Chapter 41: A Lotus with a Handle

At this moment, Mo Lin had already tied up a fellow who had just come out from the banquet to relieve himself and dragged him to the wedding chamber of the Black Wind Stronghold’s First-in-Command.

The discipline and vigilance of these mountain bandits were truly unbelievably poor.

Such a huge python had slipped right into their den, and not a single living person had noticed it.

Mo Lin used his tail to stab the drunken unfortunate fellow to death, then used the Soul-Respecting Banner to collect his soul.

Afterward, he dug a pit and buried him on the spot, preventing the stench of blood from spreading and alerting others.

Then Mo Lin crept toward the First-in-Command’s bedroom.

Outside the room, two mountain bandits were blocking the entrance. Not only to prevent some bold rascal from sneaking in, but also to stop the person inside from trying to escape.

“Wuu… wuu…”

Mo Lin heard faint sobbing from within the chamber.

If his guess was right, that person should be the First-in-Command’s third bride.

This damned world—always leaving people neither quite human, nor quite beast.

Although Mo Lin didn’t exactly pity this bride, he could at least escort her one last time, sparing her from the humiliation of mountain bandits.

After all, if he wanted to sneak into the First-in-Command’s quarters to steal something, he first had to deal with this living person.

Clouds gathered, blotting out the moonlight.

“Plop!”

“Plop!”

Mo Lin gently spat out a Mouth-coin, easily disposing of the two guards at the door.

Reaching the side of the bedroom, Mo Lin used his tail to poke a tiny hole in the paper window. He pressed his lantern-sized serpent eye to it, silently observing the situation inside.

Inside, candles piled into bloody scabs atop a copper stand carved with the “Double Happiness” character.

Before the bridal bed, a “bride” wearing mandarin-duck embroidered red satin shoes and a red veil twisted a silk handkerchief between trembling hands.

As expected, the First-in-Command was still in the main hall drinking and gambling with his bandits.

In the wedding room, decorated in blazing red, only the bride sat alone.

Mo Lin’s serpent eyes flickered, and suddenly an idea came to him.

“Creak—”

Inside, the beauty heard the sound of the door opening, stopped crying, and shrank in fear:

“B-Big Boss?”

Mo Lin slowly slithered toward the bride, his tail reaching for her fair neck. He would let her die without pain.

But speaking of it, her neck was truly white.

This Adam’s apple… was sharp and pronounced.

Eh?

Adam’s apple?

Just as Mo Lin was staring at the “bride’s” throat in a daze,

The veiled “bride” felt someone stop in front of him, suddenly tore off the red veil, and shouted harshly:

“Dogshit bandit! Even if I die, I won’t spread my ass open for you!”

The fierce, vulgar words made Mo Lin, already dumbfounded by the Adam’s apple, freeze once again.

When the veil was lifted, Mo Lin immediately saw the true face of the “bride.”

It could indeed be said: “In the bridal chamber, a lotus blooms in full.”

Unfortunately, this lotus not only had thorns—it also had a handle.

On the other side, the lotus with a handle assumed the person standing before him was the drunken First-in-Command.

So after throwing back the veil, he didn’t even look to see who stood before him. He simply drew a sharp dagger and stabbed wildly toward Mo Lin.

Mo Lin, still dazed, saw the little blade flashing toward him and didn’t even care.

With his current strength, even if someone swung a broadsword at his head, he wouldn’t frown.

“!”

“Not right!”

A shocking sense of danger suddenly surged from the dagger in the lotus-with-handle’s hand.

Mo Lin suddenly had a premonition: if this blade stabbed into him, even as he was now, he would not come out unscathed.

Thus, where he had shown disdain a moment ago, Mo Lin twisted his body, dodging the lotus-with-handle’s strike.

Then, with a sweep of his tail, he knocked the dagger from the man’s hand.

Surprisingly, once the dagger flew free, it dissolved into smoke and vanished from the bridal chamber.

A magic artifact?

No wonder he had felt danger just now.

But even so, ordinary magic artifacts shouldn’t be able to harm him, right?

After all, he could clearly sense that this lotus-with-a-handle before him was practically a powerless mortal.

Not even at Yellow Rank—no different from Mo Lin when he had just devoured Hong Tianfeng.

That dagger was strange!

For an almost-mortal to wield such a thing, and actually pose some threat to a Profound Python like himself…

Mo Lin instantly began to covet the blade.

If he could get his hands on that strange dagger tonight, even if the First-in-Command discovered him, even if he failed to find the Earth Vein Yin Marrow, the trip would still be worth it.

While Mo Lin’s thoughts spun, the lotus-with-a-handle bride… groom… “newlywed,” finally saw clearly the other figure in the room.

On his delicate little face, shock froze his features:

“A python?”

Xu Jiaren was falling apart.

Coming to Yongzhou, he had carried an important mission—to contact the righteous people of Yongzhou and prepare to overthrow the cruel rule of the Great Qian Dynasty.

But unexpectedly, while passing through a certain mountain in Yongzhou, his team encountered the strongest demonic beast within a thousand miles—the Mountain Lord.

The Mountain Lord, who in legend never meddled with humans, had suddenly become unreasonably violent. Upon seeing them, it immediately launched a massacre.

Though their group had masters equal in power to the Mountain Lord, soon after, several more powerful demonic beasts from Western Zhou appeared.

With the addition of those Profound Demons, their formation instantly collapsed.

Xu Jiaren was separated from his comrades.

Just as he was trying to contact the rest of his group, he ran into a band of mountain bandits.

The First-in-Command of these bandits was a hulking brute of a man—yet at first sight, he had taken a liking to him!

He even declared Xu Jiaren would be dragged back to Black Wind Stronghold, to serve as the First-in-Command’s personal pleasure.

Xu Jiaren, just a powerless man, separated from his companions, and injured from the Mountain Lord’s attack, was no match for the First-in-Command and his bandits, especially with the help of the boss’s “partners.”

Inevitably, Xu Jiaren was captured.

After two days of arrangements in Black Wind Stronghold, the First-in-Command finally decided to wed him today.

Xu Jiaren nearly lost his mind.

His comrades’ lives and deaths were unknown, and he himself had been kidnapped by bandits—to be wed to a wild brute more than twenty years older than him!

Tonight, he might even be… violated!

Seeing no hope of escape, Xu Jiaren had made a desperate decision:

Even if he died, he would drag the First-in-Command to hell with him!

But now, the enormous python before him—with its serpentine head patterned like a human face—what the hell was that?!

Xu Jiaren realized: this python had to be a demonic beast. Otherwise, even an ordinary anaconda could never dodge his “Knock at the Gate.”

A demonic beast, breaking into Black Wind Stronghold, not discovered by the First-in-Command’s “partners,” and even slipping soundlessly into his chamber…

Looking at the python, whose expression grew increasingly dangerous, Xu Jiaren’s mind raced, and suddenly a possibility struck him:

“Are you here for something that the First-in-Command has in this stronghold?”

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