Fighting The Male Lead For The Female Lead (Transmigrated Into A Book) - Chapter 4

Judging by the terrain here, this place ought to be a treasure site. Yet in Sheng Baihe’s memory, there was no treasure site that matched this place.

“Who’s there?!” The disciples flailing in the water, frozen to the point of shivering, looked warily toward the newcomer.

They were all just small fry. Sheng Baihe felt disdainful inside, but he still maintained a gentle and steady manner. “Sheng Baihe of the Wen family.”

“So it’s Senior Brother Sheng. This water is really strange. It’s so cold it’s making us shake.”

“I can see this place is unusual. Everyone should hurry and come up.”

The disciples who had been preparing to climb out paused when they heard this. They exchanged glances. The stranger a place was, the more likely it was to be hiding treasures. They said, “Senior Brother Sheng, please wait for us up there for a moment. Something belonging to one of our junior brothers was lost when we fell, and we need to help him look for it.”

After saying this, the disciples scattered through the water as if searching for something. Sheng Baihe stood high atop the stone pillar and looked down at them with a cold laugh.

Even if something really had fallen, it should be nearby. What were they doing walking so far away? Knowing exactly what they were plotting, Sheng Baihe did not expose them. He waited to reap the benefits like the fisherman who profited while others fought.

Standing above, he took this chance to carefully examine the cave once more, recalling the several treasures he was supposed to obtain in this mustard-seed space and which place’s description resembled this one.

Just as he was thinking, he suddenly sensed that something was wrong. Why was it so quiet? He looked down and saw that the disciples who had been there moments ago were all gone!

A chill ran down his back. The air seemed to freeze in an instant.

Sheng Baihe immediately gripped the hilt of his sword and observed the area below.

He still could not see those disciples, nor could he see anything else unusual.

Cold sweat broke out across his body. Whatever could take away eight people without him even noticing was not something ordinary.

Sheng Baihe kept retreating, wanting to leave the way he had come. Although the stone crevice was deep, it was not enough to stop him.

But inevitably, a sense of grievance rose in his heart. He was the protagonist. How could he be forced to flee in such a sorry state?

So he took a breath and called out loudly, “May I ask which immortal elder resides in this treasure cave? We barged in rashly and disturbed your honored self. I hope your honored self will forgive us.”

All around him, everything was silent. There was no response at all.

Doubt stirred in Sheng Baihe’s heart. Perhaps he was only scaring himself. Perhaps there was nothing powerful in this cave at all.

Even so, he still did not have the courage to go down and investigate.

He took two steps back, preparing to leave and bring people here another day to explore. Suddenly, he glimpsed what seemed to be a dark shadow in the water, right at the very center of the patch of light.

His steps stopped. Staring closely, he saw that it seemed to be a person floating on the surface of the water. The light from the bottom of the water outlined that person’s graceful figure. Long hair spread over the surface. It was a woman.

She was not one of the disciples who had just fallen down.

Was she alive or dead? Was she the owner of this cave, or a cultivator who had fallen here before?

Sheng Baihe held back his desire to go forward and spy on her. He retreated two steps and, maintaining the protagonist’s persona of valuing propriety, bowed toward the figure. He lifted his head, preparing to leave, only to see that the figure who had been floating in the water had somehow stood upright. Her bare upper body was exposed above the water, while her lower half was hidden beneath it and could not be seen clearly.

But just from seeing her upper body, Sheng Baihe sucked in a cold breath.

He knew this person.

But why would she appear here at this time?!

The woman in the water had hair as thick and lush as waterweed, covering most of her bare upper body. The parts of her skin that were exposed were snow-white, but more of it was covered in white scales that glowed with a faint blue light.

That face had scales covering the corners of her forehead. It was breathtakingly beautiful, yet utterly inhuman. Her eyes were long and narrow like a demon’s, with a pair of deep-blue vertical pupils set in them. At this moment, those pupils were staring straight at him.

There was not a trace of human emotion in those eyes. They still completely retained the cold-blooded nature of a wild beast.

Sheng Baihe felt as if he had been targeted by an ancient giant beast. Cold air rose from the soles of his feet. He knew this person, yet at this moment, he could not help doubting whether she was truly the person he knew.

Among his many harem members, there were humans, demons, and yao.

One of the yao was a jiao woman who had cultivated from a cold python into a flood dragon. But her appearance in the book was in the middle to later stages. By then, she could already fully transform into a human and was preparing to cultivate herself into a dragon.

The reason she became one of Sheng Baihe’s harem members was because, when she was on the verge of becoming a dragon, someone broke into her cave dwelling and tried to kill her and eat her flesh. Sheng Baihe happened to pass by and helped her. But after that incident, the jiao woman was injured and could no longer cultivate into a dragon.

Becoming a dragon was an instinct carved into her genes, just like humans craving pleasure.

After losing the possibility of becoming a dragon herself, she sought out Sheng Baihe, the only human who had helped her and given her a favorable impression. She laid an egg for him, intending to place her hope of becoming a dragon on that egg instead.

That event was supposed to happen several hundred years later. By then, the jiao woman had already transformed into human form and walked through the mortal world, gaining some humanity. She was not like this, still no different from a wild beast.

Even if she was not as strong now as she would be then, and even if she had not yet fully cultivated into human form, she was still stronger than the current Sheng Baihe. More importantly, right now she was nothing more than a yao beast with no humanity at all. Sheng Baihe had absolutely no chance of reasoning with her. The best plan was to leave.

At this moment, he no longer had the time to think about why he had encountered the jiao woman here.

“I won’t disturb your honored self any longer. I’ll leave right away.”

Without another word, Sheng Baihe twisted around and borrowed force to fly toward the crevice in the cave ceiling. The moment he moved, two strands of white mist suddenly rose from the water like arrows, twisting around each other as they circled the stone pillar and flew toward Sheng Baihe.

Sheng Baihe was not as fast as those things. He was caught up to in midair. Seeing that the two strands were about to wrap around his feet, he swung his sword at them. To his surprise, the things were like mist and were split apart by him with ease. Just as he was about to feel pleased, he saw that the sword blade that had touched them was immediately covered in blue ice crystals. That eerie blue was like it had been tempered with poison, spreading rapidly toward the hilt. Sheng Baihe instantly shook his hand and threw the sword away, then flew up into the crevice without looking back, scrambling upward in a panic.

Now, only two people remained in the cave. Wen Wuning could not move, so she could not see the situation, while Lan Fei’er, who had witnessed everything from beginning to end, was so shocked her jaw nearly dropped.

Like the male lead Sheng Baihe, she had also recognized the jiao woman, and she was equally shocked that they would run into the jiao woman at this time. One had to know that in the later stages, the jiao woman would be on the verge of transforming into a dragon. That was just like a human cultivator becoming an immortal. Although she failed in the end, by then, she was already an extraordinary great yao.

How had they encountered her now?!

Wen Wuning only knew that Sheng Baihe had left. She did not know anything else. However, she could sense that Lan Fei’er’s emotions beside her were unstable.

“What’s wrong?” Wen Wuning’s voice was extremely soft, almost nothing more than breath, yet Lan Fei’er immediately covered her mouth as if facing a great enemy.

Wen Wuning still did not understand the situation. Meanwhile, in the water, the jiao woman, who had already revealed her fierce nature because of Sheng Baihe’s escape, suddenly looked toward their side. Fear struck Lan Fei’er’s heart. She scooped up Wen Wuning by the waist, but before she could exert force, she felt the air around them turn cold. The air congealed, as if ten thousand catties of force were pressing down on her body.

Lan Fei’er turned her head with difficulty and saw that the jiao woman had already appeared behind her.

The jiao woman split open her huge mouth and pounced at her. The blood in Lan Fei’er’s entire body seemed to freeze instantly, and she could only watch helplessly as that gaping mouth drew near.

Suddenly, her vision blurred. She and Wen Wuning had switched positions.

Wen Wuning did not have time to take her sword. Barehanded, she grabbed the jiao woman’s ferocious jaws.

Lan Fei’er stared blankly as the jiao woman’s sharp poisonous fangs pierced through Wen Wuning’s palm. Blood flowed down from that huge mouth.

Everything happened in an instant.

The shock of that image struck Lan Fei’er so deeply that she would not forget this scene for a very long time. But right now, she had no time to think further, because Wen Wuning’s sword was in her hand.

Lan Fei’er gripped the sword with both hands, stood up, and stabbed toward the jiao woman’s eyes. Life and death hung on this single instant. If a fourth observer could see Lan Fei’er’s current appearance, they would definitely think she was the most vicious and evil villain they had ever seen in their life.

But something suddenly seemed off with the jiao woman. Her huge mouth, which had already transformed into its jiao form, returned to a human mouth, and she held Wen Wuning’s fingers between her lips. Her unusually long tongue moved nimbly, sweeping every drop of blood from Wen Wuning’s hand into her mouth without wasting a single bit.

The jiao woman was also changing at a speed visible to the naked eye. The scales at the corners of her forehead disappeared, turning into human skin.

After licking all the blood from Wen Wuning’s hand, she held Wen Wuning’s hands in her mouth and sucked hard at the wound in her palm.

She looked exactly like a child sucking on candy. Yet her cold, utterly inhuman appearance told the two of them that she was nowhere near as harmless as a child.

Both of them were stunned by this scene. Lan Fei’er was the first to react. She remembered where the jiao woman’s vital point was, and the sword that had originally been aimed at her eyes turned instead toward her waist.

Sensing the threat, the jiao woman released the hand in her mouth and bared her teeth at Lan Fei’er in a vicious, beastly expression. But she did not attack her. Instead, she wrapped around the completely defenseless Wen Wuning, turned, and plunged into the water.

“Senior Sister!”

Lan Fei’er rushed forward, only to see a white long tail flash beneath the surface. The two of them disappeared.

Her eyes searched the water anxiously, but she still saw no trace of them.

Guessing that the jiao woman was connected to the ring of light in the water, Lan Fei’er lifted Wen Wuning’s sword and flew toward that spot.

Landing on a stone pillar at the edge of the patch of light, she saw that the water surface was calm and still. The cave had returned to the silence it had held when they first arrived.

At this moment, she could not describe what she felt.

Wen Wuning was only a character in a book. She had saved Wen Wuning only because she had happened to run into her and acted on a whim, not because she had any feelings for Wen Wuning.

Now, two paths lay before her. One was to jump down and look for Wen Wuning. The other was to leave while she still could. Although it would be somewhat difficult for her to climb back up with her ability, she could still make it.

She stared at the dark, quiet surface below. If she went down, she would almost certainly die. As the female lead, Wen Wuning definitely would not die here. In the future, she still had to fall in love with the male lead.

But the plot had already changed somewhat. This time, Wen Wuning had not slept with the protagonist. Could there be a butterfly effect that changed the female lead’s future fate too?

If so, Lan Fei’er could not be certain whether the female lead would survive this disaster.

She gripped Wen Wuning’s sword in her hand.

If Wen Wuning had been willing to obediently follow the plot, they would not have fallen into this cave, nor would they have encountered the jiao woman.

If she had not interfered…

Lan Fei’er stared darkly at the surface of the water. She hated owing favors. If she survived this time, then from now on, she would never again put herself in danger for anyone. She absolutely would not meddle in anything else that affected the plot.

Even if she was weak, even if she was only a passerby, she had her own way of keeping herself alive. She would never entrust her back to anyone.

Anyone at all.

With a splash, Lan Fei’er plunged into the water.