.  Asking the master to please give us medicine!”

The master paused, but didn’t make things difficult for the disciple, instead speaking frankly: “How much do you need?  And I must be clear with you, the Baihun dan I can give you is only pseudo-Xuan level.  In order to truly cure the poisoned disciples, you’ll have to wait for someone else to come back.”

It went without saying who that ‘someone’ was.

The Jianfeng disciple: “That……”

After consideration, he gritted his teeth: “Please give this disciple the pseudo-level Baihun dan first.”

“Follow me and I’ll give them to you.”  The master agreed to the disciple’s request.

It didn’t matter that there was plenty of infighting amongst the three peaks of Lingxi Sect; when they encountered an external enemy, they knew how to close ranks.

A minute after, the master pointed Xia Ge to a room, saying: “There’s a dan furnace over.  If you want to try, try.  We’ve had no shortage of materials for years……Ai, I hear you refined Sanshangjin dan for the entry examination, so I guess you have some talent.  Try and see if you can make pseudo-Xuan level Baihun dan.”

He clearly didn’t believe Xia Ge could refine a real Baihun dan.

No, perhaps it wasn’t that he didn’t believe……perhaps it was just that in all his years, he’d never seen a liandan master who could refine a Xuan-level dan other than Gu Peijiu.

Xia Ge gave the master a bow: “Thank you.”

The system: [You’ve made up your mind?]

Xia Ge nodded, whispering under her breath: “I think I understand what you meant that day.”

System: [……What?]

“You said becoming a liandan master wasn’t about someone else’s expectations or becoming their courage.”

Taking the materials into her hands, Xia Ge let the lingqi stored in her lingqiao filter through her internal danmai and coalesce on the materials.  While also resonating with the lingqi in the air, the materials gradually begin to glow with a beautiful, divine light.  Xia Ge next threw the lingqi-infused materials into the furnace, the flames brightly shimmering, as she murmured: “And I think you’re right.”

= =

Down the mountain-

Using the mountain’s protective formation, Chang Lan had temporarily held off the Demon Sect’s attack.

It’d taken a great deal of spiritual energy and time to do so, and afterwards Chang Lan had gone with his disciples to destroy the Demon Puppets who’d already climbed the mountain.  His presence had increased Lingxi Sect’s fighting efficiency, but when the battle was done, Chang Lan was left exhausted.

And he still had seriously injured Jianfeng disciples to somehow take care of.  Many of the weak-minded ones had already fallen into delirium, raving, scratching their bodies, tearing the bandages off their wounds, and rolling around in pain.  In the end, they had to be firmly trussed up in cloth.

The howling was incessant and everywhere was chaos.

Chu Yi was using her lingqi to help keep the protective formation stabilized when she suddenly heard the tinkle of a bell, making her body freeze.

A nearby disciple carrying a wounded person glanced over at Chu Yi: “Junior Sister, are you carrying a bell?  What kind of magical weapon is it?”

Once Chu Yi managed an answer, her tone was nonchalant: “It’s just a little bell from home.”

“Oh……I’ll go first.”  The disciple, having other things to worry about, hurriedly left.  While Chu Yi stared at the bell that’d rung twice before lapsing back into silence, remembering what she’d heard through the silver butterfly the night before, her gaze growing darker.

When the true owner of Wenxian rose in skill level, Koumo would ring.  Wenxian would ring when its owner made a breakthrough.

“How are the casualties?”

Chang Lan didn’t care how unusual Chu Yi was acting.  He cared only to listen the disciple reporting to him in a weary voice.

“……Jianfeng disciples have suffered severe wounding.  The Demon Sect is despicable, coating their weapons with soul poison!”  The disciple couldn’t hide his distress.

Chang Lan’s expression turned ugly as he asked in a low voice: “Does Danfeng have Baihun dan?”

“Someone has been sent to request it.”

As the disciple was talking, another Jianfeng disciple came up beside him.  When Chang Lan saw the disciple he’d sent to arrest Xia Wuyin, he frowned slightly: “That person……where is he?  Were you able to catch him?”

The newly arrived Jianfeng disciple was loath to say it: “Senior Brother, we were not.”

Head aching, Chang Lan rubbed at his temples and thought of what Chang Nian had told him before leaving: “What happened?  You can’t catch a single Danfeng disciple even after taking so many other Jianfeng disciples with you?”

The disciple answered: “She holds Danfeng’s [Command] token.”

Before Chang Nian had departed, he’d informed Chang Lan that a small puppet had been part of the previous Demon Sect attack on Chu Yao.  Chu Yao hadn’t reported it.  However, Chang Nian had investigated it, and then he’d ‘inadvertently’ mentioned to Chang Lan that Xia Wuyin, a Danfeng disciple who’d appeared out nowhere, often wore a small puppet-like doll at his waist.

With the fact that there’d been no luck tracking down the Demon Sect’s spies thus far, and everything being too unsettled, Chang Lan had decided it was ‘better to kill a thousand people by mistake than to let one person go.’  He’d have that person arrested first, ask questions later, and proceed from there.

Only……

Chang Lan’s hand dropped: “……what?  Danfeng’s [Command] token?”

The Jianfeng disciple: “Yes, Danfeng’s [Command] token……but that doesn’t matter.  As long as you come with us, Senior Brother, we’ll definitely be able to easily seize him!”

Chang Lan stared silently at the poisoned disciples who were writhing and jabbering not far off, feeling his headache intensify.

The Jianfeng disciple: “Senior Brother, we mustn’t let a Demon Sect spy off!”

“Of course we won’t let it go,” Chang Lan rubbed his temples again, “Has that disciple returned with Baihun dan yet?”

“Coming!”

The disciple who’d gone to ask for Baihun dan had returned, his face anxious: “Senior Brother……the master in charge of Danfeng’s medicinal supplies told me they only have pseudo-Xuan level Baihun dan at this time.  It can’t detoxify the soul poison, it’ll only reprieve the symptoms for a day.”

Chang Lan: “If it’ll delay things by the day, then we’ll take that day.  I’ll message to have Senior Gu return as soon as possible.  You and you, come with me.  Once I’ve sent the message, I’ll go to Danfeng in person and meet this……Xia Wuyin.”

“宁可错杀一千,不可放过一个”

On August 8, 1927, after the death of Sun Yat-sen , Chiang Kai- shek, Wang Jingwei and other rightists of the Kuomintang colluded with the imperial forces and domestic big landlords and capitalists, unilaterally ended the first KMT-CPC cooperation , and wantonly hunted and killed the Communists and democrats.

Wang Jingwei convened an emergency enlarged meeting of the Kuomintang Central Committee in Wuhan to respond, and began to arrest and execute communists in Wuhan, which led to the complete breakdown of the first KMT-CPC cooperation. At this meeting, Wang Jingwei said, “It is better to kill a thousand people by mistake than to let one person go.”