The dog man and woman faced each other, pressed together tightly, their four eyes meeting. They were so close they could feel each other’s breath, a sensation that was both numbing and tingling.

He could also feel her chest undulating with her gentle breathing, quite soft and more substantial than it appeared. Lu Xingzhou knew that staying pressed against her like this was not good, but he couldn’t get up. It wasn’t because of his leg; the severe injury to his soul sea earlier meant that flying and pouncing over were his last reserves of strength. Now, he just felt dizzy and his vision was blurred. His hands wanted to prop himself up, but he had no strength at all.

Dugu Qingli’s profound ice-blue eyes quietly looked at Lu Xingzhou, who was pressing down on her. She asked softly, “Soul injuries are a bit difficult to treat… do you have any related pills on you?”

Lu Xingzhou’s thinking was sluggish, his head throbbing as if it would split. He thought for a moment, “A Nuo’s fortune bag, help me…”

Dugu Qingli was startled for a moment. You yourself can’t refine soul-related pills, and it’s the one A Nuo gave you that’s effective?

She reached into her bosom, took out A Nuo’s fortune bag, and fumbled for the pill to put into Lu Xingzhou’s mouth. Her fingers brushed against his slightly chapped lips, and she flinched back as if from an electric shock. Seeing that Lu Xingzhou had taken the pill and his painful expression had slightly eased, Dugu Qingli pursed her lips and asked, “Painful?”

Lu Xingzhou struggled to think. What was she saying? Oh, his calf was broken. The place that had originally been numb, no matter how it was pulled, didn’t hurt. It still wasn’t even a thousandth as painful as when he had bled from all seven orifices earlier. So he grinned and smiled, “I was originally going to replace this deformed leg bone anyway. You helped me smash it and saved me a step.”

Dugu Qingli was expressionless, “Since it’s not painful, why are you still pressing on my body?”

Lu Xingzhou: “…”

He wanted to. Can that word be said?

But although the atmosphere was ambiguous, this question seemed even more so. Lu Xingzhou instead felt that the little white hair was colder than before. Mainly, her expression was too flat, without any hint of shame or joking. From asking for medicine to giving medicine to finally asking, her eyes were like ten-thousand-year glaciers, devoid of any emotion. Before, she was still a machine trying to learn human thinking, but now she was a block of ice. The little human flavor she had just learned seemed to have regressed.

It seemed that the big move of sealing the soul sea earlier had some side effects? The pill was taken and quite effective. He had slightly recovered some spirit and it was no good to continue lying there. He propped his hands on the ground on either side, just about to get up.

From the passage came a cry of alarm, “You… what are you two doing?”

Lu Xingzhou: “?”

Dugu Qingli: “¿”

Shen Tang’s head popped out from the passage entrance, examining them with shock.

Lu Xingzhou: “I, we’re not, that…”

“Roar!” From the passage came the angry roar of the corpse puppet. Shen Tang quickly dodged, and the corpse puppet rushed past her side. Shen Tang followed with a sword thrust to its back.

Lu Xingzhou propped himself up, flashed, and sat back in the wheelchair. Dugu Qingli, disregarding her shame and anger, thrust her sword straight at the corpse puppet’s spiritual platform.

Calculating the time since the two had accidentally entered the secret passage until now, it didn’t seem long, actually only about the time it takes to drink a cup of tea. But looking at the corpse puppet again, its entire body had been poked into pieces by Shen Tang. The originally seemingly intact body muscles were already pitted and uneven. One could see that after being messed with by the soul-fixing array and ghost-exorcising talisman, it was much weaker, and its reactions were also sluggish. Under Shen Tang’s kiting tactics, it was even less of an opponent. Give Shen Tang a bit more time, and she should be able to solo kill it…

But she suddenly noticed the door open. Shen Tang was worried about these two and quickly rushed in to see. This time the door was fixed open, and the corpse puppet followed. Shen Tang was so angry in her heart. She thought you two had encountered some difficulty inside and came in to see you two having fun stacking, and you even specially opened the door for me to see! So, you are such a white hair!

The corpse puppet discovered that Shen Tang, who had always been kiting, had gone berserk this time. Her momentum was fierce as if she was the one holding a grudge to kill all corpse puppets. The purple sword whistled, suspended in the air, its qi piercing mountains and rivers, assaulting furiously.

The corpse puppet smashed it back with a “bang,” and a large piece of muscle was cut off its own hand. Shen Tang wasn’t good at wrestling with this thing and staggered back. Lu Xingzhou strongly endured the chaotic discomfort in his soul sea and barely sacrificed a talisman. He only had enough strength to use the most ordinary talisman, a slow talisman… perhaps only enough to take effect on this level of corpse puppet for a moment. But it was enough.

Dugu Qingli’s sword instantly approached the back of the corpse puppet’s head again. The corpse puppet sensed the fierce and matchless sword qi and tried to dodge. That originally very sluggish movement was delayed by the slow talisman by half a beat, and it completely failed to dodge, getting stabbed squarely. Earlier in the fight, the corpse puppet completely ignored Dugu Qingli’s attacks; even its defense couldn’t be broken. But at this time, its broken body and weak soul fire could no longer maintain the previous protective power. Dugu Qingli’s sword qi directly penetrated the spiritual platform where the soul fire was, and the soul-freezing ice soul was fully activated.

With a “crack” sound, that soul fire seemed to freeze, changing from the blue-green of phosphorescent fire to a deep blue like a glacier. Shen Tang finally found an opportunity. She blocked a punch with the sword in her right hand, and suddenly patted the corpse puppet’s forehead with her left hand.

“Bang!” The soul fire finally shattered, scattering like blue smoke with ice flowers.

The corpse puppet crashed to the ground, “I… unwilling…”

Shen Tang spat out another mouthful of blood, propping herself up with her sword, and slumped down. Dugu Qingli hurriedly supported her, “What happened, suddenly exerted so much force拼…”

Why did I suddenly become so brave, you don’t know? Shen Tang was so angry that she almost spat out a second mouthful of blood. She forcibly stopped herself, “Because you two were here, I force拼ed out its flaws. It’s simple.”

“Oh.” Dugu Qingli nodded, very much agreeing with this battle strategy, and criticized, “Don’t do this next time. Your life is important. Don’t let my task fail.”

Shen Tang’s expression twisted. She turned her head, not wanting to speak, afraid that speaking would break her persona. When she turned her head, she saw Lu Xingzhou’s bloodstains on his seven orifices and his bloody, messy leg. Her heart skipped a beat, “Your injury…”

“My leg is fine, and I found the suitable material for leg replacement. I can try to refine it after I get out this time.” Lu Xingzhou took out a handkerchief to wipe his face, discovered it was Shen Tang’s, and dry coughed once before putting it back, “Right, this side can now be used as a passage connecting to our Sun Moon Lake. In the short term, we can use this side and don’t need to go through the mountain gully every time, it’s too conspicuous.”

This topic shift was so stiff that even A Nuo might not be deceived. Shen Tang’s eyes darted back and forth between the two faces, and she didn’t speak for a long time. So you two broke your leg and still wanted to have fun stacking?

Dugu Qingli also finally couldn’t maintain her ice face and turned her head aside.

“Let’s go, go outside first.” Shen Tang expressionlessly turned and entered the passage, “Earlier while wandering and fighting, I found something on that side. We can go take a look.” She walked very fast, as if not wanting to watch the dog man and woman’s performance.

Dugu Qingli silently picked up the spiritual water crystal on the ground and handed it to Lu Xingzhou, “It’s yours.”

Lu Xingzhou took it, feeling the dense innate water spiritual power. He couldn’t hide his excitement. It wasn’t easy ah… This battle was more difficult than imagined. Now his soul sea was still injured, and his magic treasure was still half-damaged. Repairing it later was also a headache. But he got the bone-changing material, and everything was worth it. Even if it was only one leg, at least he could perform Heavenly Crippled Foot, and he could improve his cultivation root bone. This was the most important thing. After all, his body suffered too much damage in childhood. Even with painstaking nursing back to health over the years, his physique and root bone still couldn’t compare to these human elites like Shen Tang and Qingli. In fact, even my own disciple A Nuo is far superior.

Eh, wait, something is wrong…

He turned his head to look. Dugu Qingli had silently overtaken him and entered the passage, with no intention of pushing his wheelchair. Lu Xingzhou couldn’t help but shout, “Hey, what about me?”

Dugu Qingli was expressionless, “Aren’t you able to row yourself? My task is to protect Shen Tang, not you. So the one to push the wheelchair is only Shen Tang, not you.”

Lu Xingzhou very much wanted to say, do you know what this is like? Like the third party caught by the original partner and feeling guilty, trying to cover up… But he wouldn’t say that. He knew how to deal with the human-like machine, “Besides the task, we are still comrades in arms.”

“Do comrades in arms have the requirement to push wheelchairs?”

“No. But for a comrade’s request, shouldn’t you help?”

Dugu Qingli thought for a moment, still silently walked to the back of the wheelchair, quickly pushed it, and ran out. Being hugged and pressed like that, how would they face each other later… and being called dog man and woman. I am female, Lu Xingzhou is a dog, where is the man.

“Actually, Qingli ah…” Lu Xingzhou suddenly said, “It was all just accidents. In battle, there are more various accidental contacts. You don’t take it to heart, and then it’s not a big deal.”

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

Dugu Qingli pursed her lips and didn’t say it aloud. Actually, the reasoning was correct. When she was pounced on earlier, she was mostly grateful… Shen Tang misunderstood, explaining it clearly is fine. More importantly, before sitting in the wheelchair bumping like that, whatever feelings there were, still, still… it was really hard to treat as a battle accident. What family’s battle accident is like that!

She held back for a long time and finally managed to say, “I understand that even your wheelchair is a hidden weapon magic treasure, but I don’t understand why you hide the 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 think of how to reply to this ridiculous question, Dugu Qingli lowered her voice again, “Earlier… thank you for risking your life… if that vine had been pulled up a little more, it wouldn’t have been just a broken leg…”

“No problem, you saved me first.”

One sentence from each, and finally there was no more sound. One could see that Dugu Qingli’s earlier glacial feeling had receded, and she had returned to her usual appearance. But that moment’s coldness still made Lu Xingzhou start to worry a little in his heart—according to her cultivation deepening like this, would she really turn into an ice lump? That wouldn’t be as cute as the human-like machine girl she is now.

————

PS: Seeking monthly tickets~