Love from the Male Protagonist's Harem

LFTMPH Chapter 77-Opening of Lingqiao Part 2

Translated by Snowfall77

Xia Ge could also use the Shanggujuling formation to gather lingqi and convert it to spiritual power.  The downside was that its efficiency depended on the circumstances.  If she used it in a place rife with lingqi, the more spiritual energy the formation would produce, and thus the more Xia Ge would have to use.  But if she used the formation in a place like the wasteland above the black market, the results would be barely satisfactory.

And that was the difference between Xia Ge using the Shanggujuling formation on Lingxi Peak during the Danfeng entry examination and using it during at the black market.  During the entry examination Xia Ge had affected sky and earth, destroying her furnace in the process.  At the black market, she’d barely been able to trigger the teleportation formation.  Although it’d been the same formation both times, the location had made the difference.

Therefore, it was common practice for cultivators to open their lingqiao, collecting spiritual power within their bodies, instead of relying on formations who’s efficacy depended on location, and also generally worked much slower.

Thankfully the Shanggujuling formation that Xia Ge had gotten from the Lingxi ancestor’s tomb was different in one respect.  It gathered and converted spiritual power almost immediately, meaning Xia Ge had truly stumbled upon a bargain when she’d found it.

“Can you feel it?”  Gu Peijiu asked.

“Yes, it did work!  It’s open.”  Closing her eyes, Xia Ge already felt fluctuations of lingqi outside her body.  She waved a hand and instantly soft red lights followed her movement.  Xia Ge’s red and white Danfeng clothes were fluttering in the breeze and the beautiful red lights were dancing like nimble sprites.

Frowning, Gu Peijiu glanced down at her own hand and then back at Xia Ge.

The feeling from a moment ago……hadn’t been so much like the initial opening of a lingqiao.  It’d instead felt like an internally sealed lingqiao being abruptly opened by her from the outside.

There’d been a resisting force, one she’d quickly pushed through for Xia Ge’s sake.

“Ah……it’s actually open!”  Opening her eyes, Xia Ge took in the sight of the red lights of lingqi surrounding her body, saying excitedly: “Senior Sister, it’s so beautiful!”

“Now that your lingqiao is open, you should go get some rest.”  Seeing Xia Ge’s elated appearance, Gu Peijiu paused, tucked her hands into her sleeves, and decided to say nothing about Xia Ge’s lingqiao abnormality.  Fixing Xia Ge with fathomless black eyes, Gu Peijiu simply added: “No more running around.”

Xia Ge smiled brightly: “Thank you, Senior Sister!”

The moon hung in the sky, yet its silvery regality could not compete with the girl beaming at Gu Peijiu.  Like a rare night flower, she was dazzling to the eye.

Gu Peijiu slightly lowered her eyelids.

= =

At the same time-Jianfeng’s prison.

The silver bell rang out, sudden and harsh, and about as pleasant as a demonic trial.  Kneeling on the ground was a disheveled woman.  Heavy fetters on her limbs, eyes bulging in a dirty face filled with madness, she clutched a tarnished little bell in one hand as she hissed: “It’s ringing——it’s ringing——”

“Shut the fuck up!  Crazy bitch!”

Another prison guard was impatient: “What the hell?  If it rings, it rings.  Too noisy!”

“Maybe it was her rotten bell that rang.”

“Haha, she probably still thinks she’s free and the great master of the Demon Sect, hahaha……but no one’s coming to serve her when she rings her bell!”

“Come on, come on, you’re talking nonsense too.  Let’s just get this shift over with already.  Can’t believe I have to be here, starving to death in the middle of the night.”

“……”

“It’s ringing——it’s ringing——”

Turning a deaf ear to the jeers of the guards, the woman held the little bell in a trembling hand tucked against her chest, tears slowly falling from her moist eyes.

= =

Unexpectedly getting her lingqiao open made Xia Ge incredibly happy.  Back in her nice room, Xia Ge tried to talk to her system.

“Hello, little puppet, little puppet?  Stop playing dead, talk to me.”

The system did not answer.

Xia Ge’s brow furrowed.  Ever since her lingqiao had opened, the system hadn’t spoken to her.

And then there was that baffling voice Xia Ge had heard right after……

“Probably just an auditory hallucination.”  Scratching her head, Xia Ge let it go.  There was something she needed to do, and the system still wasn’t making a sound.  Sighing, Xia Ge settled on talking to herself: “……forget it, good thing I don’t make a habit of counting on you.”

It wasn’t like this was the first time the system had temporarily gone away.  It’d come back in its own time.

Xia Ge took out the formation she’d drawn earlier that night, checking over it carefully.  Once she was satisfied, she untied the red ribbon in her hair.

The red ribbon forlornly wrapped itself around Xia Ge’s hand, loath to part from her.

Xia Ge was ruthless though.  Tying it in a knot around a pillar, she sneered at the red ribbon: “Don’t think I don’t know it was you, ‘little sample.’”

Shivering, the red ribbon curled up both its ends.

This red ribbon came from Senior Sister’s ayara, or if Xia Ge was going to be more accurate, it came from Senior Sister’s Yimei {heavenly punishment}.  When Xia Ge wore the red ribbon in her hair, just how easy was it for Senior Sister to find her?

No wonder when Xia Ge had snuck off to go drinking or gone with Huo Bai to look at his housing, Senior Sister had known exactly where to find Xia Ge.

Senior Sister’s ayara would sense of the location of its ‘child,’ thus leading Senior Sister straight to Xia Ge.

“Little traitor.  I’ll deal with you when I come back.”

Xia Ge snorted, changed into all black clothes, tied her hair back with a cord, and taking her newly drawn formation with her, used {ghost and shadow} to go back to Huo Bai’s lodging.

Crouched in a tree, its thick white blossoms and leaves hiding her, Xia Ge kept watch for a while, until finally lightly landing behind the house.

There were no lights on and it was late at night.  Barring any unforeseen circumstances, people should be asleep.

Taking out a stick of charcoal, Xia Ge begin redrawing her formation on the back of Huo Bai’s room.  One by one, wall,  roof, tree, Xia Ge drew the Nibai formation on each of them until she could faintly sense the aura of the small puppet inside.

By the time Xia Ge was done, the back of the room, the tree, and the roof tiles had the Nibai formation on them.  To prevent it from being discovered, Xia Ge switched some of the roof tiles around.  But since she’d done it all at the back of the house, the chances of someone noticing anything weren’t very high.  So long as no one climbed the tree, it should all be good.

Once she was done, Xia Ge hightailed it back to her room where the pitiful red ribbon had managed to get itself into an even greater tangle.  Now instead of being tied with one knot, it was foolishly in three or four.

“Look at how stupid you are,” Xia Ge taunted it, “This is what you get for tipping people off.”

The red ribbon let its two ends droop down like a wronged child, as if to say it’d never informed on anyone.

Ignoring its aggrieved appearance, Xia Ge took out her leaf flute, put it to her lips, and blithely played ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ again.

Meditating from the bottom of her heart.

{soul-controlling voice}.

In a flash, a subtly poignant feeling emerged.

Xia Ge had given the little puppet a small part of her affection, and now that sentiment was activated by the tune, creating a mutuality.  After the empathy was established, Xia Ge could know everything the little puppet knew and felt.

Currently able to sense everything that the little puppet sensed in Huo Bai’s room, Xia Ge could also perceive the puppet’s body.  It was like have an extra pair of eyes and ears, with a spirit in between that could choose where to go between the two bodies.

Xia Ge decided to try and slip herself into the little puppet’s body.

{puppet method*body borrow}.

The next second Xia Ge opened her eyes to find herself in a completely dark room, sitting quietly on a small table, and staring straight ahead.

Xia Ge’s plan was fairly simple.  Huo Bai was blocking the little puppet from her, so she’d used the Nibai formation to reestablish the connection and get control of the little puppet back.  Now she should finally be able to monitor Huo Bai’s movements via her puppet.

However, it was Xia Ge’s first time operating from such a novel perspective and she found herself having a hard time adapting.  Thanks to the little puppet’s body being very stiff, when Xia Ge tried to unskillfully stand up, the feet slid out from beneath her.  Falling off the table, Xia Ge was about to land facedown on the floor!

Fuck!

The ground getting closer and closer, Xia Ge hurriedly pulled her spirit out of the little puppet.  Although, a second before she retreated, her puppet body landed in the hollow of someone’s palm.

A split-second sensation of ice-cold.

Back in her real body, Xia Ge still maintained her connection to the little puppet.  With the sense of coldness lingering, everything the little puppet saw, Xia Ge saw.

The little puppet had been caught and now it was being held up, a deathly pale face coming into its view.

What?  Not sleeping?!

In her own dimly lit room, Xia Ge shivered, subconsciously closing her mouth tight and holding her breath.  Until she remembered she was back in her own body.  Since she wasn’t currently controlling the puppet, she could wail loudly if she wanted to.

Calming herself down, Xia Ge cautiously looked through the little puppet’s eyes again.

That pale, pale face was still filling the little puppet’s sight.  Xia Ge bravely noted to herself that, yes, it was indeed Bairen.

Different from Huo Bai’s gentlemanly and jade-like face, Bairen’s face was ashen and underneath his big eyes were dark shadows, making him look like something was leeching away at him.  Or maybe it was the miserable appearance of someone who hadn’t slept for hundreds of years.  Either way, he looked awful.

But when Xia Ge contrasted his two different appearances in her mind, she had to acknowledge the uncanny finesse of it all.

……so why was he just continuing to stare at the little puppet?

That horribly pale face gazed at the little puppet for a long time, making Xia Ge worry that she’d somehow been discovered.  Finally the little puppet was slowly put back down on the table.  Though Xia Ge didn’t dare guess at what Bairen was thinking.

There was no further movement for a long time.

Xia Ge: “……”  It’s already late.  Elder, are you taking a rest?

Bored, Xia Ge thought about her connection with the little puppet.

The connection could be maintained constantly.  If Xia Ge wanted to, she could hide in the little puppet’s body to spy on the enemy whenever she wanted, or simply use it as an extra pair of eyes.

Duel-use, Xia Ge using her mind to control her own movements and the little puppet’s also, wouldn’t be easy though.

Few people could draw a circle with one hand while drawing a square with the other.  Similarly, Xia Ge would have a hard time making the little puppet go east when she herself was going west.

Xia Ge realized that this was why a puppet leader was necessary.

Giving affection to and maintaining a connection with a single little puppet was one thing.  Xia Ge couldn’t imagine trying to control multitudes of them.

However, right now Xia Ge was only using the little puppet’s eyes and ears.

Because her intent was to know when Huo Bai was going to try and steal the key.

Huo Bai remained quietly standing in front of the table for a long while.  Finally his body receded into the darkness, and it sounded as if he’d laid down in his bed.

Xia Ge didn’t trust it.

……was he really resting?

It was too dark to tell……

Xia Ge: “……”

Ah, how nice it would be if Xia Ge had a very clever, very resourceful, very obedient puppet leader who could help her keep watch.

Cause, fuck, she really wanted some sleep.

2 YouTube videos that show leaf flutes being played