Love from the Male Protagonist's Harem

Chapter 68-Jianfeng Key Part 2

Translated by Snowfall77

With no way forward, Xia Ge looked all around.  The passageway was still spacious, but the bronze door was tightly closed, flanked by two immense stone figures about three or four meters in height.  One statue, holding a long knife in one hand and a pen in the other, wore a Confucian robe, and its copper eyes were fiendish.  The second statue, dressed for battle, held a red halberd, and its expression was bristling with anger.  Its ferocious face reminded Xia Ge of modern day door-gods that drove off evil spirits.

Given the fact that she was at the black market, where all kinds of people, puppets, and spirits comingled together, Xia thoughtfully considered the two ‘gatekeepers,’ her mood turning ambiguous.

Yet even as Xia Ge was pondering, she unexpectedly heard human voices coming from behind her!

The sound of footsteps and two people conversing carried down the quiet stone passage.  An alarmed Xia Ge looked for a hiding place, finally taking off her stilts and putting them in her silver ring.  Once barefoot, she used {ghost and shadow} to scale the halberd-holding statue and firmly clung to its neck.

Thankfully, the statue was big enough and Xia Ge was skinny enough.  Concealing herself behind the statue’s neck, Xia Ge anxiously held her breath.

With a loud ‘creak,’ the bronze door opened.

“I’ll figure something out.  Annoying.”

Stopping by the open door, the two voices below rang clear as they seemed intent on wrapping up their conversation.

Xia Ge’s hand on the statue’s neck started cramping, but she dared not move.

However, that voice……?

“Well, speed it up,” the other voice was unenthusiastic, “The founder is already very impatient.”

“I know, I know, I’m impatient too.”

Founder?  Hold on, who on this continent could be called founder…….

Chills suddenly ran up and down Xia Ge’s body.

“All right, put up with it and restrain yourself.  If you’re efficient, it’ll be over soon enough.”

“The high priest is stupid.  With that IQ……tsk-tsk, she had it coming.”

“She’s been imprisoned for so long; she should’ve learned her lesson by now.”  And while not disagreeing with the ‘stupid’ assessment, the other voice added: “Let’s just hope she has enough sense to not do something foolish like that again.”

“……”

High priest?  What high priest?  Imprisoned?

Xia Ge wracked her brain, trying to remember anything about this from the novel.  Had there’d been anything?

“Regardless, you have to get the key quickly and get her out so she can be useful.  Those dumbasses’ attention will temporarily be on the ‘Zhen Hun.’  Watch for whoever buys it and kill them to avoid trouble later.”

Xia Ge, being one of those dumbasses: “……”

There came a cold laugh: “So long as we put it out there that the Zhen Hun has reemerged that should muddy the waters sufficiently.”

The other voice was a little listless: “Yes, I’m aware.”

That voice……it was really……the more Xia Ge heard it, the more familiar it sounded.

A bad feeling slowly came over Xia Ge.  She thought of the figure from earlier, the one with the hole in their cloak, that revealed their snow-white jade pendant.

Who would have thought that taking the wrong way would have this result……

So……the ‘Zhen Hun’ being auctioned off was actually a fake?

“There’s two keys to Jianfeng’s prison.  Chang Lan has one, however it’d probably be too difficult to get it off him.  But we recently got a message from your brother saying that the second key is with the alternate Jianfeng senior disciple.”

Alternate Jianfeng senior disciple……Chu Yao?!

Lingxi Sect did indeed have spies in their midst!

Cautiously leaning over to one side, Xia Ge looked down at two figures in black cloaks.  The one currently speaking had their back to Xia Ge and was saying indifferently: “Bairen, get the key, get that person out, and your mission is finished.”

……Bairen?!  Mission?

Therefore ‘brother’ would be……Bai Luo?!  Did that mean……Bai Luo was a spy in Jianfeng?

Surprise!  There was more than one spy?!

The cloaked figure facing Xia Ge had on a pure black ‘smiley face’ mask on, with a white smile carving across it, and two holes gouged out for deathly pale eyes, the whole effect gloomy and strange in the silverly light of the formations on the walls.  Casually glancing up at the statue, the figure’s voice was perfunctory: “I know, got it.”

Would Xia Ge be seen?!

Scared stiff and heart pounding, Xia Ge’s footing abruptly slipped off one of the statue’s protuberances.  Clinging to the statue’s neck, Xia Ge’s whole body hung off it!

The two below: “Who’s there?!”

Oh shit!

The next second, countless paper blades flew towards the statue, with a sound like the flapping of bird wings.  Hiding her body behind the statue, Xia Ge maintained her grip on its neck as the razor-sharp paper blades, filled with extraordinarily vigorous qi, hit the door-god with a great clatter.  With one fell swoop, the fierce and formidable door-god was practically turned into a sieve, some of the paper blades brushing past Xia Ge’s hair to viciously pierce the stone wall behind!

What a great deity Xia Ge was clinging to, one that protected Xia Ge from calamity!  Xia Ge promised in her heart to burn incense to it once she got back to safety!

But even if daydreaming about worshipping Buddha, Xia Ge’s actions weren’t remotely careless.  Without any hesitation, she used {ghost and shadow} to flash through the open bronze door.  The other two, not being fools, sent an overwhelming barrage of paper blades Xia Ge’s way, a few slicing through her cloak.  Yet Xia Ge was just fast enough, and the split second she could, she kicked the bronze door tightly shut, blocking the downpour of paper blades!

Although a few blades made it through before the door closed, Xia Ge was able to quickly dodge them and avoided injury.

“Too naive!”

The two figures kicked the bronze door back open.  Though, to their surprise, all they found were shredded paper blades on the floor, the person they were pursuing seemingly disappeared into thin air.

Bairen gave a grim laugh: “They won’t get far.”

The other sounded a shade more somber: “Did you get a good look at them?”

“Good enough.  They were wearing a bronze mask with a corner of the chin missing, and were between five and six feet tall,” Bairen answered, “Let’s search!”

“We don’t know how much they overheard.  You’ll need to be careful.”

“Tch.”

Unresigned, the two hunted around again, yet in the end had to give up empty-handed.  The serious figure declared: “It’s a pity.  If they’d left anything behind, we could have cursed them.”

Bairen sneered: “You can do as you like.  But don’t show off your disgusting curses in front of me.  I don’t like it.”

“Humph!  What makes you think I want to show off to you?  The auction is about to start.  You go there, I’ll keep looking around here.”

After a little more discussion, Bairen agreed, turned his head, and left.  Unnoticed was the small piece of white paper from among the shredded blades on the ground that stealthily stuck itself to Bairen’s shoe.

The person staying behind stared at all the white paper scattered around and finally snorted: “Throwing paper everywhere and not even realizing there’s a hole in his cloak……such a ‘nose in the sky.’”

TN-This is this week’s chapter early.  Next week’s chapter will be late, posting on 12/2 or 12/3, depending.

教主   [jiào zhǔ]

the founder of a religion