BB | Chapter 18

My King, I Really Cant Hold on Any Longer…

Shen Canglan turned around.

His eyesight had now become exceptionally good. As long as he wanted to, no matter how far or how small something was, anything that appeared within his field of vision was perfectly clear to him.

Even in a pitch-black night like this, with not a finger visible before his eyes, he could still make out objects by the faintest trace of light.

So he could clearly see that the speaker was not Li Yaochen.

This was a sullen-looking man, slightly taller than him, with a pair of ram-like horns on his head and dressed in black robes.

Shen Canglan was startled, his heart jumping twice in his chest.

…Who was this person? When had he come over? And where was his brother? Where was Shen Guanqi? Where was Qin Chun? Why had they all vanished all of a sudden?

But on his face, he still wore an expression of calm.

He looked at the gloomy man, took a silent step back, and asked, “You know the way now?”

The gloomy man answered briefly, “Yes.”

Shen Canglan asked again, “Where are Qin Chun and my brother? Why did they suddenly disappear?”

The gloomy man continued in Li Yaochen’s voice, “I sent them to look at another path.”

He seemed a little anxious, and walked first toward the direction he had just pointed, “Follow me, brother.”

Li Yaochen’s tone was steady, but his voice still sounded young and clean. Hearing this person speak with Li Yaochen’s voice made Shen Canglan indescribably uncomfortable, especially since this person even used Li Yaochen’s voice to call him “brother.”

Was that something just anyone could call him?!

But aside from discomfort, confusion, nervousness, vigilance, and a little fear, Shen Canglan felt something else too, excitement.

Leaving aside that squirrel that had given birth to five ugly cubs, this was the first true enemy he had faced alone!

His intelligence, his courage, his ability, his fine body and spirit, after seventeen long years of accumulation, were finally about to come into play at this very moment!

Shen Canglan kept a careful distance from the gloomy man, one hand resting on the hilt of his sword, following behind him.

He tried to pry more information out of the man: “Chen-ge, why are you not talking? Weren’t you the one who always loved talking to me?”

Man: “…”

He asked Shen Canglan, “What do I usually talk to you about?”

Shen Canglan said seriously, “Feelings, romance, of course. It cant be about how to kill demonic creatures, can it? Haha.”

Man: “…”

Shen Canglan said, “Oh right, speaking of demonic creatures, Chen-ge, what do you think kind of demonic creatures would be in this underground palace? Could there be ones that can turn into other people’s appearances and trick people?”

The man gave an “uh” and said, “Maybe.”

Shen Canglan continued asking, “If there really were such demonic creatures, Chen-ge, what do you think their weakness would be?”

The man remained silent: “…”

“Afraid of being exposed? Afraid of being tickled? Afraid of pain? Would they have feelings like other demonic creatures, or not?”

Man: “…I dont know either.”

Shen Canglan went on, “Then would they be scared? Would they scream when they saw insects? Ah, do you think they might suddenly strip off their clothes and dance and shout in the road?”

Unable to bear it any longer, the man pressed his temple. “Be quiet.”

For some reason, seeing the man’s deeply frustrated expression made Shen Canglan feel wonderfully pleased.

Could he really be a bad man? Was some unspeakable secret attribute hidden inside him?

Shen Canglan blinked. “Why be quiet? Chen-ge, didnt you like talking to me the most? Could it be that all those times you called me little sweetie were fake?”

The gloomy man’s lips twitched a few times, his face looking as though he had swallowed a fly. Shen Canglan could even see the veins bulging at his temple.

That was far too easy to tease.

If he kept this up, the man might get so angry he died before they even arrived.

Shen Canglan considered for a moment, then fished out the portrait of Yun Fang’s youngest son from his sleeve and held it close to the gloomy man. “Brother, tell me, why didnt he go back? Was it really because he fell in love with some demonic creature here? And those people Yun Fang sent before, who knows whether they are alive or dead now.”

The man did not answer.

Shen Canglan kept needling him, “Brother, why arent you speaking now?”

“Its so dark here, brother. Are you afraid?”

“Chen-ge, I have a dress here. Do you want to wear it?”

“Chen-ge, are you hungry? Thirsty? Tired?”

–

“What, are you tired?”

Li Yaochen stopped and turned back, looking at the pale-faced stranger behind him.

The man waved his hand. “No, no, Chen-ge, go on.”

When he spoke, the voice that came out was Shen Canglan’s.

Voice, like appearance, was also something external.

But Li Yaochen had to admit that Shen Canglan had a clear and pleasant voice, and since Shen Canglan always liked adding little particles at the ends of his sentences, it made him sound even livelier.

[This is too strange, why is this person talking with your little Shen’s face?]

The System shivered in Li Yaochen’s mind. [What is going on?]

Li Yaochen folded his arms and looked around without showing it on his face. “Cant you tell? We are already inside an illusion.”

[An illusion?]

“More precisely, an illusion that can summon a person’s inner demon. Listen carefully, havent you heard a voice all along whispering irritating things by your ear?”

[Huh?]

The System listened quietly for a moment, and sure enough, it heard the murmurs it had not noticed before.

“…you… take time off… overtime… nine days straight…”

“The client… says the first version…”

“The company… makes you… work overtime for free…”

System: […]

So it heard that. Then may I ask how do I go berserk?

It asked Li Yaochen again, [Host, you dont seem to be affected much. Is it because you are just too amazing and your will is too strong?]

Li Yaochen only gave three words: “He doesnt dare.”

When he was first dragged into this illusion, because he had no warning, he had also briefly heard those voices.

They were the roars of demonic creatures.

His obsession was himself. It was the determination to slaughter every demonic creature in the world and protect peace under heaven. Since this illusion was created by the very demonic creature before him, then it must be able to hear his thoughts.

Summoning his inner demon would be suicide. Letting him out of the illusion and showing him his true form would also be suicide. The demonic creature had no way out, so he led it in circles on the spot, trying to exhaust its strength.

It was just unknown how Shen Canglan, Qin Chun, and Shen Guanqi were doing over there, and whether they had encountered any danger.

Thinking of Shen Canglan, Li Yaochen also remembered that when he was first dragged into this illusion by the demonic creature, he had actually vaguely seen Shen Canglan’s shadow.

Perhaps it was because he had worried too much. That shadow changed from the two of them sparring, to Shen Canglan sprawled in sleep, to Shen Canglan fighting the demonic creature.

Li Yaochen had also never expected that the final image would freeze on last night, at the very moment he held Shen Canglan’s waist token and saw the lightly dressed man on it.

After thinking it over, there was only one explanation.

He cared too much about his friendship with Shen Canglan. Shen Canglan was the only true friend he had made across these two worlds, and he was much younger than him. Although he felt that Shen Canglan, who knew nothing but cultivation, was somewhat pitiful, he still hoped Shen Canglan could cast away distracting thoughts, keep cultivation in his heart alone, and walk farther with him on the Great Dao.

He definitely would.

Li Yaochen shook his head, brushing away all stray thoughts, and silently quickened his pace.

Behind him came the demonic creature’s exhausted, wheezing breaths, like an old bellows.

–

“How is it going?”

This underground palace was where the demonic creatures lived. After entering through the city gate, what met the eye was a city that seemed already abandoned.

But if one entered through certain old residences and found the entrance behind the cabinets, one could follow the steps all the way down and find the underground town where the demonic creatures gathered.

At first, these demonic creatures only occasionally stole chickens and ducks from the nearby town to sustain themselves, and their days were fairly peaceful.

But ever since the leader of the demonic creatures had abducted a man from a town not far away, that peace was broken.

For the sweet love between their boss and his wife, and also because of the faint bloodthirsty urge buried in their hearts, the demonic creatures used every trick they had to stop any cultivators who tried to go deeper into the underground palace.

After constant attempts, they finally settled on the simplest and most effective method of all.

Let the sheep demon named “Huaxin” summon the cultivators’ inner demons, and use their greatest fears against them. Without needing to lift a finger, those cultivators were already in disarray.

But today, that method seemed to have failed.

Huaxin sat sweating profusely before a mirror. “…No good. I cant summon the inner demons of two of them. The other two’s inner demons are useless against them, and instead they rebound on me.”

The inner demon in black robes was about slaughtering demonic creatures. The moment it was summoned, the one who would die was itself.

The talkative one simply left no room for him to speak, and he was nearly driven mad with annoyance. He himself was almost about to go berserk.

The fair-skinned one with very large eyes had an inner demon that was actually writing story booklets, and what it wrote was about the black-robed one and the talkative one.

After it finished writing, it even had to drag Huaxin over to read it, insisting that Huaxin say it was so sweet.

And not only did it have to say it, it had to cooperate with extremely exaggerated expressions and movements, as well as an extremely exaggerated voice.

Beyond that, the content of the booklet grew more and more explicit, more and more vulgar. Some of the moves and poses, after seeing them, stirred an odd feeling deep in Huaxin’s heart. Terrifying…

The most terrifying of all was the young man with fox eyes and a string of turtles hanging on his body. His inner demon was actually a scene, one where he ran a clinic.

Inside the clinic were all sorts of bizarre patients, a turtle that had defecated on the bed, a water snake that had vomited in the bathtub, a bird that wanted to eat its fellow patients… and the family members of patients who kept asking, “If Doctor Shen cant eat, can my husband have porridge then?”

Fox-eyes had forced Huaxin to assist him for a long time, and his attitude toward it was extremely harsh. Huaxin was almost on the verge of tears.

It wailed miserably, “My king, I really cant hold on any longer…”

Their king sat on the stone bench, imposing and mighty, the sturdy muscles on his body gleaming even in the dim light.

Seeing Huaxin like this, the king cursed under his breath and waved a hand. “Forget it! Since they wont accept a toast and insist on a forfeit, and dont want to leave properly, then bring them over. With so many of us here, do you really think we cant beat them head-on?”