Venerable Zeling? The name sounds quite imposing, but I wonder who on earth he really is.
Even though she was on the verge of kicking the bucket, Xu Ruoping still couldn't control her curiosity. She strained her neck and looked toward the direction where the Earth Demon was bowing.
Other than a blurry figure shrouded in a patch of black fog, she couldn't make out a thing.
Xu Ruoping's heart skipped a beat. This time, she would die unjustly with no way to appeal.
She still didn't know that if she were refined into a pill and swallowed by the Earth Demon, not even her soul would remain—let alone any talk of an appeal.
The dark shadow hidden within the black fog seemed to suppress an immense rage as he commanded in an imperious tone, "Let her go!"
The Earth Demon was startled. "Th-this is a catalyst we went to unimaginable pains to find, with one-in-a-million potential. To give her to Your Majesty—"
"Let her go!"
Venerable Zeling squeezed these words out from between his teeth. It was as if a cold wave had suddenly swept through the air, causing the temperature to plummet sharply. An icy, killing intent descended directly upon them, bone-chillingly cold.
Xu Ruoping felt the Earth Demon shudder violently. The next moment, she felt her body lighten as the creature tossed her toward the black figure like a bridal ball.
Strangely, she wasn't afraid at all; a familiar sense of security, washed over by the tides of distant time, welled up within her.
He caught her gently around the waist. A stream of gentle, jade-warm energy flowed from his palm, spreading from her facial orifices through her limbs and bones. All her pain, exhaustion, and dizziness were completely washed away.
Immediately after, Xu Ruoping was astonished to find that the mighty being holding her, known as Venerable Zeling, hadn't even moved a finger. With just a sweep of his gaze, the two Earth Demons who had tried to take a step and flee burst apart and died silently.
What a powerful Primordial Spirit! What an unfathomable magic power!
Before this Venerable Zeling, Xu Ruoping felt like a grain of sand in the vast ocean, insignificant and not worth mentioning.
She tried to open her eyes a little wider, wanting to see clearly who on earth this mighty being before her was.
The person was right before her eyes, but no matter how hard Xu Ruoping tried, his face remained veiled in a layer of black fog. She couldn't make out his facial features at all, except for a faint, lingering scent of a certain brand of men's cologne—that fragrance of noble ambroxan, perpetually radiating the indomitable, true self hidden deep within this man.
This scent was vaguely familiar. Where on earth had she smelled it before?
That night, Xu Ruoping slept with a profound sense of unreality. It felt as though she had dreamt a boundless, endless dream, yet also as though nothing had happened at all.
The first ray of morning sunlight filtered through the cheap, thin curtains, lazily spilling over the head of Xu Ruoping's bed. Xu Ruoping reluctantly opened her eyes for a split second, turned on her side, and fell right back into a deep sleep, as if she were trying to outdo the sunlight in laziness.
Unfortunately, her cell phone alarm refused to cooperate, ringing relentlessly over and over again.
Aside from the alarm function actually working, this piece of junk worth a few hundred yuan had other features that were barely better than nothing.
She might as well just throw it away.
Xu Ruoping thought about this with deep displeasure, but as her brain rapidly flashed to the touch-screen smartphones on JD.com and Taobao that easily cost thousands of yuan, a familiar toothache returned.
Sigh, whatever. Her wallet was empty.
With no other choice, Xu Ruoping sprang from the bed like a zombie, just like she always did, and mechanically scrubbed herself from head to toe. Hanging in the tiny bathroom was a half-length mirror. The girl inside not only had a mouth full of foam and a head of fluffy, messy hair, but also wore heavy dark circles under her eyes, constantly testifying to the utterly inhuman nature of her lifestyle.
Xu Ruoping stared blankly at the person in the mirror. Her movements paused as she suddenly remembered that she didn't have to go to work today—it was the day of the school's graduation ceremony performance.
She was performing in one of the cha-cha dance numbers, led by their class monitor, a woman universally known as the "Devil's Envoy." They had agreed to gather for a final rehearsal bright and early.
As Xu Ruoping imagined Class Monitor Xian wearing a funeral-like expression and chewing everyone out one by one, she zipped into her clothes, sprinted all the way to the subway station, merged into the impenetrable crowd, and finally squeezed inside after several struggles.
She rushed into the university gymnasium right on the dot. Xian Lijun, the lead dancer, was standing at the entrance with an expression of displeasure, rolling her dead-fish eyes and huffing from her nose, "Look who finally decided to crawl in!"
Xu Ruoping let out an "hmph," not daring to talk back. She grabbed her performance costume and emerged from the dressing room in seconds. Her makeup was even faster; relying on her naturally long eyelashes and well-proportioned facial features, a simple, light makeup look was already enough to make her look great on camera.
Ah, just one tiny detail left—the dark circles beneath her crystal-clear eyes, which served as a constant reminder of the out-of-body experience she had suffered last night.
Holding a palm-sized makeup mirror in one hand and digging out a dab of concealer with the other, she wandered aimlessly in circles over her dark circles.
At that moment, a heavily made-up, oval-shaped face leaned in close, stared intently into the mirror, giggled twice, and flashed a half-wily, half-playful smile. "Ah-ping, Hu Yihui and Feng Kunyu haven't arrived yet. Why don't you go check on them?"Xu Ruoping slammed her compact mirror shut with a sharp click, raised an eyebrow, and said, "Aren't the two of them your and Du Xinrui's dance partners? Didn't Xian Lijun tell you to go get them just now? Why are you asking me?"
"Oh, my dear, don't you see I'm busy? Look, the fake eyelashes I just put on are crooked again, and I still have to take off my makeup and start all over later."
Li Xiangying, a student from the Class of '07 Clinical Medicine Department 2, was a well-known campus belle. Her academic performance was mediocre, but her clothing and styling closely followed the latest trends, making her a constant fashion fixture around the university.
Her faults: lazy, fond of taking advantage of others, and prone to bossing people around—especially Xu Ruoping.
Seeing Xu Ruoping wearing a face like a deadpan undertaker, Li Xiangying resorted to her old trick, chattering away with her solemn nonsense about how "makeup that doesn't photograph well ruins the stage effect."
It was always like this. The most trivial, sesame-sized matters could be dragged out by her for ages.
Feeling her ears buzz and sleepiness creeping in, Xu Ruoping wearily held up an index finger and poked it against her other open palm to make a "time-out" gesture, then nodded, effectively agreeing to run the errand.
Li Xiangying immediately shot her an "I love you to death" look, stood up, dusted off her backside, and turned to leave her a brightly adorned retreating figure, darting off toward the restroom like a gust of wind to remove her makeup.
Resigned, Xu Ruoping stood up and dragged herself step by step toward the guys' dormitory.
A certain medical university was nestled in the bustling downtown center and had a history of over a hundred years. Facing a swelling enrollment rate, the university leadership had tried every possible means to apply to the city leaders for outward expansion, but alas, land in the area was worth a fortune, and their repeated applications had sunk without a trace, yielding no news.
With that road blocked, the worldly and shrewd leaders of the school were not easily thwarted. Before long, rows of dormitory buildings sprang up right next to the teaching blocks, forcibly accommodating a large quota of out-of-town students.
The dorm where Hu Yihui and the others lived was one such masterpiece.
The building was not tall, located right next to the gymnasium, with public restrooms at both ends of the hallway. During her university years, Xu Ruoping had often visited this place because her ex-girlfriend's—wait, her ex-boyfriend Chen Kunfeng had once lived here.
Skimming lightly across the floor, Xu Ruoping hurried past her ex-boyfriend's former dorm and stopped in front of Hu Yihui's room, her heart pounding.
Actually, she was just being overly nervous; Chen Kunfeng was a year older than her, and the dorm he used to live in had long since changed hands and occupants.
The door to Hu Yihui's dorm wasn't shut; it was left ajar. To avoid witnessing any PG-13 sights, Xu Ruoping very politely called out from the outside.
For a girl to raise her voice and shout in the male dormitory building bright and early in the morning was certainly enough to attract attention from all around.
Before long, sleepy-eyed heads poked out from various doorways, casting looks of curiosity or irritation straight her way.
Xu Ruoping silently cursed Li Xiangying's ancestors down to the eighteenth generation. Finally, unable to bear the radar-like scans from outside any longer, she yelled, "I'm coming in!" and slipped inside.
To her surprise, inside the empty dorm, two tall young men were sprawled out across a half-meter-wide lower bunk. They were shirtless, wearing only boxers, with one arm each dangling toward the floor. A heavy reek of alcohol overpowered the room's accumulated stench of sweat, spoiled food, and cigarette smoke, rushing in a tidal wave straight into Xu Ruoping's nose.
With graduation approaching, most students in the dorm had gone off to various work units for internships, renting places outside or staying with relatives, and rarely returned to the dorms. Thus, this place had become a doghouse for the two notorious slackers of the department.
Suppressing her immense fury, Xu Ruoping very ruthlessly poured a cup of cold water over each of their heads, then pinched her nose and sat down to await their reaction.
Hu Yihui was the first to open his eyes. With Feng Kunyu's arm draped across his face, he instantly wore an expression of disgust and was about to throw a fit when his gaze happened to lock onto Xu Ruoping's calm, somewhat indifferent eyes.
"Time to get up! Class Monitor Xian is waiting at the gymnasium!"
Xu Ruoping found a relatively clean spot to sit down, determined not to move until these two lazybones were fully up and moving.
Hu Yihui seemed somewhat startled. He sprang right up, pulled the curtains closed, frantically threw on a shirt, grabbed a bag of things, and bolted out the door.
And Feng Kunyu?
This guy was a lost cause. He had been kicked ruthlessly off the bed by Hu Yihui. Fortunately, the lower bunk was close to the floor, and the guy was sturdy enough; he merely groaned slightly, turned his head to look at Xu Ruoping with zero reaction, and actually crawled back onto his bed like a wandering ghost to resume his springtime dreams.
Xu Ruoping was fuming like a teapot: "Feng Kunyu, is this all you're good for? Get up right now, or do you want us all to be punished by the Devil Xian?"
Her voice cut off abruptly. She lowered her gaze slightly, her lips instantly tightening into a straight line as her sweep of the messy array of bottles and jars before her landed on a single item: a bottle of 4711 German Eau de Cologne that caught and held her entire attention.