"Is Senior Sister still holding what happened against me?"
Beside her, Yu Ruo looked at the guarded Gu Ning and said it with a face full of apology.
Hearing Yu Ruo's voice, Gu Ning moved her eyes off Dumpling's back as it led the way ahead and turned them on her.
There was not a ripple on that cold face, and she said it as though it hardly mattered.
"What of it? After doing a thing like that, do you imagine I would forgive you?"
As though she had caught a keyword.
Dumpling's body stopped very noticeably, and its ears went up.
Gu Ning took it all in, though her gaze drifted lightly back to Yu Ruo.
"If Junior Sister wishes to make amends, spare yourself the trouble. We are fellow disciples and nothing more."
Every word of Gu Ning's said keep away, and yet from beginning to end she never quite tore the thing open.
Hardly a joke, when the girl was holding a Mary Sue script. There was a risk to her chastity, true.
But at this stage Yu Ruo was only early Foundation Establishment, and she could still hold her down.
And this was exactly the stage in which she needed to build herself up properly.
In the original plot, the Mystic Maiden Violet Yin Body could only be joined with a practitioner of the 《Flowing Water Plain Maiden Art》 to hold the symptoms back.
But that made her dependent on the practitioner's spiritual energy, and it was exactly so that Yu Ruo tied Gu Ning to her side and made her unable to leave.
She had no wish to walk the road as written, to have her life run by someone else and be their pressure valve.
Gu Ning's gaze fell. She had thought transmigrating into an immortal fairy of peerless talent would be a fine thing, and had never imagined the position would be this dire.
Yu Ruo seemed to have expected exactly this answer, and her face stayed full of smiles.
"Even so, I still hope in my heart that Senior Sister will forgive me. I truly do admire Senior Sister, especially the way she carries herself in a fight. I was genuinely moved."
That said, Yu Ruo's gaze settled on Gu Ning's tall, striking figure, burning enough to make anyone uncomfortable.
"Head full of filthy garbage..."
Gu Ning grumbled inwardly.
But Gu Ning had not expected that she herself had grown used to Yu Ruo's frankly undressing stare, and the thought frightened her afterward.
Habit really is a terrible thing.
She opened the distance again, and turned her eyes back to Dumpling leading the way in front.
"Holy heck, your circle really is a mess."
Dumpling's round eyes were stretched enormously wide, that exchange having shaken it to the foundations of its dog life.
Though the look on its dog face was distinctly one of wanting more.
It could hardly be helped. It had been shut in for a full eighteen years, serving as a power bank inside that wretched puppet, patrolling the same fixed points every day, bored past all bearing.
And every day the spiritual energy it had just produced was drawn off at a fixed hour, leaving it a hollow dog again.
Imagine being made a third-year student cramming for the exams for the rest of your life. Would you want that?
"Still, is the cultivation world this open-minded these days?"
Dumpling could not help turning its head to look back at the two of them.
"Two girls can be dao companions too?"
Dumpling paused, and its dog eyes began to glitter.
"That's actually kind of hot!"
A look of dawning revelation came over Dumpling, as though it had just awakened a brand-new kink.
"This dog is honest enough. We really haven't run into a single mechanism or demon beast the whole way."
Gu Ning watched the white shape ahead wagging its tail and snuffling along the floor, and her opinion of it climbed a good deal.
Foul-mouthed and endlessly chattering, yes, but it was awfully cute.
Gu Ning had already begun to consider whether to keep it as a pet once they got out.
Just as Gu Ning was thinking it over, Dumpling stopped dead and went into a wary crouch.
"Something's moving up ahead."
Dumpling warned her in a small voice.
Gu Ning cut off the thought at once and came over.
In the secret realm her divine sense reached far less than usual, and half the time a demon beast could walk right up without her knowing. She had nothing but Dumpling's nose to rely on.
Before long Gu Ning reached the corner and put out her head to see how things stood.
Ahead lay an open space, and at the far end an enormous stone door furred over with moss, covered in formation patterns.
And roaming around it was a kind of demon beast shaped like a wolf, with two long fangs and spines down its back, plainly built to run.
Gu Ning studied the pack.
"Five at Foundation Establishment, two at early Golden Core, one at mid Golden Core."
She was confident she could grind them all down, but drawing more demon beasts and puppets in would cost more than it gained.
"Dumpling, you draw off the Foundation Establishment small fry. Yu Ruo, pull for a while. Leave the Golden Cores to me."
Yu Ruo nodded, with no objection.
But when Dumpling heard this arrangement, its dog face froze.
"Me too?"
Hardly a joke. It did not have a shred of cultivation, and if you pressed the point, all it had was speed.
And with the dense spiritual power in it, to that pack of demon beasts it was indistinguishable from a roast chicken sizzling with fat.
It opened its mouth to beg off, then saw that frigid look from Gu Ning and swallowed it again.
"Fine, this dog's life is on the table! If she doesn't give this old master his freedom once we're out, your daddy here is taking a bite out of her even if it kills him!"
Naturally it only dared think that. What it said aloud was perfectly upright.
"I'm the fastest dog there is! I guarantee I'll run those stinking wolves in circles!"
The three of them, or two people and a dog to be exact, took their positions.
Dumpling drew a deep breath and psyched itself up.
"Woof woof woof woof— hey! Uglies! Over here!"
In an instant every demon wolf's attention was pulled around.
The five Foundation Establishment wolf demons reacted first, fangs bared, and pounced at Dumpling as one.
Looking at those savage faces, Dumpling gave a start, turned tail and ran, and even while running found breath to get a word in about Gu Ning.
"F-Fairy, get on with it!!!"
The corner of Gu Ning's mouth twitched. She had not expected the stinking dog to have quite so merciless a mouth, but she turned her attention to the three wolf demons ahead.
Yu Ruo's figure flashed out from the right, a fire talisman shooting from her hand to strike the stone wall and force the Golden Core wolves back.
They roared in fury, fangs glinting cold, but had to turn and charge at Gu Ning instead.
Now.
The longsword left its sheath.
Gu Ning's figure vanished from where she stood and appeared the next instant in the air above, longswords circling her, stabbing down at the three wolf demons apiece.
And with the Azure Frost Sword in her own hand, her gaze hardening, the cold light along the blade swelled and she cut an arc of light down at the mid Golden Core wolf.
But that wolf demon reacted fast. It slipped the incoming sword-light first, then saw Gu Ning coming at it herself.
All four limbs surged and it threw its huge body sideways.
The edge only grazed its bone plating and left a shallow scratch.
And Gu Ning slid underneath it and out the other side.
Watching the wolf demon land steadily, its body entirely unharmed, the attack had not worked.
But Gu Ning was not discouraged, because she had noticed that the wolf demon's belly had no bone plating on it. A cut there would certainly land a critical.
Gu Ning drew a deep breath.
She drew a circle in front of her with the Azure Frost Sword, and the cold light along the blade began to gather, ring after ring of spiritual power spreading outward.
The blade gave a faint hum, like a bowstring drawn to its limit.
The alpha felt the threat and stopped throwing itself at her blindly, a low growl rolling in its throat.
The other two wolf demons heard it and came, hurling themselves at Gu Ning.
Gu Ning might as well not have seen them.
Every scrap of her attention was locked on the alpha.
The sword left.
That one stroke was fast beyond reckoning. The alpha had no time to react before Gu Ning flickered in front of it like a ghost, the sword tip delivered to the soft flesh of its belly.
This time it could not dodge.
Gu Ning set her teeth, took the hilt in both hands and drove it up hard, and the blade ran through the belly and out through the alpha's spine.
The roar cut off short.
"Good grief, one sword and the thing's just gone! Can you teach me!"
Dumpling shouted its admiration, and failed to notice the wolf's jaws already at its back, which closed on its rump.
A howl of pure dog anguish went up.