Thanks for participating… Thanks for participating… Ki Fruit… Thanks for participating… 

Zu An would usually feel depressed when he got the ‘Thanks for participating’ message, but he was in no mood to brood over it right now. He simply continued drawing the lottery again and again, praying hard to get what he wanted.

However, his complexion slowly turned more and more awful. He didn’t get ‘Faith in Brother Spring’ or any artifact or skill. He did get a handful of Ki Fruits, drawing forty-nine of them… but that was not what he needed right now!

He was left with two final draws.

“Shit, I can’t possibly be that unlucky, can I? Oh please, Jade Emperor, Gautama Buddha, and all of the great gods of the world, please bless me so that I can draw a ‘Faith in Brother Spring’!” Zu An prayed.

However, the penultimate draw only resulted in a ‘Thanks for participating’ message…  

He was down to his last try. A conflicted look appeared on his face as he murmured, “Great gods above, please bless my draw. I would willingly give up the opportunity to draw anything useful the next round, if I can get ‘Faith in Brother Spring’ this time around!”

Just as Zu An was about to click on the draw button, he hesitated, still feeling slightly uneasy. He decided to supplement his previous prayer. “Forget it. I’ll stake my luck for the next three draws. As long as I can get ‘Faith in Brother Spring’, I’d willingly give up drawing any skills or artifacts for the next three times!”

It hurt him to make such a promise, as he felt as though he were making a huge loss. However, he was still acutely aware that Qiao Xueying, who had sacrificed half of her lifespan in order to save him, was currently on the verge of death, and he felt that this was the least he could do for her.

He’d never felt so uneasy drawing the lottery before.

His quivering finger hit the enter key, and the light marker began flitting across Keyboard. When it finally stopped on the number ‘1’, he was so moved that he could burst into tears. “Oh wonderful heaven, it looks like I’m still your favored one!”

Looking at it from a different perspective, though, the fact that he wasn’t able to get it in the past few hundred draws, only for it to finally appear after he’d made such a terrible vow… It almost seemed as though the world was playing a nasty prank on him.

In any case, he quickly supported Qiao Xueying to a sitting position. Her body felt frighteningly limp and cold, making his heart skip a beat. He hurriedly poured ‘Faith in Brother Spring’ into her mouth.

However, Qiao Xueying was unconscious, and wasn’t able to swallow the fluid by herself. In moments, a droplet of the medicine leaked from the corner of her lips.

It made Zu An’s heart bleed. That’s worth more than gold! Left with no choice, he poured the medicine into his own mouth, then proceeded to feed it to her mouth-to-mouth. Little by little, he gently guided the medicine down her throat.

Afraid that the precious medicine would leak out, he dared not move his mouth away, leaving the two of them in a rather intimate position.

‘Faith in Brother Spring’ was as incredible as ever. Not too long after she ingested the medicine, Qiao Xueying’s eyes slowly fluttered open. The first thing she saw was a magnified view of Zu An’s face in front of her. She was momentarily dazed by the sight, but quickly snapped out of it. She immediately him away and shouted, “What are you doing?!”

As she spoke, she subconsciously raised her arm to wipe her mouth, conscious of the moist sensation at the corners of her lips.

You have successfully trolled Qiao Xueying for 123 Rage points!

“Why are you wiping it away?! That’s precious medicine!” exclaimed Zu An. “I’m not even complaining about your saliva, and yet you’re acting as though I took advantage of you!”

Qiao Xueying’s body trembled. “You pervert! How could you do such a thing to me while I’m unconscious?!”

You have successfully trolled Qiao Xueying for 168 Rage points!

What’s with this woman? She’s so angry, but she only provided me with so few Rage points. What’s happened to her usual 999s?

“What do you mean by ‘such a thing’? I’m saving your life, okay? You wouldn’t swallow the medicine when I tried to give it to you earlier, so I had no use but to force-feed it to you.”

Qiao Xueying was stunned. She could indeed taste medicine on the tip of her tongue, and it seemed to be of rather high quality at that. She had never had anything as potent as this before.

She could feel most of her injuries slowly healing. Even the arrow wound in her shoulder didn’t hurt anymore, but merely itched—a sign that the wound was in the midst of healing.

It was then that she realized that she had wrongly judged the other party. A hint of awkwardness appeared on her face. “Ah… I’m sorry. I hope that you can understand that any woman would react in such an extreme way when placed in such a situation.”

“That’s only if the two of them are strangers. It’s not the first time the two of us are kissing. Why do you have such an extreme reaction?” retorted Zu An.

Qiao Xueying’s face reddened. “How can whatever that happened earlier be considered the same? I did it in order to save you. It’s not like I really wanted to kiss you or anything.”

Zu An felt wronged. “I also did what I did earlier to kiss you… Pui, I mean to save you!”

Qiao Xueying felt a little awkward. She untied the cloth binding her to him and put some distance between the two of them. “Anyway, I kissed you earlier in order to activate Half Life’s Fate. There’s nothing more to that. We aren’t a couple, so please do not kiss me idly in the future.”

“Don’t kiss you idly?” Zu An was amused by that remark. “In other words, I’m allowed to kiss you as long as there’s a legitimate reason, or if you agree to it?”

Qiao Xueying felt her mind slowly getting muddled by his semantic arguments. “Why would I possibly agree to that?” she exclaimed furiously.

“That’s hard to say,” Zu An said with the smile of a wily, old fox.

His smile made Qiao Xueying a little uncomfortable, so she averted her gaze and murmured, “There’s not a chance that would happen… Hm? Wait a moment…”

She suddenly realized something and turned to glare at him, “If you had such medicine on you, why didn’t you use it in the first place? Did you intentionally keep it hidden in order to trick me into using Half Life’s Fate?”

You have successfully trolled Qiao Xueying for 666 Rage points!

All manner of suspicion filled her mind. I actually fell for this fellow’s despicable plan and gave away the thing that was most precious to me!

“I’m being slandered!” exclaimed Zu An. “I paid a huge price in order to acquire that medicine on such short notice. If I’d had it all along, I would have drunk it long ago! Besides, I didn’t even know of that Half Life’s Fate or whatever skill in the first place, so how could I have tricked you into using it?”

His words made sense to Qiao Xueying. Half Life’s Fate was her greatest secret, and not even Shi Kun was aware of it. It was unthinkable that Zu An could possibly know of its existence prior to this.

However, when she scanned the surroundings, she couldn’t help but ask doubtfully, “How did you manage to exchange whatever you did for that medicine in here?”

“I have my means, of course. Just like how you paid a heavy price to use Half Life’s Fate, I had to pay a heavy price for this medicine as well!” Technically speaking, Zu An wasn’t lying. His heart bled at the thought of how he wasn’t going to get anything good in the subsequent three lottery draws.

However, Qiao Xueying seemed to have misunderstood his words. She thought that he had used some sort of once-in-a-lifetime skill like her, which made her feel incredibly grateful. “Actually… you really don’t have to treat me so well.”

Zu An dismissed her statement with a wave of his hand. “Putting aside our history, you did save my life several times, so there’s no way I’d hang you out to dry. I always repay my debts.”

Qiao Xueying stared at Zu An in a daze, a torrent of emotions swirling within her eyes.

Such reciprocity is a simple concept—why is it that some people simply don’t understand it? In times of danger, all they care about are themselves.

Seeing tears welling up in Qiao Xueying’s eyes, Zu An shook his head and said, “Just this little action is enough to move you to tears? Tsk tsk tsk, you must have led a miserable life.”

“Nonsense, who is the one being moved to tears? Some sand got into my eyes, that’s all. Look at the dust flying all around the place!” Qiao Xueying grumbled obstinately, turning her face away.

“Since you’ve fully recovered, go and deal with the last terracotta soldier. I’m too tired, so I want to rest a little,” said Zu An as he sat down.

“All right.” Not daring to look at him, Qiao Xueying unhesitatingly made her way over to subdue the last terracotta soldier.

“Pitiful fellow. It looks like he’s turned into her personal punching bag,” remarked Zu An. He took out the forty-nine Ki Fruits he had just drawn earlier and swallowed them all. A warm surge of energy flowed through his ki meridians, leaving him feeling as if he was soaking in a hot spring. He felt incredibly refreshed.

Hm?

To his astonishment, Zu An realized that he’d managed to fill up the sixth formation after consuming the forty-nine Ki Fruits. This sixth formation should have taken him 610 Ki Fruits in order to fill up!

He had barely managed to fill up the fifth formation earlier after consuming a petal from the Evanescent Lotus. How in the world did he manage to fill up the sixth formation so quickly?

He quickly remembered the hellish battle he’d just been through, as well as the severe injuries he’d suffered along the way. Had it not been for Qiao Xueying’s Half Life’s Fate, he would have already died several times over.

The Phoenix Nirvana Sutra was a skill that required its practitioners to suffer beatings in order to increase their cultivation. It seemed he hadn’t suffered in vain.

Of course, the best thing he had gained out of all this was the few additional centuries of life granted to him by Half Life’s Fate. It was such a huge gift, and he had no idea what to say.

Qiao Xueying was making her way back to him after dealing with the terracotta soldier, when she noticed him staring at her weirdly. “Why are you looking at me like that?” 

“I suddenly feel that you look pretty nice,” replied Zu An with a chuckle. 

He intended it as an empty compliment, but upon closer inspection, her skin was as fair as snow, and her eyes twinkled like the stars. He’d instinctively neglected her appearance previously since she was dressed as a maid, but now that she was wearing ordinary clothes, her beauty was really starting to shine through. No wonder she was ranked close to the top of the Sweetheart Ranking.

Qiao Xueying blushed at his words. “Keep those words and use them to fool Chu Chuyan instead,” she spat.

“You aren’t even going to call her ‘young miss’ anymore?” asked Zu An.

“I am a spy who infiltrated the Chu clan, not a real maid of the Chu clan. Why would I continue calling her young miss?” Qiao Xueying sounded oddly exasperated. “Besides, I’ve sacrificed so much this time in order to save her life. I’ve more than repaid my debt to her.”

“All right then…” Zu An still wanted to say something, but a sudden gust of wind reduced the corpses of the terracotta soldiers into dust, causing them to disintegrate into nothingness. In moments, the space around the two of them distorted as the familiar feeling of weightlessness swallowed them.

By the time the two of them regained their awareness, they were already back in the underground palace.

They noticed that they were standing at the center of the Earth Seal, and immediately realized what was going to happen next, given their previous experience. They exclaimed in unison, “Be careful!”

As they shouted those words, they each grabbed onto the other and tried to leap away from the seal. Before they could get away, they suddenly became conscious of each other’s movements and fell in a daze. Then, the Earth Seal suddenly opened up, and they fell down into the third level.

“Oh? You were just arguing with one another earlier on, but all of a sudden, the two of you have started holding hands and worrying about one another. I wonder what happened in there to bring about such a huge change,” said Mi Li’s teasing voice from around them.

The two of them quickly pulled their hands back. Qiao Xueying turned her head aside and murmured, “Who’s worried about him? I would have lent any companion of mine a helping hand, even if they were just a pig.”

“I’m not as kind-hearted as you. If it had been a pig standing beside me, I wouldn’t have bothered to even reach out to it,” replied Zu An.

Qiao Xueying immediately turned over and glared at him. “Who are you trying to insult?” 

“Didn’t I pull you aside earlier? That proves that you’re not a pig,” said Zu An with a shrug.

“I don’t need you to prove that I’m not a pig…” The words had barely left Qiao Xueying’s mouth when she suddenly realized just how weird they sounded.

“It seems as though men really can’t be trusted. Your wife is still in danger, yet you’re still in the mood to flirt around with other women. Hah…” sneered Mi Li.