118 4.33

While the counterattack of nature against humans continues, Yan Huizhong was the first to snap out of his daze. "Ye Cheng! How, how is he?" 

Tang Muxin and Duan Mengyao immediately sobered at those words, quickly shaking off their rope bindings and running to check on the unconscious young man. Yan Huizhong who was left behind chuckled bitterly at his own hateful disability before dragging his body toward Ye Cheng. 

Tang Muxin, while not being able to show off her fighting skills, could still show off her medical skills as a super doctor. 

While she couldn't do much for Yan Huizhong due to lack of of surgical tools and such she had a good knowledge of acupuncture to help minimize the damages by reducing his pain, improve the flow of qi and stimulate the central nervous system to promote natural healing. It could be said his physical state was at least much better than in the original storylines and the chance for recovery was not impossible.

Ye Cheng however was much easier to help. The guards were drunk but not insane. They were still commoners and would not bring out their knives and daggers toward someone without their master's orders. 

The young miss Wen Xia was stupid but not blackened or completely irredeemable. She really wasn't at the point where she would permanently silence Tang Muxin and had even expressly told the guards not to harm them more than they should. In the cruel ancient times, this sort of kindness that lets leaks spring from dams* was also an incredibly stupid act. 

*Because she's not harming them and will even let them go free, she's created a leak in the dam that has the potential to burst out and screw her over due to her act of kindness. 

People were superstitious, the Wen family even more so. Therefore it was one of the few noble families who try to avoid murder when they can. Most likely their old blessing was probably the main reason they've been okay for so long despite their rather tepid attitude in such a cutthroat period of time. Even the servants, while hooligans and thugs, were considered quite pure compared to other family's servants as most had never had to partake in the direct loss of human life before. 

Therefore while Ye Cheng looked awful, it was just surface level injuries. At worst there was heavy bruising but nothing was broken. Tang Muxin carefully checked thrice to make sure before sighing in relief and giving out her diagnosis. 

Luckily Jin Bao and her had found a lot of small treasures along the way. It was more than enough to make a herbal ointment to treat these sort of injuries easily. Add in Ye Cheng's naturally healthy young body and he should be fine in a fortnight maximum. 

However right now they didn't have time to wait a fortnight. 

Tang Muxin looks at Meng Meng seriously, "We need to get to the Wen family's main house. From the sounds of it, Lok Lok and Mei Mei should be upstairs. I'll carry Cao Huizhong, you carry Ye Cheng and we'll ride straight there." 

Duan Mengyao stares at her for a few seconds, eyes deep as he silently weighs his options in his mind. Who knew what he decided on in the end but he gave her a faint smile and nods, looking like the dull and gentle giant of before. "En. Whatever you say." 

Tang Muxin smiles gratefully. Even though she was clearly disheveled, sweaty and without makeup, Duan Mengyao felt she looked very pretty. She would have been even prettier if she didn't then say- "Thank you Meng Meng."

Duan Mengyao: '...' Oh right. He almost forgot that awful nickname he was stuck with since his memory was lost.

But he was currently pretending that he still had amnesia. How could he fight against such an embarrassing name now.

It's okay. It's okay. When he finally wins over the lady, he can try negotiate on the bed ah. 

…

At the same time, in the gathering hall of the Wen family, Jia Hyson was lazily lying around in the large cage prepared for him while the Wen family and the bunch of frauds exchanged pleasantries and polite banal conversation over tea. Ancient people and their goddamn social etiquette. 

He was a little glad he wasn't human his first time round in an Ancient China setting to be honest. Jia Hyson really didn't think he would be able to deal well with all this shit. It was easier just to sell meng and flirt with his family's Da Gong.

Bored, he rolls around the furs and mini pillows in the cage idly as he reads stories on the holographic virtual interface Bebe can produce. Personally he still wasn't a fan of this style of reading, but it wasn't like he could use a tablet or phone now. 

This time he was reading about a quick transmigration story with the subplot of the host main character falling for the system character.

Bebe who didn't want to play games was also reading it with him. 'Ugh.' It complains with some disdain. 'Can we go read the other story about farming in the cultivation world? That was pretty good.'

'What? You don't like host x system stories?' Jia Hyson retorts, 'Because I've read the system news occasionally, it does happen ah.'

'Yeah but it's not exactly the mainstream romance here,' Bebe complains, 'No matter what it's still an interspecies romance. It's like a kink thing ah. These days at the very least it's more acceptable than beastiality.'

Jia Hyson, who technically has been seducing parts of a system and is also currently in an interspecies romance between rooster and dragon: .....

'Oh, well-' That does make sense in retrospect. 

And it does explain why whenever he read those events it was always written in a scandalous tone such as #SHOCKING: A fresh meat system got married to its first host! A degradation of morals in the new generation of systems?!# or #The most talented rookie of the counterattack systems have fallen for their new film emperor host?! Is this the end of System RenRen's perfect record?# or even #You would not believe how many hosts became Worldbreakers after meeting this basic system! Should there be stricter vetting and education for system-host relationships?#. 

'Plus the authors never do the system character justice! They always make the system a dumb idiot. And the ones that aren't dumb and are usually the rare system gongs are generally written to be once human. Like, are you kidding me? Are they saying that if they don't have recycled human souls inside them hosts can only be interested in the braindead bimbo systems who act cutesy? It's disgusting.' Bebe rants, it's voice getting even more emotional. 

'Don't even get me started on the virus and bug gongs either ah. The host never reforms the virus gong to peacefully help the system world or anything! Instead they both are rebels against this 'corrupt system society' that aim to promote a destruction of social structure and order! Isn't that just encouraging terrorism in our system world? How would you like it if Bebe showed you a love story between a lunatic criminal who wants revenge on society and the leader of IS*S who go off destroying different countries and defy democracy huh? How does that sound?'

Jia Hyson: …....Well when you put it that way it doesn't sound very good, no.

Jia Hyson after a moment of silence, wordlessly flicks his tail and switches the tabs on his holographic screen. 'How's this?' He asks dryly.

Bebe pauses. '...Is this the new unlimited flow one you found before?'

'Yeah ah,' Jia Hyson enlarges the cover of the webnovel. It was a very eye catching cover of an empty stage with only a spotlight shining on a rusty microphone. The color scheme was bloody and the simple image was quite eerie the more you looked at it. What was more damning was if you zoomed in, you would see that through the cracks of the curtain in the background there was some sort of pale monster staring at the reader. 'Music King on the Haunted Stage. There's four arcs finished already and the reviews so far looked good. What do you say?' 

Bebe quickly scans the reviews and agrees happily. Recently unlimited flow stories have become more and more popular so horror systems have become an up and coming new job. In fact the benefits are good and they're all the rage in the system world, many basic and even advanced systems were vying to apply, even if only part-time. After all, there's nothing more stress relieving than getting the opportunity to fuck up some annoying cannon fodder characters while earning a nice passive income as well. 

While Bebe couldn't personally handle this sort of gore itself, that still didn't stop it from following the trends. 

What could it say? Bad boys were attractive no matter what age you were ah. Those who become horror type systems even get a sexy blood red line coding into their programs hehehehe. 

Bebe pretends it wasn't having dirty thoughts and 'humph's haughtily at its host. 'Heh, you still know how to treat Bebe well.'

Jia Hyson's ears twitch in annoyance, 'Shut up and read ah.' This system was really... really hard to raise ah.

He doesn't know how long it took exactly but whatever conversation they had was as long as about eighteen chapters of Music King on the Haunted Stage, before they finally decided to get down to business. 

Jia Hyson knows vaguely that the World's Consciousness was probably doing some shit in order for the protagonists to arrive at the best and most dramatic time, but damn he can't help but judge these people a bit. Their long-windedness could probably make Ye Cheng want to cry ah.

The Wen family was also not happy with the strangers' blatant flattery and attempts at currying favour either, but because they did take care of the dragon well enough they also had to give them some face and accept their gifts and words with polite respect. 

"Tsk," Second young master Wen Gen clicks his tongue and whispers under his breath to his elder brother, "These uncouth commoners are really… I'd be surprised they could raise a cockroach much less a dragon."

"Don't be rude," First young master Wen Shen whispers but it's clear that he somewhat agrees, eyes flashing with some disdain at the self-proclaimed dragon guardians. 

Wen Geming and Wen Xing also felt like these people were very shameless and not pleasing to their eyes. 

It was even clear to Wen Xia these people were not good. Her back was practically soaked with sweat as she watched these fakes say various provoking things and demand many benefits. But what can she do? She had come this far now, it wasn't like she could drag them away and treat it as a joke ah. 

Still, it didn't make her want to beat these idiots any less!

The fake conmen were poor people she found that looked similar to the true appearances of the individuals that raised the dragon. Because she was running out of time she didn't have time to vet them well and just offered a generous sum of money to claim ownership of the dragon and then let her do the talking. 

Who knew that these three coincidentally were blood sucking vampires?! They weren't satisfied with the money she offered and took advantage of the situation by trying to coax out money and benefits from the head of the main family instead! Wen Xia was really ready to faint from anger when she realized this. 

What pig teammates! 

To be honest, Wen Xia was truly just very unlucky. After all, no matter how greedy someone is, if they had half a brain they would know not to act like this in front of people of status so much higher than their own. To find three who were willing to do such a thing is honestly quite hard. 

One should remember they bore a resemblance to the pretty baby faced and big-breasted Tang Muxin, the fairly well built healthy looking Ye Cheng, and the pale skinned beautiful man Yan Huizhong so their situations were unlikely not bad, or at least not the point they would be very desperate for money. They were simply just very greedy. 

Wen Xia had always been lucky enough to get through life so far. However with the might of Tang Muxin's protagonist halo backed by the world's consciousness, how could her small amount of luck and diluted dragon blessing even hope to fight back? 

Wen Geming finally couldn't take it anymore. He was old and was more sensitive to time passing. He was aware he only had so much life left, so each wasted breath felt extremely irritating. It's one of the many reasons why he moved his family away from the capital where tigers and dragons fought despite the dissatisfaction of many of his family members. "That's enough." 

His curt words immediately cut off whatever Yan Huizhong's lookalike was about to say. The pretty man looked irritated but didn't dare to object. Though he acted arrogant now the lookalike still had some emotional intelligence or he wouldn't have lived as well as he did in the red light district.

Yes. In truth, Wen Xia's luck this time was really, truly awful. She picked up three unscrupulous people that thrived off the corruption of the most corrupt district in the city.

Yan Huizhong's lookalike was a fairly popular male prostitute who clawed to where he was by pushing the less popular boys to serve the clients he disliked under his name. Tang Muxin's lookalike was a female worker at the same brothel who liked to steal the brothel's clients by offering her own body secretly for a lower price. And Ye Cheng's lookalike is one of the guards in the district who demands protection fees through money, sex and liquor. 

In short. They were really top grade unscrupulous and vulgar bastards. 

Lookalike Yan Huizhong gave a pleasing smile, "Yes, of course. The dragon naturally comes first. We will talk of rewards later."

The Wen family: '….'

Then what was all that blathering nonsense before?! Foreplay?!

Aaaaahhh! How annoying! 

As they crowded around Jia Hyson's cage, the three lookalikes were shocked. This was really a fucking dragon! The rumors were true! 

Jia Hyson, seeing the play had finally arrived at the second act, stopped reading the story reluctantly and proceeded to stare up at the people with wide blinking eyes. As the lookalikes moved closer, he could see their eyes were filled with shock, envy and greed. They looked especially vulgar. 

Curiously he flicks on [Karmic Insight]. He's practiced this skill the most during the journey and had a good grasp on it. 

As expected, the colors of the lookalikes aura were rather bleak and muted, with the edges blackening like they were being burnt by invisible fire. The bleak colors like muddy green and dirty yellows and such suggest their karma was not good. The dark shade meant their near future luck was currently awful with the way they were going and the black edges of their aura signifies that their current actions were literally courting death. 

Wen Geming and Wen Xing, the old master and the current master of the Wen family have a vibrant base color of baby pink for Wen Geming and a mature green for Wen Xing. There was also a very faint golden shimmer which indicated they've been blessed albeit weakly. 

The colors represented the personality and maybe even the soul, however Jia Hyson wasn't astute enough to interpret that confidently nor was his skill level high enough to help him. 

At most he could guess the pink might show how Geming is a romantic at heart since such a baby pink makes one think of immature love. He also was extremely faithful and doting to his wife which also supports his theory.

Wen Xia was a little more interesting, her color was flickering between a rich but mottled purple and a pale slightly murky blue which shows she's currently at or coming to a big decision which will affect her greatly enough to change her personality. 

Her karma isn't the best but compared to the lookalikes it was pretty okay. She's mainly just offended people and was a bitch, but the worst thing she's ever done was the kidnapping thing so far. Even then it was with the intent of delaying and not harming and there was no indirect association with death so the karmic debt isn't so bad. 

Her luck though as expected was bleak and the aura was getting darker by the minute the more she let this farce continue. However every time she reconsiders her decision the aura would lighten. That was how karmic insight worked. It can see your future luck but luck is built on your own actions and thoughts and a bit of fate to guide the way. 

If she chooses to back out now and apologize her luck will improve and when Tang Muxin comes in, Wen Xia will 'luckily' escape getting faceslapped. Conversely, the closer she lets things go like this, the closer the bad luck will come. Then again, the faceslapping may be the cause of the personality change, after all, the punishment for this will not be so simple to shrug off. 

Jia Hyson really likes this [Karmic Insight] skill. It uses a lot of color symbolism and relies on theorizing and logical thought on cause and effect, but it indeed gave you a decent prediction of a person's future. Even if he can't get it in the lucky draw he was really willing to save to buy this skill ah. 

Glancing at the two young masters of the Wen family, both their auras were light and bright. Sure there was some turbulence in their aura and a few discolourations, but Jia Hyson couldn't interpret it. Overall though, it's clear that whatever ideas they have in their head right now were correct and would lead them to fortune, or at least will let them avoid misfortune, this time ah.

"Eep!" The Tang Muxin lookalike couldn't help but stifle a sound of surprise. Whenever Jia Hyson used this skill, his golden eyes would glow brightly. Tang Muxin, the real one, had even said that it wasn't so obvious before but now they could even be seen pretty clearly in the dark. One could only imagine if it leveled up further there would be no need for flashlights in the future. 

Still, no matter how startling it looked like, if she was truly the person who took care of the little dragon, this wouldn't have been so surprising. Instantly Jia Hyson could see the three fake's auras turn ugly and dark at a visible rate.

Blinking his eyes and turning the skill off, Jia Hyson decides to add fuel to the fire. He backs away from the lookalikes, teeth bared as he made various cute snarling and spitting noises at the three, tail waving uneasily. It was easy for everyone to see that the little dragon was hostile toward them, not pleased to see them at all.

The Wen family were immediately surprised and suspicious. The little dragon had been very docile and well behaved despite being unfamiliar with them, so how come it acts like this toward it's previous owners. Either Wen Xia was telling the truth about them being abusive toward the dragon, or…. 

"Father," Wen Xing frowns and looks toward the entrance of the room. "Do you, do you hear the sound of horses galloping?"

Soon the sound became clearer, as well as the yelling and chaotic screaming of various guards and servants. Finally the doors burst open, and the valiant looking, albeit rather bedraggled protagonists finally made a dramatic and heroic entrance. The first in possibly the whole story so far.

"Step away from Jin Bao!" Tang Muxin sharply commands.

...

Finally the group was reunited once more. Jia Hyson would be lying if he said he didn't miss them. To emphasise his joy at their appearances, he mustered up what strength he still had left to act energetic and excited, chirping and restlessly running around the cage and trying to escape and run toward the group. Compared to the reaction he had with the three fakes it was like heaven and earth. 

The Wen family were not stupid and seeing the similarities between Tang Muxin, Ye Cheng, Yan Huizhong and the fakes… they knew Wen Xia had tried to dupe them badly.

The following scene was fairly typical. The Wen family were all furious at Wen Xia, scolding her as being unfilial and a wretch. After all this scheme not only harmed innocents but even risked the dragon's life!  The Wen family served dragons not schemed against them. As someone who would do this they could not be considered part of the Wen family anymore.

Hearing this, Wen Xia's knees grew weak and buckled, falling to the floor. But nobody helped her. Not her brothers, her father or the grandfather who doted on her the most.

Regret filled her heart as tears filled her eyes as she was enlightened too late.

Why did she do this? What possessed her to even have such a ludicrous and illogical idea? And to go through with it?

It clearly wasn't worth it at all!

She prostrated herself under the freezing cold gaze of Tang Muxin and apologises sincerely. Even though her eyes were red, she did not let herself weep openly and cause a scene that would disgrace the Wen family any further. It was her last act of pride.

"I don't expect for forgiveness nor ask for a lighter p-punishment." Wen Xia presses her forehead onto the cold floor, "All I ask is that you don't be angry at my family. This… this was all my foolishness. Even if I didn't expect my servants to go against my orders like that… it was still my oversight and, and, I'm sorry. Do with me as you see fit."

Her family also had red eyes. No matter what this was their most doted daughter of the main branch. Wen Gen and Wen Shen who were her brothers and still relatively young, could not contain their emotions of disappointment and sadness. The crime was heavy and the potential damage of hurting a dragon was unprecedented. Death might even be too light a punishment.

Tang Muxin held Jia Hyson in her hands as she stares down at Wen Xia. 

'Ye Cheng is hurt because of her.' She silently tells him.

Jia Hyson was silent for a moment before looking up at her. 'But do you really want to order for her death?'

It was easy to justify this one. But they'll be many people after them now because of Jia Hyson and because of other reasons as well. Tang Muxin wished for peaceful days and to distance herself from her past life. If her peaceful days was once again lined with blood on the way, would she truly have a happy ending at the end?

Tang Muxin also was aware that old habits were easy to slip back into and hard to break. If she solved this through one neat kill, she'll want to do it again in the future. 

'Jin Bao, what do you think?' She finally decides. Truthfully she really did want to kill Wen Xia but she knew this was her anger talking. Right now she needed Jin Bao to provide a more unbiased opinion. Besides, she knew he had certain skills to help her with this decision.

His eyes glow again as he activates [Karmic Insight] for a second before switching it off. As he expected. Wen Xia's aura had changed.

'I see she has potential to reform.' Jia Hyson admits, though it's something both of them have sensed already from Wen Xia's humble attitude when apologising. This was only confirming it.

Closing her eyes, Tang Muxin sighs heavily. "Cast her out of the Wen family grounds and scratch her name from the family records. Wen Xia will no longer be from nobility. Other than that, this one does not care what happens to her."

Wen Xia sat up and stared at her in shock.

It was extremely lenient.

Tang Muxin didn't tell them to break Wen Xia's legs, scar her face or cut all contact with her. Just expel her from the family home and in name.

Immediately she kowtowed in gratitude, "Thank you for your benevolence dragon priestess!"

If Wen Xia understood, so did everyone else. They also all dropped down to kowtow. Even the elderly Wen Geming. "Thank you for your benevolence!"

Tang Muxin felt a bit embarrassed at such a scene but refused to show it, forcibly keeping on her cold face. She didn't want to let them off too lightly either and quickly made various other demands, negotiating with them in a manner that would make Ye Cheng extremely proud.

As for the three fakes? Heh. The Wen family can vent on them, she was too lazy to care.

...

Despite everything, Jia Hyson liked the Wen family a lot. They treated him well and they were a valuable connection. After much convincing, he got Tang Muxin to accept them reluctantly. It helped a lot that Wen Xing unhesitatingly offered their personal doctors to look after Ye Cheng's recovery as a show of goodwill. 

They were also very eager to throw money and various other good things at them in order to curry favour, making the materialistic Ye Cheng smile for days when he woke up.

"This is really a big profit ah," He sighs as he touches his swollen face. "Just a few more beatings like this and I could probably buy a house in the capital."

Yan Huizhong silently glares at him, "Don't be stupid, how could a house be worth you getting hurt." He could buy him ten houses in the capital anyway!

The day they left Kaifeng, the Wen family were nearly in tears. It wasn't as if they had grown close to the protagonists, they had, but not to the extent of being reluctant to see them go. But the main problem was… they were taking Jin Bao with them!

Second young master Wen Gen, the most ambitious of the family, even offered to cut off his familial responsibilities and ties and become the dragon's personal servant! After getting rejected he was practically seething in jealousy at the other men in the group. To think, they could actually get to see the little dragon everyday! How hateful!

First young master Wen Shen is admittedly also a bit jealous like his brother, but he felt Wen Gen's attitude was really too embarrassing. As the heir to the family, he had to act older and more mature just like his respected father and grandfather....

The older more mature Master Wen Xing: "Wuwuwuwu."

The much older and much more mature Old Master Wen Genming: "Yingyingyingying."

First Young Master Wen Shen: '...' It couldn't be his dad and grandpa were replaced by old mothers sending their baby off for the first time right? 

He turns to Guard Yi to ask whether he had gone mad or his family had, but the leader of the Wen Family's personal guards was looking at him sympathetically. Taking advantage of everyone's distraction he gives the first young master a firm hug. "It's okay, you can be sad. You don't have to be strong right now if even the masters are crying."

First Young Master Shen felt his heart beat a little faster. Snuggling into the muscular chest of his boyfriend, he helplessly squeezed out a small, "...Ying."

Well, whatever. It would be weird if he didn't act emotional when everyone else was too. 

Jia Hyson who saw it all: '..Ah, what to do, I'm a little jealous ah.'

Other boyfriends have large pectoral muscles bursting with sex appeal and manly charm while his family's Da Gong only have chicken breasts. 

Da Gong: "Cluck?"

Jia Hyson: …

Jia Hyson: "Awww, I don't care ah~ ♡ You're perfect darling~♡" SnugglesandLove.jpeg

Da Gong: "Cluck." ("ˆ ³(,,ಠ⊝ಠ,,) ♡

Other shards in the safe space: FuriouslyGuzzlingVinegar.gif