Chapter 111: Cloud (2)

111 – Cloud (2)

“Di… Director Gao.” Qi Yun lowered his head, simultaneously pulling his clothes tighter around himself.

Gao Liao turned to look at Lin Xun.

Lin Xun: “…”

He explained, “Sorry, we got into a fight.”

Gao Liao’s voice also seemed a bit unsteady: “A fight?”

Qi Yun coughed once and added, “The props were a bit slippery. While we were fighting, we… we fell into the prop pile, so…”

Gao Liao’s eyebrow twitched: “So…?”

Qi Yun closed his eyes, giving up: “So this happened.”

Gao Liao looked at the prop master, who seemed lost in thought and clearly out of his mind: “What about him?”

Lin Xun: “Oh, it’s like this. We were in a group fight, and he joined in. The props were too ugly, and he got scared. As you know, he’s a bit timid.”

Gao Liao: “He’s usually not timid.”

Lin Xun: “Maybe he hid it too well. You, as a busy person, might have forgotten.”

Two question marks seemed to appear in Gao Liao’s eyes as he looked back at Qi Yun: “Where are your other clothes?”

Qi Yun: “…Lost in the fight.”

Gao Liao remained silent for a long time.

Lin Xun suddenly felt that although the three of them had been through a fierce battle in the room, each losing something—like him having a headache from frantically organizing attacks, the prop master being scared out of his wits, and Qi Yun faring even worse, losing his pants—Gao Liao was the one most deserving of sympathy.

Qi Yun only lost a piece of clothing, but Director Gao had lost his muse.

He propped the prop master against the wall, took a few steps forward, pulled Qi Yun behind him, and said to Gao Liao, “Sorry, he’s not in a suitable state for the gathering right now. I’ll take him away first.”

Gao Liao still seemed to be in some barely noticeable state of confusion, nodding almost imperceptibly.

His assistant stood expressionlessly to the side, acting like a stone.

Lin Xun grabbed Qi Yun’s wrist: “We’ll be leaving now.”

Gao Liao: “Wait.”

Lin Xun stopped, and Qi Yun followed suit.

Gao Liao’s gaze lingered on Qi Yun’s face.

Qi Yun’s makeup was slightly smudged, the scales on his cheek not fully faded, leaving some bluish-purple bruises, and his hair was even more disheveled.

Gao Liao’s eyes stayed on him for a long time. So long that Qi Yun couldn’t help but ask, “You…”

Gao Liao’s gaze deepened.

Gao Liao’s voice also deepened.

“You…” he said, “are still beautiful now.”

A moment of silence.

“Holy shit,” Qi Yun’s telepathic voice echoed in Lin Xun’s mind. “He’s not really into me, is he?”

Lin Xun: “I think he genuinely has some artistic pursuit.”

“I’m getting goosebumps.”

“Fish don’t have goosebumps.”

“Let’s get out of here, quick.”

Qi Yun forced a smile: “Thank you.”

Then he tried to walk toward the elevator door.

A hand landed on his shoulder.

Gao Liao’s voice grew even deeper and hoarser: “Weren’t you listening to me?”

Lin Xun’s internal alarm bells rang!

He activated his Heavenly Eye technique, and a fleeting stream of code flashed before his eyes.

The ceiling!

He looked up sharply. A drop of water dripped from the corridor ceiling, casting a faint shadow on the smooth wall nearby.

At the same time, a burst of black mist erupted from behind Gao Liao!

Lin Xun: “Watch out!”

Qi Yun’s frail frame finally moved swiftly at the brink of danger, pulling back abruptly!

Lin Xun took the keyboard back in hand, transforming the keys into a sword. He pushed Qi Yun aside, activated the Light Body Technique, and lunged toward Gao Liao.

At that moment, he saw blackness saturating Gao Liao’s pupils—no whites, only a dense, heavy darkness, as if he had lost his sanity.

No, he truly had lost his sanity.

Was he angered by Qi Yun? Or had he suffered a Qi deviation?

Several thoughts flashed through Lin Xun’s mind, but his movements never paused.

—A tentacle shot out from the side, coiling around his sword. Lin Xun exerted force, and a surge of sword Qi erupted, splitting the tentacle in half and sending it crashing to the ground. Gao Liao retreated two steps, and immediately, from the damp stains on the ceiling, countless tentacles emerged from all four walls!

—How hideous.

Lin Xun activated his program, but as soon as the thought formed, his vision began to darken intermittently. He knew he had expended too much in the room earlier and was now somewhat overexerted.

But Gao Liao gave him no chance to rest, contorting his body at an unnatural angle to attack him!

Lin Xun steeled himself, using the Light Body Technique to levitate and temporarily evade the assault. Seizing a few seconds to catch his breath, he pulled a small jade bottle from his pocket and poured out a round, golden-red pill.

The Great Recovery Pill.

When he had left home at noon, feeling exhausted in every way, he had originally intended to take it. But he hesitated, thinking the mission reward item might have greater uses later. Instead, he settled for some internal elixirs refined by Bihai Xianzi. Now, it seemed that decision had been right.

He shoved the pill into his mouth, and it dissolved instantly. A warm current surged through his limbs and bones, heat gathering at the crown of his head and his Dantian, clearing his mind.

Lin Xun curled his lips slightly, and countless sword Qi materialized out of thin air, sweeping toward the surrounding tentacles and Gao Liao at the center! Gao Liao’s assistant, too, now had eyes completely tainted by blackness. The two of them were a level stronger than the surrounding tentacles.

Still, there was a chance of victory.

As long as…

Lin Xun furrowed his brows, cutting off his own train of thought to focus entirely on the attack.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Qi Yun turn back toward the original room, seemingly trying to twist open the door again to give the fog machine another chance to transform him.

But at that moment, the corridor lights suddenly dimmed! In the windowless, stiflingly dark hallway, only the faint glow of emergency lights during the power outage remained.

Lin Xun’s heart tightened. The Goddess of the Luo River materialized out of nowhere, her faint blue light illuminating the entire area. He saw an emergency power switch on the wall, with an ugly tentacle coiled around it.

The switch had been pulled.

So, the power was out. Naturally, the fog machine in that room could no longer operate, and Qi Yun’s combat effectiveness was officially nullified.

Lin Xun took a deep breath, retreated a few steps, and left a strand of sword Qi to protect Qi Yun. He steadied his mind to deal with the tentacles and the two adversaries. He rarely fought alone, but fortunately, the Goddess of the Luo River was coordinating and directing from behind. Though he was struggling, he wasn’t being suppressed by the enemy.

Ten minutes—he felt like ten minutes had already passed.

Lo’s voice rang out: “Warning: Based on previous combat experience, your strength is about to be depleted.”

Lin Xun pressed his lips together.

Still, these ten minutes of fierce battle had yielded results. The two mindless, emotionless attacking machines before him were both severely injured, and most of the tentacles had been destroyed.

He narrowed his eyes at the newly emerged tentacles on the ceiling.

Gao Liao’s attack came again, his fist smashing hard toward his shoulder. Lin Xun didn’t move, taking the blow head-on and being knocked to the ground.

Qi Yun was huddled in a corner, rummaging through his backpack for something. Seeing this, he hurriedly asked, “Are you okay?”

Lin Xun: “No.”

He gasped for breath: “I’m done for.”

Qi Yun helped steady him, speaking quickly: “What do we do then?”

“I…” He looked at the tentacles continuously emerging from all directions and took a step back.

Suddenly, a piercing mechanical alarm sounded from the Goddess of the Luo River!

Lin Xun’s back bumped into someone.

A chill spread from his neck—a tentacle had coiled around it.

An arm also crossed over his neck, the clothing familiar to Lin Xun.

The prop master.

A soft exhale sounded in his ear.

Lin Xun: “You’re the demonic creature?”

The prop master didn’t speak, and the tentacle around Lin Xun’s neck tightened more and more.

The next moment, he was violently thrown to the ground!

Thousands of tentacles surged forward, the expressionless prop master looking down at him from above.

Prop master…

Props.

The vague sense of danger he’d felt earlier was actually true.

Every time, it was the props causing trouble.

And when Gao Liao looked at Qi Yun during the audition, his slightly reddened eyes—in that moment, Lin Xun had almost truly believed he approached Qi Yun for artistic pursuit rather than other motives.

Now it seemed Gao Liao might indeed be innocent, a decoy.

—The expressionless yet clear-eyed prop master, who obviously retained his consciousness, was the best proof.

Lin Xun tried to gather his Spiritual Power, but the familiar headache assaulted him again. He and Qi Yun had left the room without the fog machine, rendering Qi Yun combat-ineffective. He had taken the Great Recovery Pill for healing, but though it restored him, he had exhausted it again in the recent fight. He had used up all his available trump cards. Lin Xun had to admit that this time, he was truly cornered. And now, the prop master held absolute advantage.

He had obtained the operating system and reached the Nascent Soul Realm.

Cultivators in the Nascent Soul Realm could communicate with heaven and earth, mobilizing endless Qi, making them incredibly powerful in combat. However, if all the Qi between heaven and earth could be used without restriction by Nascent Soul Realm cultivators, wouldn’t that mean those in the Nascent Soul Realm could never determine a winner among themselves?

Therefore, in battles, one’s personal realm—or rather, mental state and skill—also mattered. For example, a computer connected to the internet could access all resources online, but how much it could actually accomplish still depended on its own hardware—just like a low-spec machine couldn’t set game graphics to the highest quality.

A tentacle wrapped around his waist, and he was thrown heavily to the ground again, a metallic taste of blood rising in his mouth.

His phone fell out of his pocket, landing screen-side down. It was unclear whether it was damaged. Lo’s image flickered and distorted in the air a few times before barely returning to normal. As Gao Liao stepped toward them, Lo retreated a few steps to stand beside Lin Xun.

Lin Xun met his gaze, seeing Lo look down at the phone screen and press his lips together. The distress signal had actually been sent out long ago, but everything happened too quickly. Within ten minutes, even the seniors couldn’t come to their aid.

But now, the screen lit up again—clearly, Lo was controlling it.

Perhaps due to his severe injuries, Lin Xun’s vision was somewhat blurry, but as soon as the screen lit up, he could make out the outline of those two characters.

Lo was calling Dong Jun.

Lin Xun froze, only to see a hand pick up the black phone and decisively end the call. The entire process likely took less than two seconds. Lin Xun was sensitive to time and numbers—he knew that from initiating the call to the signal actually connecting, there was a reaction time. If the call was ended within that reaction time, the other party wouldn’t even receive a notification. This call had never truly gone through.

The props master stepped toward Lin Xun, his black leather shoes tapping rhythmically against the smooth floor.

Lin Xun lowered his head and coughed a few times. He gripped his sword, his fingers trembling, his chest in excruciating pain. Whenever he tried to focus his attention to unleash a technique, his chest tightened instantly, making it impossible to breathe. In cultivation terms, this was likely what it meant to have exhausted one’s cultivation.

Forget it—even if he lost, he wouldn’t lose his dignity. Propping himself up with one hand on the ground, he stared directly at Gao Liao.

Suddenly, his fingers were pried apart—a wet, slippery sensation. At first, he thought it was a tentacle, but then he felt the knuckles of human fingers. His sword was pulled from his grasp, and he saw a dark figure step in front of him. The shoulders were slender, but the posture was precise.

Sword cultivators—sitting like a bell, standing like a pine—their backs were always straight.

Qi Yun looked at the props master and said, “You… don’t come any closer.”

The props master seemed to curl his lips into a smile, but combined with his pitch-black, lifeless pupils and the dark Qi swirling around him, it only made him appear unnaturally eerie.

Qi Yun: “Get lost.”

The props master slowly raised his hand. The black mist coalesced into the shape of a palm and slammed down toward Qi Yun’s head!

Lin Xun closed his eyes.

Not because he couldn’t bear to watch what came next.

He believed that sword cultivators, like keyboard cultivators, weren’t things that could be easily killed.

—And neither was he.

He opened his eyes.

System Space!

He hurried to the task interface. The Great Recovery Pill had already been taken out and used, leaving only the unused blank skill book floating quietly in the rewards inventory.

He picked it up.

Skill Book Effect: Advance any skill by one level. Please select a skill.

Skill One: Light Body Technique.

Skill Two: Heavenly Eye Technique.

Skill Three: Teleportation Technique.

—Please choose.

He took a deep breath, his heart pounding uncontrollably, because success or failure hinged on this moment.

His gaze swept over the Light Body Technique and Teleportation Technique, finally settling on the Heavenly Eye Technique option.

Lin Xun didn’t like doing uncertain things, but that didn’t mean he disliked gambling.

Clear, logical certainty and the ever-shifting, unpredictable nature of probability were two sides of the same coin—the left and right hands of the goddess of mathematics.

Lin Xun tapped the “Heavenly Eye Technique” option.

“Skill ‘Heavenly Eye Technique’ selected. Confirm?”

Confirm.

“Skill ‘Heavenly Eye Technique’ is being upgraded. Please wait.”

“Upgrade complete.”

Lin Xun opened his eyes.

The vast world rose before his eyes.