I Really Like the Male Supporting Character (Quick Transmigration) - Chapter 31
As soon as Lu Cang finished speaking, Ah Luo suddenly heard faint voices approaching. Among them, she recognized one all too well.
“That’s Li Jiaojiao,” she said. The arrogant voice of the girl grew closer, and with no place to hide, Ah Luo turned to her puppet master and said, “Master, I’ll put you away for now and summon you again later.”
With a simple gesture, the puppet Lu Cang transformed back into a jade bead and slipped into her sleeve.
This had happened several times today, and both of them were used to it by now.
Lu Cang was revered and respected, and the Linjin Hidden Realm was full of disciples from Guiyuan Sect. Ah Luo didn’t want anyone to see her with him, lest it damage his reputation. Whenever someone approached, she would hide the puppet, and she would only let him out when the coast was clear.
Moments later, a group emerged from the trees. Leading them was Li Jiaojiao.
Seeing Ah Luo alone, Li Jiaojiao frowned and said, “Lin Luoyin, what are you doing here?”
Ah Luo calmly replied, “Why can’t I be here?”
Before Li Jiaojiao could respond, one of the men in her group interjected, “Junior Sister Li, don’t waste time on her. We have more important things to do.”
Ah Luo observed the group with curiosity. Alongside Li Jiaojiao were two men and a woman whose cultivation was beyond her ability to gauge. The woman was dressed in sultry red robes; one man was tall and young, while the other was a lean, older man with a grim expression.
When they first saw Ah Luo, the three people glanced at her warily as they checked her cultivation level. Upon seeing her low cultivation level, they finally looked away.
Guiyuan Sect was the most prestigious sect in the cultivation world. It consisted of a hundred peaks and thousands of disciples. Since Ah Luo rarely ventured far, she didn’t recognize these people.
At the young man’s urging, Li Jiaojiao’s expression soured.
“Fine, I know it won’t be easy to find what we’re after,” she muttered. Then, she turned to Ah Luo with an irritated look and asked, “Lin Luoyin, have you seen Brother Xingjue?”
Ah Luo immediately sensed that Li Jiaojiao was in a cooperative alliance with these three. They seemed to likely be searching for treasures together, and Li Jiaojiao seemed to be leading their group.
What she hadn’t expected was for Li Jiaojiao to ask her about this. Truly, her obsession with the male protagonist was relentless.
While holding back a laugh, Ah Luo shook her head seriously and said, “No, the hidden realm is so vast; how could I possibly run into Senior Brother Gu?”
Li Jiaojiao gave a displeased snort. After not getting the answer she wanted, she turned to leave. However, after she took a few steps, the older man abruptly stopped and pulled something from his robe. “Wait, she has what we’re looking for!”
The four of them turned back simultaneously, and their eyes locked onto Ah Luo.
Ah Luo took a step back. She asked, “What do you want?”
In reply, Li Jiaojiao said, “Lin Luoyin, if you hand over that treasure, I might spare your life.”
Ah Luo, however, feigned confusion. “What treasure? I don’t have anything.”
The older man sneered. “My treasure tracker never fails. She’s definitely got the golden feather fruit.”
‘Golden feather fruit’? Was he talking about that fruit with golden fuzz on its skin?
Ah Luo remembered the golden fruit that the puppet master had snatched from a group of monkey beasts earlier. He’d mentioned that it had the power to cleanse one’s spiritual aptitude and that it was a rare and precious item.
She spent most of her time just admiring the scenery around her. However, her master, even in puppet form, had highly discerning eyes and no treasure in the vicinity would escape his notice. Once he discovered one, he would promptly retrieve it for her. It was as if he was trying to make up his years of neglect of her in this way.
That golden fruit was indeed in her storage bag right now. Seeing the four people closing in on her, Ah Luo raised her voice and said, “Are you not afraid of punishment for harming a fellow disciple?”
The woman in red chuckled. “Little girl, this is a hidden realm. Who’s to say you weren’t just eaten by some monster?”
Ah Luo didn’t want to clash with them unnecessarily, so she tried another persuasion. “Do you know who my master is? He’s none other than Daoist Master Lu Cang, the peak lord of Wandao Peak. If you harm me, he will surely hunt you down.”
The young man laughed dismissively, “Everyone knows Daoist Master Lu only has one disciple. Little Junior Sister, who are you trying to fool?”
However, Li Jiaojiao paused and hesitantly said, “Hold on. Her master really is Lu Cang.”
The others exchanged uncertain glances and temporarily stopped their advance.
Ah Luo sighed in relief. She loosened her grip on the jade bead in her hand. However, in the next moment, she realized in horror that her whole body had gone rigid; she couldn’t move at all.
Seeing her immobilized, Li Jiaojiao sneered with satisfaction. “Lin Luoyin, if you hadn’t mentioned that, I might have let you go. But now, I’m going to make sure I settle the score. Your master can’t enter this realm, and you can’t get out. Isn’t this the perfect opportunity for taking revenge on you?”
She stepped closer and pried the jade bead from Ah Luo’s clenched hand. “Is this it? You must have used it to send that alert last time, so your master knew where you were. Not this time.”
She hurled the bead into the pink flower field, then signaled for the others to search Ah Luo’s storage bag.
“Will Daoist Master really be none the wiser?” the young man asked hesitantly.
The older man directly snatched Ah Luo’s storage bag and probed it with his spiritual sense before ruthlessly wiping out her spiritual imprint on it.
Pain shot through Ah Luo’s head. She felt as if she’d been struck by a blunt weapon from behind. She felt as if her head was about to explode.
“Don’t worry. As long as we’re discreet, there’s no way he could find out.”
The woman in red remarked, “I heard that some masters can replay a person’s last moments. If Daoist Master sees us…”
Li Jiaojiao waved her hand impatiently. “Then we’ll ensure she doesn’t die by our hands.”
She pulled out the scarlet lantern flower from Ah Luo’s bag with a smug look. “Look at this! Do you know what this is?”
“Scarlet lantern flower? It’s not useful to us. We could give it to our master,” the older man said.
Li Jiaojiao shook her head. “I’ll make her consume it. Taken alone, the flower induces a poison of desire. It can only be cured by one’s beloved; otherwise, it will prove fatal. She’s alone in this realm, so there’s no one that can help her once she’s consumed it.”
The other three were stunned for a moment, and then the woman in red gave a nervous laugh. “That’s… quite a plan, Junior Sister Li.”
Li Jiaojiao’s method was vicious, sending a chill through the group, and silence fell over them.
Finally, the young man broke the tension. “For someone with such low cultivation, she managed to gather quite a few treasures. She’s sure worthy of being her master’s disciple, or, he must have given her a lot of treasures to help her.”
Li Jiaojiao scoffed. “It’s probably all from her sister. There’s no way he bothers with such a useless disciple. I doubt he even remembers her.”
The four searched her storage bag and went through her belongings but found nothing else that could be of much value to them.
Throughout it all, Ah Luo remained immobilized, unable to express even a flicker of anger.
Finally, Li Jiaojiao picked up the scarlet lantern flower. She pinched Ah Luo’s cheeks and forced the entire flower into her mouth to make her swallow it.
“I know you like Brother Xingjue. Well, he’s mine. How dare you covet him?” Li Jiaojiao sneered while patting Ah Luo’s cheek mockingly. “If your master does look into your death, he’ll just see you pathetically consumed by lust. Quite the fitting ending for you, wouldn’t you say? Well, good luck with that!”
The young male cultivator, though, hesitated. He couldn’t seem to leave Ah Luo just like that. He raised his hand to lift the immobilizing spell on Ah Luo before finally departing with the rest of his group.
The moment that the spell was lifted, Ah Luo collapsed to the ground. Her head pounded, her body burned, and her strength rapidly drained away as her limbs went limp.
“Master…”
In her blurred vision, she imagined a tall figure, white as snow, standing against the wind with his ink-black hair flowing behind him and his broad shoulders steadfast and unwavering.
The effects of the scarlet lantern flower were taking hold of her. The only way to counter it was with an antidote—or by sharing intimacy with one’s beloved.
She had no antidote, and the person she admired was far beyond her reach.
Was this really where she would die? She felt a deep sense of regret. Her master hadn’t even come to love her yet.
Suddenly, she remembered the puppet that Lu Cang had given her. If she couldn’t have him, perhaps she could at least indulge herself this once.
She supported herself with her trembling hands, then knelt in the flower field and began searching for the jade bead. The jade bead bore her imprint, so she was able to quickly find it.
She sat in the pink sea of flowers, hidden among the waist-high blossoms, unseen from any angle.
She channeled her spiritual energy into the bead and summoned the puppet inside it.
The white-clad figure materialized before her, just as she remembered him—with black hair, cold eyes, and that same distant grace.
“Master.”
Ah Luo knelt at his feet and looked up at him as she called out softly to him.
Lu Cang lowered his gaze. He frowned slightly as he knelt to meet her eyes. “What happened?”
His eyes were ice-cold, and a chill emanated from him as he gently touched his young disciple’s cheek with his fair, slender hand.
This was the first time he had ever voluntarily approached her. Right now, his young disciple looked far from normal. Her small face was flushed, her bright eyes glistened with unshed tears, and her gaze held a captivating, vulnerable warmth.
It was obvious that something had happened while he was sealed in the jade. While his puppet was stored in the bead, his spiritual consciousness returned to his main body, leaving him unaware of what happened to her outside the bead.
“Tell me, what just happened?” he asked in a frigid tone.
To his surprise, Ah Luo didn’t answer his question. Instead, she stared at him with reddened eyes, gazing as if she was seeing through him and seeing someone else.
Suddenly, she flung herself into his arms, catching him off guard and knocking him back into the flower bed. Her slender arms wrapped tightly around his neck, and her feverish cheek pressed against his.
“Master… Just this once, please let me be wilful just once, just this once…”
As she spoke, her soft lips brushed his ear. Her voice was trembling and edged with unmistakable desperation.
For the first time, a look of pure shock and astonishment crossed Lu Cang’s usually indifferent face.
Translator’s Note:
You’ve been warned before, but let me warn you again (at the end of Chapter 25). The content in the next chapter (dubc*n) might not be for everyone, and your discretion is advised.