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Chapter 75: We Brought Big Trouble
Gu Yunlan was a bit baffled, and couldn’t help but feel a bit uncomfortable with Yangjin being the second in command; it’d be harder to deal with him like this. Even worse, she’s now just an ordinary citizen, not someone who can match up to him. If she were to leave the mansion, it’d be dangerous too! Jiang Chen and Bai Linlong were like unpredictable ticking bombs. As soon as one recovers their power, the hunt for her head would start.
Xuanyuan Ying thought slightly for a while, then reached out his hand to take the letter and put in away, “I really can’t figure out your reason for hesitating. When I lived in your mansion back then, wasn’t I completely free of worries?”
“Aren’t the situations too different?” Gu Yunlan looked at him sideways, “You are untethered by anything, completely different from me. A young lady such as myself can’t just move in!”
“Then there really isn’t anything you can do!” Xuanyuan Ying rubbed his forehead, “What will you do now? You can’t blame me for becoming the marshal right?”
“What nonsense!” Gu Yunlan sucked in a big breath. She originally couldn’t care less about power, never mind the position of Marshal. What opinions could she have anyway, don’t forget their relation isn’t normal. Thinking of this, she nodded her head helplessly, “Alright, I shall reluctantly agree.”
Xuanyuan Ying followed her speech, “Then many thanks to the Eldest Miss for the honor of living in the household. My honorable self can feel my face brightening.”
“Hah! Glib tongue!” Gu Yunlan laughed out loud. Exchanging words with him like this, her mood lightened up a lot. Suddenly, she thought of something and immediately said, “Xuanyuan! In your absence, we met with a big disaster!”
“Disaster?” Xuanyuan Ying looked at her in surprise; she’s not Xuanyuan Meng, so what disaster could there be?
Gu Yunlan immediately moved to a stool closer to him, and said quietly, “A few days ago, someone reported unexplainable weeping coming from the Shingwong temple in the Western part of the city. However it was impossible to enter, despite being in our Gu City! Several young ladies had gone missing too!”
Xuanyuan Ying nodded his head, and looked at her smilingly, “This isn’t a disaster…”
Gu Yunlan hesitated a bit, then continued, “The problem is, our group went to the Shingwong temple to explore, then discovered the person behind all the weird events is Jiang Chen! And… and, we exploded his stronghold…”
Jiang Chen? Xuanyuan Ying’s smile stiffened on his face. The color of his face changed as he grabbed her hand asking, “You guys actually went in?”
“En! What is it?” Gu Yunlan pulled at her hands, nodding her head hesitatingly; why did his face color change so quickly? And also why grab her hands this tightly?
“Nothing! I’m here now!” Xuanyuan Ying breathed in a large breath, shaking his head. He and Jiang Chen are mortal enemies already anyways, this one misfortune isn’t too bad. The true headache is that Jiang Chen must have discovered Gu Yunlan’s physique already.
“Another thing we found out was that the missing girls were kidnapped and went to rescue them. Turns out, they were in a bandit’s nest the whole time; their reputations have taken a blow, so we found a temporary solution for them.” Gu Yunlan tugged at her hands, but his grasp was just as tight as before. She looked at him.
“What was the solution?” Xuanyuan Ying asked as he snapped back to consciousness.
“We’re thinking of sending them to the army camp. If they are not suitable as a soldier, they can find a soldier to marry.” Gu Yunlan said hesitatingly.
Xuanyuan Ying nodded his head helplessly.
“In the first half of the month, Zi Family’s lord held his birthday celebration and we all went.” Gu Yunlan creased her brow, why is he still grabbing her? He can’t be wanting to eat her tofu right?[1]
“So then saying this, you went and…” Xuanyuan Ying suddenly thought of something, and immediately asked, “You went to the Zi Mansion? No wonder everyone was gossiping about how the Zi Family is haunted!”
Gu Yunlan timidly nodded her head and tried to struggle free, “Let go of my hands first!”
Xuanyuan Ying took notice, and immediately let go of her hands. His expression was a bit embarrassed as he asked, “Are you okay?”
“Look! I’m fine!” Gu Yulan stood up, turned around in a circle, then sat down excitedly. She said in a small voice, “Yet I profited from it too, Diandian sucked in more than half of Bai Linlong’s power!”
“Who’s Diandian?” Xuanyuan Ying asked her puzzledly.
Gu Yunlan hurriedly took out a small pouch, “This is a storage pouch, from Mengmen’s grandpa.”!”
She immediately opened up the pouch, and with just a thought, a good-sized basket appeared on the table. She pulled Xuanyuan Ying up standing with her, “Come! Take a look! The cocoon inside is Diandian! Huh?”
Gu Yunlan was so surprised she covered her mouth, as she pointed shakily inside the basket, “This! I remember when I put it in, it wasn’t so big! What is going on?”
Xuanyuan Ying watched her gesture around in amusement. The cocoon in the basket was very big, colored deep purple, and was almost bursting out of the basket. No wonder she would react like that. He glanced over at her and explained, “Perhaps your storage pouch carried vitality in it, and was absorbed by the cocoon.”
This explanation made sense, Gu Yunlan looked over at the basket bewildered, “Say, what species is this Diandian?”
“What was it first?” Xuanyuan Ying pulled her to sit down, hinting at her to put it away.
Gu Yunlan waved her hands to make the basket on the table disappear into thin air. Only then did she say, “It’s what the poison insect master used to get the corpse poison out from my body! I call it Diandian. Master said its mouth’s wicked, so she gave it to me. At that time I was polishing up anyway, and fed it a few things so it would grow up big. Only then did we step into the Zi mansion!”
“En! It’s probably some beast type.” Xuanyuan Ying muttered under his breath, “Diandian succeeded?”
Seeing that Xuanyuan Ying didn’t blame her, she immediately nodded her head, “No, Diandian breathed in more than half of her power, yet ended up blowing up the Zi Family’s residence… now they’ve all remembered me.”
Xuanyuan Ying hissed out a breath, and patted her head, “Everything’s okay!”
Gu Yunlan released a breath, “I was afraid you’d say we were causing trouble; we’re all so tired. Didn’t you have Mengmeng bring me to the well at the ancestral place? I found that place really is a nice place. With its plentiful Yin Qi, even I wish I could go rest there every day!”
Xuanyuan Ying teasingly pinched her cheeks, “As long as you like it, and as long as you’re willing to go. As long as you don’t think my place is lacking!”
“Absolutely no regard for distance between a man and a woman!” Gu Yunlan brushed away his hovering hands. She suddenly thought of something, “Xuanyuan, I remembered something. When I was there I accidentally swept around with my spirit power and found that the patio has a hollow wall. It’s deeper than I can tell.”
Xuanyuan Ying glanced at his rejected hand and smiled slightly. This woman gets an inch, and wants a mile, “That I know, but I’ve never been in before. If you want to go take a look, I’ll go with you.”
Gu Yunlan immediately shook her head. As soon as she even thinks about that endlessly deep place, she’d get the goosebumps. Only, she thought of something else,”We accidentally found a giant overhanging cliff at Haze Mountain. It was like a fairyland, but wherever we went to try and find a road, there’d be nothing there!”
“Couldn’t find it?” Xuanyuan Ying slipped into deep thought.
“Unintentionally, I went into an alley and suddenly found the Thousand Year Ancient Shop. The shopkeeper said it was connected to me by fate, so he gifted me a book.”Gu Yunlan saw his eyebrows wrinkle, and immediately pulled out a bamboo scroll onto the table.
The bamboo scroll was very long. Unraveling it, Xuanyuan Ying read it intently. The characters were very simple, not hard to recognize. He read out loud softly, “In the Ming Dynasty, a hanging cliff was discovered at Haze Mountain, of which after no paths could be found…”
He continued to read, but not out loud. After a while, he lifted his head to ask,”Did your Gu Family have an ancestor who cultivated immortality?”
Gu Yunlan nodded her head, “I heard my grandmother talking about it when I was a child. She said, our Gu Family is a clan that produced an immortal! However, nobody knows where the ancestor went!”
Xuanyuan Ying continued probing,”Do you remember what Yangjin said when Marshal Gu was kidnapped in the last life?’
Gu Yunlan nodded her head; of course she’d remember, she’d never, ever forget!
“Your Gu Family’s treasure! Perhaps this overhanging cliff and that treasure have something to do with each other!” Xuanyuan Ying slowly rolled up the scroll, placing it in Gu Yunlan’s hands.
“But how do we get in?” She received the bamboo scroll, and put it in her storage pouch.
“Or perhaps it has something to do with me?” Xuanyuan Ying hooked up the corners of his mouth. He looked over at Gu Yunlan’s white clothing, and exclaimed, “Change your clothes! We’ll go over there to take a look together!”
“Change again?” Gu Yunlan creased her brow. She really hated these kinds of buttons, so hard to fasten! If all buttons were like those on this clothing, wouldn’t it be better for everything to be tied with sashes!
“You still need my help” Xuanyuan Ying raised his brows; squinting at her as if he really did want to help her.
Gu Yunlan nodded her head. You don’t say, she really does need it! She immediately turned to shift around her wardrobe. Going to that kind of place requires black clothing!
Seeing Gu Yunlan squatting by the wardrobe looking through her clothes, he hooked up the corners of his mouth. She really is quite blunt; she was talking about how inappropriate it is for a maiden to live in another man’s house a few seconds ago. Now she’s acting as if he was a servant…
The two next appeared in the veranda of the Gu Family’s ancestral hall.It was already well into the afternoon, causing the place to shine all over. Gu Yunlan gazed at the greenish brick wall, and flinched slightly, “Xuanyuan! Do we really need to go in?”
“Why don’t you call me something else, ‘Big Brother Ying’ sounds good.” Xuanyuan Ying discovered he wasn’t completely satisfied by the address, “Isn’t calling others ‘Big Brother’ popular these days?”
“Uncle Xuanyuan!” Gu Yunlan cracked a grin, of course she won’t use ‘Big Brother’! She pinched him lightly, “Uncle Xuanyuan, you shouldn’t digress. How do we enter?”
Uncle Xuanyuan? That’s fine! Xuanyuan Ying suddenly felt his heart lighten a lot; it doesn’t matter what she calls him, just as long as it is special! “Watch me closely!”
He lifted his right hand while facing that wall, and pulled back forcefully with his hand. o reaction? He creased his brows, “Could there be a restriction?” Thinking of this, he made a turning gesture in front of his chest. A black energy appeared in his hand as he once again pulled back forcefully. That greenish wall rumbled as it shifted towards the two of them, revealing a dark entrance.
He held her waist as he dodged around the wall. Just as they stood before the cave entrance, a musty smell drifted to them. Gu Yunlan felt a bit suffocated, Xuanyuan Ying immediately said, “Do not breathe it!”
Gu Yunlan immediately held her breath. Only then did the two start surveying the dark space within. It was very big, very dark. Gu Yunlan hurriedly pulled out a fire talisman. Blowing on it softly, the talisman lit up but quickly was extinguished again. The following attempts were also in vain.
“It’s useless! You cannot breathe in here! Focus your spirit power on your eyes!” Xuanyuan Ying’s voice sounded once again. He held her hand as they entered. With every step, Gu Yunlan could feel the wind whistling about, blowing so that her face stung a bit.
After walking for a while, Xuanyuan Ying abruptly halted his steps, “There are bats!” He immediately pulled Gu Yunlan with him as he leaned against the wall, Just as they got to the wall, a flock of bats thundered past.
“They’re blood sucking bats!” Xuanyuan Ying was alarmed as he tightened his embrace on Gu Yunlan. Leaning against the wall, his back faced the danger.
The two’s weight was all pretty much on the stone wall. Gu Yunlan could feel the hard surface on her back.
“Kakaka!” An off sound echoed just as the bats flew past. The two simply didn’t have any time to react as the wall they leaned on cracked.
“Xuanyuan!”
Footnotes:
[1]Eating tofu = getting handsy
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