A sharp pain flared in his chest, making Su Yunyu even wonder if this immortal demon ruin had a magnetic field completely incompatible with his own.
Otherwise, how else could he be pierced through the heart by a sword twice in a row?
Just a moment ago, he had still been immersed in the sweet illusion of completing his mission and returning to his original world, when suddenly, that familiar, agonizing pain struck him.
The illusion collapsed entirely right before his eyes. As his consciousness returned to reality, he saw that Xiao Shuying had stabbed him yet again.
Before he even had a chance to speak, Xiao Shuying dropped his sword and shouted, panicked far beyond reason:
“Master! Master, are you alright?”
Upon learning that Xiao Shuying had also been caught in an illusion, Su Yunyu chose to forgive him. No matter what, at least he hadn’t died.
Though at this point, it felt pretty much the same as being dead. Su Yunyu retrieved a medicinal pill and swallowed it. While his external wounds healed, he was left with internal injuries.
They weren’t overwhelmingly severe, but having been immersed in the illusion for far too long, coupled with the fact that the blow had been delivered with the boosted fortune of a Dragon-Seeking Protagonist, it would have been unreasonable not to sustain some damage.
“Cough, cough, cough,” Su Yunyu clutched his chest, coughing heavily. Even in such a miserable state, he didn’t forget to care about the protagonist:
“Are you injured?”
Xiao Shuying first shook his head, then purposely probed:
“Disciple saw Master trying to kill me inside the illusion…”
Yet the moment those words fell, before Xiao Shuying could even observe Su Yunyu’s expression, he was met with a earth-shattering fit of coughing and a pale, frail visage.
His complexion, already as fragile as an epiphyllum blossom, now looked as transparent and ready to shatter at the lightest touch. Especially the sight of one hand clutching his chest while he breathed in low gasps he truly cut the picture of a delicate beauty clutching his heart in distress.
For some reason, the urge to continue probing vanished entirely at the sight of this person looking as frail as weeping willow in the wind or a weary steed resting by the road.
Realizing that this scene was inextricably tied to him, Xiao Shuying paused and offered a feigned expression of concern:
“Master, are you alright?”
Was this person’s constitution perhaps a bit too weak? He had only given him a shallow poke, yet he had grown weak to this extent.
Could the current number one person in the world actually be a fraud with watered-down strength?
Su Yunyu waved a hand, feeling much better after the coughing fit subsided, though his tone remained weak:
“This master is fine. Where do you think we should go now?”
Though Su Yunyu was left speechless that the protagonist had led them straight into a trap, at the end of the day, he still had to rely on the protagonist’s sheer luck.
Seeing that Su Yunyu was actually still asking him for directions, Xiao Shuying lowered his gaze, finding it somewhat unbelievable. Whether this stemmed from absolute trust or something else, he could not bring himself to ponder too deeply.
Leading them down the wrong path again served no purpose, so Xiao Shuying pointed toward a nearby direction:
“Master, I have a feeling we should go this way.”
Noticing that Su Yunyu walked that way without a second word upon hearing those instructions, Xiao Shuying still couldn’t help asking:
“Does Master really trust what I say just like that?”
If he were to point him toward an ancient powerhouse’s lethal formation next, Su Yunyu probably wouldn’t even know what was coming for him.
The dignified number one person in the world accepted everything he said wholesale; why on earth was he so naive…
Wait. Xiao Shuying startled himself, never having imagined that such a word could ever be associated with Su Yunyu.
Meanwhile, Su Yunyu continued walking forward. Hearing the question, he didn’t even break his stride, his tone firm:
“Aside from trusting you, could I possibly suspect you?”
An uncomfortable knot twisted in Xiao Shuying’s heart, and he fell silent. Following closely behind Su Yunyu, taking uneven steps, they quickly arrived at their destination.
Sensing a fluctuation in spiritual energy, Su Yunyu instantly and instinctively concluded that a ninth-grade spiritual herb must be nearby.
Following the trail of spiritual energy, he parted a patch of lush, verdant grass and spotted a spiritual herb growing quietly amidst the rock face.
Judging by its massive wave of spiritual energy, it was undoubtedly a ninth-grade herb without a doubt. Su Yunyu called Xiao Shuying over, gesturing for him to look with a voice full of pleasant surprise:
“We found it.”
Xiao Shuying walked over without any surprise, and sure enough, it looked identical to his first life round leaves bearing white berries, completely unremarkable in every way.
Noticing that Su Yunyu looked hesitant, as if unsure how to harvest it, Xiao Shuying leaned down, pulled it straight up by the roots, and explained:
“I once heard that ninth-grade spiritual herbs do not lose their efficacy even when pulled directly by hand.”
At least, that was how it had been in his first life.
Xiao Shuying was about to hand the spiritual herb over for Su Yunyu to store in his spatial pouch, when he abruptly felt a sharp sting on the web of his hand. Reactively loosening his grip, he dropped the herb to the ground. As he looked down, a butterfly suddenly fluttered out from it.
The butterfly gleamed with brilliant, multicolored light, its wings fluttering back and forth in a graceful dance before quickly soaring away into the distance, leaving neither Su Yunyu nor Xiao Shuying any time to react.
Strange. Xiao Shuying glanced at the web of his hand, where two tiny tooth marks clearly showed he had been bitten.
There had clearly been no such butterfly in his first life. What on earth was it?
“Master…” Xiao Shuying started to ask Su Yunyu, but before he could finish, his body suddenly plunged into a sensation akin to a wave of hot steam. A dry, restless heat overwhelmed his entire body, blurring his consciousness in an instant.
Clinging desperately to the remnants of his sanity, Xiao Shuying gritted his teeth and thought darkly: Not good. It seems that butterfly carried aphrodisiac venom.
Dammit! Of all the poisons it could have been, why did it have to be an aphrodisiac, and why did it have to act up right in front of Su Yunyu, making such a fool of himself?
At the mere thought of letting Su Yunyu witness him tormented and reduced to such a wretched state by aphrodisiac venom, Xiao Shuying’s eyes bloodshot, and he grabbed his sword, Muling, intending to draw his own blood to stay awake.
While Su Yunyu was still blinking in fascination as the butterfly flew off, a dull thud sounded as Xiao Shuying collapsed to the ground, writhing in restlessness. Just as he was wondering what was going on, he saw Xiao Shuying raise his sword as if to self-harm. Panicked, he rushed forward to knock the sword away, asking anxiously:
“What’s wrong with you?”
With his sword knocked to the ground, Xiao Shuying found his sanity being eroded past the point of maintenance. Hearing that anxious query through a hazy fog, he almost let out a cynical sneer:
What’s wrong with me? Can’t you tell? I’ve been poisoned by some accursed aphrodisiac.
Or perhaps, was this all orchestrated by Su Yunyu on purpose?
Amidst the swirling chaos, his mind dissolved into a complete mess. Xiao Shuying had no idea what he should be thinking or what he was even thinking about; his subconscious only craved something cold to lower his temperature.
Hot… an unbearable heat raging through his body that he couldn’t vent…
His clothes it had to be because his clothes were too thick…
After knocking away Xiao Shuying’s sword, Su Yunyu watched as the youth’s hands trembled while trying to unbutton his collar, his face flushed bright red and rife with agitation. Suddenly, everything cleared up like clouds parting before the sun—he had an epiphany:
The Dragon-Seeking Protagonist had been hit by an aphrodisiac!
Wait, no. How could this kind of plot happen right in front of me?
According to standard tropes, shouldn’t there be a devoted confidante rushing in to detoxify the protagonist? What was an ordinary man like him supposed to do besides stand on the sidelines?
Struggling fiercely, Xiao Shuying managed to undo his collar button, though fumbling the technique, a repressed groan slipped past his lips.
As a youth right in the middle of his growing years, his voice still carried a trace of adolescent rawness, yet now dropped low, it possessed a husky, magnetic quality.
Though Su Yunyu wasn’t affected by the poison himself, his ears inexplicably grew hot. Just as he hesitated, System 111 chimed in doubtfully:
[Aren’t you going to help him detoxify quickly?]
Su Yunyu still harbored doubts:
“I’m a guy myself, how am I supposed to detoxify him? Besides, what happens if this aphrodisiac isn’t resolved?”
The system guessed: [He might explode from the internal pressure and die.]
Su Yunyu’s eyes instantly lit up:
“Then why the heck should I bother? If he’s going to explode and die anyway, why paint the lily and gild the refined gold?”
The system let out a dry chuckle:
[Did you forget that across your many past lives, whenever you tried to poison the protagonist, the toxicity always ended up transferring right back to you?]
That statement was no exaggeration. Across ninety-eight lifetimes, Su Yunyu had shot himself in the foot countless times.
Yet looking at Xiao Shuying struggling and groaning, Su Yunyu still felt a wave of reluctance until the very next second, a subtle wave of dry heat rippled through his own body.
Su Yunyu’s expression shifted drastically. He hurriedly suppressed that rising heat, realizing the system had guessed correctly yet again. If he simply abandoned the protagonist, the poison would transfer right back to him, over and over again.
Dammit! The protagonist’s fortune was truly absurd; he was a darling of the heavens indeed.
Left with no choice, knowing that dragging this out would only cause the poison inside his own body to grow increasingly fierce, Su Yunyu bit his lip hard and inched forward, hesitating every step of the way.
Yet the moment he drew near, Xiao Shuying snapped his eyes open, snatched up the sword lying beside him, and slashed out fiercely. His hair fell in disarray as he growled with a stern yet faltering voice:
“Another illusion! Get away!”
Su Yunyu hastily ducked backward to dodge, snatching the sword from his grip. A spark of novelty ignited within him; this was the first time he had ever seen the protagonist act so fierce.
As expected of a protagonist! No matter how miserable or pitiful the early stages were, weakness wasn’t woven into his core nature.
With that thought, Su Yunyu’s competitive spirit flared up. A protagonist so favored by the heavens, wrapped in a blazing halo—if such a person were to fall by his hands…
Before he could delve deeper into the thought, increasingly painful gasps echoed in his ears. Xiao Shuying had even begun unconsciously scratching at his skin with his bare hands, tearing open trails of bloody scratches in a desperate bid to use physical pain to fight off the venomous fog.
Seeing the mottled bloodstains marring the youth’s skin, Su Yunyu averted his gaze, a wave of hesitation gripping his heart.
Then, the heat flared inside his body once more, rivers of scalding temperature surging through his veins. Daring not to delay any longer, he stepped forward.
Having completely lost his consciousness, Xiao Shuying thrashed on the ground like a fish stranded in a dried-up river. His face was stark white, his eyelashes squeezed tightly shut while fluttering frequently, pushed to the absolute brink of endurance.
In truth, once the trapped heat was vented, the aphrodisiac would lose its hold. But whether the name “Su Yunyu” was burned too deeply into his mind or something else, even while hovering between life and death, Xiao Shuying refused to expose his wretched state in front of him.
Just as he was biting his lip until it bled, a cool touch suddenly landed upon him…
So comfortable… Xiao Shuying leaned into it uncontrollably…
Yet the moment that chill welcomed him, Xiao Shuying’s consciousness experienced a rare flash of clarity. Revulsion washed over him, and he shoved out fiercely with both hands.
Get whatever this is away from him. Do not touch him.
Pushed away for the second time, Su Yunyu was driven to exasperation. His initial reluctance completely eclipsed by a fierce desire to conquer the protagonist, he lunged forward once more and extended a hand to help detoxify him—
After Su Yunyu finally pulled back and blew on his hands, his palms flushed warm and the webs of his fingers stinging from friction, Xiao Shuying finally stopped struggling.
As the scorching heat receded from his body, Su Yunyu let out a long breath. Just as he raised a hand to wipe the thin layer of sweat from his forehead, a sudden realization made him freeze completely.
Oh god. What on earth did I just do?
People on the internet always joked about awkward encounters, but Su Yunyu had lived in the twenty-first century for over twenty years and had never experienced anything quite like this with anyone.
Yet today, he had actually assisted the protagonist in such a one-sided manner…
Ahhhhhh!
Su Yunyu scrambled to his feet, bolted toward the riverbank, and began frantically scrubbing his hands, crying out in anguish to the system all the while:
“111, what do I do? I feel tainted!”
The system let out a dry laugh:
[Useless. If you don’t even have this shred of mental fortitude, the magical artifact I gave you went to waste.]
Su Yunyu fell silent for a moment, stopped scrubbing his hands, and instead stood straight against the wind, putting on an air of transcendence:
“I understand now. This was merely a necessary sacrifice for the sake of the mission.”
“Besides,” he muttered thoughtfully, concluding:
“I still think the magical artifact you gave me is installed backward. Clearly, the protagonist is much better suited to being pinned down.”
Speechless, the system choked:
It was a mystery who had acted all bashful like they’d seen a ghost the moment they caught sight of the protagonist’s physical reaction.
And it was equally a mystery who had wailed like they’d been defiled right after helping the protagonist out.
Heh, it would just sit back and watch without saying a word.
Erl John F. Turnos
Purok 2, Mulig Toril Davao City, Davao del Sur, 8000
+639531639310
[email protected]
July 20,2025
Dear Hiring Manager,
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I am excited about the opportunity to join Chowking and to be part of a team that values quality and customer satisfaction. I am ready to start immediately and am eager to contribute my energy and enthusiasm to support your kitchen team. Thank you for considering my application; I look forward to the possibility of discussing how I can be a helpful member of your staff.