Chapter 161 Spoils of War

"What favor?" Qu Xiu asked, completely baffled.

When it came to doing something that would put Wen Jingge in his debt, he was naturally more than willing to step up!

"Let me ask you this: if the objective is still to kill Shan Hongxing, but the process is different while the final result remains the same, that should be fine, right? Your script didn't specify the exact process."

[...That is acceptable.] The "Nonexistent" hesitated for a moment before answering.

What else could it do?

It was nothing more than an ordinary, artificially programmed system!

"Why must he die? Just to give me a justifiable reason to become a villain?"

The "Nonexistent" fell silent.

"In a few days, demons are bound to appear in your clan's secret realm."

"What did you say?" Qu Xiu was so startled he almost jumped off the roof, but fortunately, Wen Jingge grabbed him by the collar just in time.

"You're a mountain master after all, can't you be a bit more steady? Besides, you've been eavesdropping up here on the roof for this long, what would other people think of you?"

"But... but my master told me to listen to you, especially when it comes to things like a demon invasion. He said that whatever you predict will never be false, but, but how could there be demons in the mystic realm?"

Wen Jingge let out a long, heavy sigh. Although smoking was bad for her health, she really, really wanted to light one up right now.

Even though she didn't smoke.

"Those small sects that were destroyed by the demons—don't you remember them? Weren't they also wiped out overnight? I even heard that the Demon Subjugation Decree was activated on your end first."

"Just feeling a bit tense, that's all." Qu Xiu gave a hollow laugh.

This guy really was even more unreliable than she was!

Wen Jingge felt a wave of helplessness.

The threat the demons posed to this world was immense, and it was entirely possible they could directly cause the destruction of this realm.

Of the two from the Hidden Secret Sect, the one from Qinghe Mountain, and the few from the Profound Cloud Sect, none of them—aside from Shan Hongxing—could actually fight, and now she was supposed to kill the only one who could.

Wen Jingge felt utterly exhausted.

She genuinely had no idea where that old coot had gotten the confidence to believe she would stand on the side of the villains, lead this rabble of a group to defeat the demons, and pull off some brilliant, dramatic undercover operation.

That was simply impossible, wasn't it?

"Tonight, invite the people on this list over. I'll have Lu Wei trigger an outburst again by accident, just like before..."

"You—don't scare me! What on earth are you trying to do?" Qu Xiu was on the verge of tears. He had a peculiar quirk: he was exceptionally timid when he shouldn't be, and astonishingly bold when he ought to be cautious, always reacting completely opposite to ordinary people.

At this moment, even though he wore a mournful expression, his heart was leaping with joy, and he desperately wanted to commit misdeeds alongside Wen Jingge.

"Do you want to come over?"

"I want to come over very much." Qu Xiu's tears spilled uncontrollably.

"It's going to be very boring."

"I..." Tears dripped down in rapid, steady succession.

"..." Wen Jingge muttered, "If I hadn't accidentally found a diary and learned about this bizarre quirk of yours, I'd probably have thrown you out by now."

Qu Xiu: ...

"You said you knew how to hide people."

"Yes. Back then, when my master told me to hide, I hid inside a wardrobe for a whole year. A year later, they finally remembered I was in the wardrobe, and right then and there, I comprehended a brand-new set of fist techniques."

Wen Jingge rubbed her sore eye sockets; she had rolled her eyes so much today that they were beginning to ache.

"Why didn't you just say you stayed in there for fifty years, and fifty years later you found out all your senior martial brothers and sisters had vanished?"

"They really did vanish just like that." Qu Xiu sniffled. "If I had shown up back then, I probably would have died too! The decisions master makes—including his own fate—cannot be changed by anyone.

Those three old codgers were more stubborn than the next. If they could be changed, we juniors wouldn't have to be as constrained as we are now.

Still, they weren't entirely wrong. The future of the Profound Dao ultimately rests on the shoulders of us juniors. Their departure was meant to let us grow better."

"You suddenly turned so sentimental; I'm really not used to it." Wen Jingge hoisted Lu Wei up like a sack of grain, held her sword in one hand, grabbed Qu Xiu by the collar with the other, and leaped down from the roof.

"Oh, my sweet goodness!"

"Hello, Senior Brother Fan." Wen Jingge looked with utter despair at Qu Xiu, who was still dangling from her grip. "Big Brother, we've already landed, can't you just walk properly?"

"We've landed?" Qu Xiu finally opened his closed eyes and chuckled. "Didn't I think you were going to throw me out like a ball?"

"Am I that childish?"

"It's not like you've never done it before." Qu Xiu hummed, exchanged pleasantries with Fan Ziifan and Shan Hongxing, and then departed, as he needed to attend to the tasks Wen Jingge had assigned him.

"You two..." Fan Ziifan shook his head at whatever thought crossed his mind, remaining silent as he stared blankly at Lu Wei, who was still draped over Wen Jingge's back.

He had never seen Lu Wei's true appearance; he had only ever seen Lu Wei acting through Qiao Yu's body.

Although he constantly joked that his junior sister's temperament meant she would never find a husband, seeing her suddenly carrying a strange man on her shoulder—and an unconscious one at that—still filled him with profound sorrow and exasperation.

It was as if the prime cabbages of his family had crawled out of the ground and desperately sought out a pig to crash into and die with. He wore the worried expression of an aging father whose potential has gone unfulfilled: "Where did this wild man come from? What, what did you do to him? Little Five Wen, let me tell you, this isn't our Profound Cloud Sect, you need to rein in your behavior!"

"Is that a trophy?" Shan Hongxing stared thoughtfully at Lu Wei's dangling hands.

The man was still fast asleep, completely devoid of self-awareness, and on top of that, Wen Jingge and Qu Xiu had just dropped down from the roof together.

Most likely, the two of them had placed some kind of wager.

It was just that the stake happened to be a man...

"A trophy?" Fan Ziifan grew so indignant he stuck a pair of fake mustaches onto his face, looking as though he were demonstrating the textbook definition of flying into a rage.

"Third Junior Brother, is this a matter of trophies? Our Little Five is still an innocent maiden; how can she casually live her life with a mere trophy?"

"A trophy?" Wen Jingge fell into a momentary daze.

With Lu Wei still pressing down on her shoulder, gravity took its toll, and Wen Jingge lost her footing. Had Shan Hongxing not reacted swiftly and caught her, she would have collapsed straight to the ground.

"A trophy?" Wen Jingge murmured under her breath.

In a hazy flash, she seemed to see the riverbank under the setting sun littered with bleached white bones. The river water reflected the silhouette of a person standing amidst the rippling waves, their eyes scanning the surroundings with a hint of helplessness.

Then, she took a step forward, picked up a corpse from the crowd, hoisted it onto her shoulder, and slowly walked toward a tree.

Wen Jingge shuddered, falling into deep contemplation as she looked at the person on her shoulder.

It was Lu Wei.

The person carried by that shadow was Lu Wei.

Yes, the changes within Lu Wei were also affecting her. Because Lu Wei trusted her, she was able at this moment to witness the very sights Lu Wei was experiencing.

"Little Five, are you alright? Little Five?"

"I'm fine." Wen Jingge shielded Lu Wei to make sure he didn't take a fall. "Senior Brother Fan, I'm going to go rest."

"Little Five, don't walk away! Explain clearly who this man is!"

"Lu Wei. You know him." A sudden twinge pierced Wen Jingge's heart, causing her to cough up a mouthful of blood. She cast a strange look at Shan Hongxing. "Do the two of us happen to be enemies?"