novelInjury; A Failed Scheme
| ← Ch.109 | Ch.111 → |
Translator: Minotauruz
The dazzling bright light from the Thunderbolt Talisman happened in a flash, and the second prince was blinded momentarily. But seconds later, the second prince's vision began to slowly recover.
"Yao... Mo!" The second prince put down his hands. His originally magnanimous and charming smile was now replaced by an incredible ferocious and vicious disposition. Even his previously flirtatious and coy-looking eyes were now filled with a diabolical and macabre intent. His previously perfectly pleasant aura was now completely gone.
Jun Xiaomo found herself completely shackled by the Confinement Array. She could no longer move her limbs, and she gazed indignantly at the second prince.
On the other hand, the second prince was incredibly satisfied with the present outcome, and the hatred in his heart dwindled slightly.
Then, he adjusted his expressions and smiled wickedly at Jun Xiaomo as she walked towards her while taunting her, "Wouldn't it have been better if you had just given in earlier? Why do you have to force this prince to resort to all of this just to subdue you?"
Jun Xiaomo pulled a long face as she remained taciturn.
Then, the second prince lifted Jun Xiaomo's chin and leaned over to Jun Xiaomo's ear as he whispered, "Did the wine earlier taste good? I want you to know that even drinking this prince's wine has its price, understand?"
As the second prince spoke, he started to reach his arm into Yao Mo's clothes.
At this moment, Jun Xiaomo's grimacing face suddenly brightened in a manic laughter. Her expression of indignation was suddenly laced with a nefarious intent. Even her coldly gleaming eyes looked deep and profound as though they were filled with the constellations of the skies as they stared at the second prince.
Just as the second prince was about to ask what Yao Mo was laughing about, he suddenly discovered that the tactile sensation under his fingers had vanished.
As Yao Mo's figure started to fade away, a clear, crisp voice resounded from behind the second prince's body, "Second prince, since your master is the Grand Vizier of the Inferno Kingdom. Haven't you heard of something called the Humanoid Puppet Talisman?"
"Humanoid Puppet Talisman?!" The second prince recoiled in shock. He was just about to turn around when he suddenly felt a strong force slam into his back, forcing him to fall defenselessly into the domain of the Confinement Array.
At the same time, there was no longer any presence of Yao Mo's figure within the domain of the Confinement Array. All that was left was a small paper cut-out of a human with a Humanoid Puppet Talisman pasted onto it. Then, the talisman spontaneously combusted and was fully engulfed in flames within moments, while the remains of the small paper cut-out floated to the ground and fell in front of the second prince's body.
Jun Xiaomo stood where the second prince was originally standing right now. She towered over the cowering second prince as she looked derisively at the second prince.
"Haha, interesting. I never expected that the one who had been chatting and fighting with this prince was nothing more than a mere Humanoid Puppet Talisman." Even though the second prince had now been helplessly constricted by his own Constriction Array, he did not display any looks of anxiety or appear to be in a sorry state. Instead, he softened the tone of his voice and smiled wryly as he attempted to discuss Jun Xiaomo's combat tactics with her.
The second prince picked up the paper cut-out and held it in his hands as he examined it. How could the second prince still be in the dark about what Yao Mo had done? Yao Mo had evidently come up with countermeasures from the moment he received that Messenger Paper Crane from the second prince. This was probably what gave Yao Mo the confidence to strut into his residence alone without any fear to begin with.
The second prince's guess was quite close to the truth. However, Jun Xiaomo had not planned all of this right from the start. It was only a countermeasure that she had thought up after she had entered the second prince's residence.
Back then, the second prince's grand eunuch had not yet arrived, while the residence's gate had already shut behind her. As soon as she realized that no one was looking at her, Jun Xiaomo immediately retrieved a Humanoid Puppet Talisman and an Invisibility Talisman from her Interspatial Ring.
She slapped the Humanoid Puppet Talisman onto a little human-shaped paper cut-out, dripped one drop of her own blood onto it, and instantly created a "clone" of herself. Then, she slapped on herself the Invisibility Talisman to conceal her true presence.
Nevertheless, controlling the Humanoid Puppet required an immense amount of concentration and spiritual energy. Fortunately, Jun Xiaomo had just broken through to the second level of Qi Mastery. Furthermore, Jun Xiaomo practiced the Nineform Spirituo-Demonic Refinement Technique, and the conversion of true energy stored within her body meant that she could generate twice as much spiritual energy than her body could otherwise have stored. This was one of the main reasons why she had been able to maintain and control the Humanoid Puppet for such a long time.
From the beginning, the second prince had only seen the Humanoid Puppet created by Jun Xiaomo, while Jun Xiaomo had secretly stood behind the second prince without a word as she bided her time.
Seeing that the second prince had been completely restrained within his own Constriction Array, Jun Xiaomo Jun Xiaomo knew that she could leisurely retrieve the box containing the Blackmoon Grass and escape from the premises.
Therefore, Jun Xiaomo made her way over to the stone table in the center of the courtyard. When the second prince had avoided her attack earlier, he had placed the box containing the Blackmoon Grass on the stone table.
It wasn't clear whether the second prince had done so because he had no time to stash the box away, or he simply felt complacent because he never expected Yao Mo to be able to lay his hands on the box.
Regardless, Jun Xiaomo had finally managed to lay hold of that precious stalk of Blackmoon Grass. After she opened the box to ascertain that the Blackmoon Grass was there, she smiled in satisfaction as she closed the box again and stashed it back into her Interspatial Ring.
Then, the second prince who had been observing Jun Xiaomo's actions suddenly spoke up once again. He inquired in a pensive yet arrogant manner, "Do you really think that you'll be able to leave this courtyard without this prince's permission?"
It was only at the second prince's prompting that Jun Xiaomo finally recalled the peculiarity with this courtyard. Her eyes darted around at her surroundings, and she saw that three sides of this courtyard were simply surrounded by walls, and the side that was not a wall was a stoic-looking, exquisite room.
The entrance to this courtyard had vanished, and all that was left in its stead was a plain wall.
"This is a formation array." Jun Xiaomo very quickly guessed the cause of this abnormality.
"Little Mo is truly clever. You're so clever that this prince cannot bear to torment you." The second prince licked his lips as he remarked, "How about this – this prince will let Little Mo go if you can guess how this formation array can be broken?"
Jun Xiaomo stretched out her lips as she grimaced to herself. Her eyes revealed that she was presently deep in thought.
There were three ways of breaking any formation array. The first method was to destroy the heart of the formation array, but the necessary precondition to this was that one must first be able to locate the heart of the formation array. The second method was to interrupt the formation array's source of spiritual energy or demonic energy. However, this method was risky, because the formation array might potentially retaliate against any inference in this regard. The third and final method was simply to overpower the formation array with an even stronger formation array, rendering it completely powerless to resist.
Of these three methods, each was harder than the preceding one. Jun Xiaomo judged that the latter two methods were unlikely to be feasible in the circumstances, so she decided on the first method.
Then, she examined the courtyard closely, starting from the walls. At the same time, she also released threads of spiritual energies as she probed about her surroundings as she attempted to uncover the flow of energy and determine the exact location of the heart of the formation array.
The wealth of experience from her previous life allowed Jun Xiaomo to carry out this task with confidence. In fact, she knew that as long as she had the luxury of time, she would almost certainly be able to determine where the heart of the formation array was located.
Fortunately, the second prince had already been restrained by his own Constriction Array. Therefore, even though the second prince continued to stare at her with an impassioned, lustful gaze, Jun Xiaomo could completely ignore his gaze right now.
As the second prince noticed how Yao Mo seemed to be drawing closer to the exact location of the heart of the formation array, he discovered that Yao Mo seemed to possess a reasonable handle on matters pertaining to formation arrays.
Despite that, the second prince wasn't anxious at all. He continued to gaze at Yao Mo lewdly as a wry smile crept up the corner of his lips.
He still had some tricks up his sleeves, and he was merely biding his time right now...
At this moment, Jun Xiaomo finally discovered the heart of the formation array – it was that stone table!
Jun Xiaomo was just about to muster her spiritual energy to destroy it, when a wave of lethargy suddenly swept over her. Within moments, Jun Xiaomo discovered that she was not only unable to muster or operate any more of the true energy within her body, she even began to experience a faint and giddying sensation.
She shook her head vigorously, attempting to shake off the feeling of dizziness. However, her legs buckled slightly, and she almost lost her balance.
Jun Xiaomo immediately leaned onto the stone table for support, inadvertently knocking over the wine bottles that had earlier been set on the table. In turn, these wine bottles fell onto the floor and shattered into innumerable pieces. Jun Xiaomo struggled even harder to maintain her senses as she clutched tightly to the stone table for support so that she would not fall onto the pieces of shattered glass strewn all over the floor right now.
At this moment, the second prince started to stand up slowly. The Constriction Array that had been restraining him immediately lost its effect as soon as the second prince began to operate his own spiritual energy.
As the second prince walked closer and closer to Jun Xiaomo, she bit down on her lower lips and chuckled coldly, "It'd almost slipped my mind. This Constriction Array had been prepared by the second prince to begin with. It's naturally not a difficult task for you to dismantle it and negate its effects."
More than anything, Jun Xiaomo was mocking herself right now.
She had been too careless.
However, the second prince was no longer as eager to devour Yao Mo as he were earlier. Instead, he strutted over to Yao Mo's side in a relaxed manner and sat down at the table. Then, he kicked up his legs as he glanced at Yao Mo as though he were appreciating the final stand put up by Yao Mo.
It was at this moment that Jun Xiaomo discovered that apart from her sensation of dizziness, she was beginning to even lose her rationality as well! It was as though an invisible hand were peeling off her rationality forcibly, and her body was beginning to emit a familiar burning sensation.
"You've poisoned me!" Jun Xiaomo gnashed her teeth as she glared at the second prince in fury.
"That's right... Doesn't Little Mo find it strange that you'd fallen into the trap even though you weren't the one who had drunk that cup of wine?"
The second prince drew back the corner of his lips as he probed nonchalantly. However, his eyes continued to gleam with excitement as a hunter would when he secures his prey.
Jun Xiaomo squinted her eyes and clenched her fists tightly. After deliberating for a moment, she slowly responded, "You've dispersed the poison within the entire courtyard. Furthermore, with the confining effects of the formation array, this poison won't be able to leave the premises of this courtyard."
"Hahaha, Little Mo, oh Little Mo. This is the first time that this prince has encountered someone as interesting as you are. You've managed to guess everything spot on!" The second prince clapped his hands slowly as he added, "But it truly is a pity. It's precisely because of this that this prince can't bear to let you go anymore. I have to experience for myself what exactly a prey as intelligent as yourself would taste like."
Jun Xiaomo coldly refuted, "Didn't the second prince say that you would let me go as long as I managed to discover the location of the heart of the formation array? Then let me tell the second prince now – the heart of the formation array is this stone table. I wonder if the second prince would be willing to let me go?"
"Doesn't Little Mo already know this prince's answer to your question? Why bother asking things that you already know?" The second prince chuckled coyly, as though he were ridiculing Jun Xiaomo's naivete. After all, since he had already expressed his desires to devour Jun Xiaomo, how was he going to just let Jun Xiaomo go like that?
Jun Xiaomo stared sullenly at the second prince without another word.
Then, the second prince licked his lips as he continued, "Oh yes, there's one other thing. Just to make things a little bit more interesting, the substance diffused within this courtyard is one called Euphoria-Stimulating Incense. I wonder if the erudite Little Mo would have heard of this substance before?"
Euphoria-Stimulating Incense?!
Jun Xiaomo widened her eyes in shock as she cursed in her heart. How could she not know about the Euphoria-Stimulating Incense? In her previous life, it was precisely because Qin Shanshan had spiked her with Euphoria-Stimulating Incense that she live most of her life completely ignorant of the fact that the person whom she had spent the night of passion with was not Qin Lingyu, but somebody else.
This was because the Euphoria-Stimulating Incense would stimulate a person's deepest, most basal carnal instincts, causing that person to be under the illusion that he or she were interacting with the person of his or her dreams. More importantly, any person under the effects of the Euphoria-Stimulating Incense would temporarily lose all his rationality and act like a depraved beast without restraint.
Jun Xiaomo immediately bit down fiercely on the tip of her tongue, and her mouth was instantly filled with the stench of her own blood. This allowed her to temporarily regain some of her rationality.
Right now, Jun Xiaomo no longer glared at the second prince with only fury in her eyes. Her feelings had escalated to that of complete, abject hatred.
However, the second prince was completely unperturbed by Jun Xiaomo's gaze at him. After all, he had seen too many of such expressions in his lifetime. So what if his preys hated him? They would all be forced to bow before him obsequiously in the end.
The second prince stood up and slowly minced his way over to Jun Xiaomo's side. At the same time, having lost all her ability to resist, Jun Xiaomo lowered her head and became taciturn.
The second prince grew so satisfied that he began to laugh heartily.
The second prince drew closer and closer to Jun Xiaomo, until he was merely inches away from Jun Xiaomo's lips. Then in that moment, Jun Xiaomo's eyes suddenly opened wide as she started moving again.
When the second prince's reflexes finally kicked in, it was already too late. Jun Xiaomo had slapped an Explosive Talisman onto the stone table and immediately activated it. With a violent tremor, the stone table burst open, and the second prince and Jun Xiaomo were both sent flying from the powerful shockwave that emanated from the explosion.
The second prince had shielded his body with his spiritual energy in time, and he only suffered minor injuries from the blast. On the other hand, a large mouthful of blood sprayed from Jun Xiaomo's mouth as she was sent flying from the explosion.
Jun Xiaomo staggered backwards, expecting to slam violently to the ground. Unexpectedly, her back bumped into a warm and solid body, while a pair of strong arms firmly caught her around the waist.
| ← Ch. 109 | Ch. 111 → |