After Being Struck By The Love Gu, I Reached A Happy Ending With My Frail Best Friend - Chapter 10

“Zhouzhou! Zhouzhou!”

“Wake up! Zhouzhou, wake up! If you die, how am I supposed to go on living all by myself?”

“Waaah, waaah, my poor, ill-fated Zhouzhou—”

When Shen Fangzhou groggily regained consciousness, it felt as though a wild dance party was raging inside her head.

Forcing herself to block out the system’s wailing, which sounded more like a funeral dirge, she first struggled to feel for the wound on her chest.

How could it be…

Completely unharmed?

“Are you awake?”

A soft voice sounded beside her.

Shen Fangzhou struggled to open her eyes and immediately met Xie Guiwan’s calm gaze.

Shen Fangzhou: “!”

She abruptly rolled over and sat up.

Only then did she realize that ferocious black souls surrounded them, each drifting like a ghostly shadow, low growls of hatred rumbling from their throats.

These black souls did not appear particularly intelligent.

They tirelessly hurled themselves against the protective talisman formation over and over again. Every collision nearly tore their souls apart, yet they seemed oblivious to the damage and launched another attack each time.

At the center of the protective talisman formation sat Xie Guiwan, cross-legged and composed.

Shen Fangzhou swiftly looked around.

A white sun hung high overhead, while the air was thick with the scent of blood.

She vaguely understood that they had probably been pulled into some kind of secret realm.

“Sect Master, where are we? And how did the wound on my chest heal?”

Xie Guiwan did not answer immediately.

She merely stared fixedly at Shen Fangzhou’s lips for a moment before shaking her head.

“I’m not entirely certain either. Hatred Eternal and Xichouyuan were originally a pair of matching swords, both born during the first war between immortals and demons.”

“Perhaps our understanding of the Ten Eternal Hatreds Formation was incomplete. Zhou Xu may have accidentally activated something and dragged us into this place.”

“Perhaps the battlefield surrounding us is the battlefield from that time.”

Xie Guiwan remained seated as steadily as ever, her words unhurried and calm.

But Shen Fangzhou caught something unusual.

She immediately leaned forward and stared intently into Xie Guiwan’s eyes.

“Sect Master, why aren’t you answering my question? Are you… completely unable to hear?”

“What did you say? Which question are you asking?”

Xie Guiwan’s expression remained perfectly normal, composed beyond measure.

Shen Fangzhou, however, became even more alarmed.

She remembered the half of her life Xie Guiwan had sacrificed in order to fight Zhou Han to a standstill.

Rumor had it that before the Tianji Sect Master ascended, the Heavenly Dao had granted her a unique technique.

But the price for using it was devastating, faintly comparable to Shen Fangzhou’s restraints.

Before losing consciousness, she had clearly felt Cheng Che’s long blade pierce her chest.

If the body that had entered this realm was truly her own, then how had the wound healed?

The answer was already obvious.

Without caring about anything else, Shen Fangzhou immediately grabbed Xie Guiwan’s wrist.

The moment she lightly pressed her fingers against it, her expression darkened.

She could clearly feel the sluggishness in Xie Guiwan’s pulse.

Xie Guiwan had temporarily lost her hearing.

Noticing the obvious stiffness on her close friend’s face, Xie Guiwan paused.

She had probably not expected to be exposed so quickly.

Only after a long while did she sigh.

“Zhouzhou, could you say that again? You were speaking too quickly. Right now, sounds reach me as though through a layer of fog. I can only read your lips.”

“It was only a stab wound. Why did you have to pay such a price for it?”

Shen Fangzhou’s voice was filled with self-reproach.

“It did not even strike my heart or any vital point. Once I woke and rested briefly, I would still have had ways to deal with it.”

She spoke very slowly, but her spirits had visibly sunk.

Xie Guiwan smiled and caught the corner of her robe, gently shaking it the way she had countless times during their playful exchanges.

“It would still have been different. Since Cheng Che intended to kill you, who can say there wasn’t poison on the blade?”

Shen Fangzhou’s hand slid down.

Gradually, her fingers closed around Xie Guiwan’s palm.

Feeling the female lead’s frail, slender hand, guilt rose steadily in Shen Fangzhou’s heart.

Her fingertips brushed across the sect master’s excessively cold palm.

Shen Fangzhou was just about to take more clothing from her storage ring when she raised her head and unexpectedly met those eternally calm, smiling eyes.

Across two lifetimes, Shen Fangzhou had never had a friend like this.

Her heart trembled.

In that single gaze, she seemed to see all three years they had spent together, morning and night.

Countless thoughts surged through her mind.

Shen Fangzhou lowered her eyes and could only softly call out once more,

“Sect Master.”

The system: “???”

So Cheng Che stabbing you actually brought the two of you even closer together?!

The system let out a disbelieving laugh and began singing its funeral tune again before threatening fiercely,

“Shen Fangzhou, wake up! Hurry! Stop standing there getting emotional! Get the female lead out of here!”

Shen Fangzhou nodded repeatedly, her voice determined.

“I understand!”

The system: “…I have a feeling what you understand and what I understand are not the same thing.”

Now that Shen Fangzhou understood their situation, she gradually relaxed again.

At least they had clues.

Escaping might not be too difficult.

The two walked side by side, and the protective formation etched with golden talismanic patterns moved with them.

Shen Fangzhou turned her head.

She could see dense swarms of black souls like ants, as well as the desolate, timeworn battlefield beyond them.

Countless skeletons lay scattered everywhere, including no small number belonging to great cultivators at the Spirit Transformation and Mahayana realms.

Had the war between immortals and demons a thousand years ago truly been this brutal?

Shen Fangzhou spoke in a low voice.

“Since Hatred Eternal and Xichouyuan were born on the battlefield, they must have been engraved from birth with remnants of battle memories.”

“If Zhou Xu activated Xichouyuan’s sword spirit, then escaping this place will inevitably have something to do with that black mist.”

“Find the black mist,” Xie Guiwan said thoughtfully. “As the intersection connecting the two spaces, destroying it should allow us to return.”

Before she had even finished speaking, Xie Guiwan suddenly said,

“Not good.”

The countless remnant souls around them erupted into miserable screams at the same time.

In an instant, boundless spiritual power roared toward them like a raging river.

The violent gale grew fiercer and fiercer.

It moved as swiftly as arrows released from bowstrings, slicing painfully across their faces.

Countless bloody marks resembling ghostly claws slammed into the pure golden talisman seals.

The protective formation, which had been as solid as iron, rang with echoes as deep as a bronze bell.

Cracks spread with a series of sharp snaps.

Shen Fangzhou’s expression changed drastically.

“Not good! The formation is about to break!”

Amid the chaos, Shen Fangzhou once again gripped Longming.

The divine sword rang brightly.

Powerful sword qi immediately surrounded them, filling the gaps in Xie Guiwan’s formation.

Across the battlefield overflowing with deathly energy, the two cooperated like this, advancing step by step.

Behind them, the blood of the remnant souls stretched into a long crimson ribbon.

---

Ning Ruyue swore she would never return to this cursed place for the rest of her life.

A gigantic black-tiger remnant soul had condensed into physical form.

Ning Ruyue no longer knew how many enemies she had encountered.

Cheng Che had disappeared.

Shen Fangzhou and Xie Guiwan were nowhere to be found either.

At present, only the nine Foundation Establishment cultivators who had been dragged onto the battlefield remained.

No.

Not nine.

Only five cultivators still had enough strength to fight.

The black tiger lunged.

One saber cultivator gritted her teeth and sprang forward to meet it.

Among them, Ning Ruyue possessed the finest swordsmanship.

Only if the others created a single opening for her swift sword could they survive on this hellish battlefield.

Ning Ruyue stared fixedly at her opponent.

Her hand rested upon the sword hilt, barely curling around it.

Her grip appeared so weak and fragile that it seemed she could easily be knocked away.

But that was the nature of her sword path.

While her sword slept, even the strength in her fingertips was so faint as to be imperceptible.

When her sword left its sheath, however, she would become taut as a drawn bow.

At that moment, Ning Ruyue was precisely such a powerful bow.

She watched the distant battle.

The saber cultivators began cutting furiously, attempting to expose even the smallest weakness in the black mist.

Ning Ruyue’s breathing fell completely silent.

She became as still as the legendary bears that hid among thick foliage, masters of ambush.

Her gaze tracked every collision between her companions and the enemy.

After guarding the border for a year, her ability to seize opportunities had far surpassed that of ordinary people.

She was even confident enough to claim that her swift sword was unrivaled throughout Huizhou.

The opportunity had arrived!

In an instant, yellow sand filled the sky, obscuring both sun and moon.

The saber cultivator roared and swung her blade horizontally.

The four-and-a-half-foot saber collided head-on with the black-tiger remnant soul.

Now!

All that remained was this single sword strike—

Ning Ruyue attacked!

The swift sword at her waist flashed like a shooting star.

Like an arrow already drawn to the string, it had no choice but to fly.

Yet in that instant, Ning Ruyue saw her companion.

The saber cultivator had not struck the black-tiger remnant soul.

Instead, she had swung her blade at something behind it.

“RUN!!!”

The saber cultivator’s roar tore across the entire battlefield.

The world fell silent again.

It seemed as though Ning Ruyue was the only person left beneath heaven and earth.

That roar had been a pure warning.

They were comrades who had once fought in the same direction and despised retreat more than anything.

The saber cultivator had already seen Ning Ruyue’s sword.

She had already seen their opponent.

It was not that she did not know how fast Ning Ruyue’s sword could be.

She simply still did not believe Ning Ruyue could stand against this enemy.

But the saber cultivator’s warning had come too late.

Ning Ruyue could no longer withdraw her sword.

She clearly heard her heart pounding inside her chest like a war drum.

Uncontrollable blood surged up through her throat.

At this distance, she could already see the black-tiger remnant soul.

In the next moment, she leveled her sword.

A swordswoman’s Dao was to fear nothing.

With fearless momentum in her heart, she truly became fearless.

Ning Ruyue felt spiritual power surge from both arms into the sword hilt.

Nothing else mattered anymore.

The battlefield.

The blood.

The endless night…

Only this opponent remained in her eyes.

The sword blade roared like a tiger as it stabbed toward the black soul.

A crisp ringing sound erupted across the wilderness, like a chess piece striking the board.

Ning Ruyue landed.

Powerless, she stumbled backward several steps.

She no longer had enough strength even to retrieve her sword.

But she was confident she had wounded the enemy.

Ning Ruyue raised her head—

and the faith she had painstakingly built collapsed like a mountain.

The remnant soul was completely unharmed.

It lunged toward her with a savage expression.

The shadow of death descended.

Ning Ruyue’s pupils contracted sharply.

Her mind went blank.

A thought she had never entertained in her entire life emerged in her heart.

She was going to die here.

At that instant, green robes surged like a violent gust of wind.

A roar like that of a dragon tore through the air.

The familiar sword blade brushed past Ning Ruyue’s temple and nailed the black-tiger remnant soul firmly to the ground.

Only then did Ning Ruyue realize that her long robes were drenched in cold sweat, as heavy as iron armor.

“Shen Fangzhou?”

Ning Ruyue turned her head.

Her lips moved several times, but the overwhelming relief of surviving left her speechless.

The green-robed swordswoman swiftly retrieved her sword.

Her posture remained as tall and upright as it had been atop Huizhou Pass.

This person had once told her not to be afraid.

And each time Ning Ruyue’s life had hung by a thread, Shen Fangzhou had truly come to fulfill that promise.

Ning Ruyue did not know what to say.

Only after a very long time did she support the saber-wielding companion beside her and help her stand.

Then she finally asked,

“You’re not dead?”

Shen Fangzhou formed a sword seal and barely managed to place the companions she had recovered under protection.

Before she could speak, she heard Ning Ruyue’s strangely astonished question.

“Can’t you hope for something better for me?”

Shen Fangzhou nearly choked.

She quickly explained what had happened with the sect master, then pointed toward the blazing sun in the distance.

“That is the mass of mist we saw outside. If we shatter it, we should be able to leave.”

Ning Ruyue frowned.

“Isn’t that the sun?”

“No. That is the key to the illusion.”

The person answering her was not Shen Fangzhou, but another, slightly unfamiliar voice.

Zhou Xu’s expression was dark.

Being dragged into the Ten Eternal Hatreds Formation was one thing.

Being rescued by Shen Fangzhou and Xie Guiwan was what truly filled her with humiliation and resentment.

“I don’t know exactly what is happening here either. But no matter how the battlefield changes, only that blazing sun remains fixed in place like a mountain.”

“That makes it the sole flaw in the entire illusion.”

“We cannot delay any longer. These remnant souls are gradually recovering their strength. We must move faster.”

Xie Guiwan coughed lightly and reminded them in a low voice.

The cost of maintaining the protective formation was impossible to describe.

Even she could not endure much longer.

The others stopped hesitating.

They immediately re-formed their battle formation just as they had at Huizhou Pass.

Shen Fangzhou and Zhou Xu attacked at the same time, attempting to cut through the black mist.

Yet before they could approach their target, surging black souls drove both of them back once more.

Shen Fangzhou’s chest caved slightly.

She gave a muffled groan, and a shocking trace of blood appeared at the corner of her mouth.

She had already damaged herself internally by using the restraints within Two Realms Mountain.

After persisting on this battlefield for so long, even she had begun to run out of strength.

The black mist was like this.

The other remnant souls were no different.

Countless malicious spirits surged outside the pale golden formation, trying to tear them apart and devour them.

Ning Ruyue stared at Shen Fangzhou, praying that she could carve a path through the encirclement.

But Ning Ruyue herself was so weak that she repeatedly stumbled backward until she leaned directly against the massive boulder behind her.

At that moment, she heard a faint sound.

Ning Ruyue froze.

Carefully, she lifted the stone covering.

A pair of familiar eyes met hers directly.

Cheng Che was covered in blood.

Her eyes held a coldness Ning Ruyue could not understand.