Chapter 498: Miao Yan

Using a very conventional way of describing it, Chen Xiaolian’s mind was now in a very messy state.

He lay on top of the stone monument and watched as Miao Yan emerged from the lower side of the underground river. Her figure was like that of a running rabbit and she came to a halt before the stone monument.

In the form-fitting leather jacket, her graceful and voluptuous body and her pair of long legs were absolutely eye-catching. She stood before the stone monument and examined it for a moment. Then, she abruptly pulled out something that looked like a mobile phone and used it to take pictures of the stone monument.

Seeing Miao Yan in action, Chen Xiaolian, who was still lying there, remained motionless. His mind was at a loss.

After she was done taking pictures, Miao Yan turned around and kept her mobile phone. She then looked into the distance and suddenly crouched down.

It would appear that one of her leather boots had gotten loose. Thus, she had gone into a semi-crouching position to tighten them. As it so happens, this position of hers allowed Chen Xiaolian to…

It was an understandable reaction. When a woman with such a voluptuous body in such alluring attire bends her back, the sight of her back would be sufficient to make the heart of 80 per cent of the men in the world to race. It would not be an exaggeration to say that suffering from a nosebleed at that moment was not an impossibility.

For the briefest moment, Chen Xiaolian stared foolishly at the sight unfolding before him.

In the very next instant however, his senses, honed to a keen state through the many trials of life and death, suddenly rang out. An inexplicable sense of danger washed through his entire body. He could feel the hairs on his body standing straight. He abruptly and subconsciously rolled to the side.

At nearly the same time…

Miao Yan, who was crouching down, suddenly pulled out a curved blade with each hand. She got into a ready posture, her waist contracting to its limits before her figure flew to the sky. The blades in her hands slashed down and two dazzling blade beams shot toward the top of the stone monument.

Chen Xiaolian had already rolled himself tens of centimetres away from his original position. One of the blade beams seemingly grazed past his clothes as it hacked down on the top of the stone monument. An ear piercing sound rang out as the two blade beams made contact with the stone monument. After that, two blade marks could clearly be seen on the surface of the top area of the stone monument.

After rolling away, Chen Xiaolian jumped down from atop the stone monument. However, Miao Yan did not let up. The tips of her feet lightly made contact with the surface of the stone monument and her body bounced forward. As her body was still in the middle of the air, the curved blades in her hands shot out.

Thud!

Chen Xiaolian tilted his head and one of the curved blades slid past the side of his face, missing him and pierced into the stone monument. At least one third of the curved blade was embedded inside the stone and the handle of the blade quivered.

“What a vicious woman!” Chen Xiaolian smiled bitterly to himself.

He then noticed Miao Yan standing up after landing on the ground. Although she had tossed the blades in her hand away, there were now two guns in her hands, one in each. Aiming the muzzles of the guns at Chen Xiaolian, she did not hesitate to shoot at him.

“Are you serious? This woman!”

Chen Xiaolian did not even have the time to pull a face. He hastily rushed to take cover at the back of the stone monument. Next, the sounds of bullets striking the stone monument echoed out.

The bullets caused chips of stone to break and fly out from the stone monument.

Miao Yan was fierce in her combat approach. After she had finished unloading her bullets, Chen Xiaolian poked his head out to say something only to see an item flying over in an arc through the air. It landed on the ground and rolled over.

This is… … you bitch! Hand grenade!

Once Chen Xiaolian noticed it, he swore out: Too vicious!

He had no time to think about it. He quickly jumped into the underground river behind him.

The very moment he dived into the water, the hand grenade exploded.

This woman is really vicious!

That was an anti-materiel equipment.

A loud explosion could be heard as the stone monument was blasted to pieces.

After diving into the underground river, he quickly made his way to the bottom part of the river.

After the hand grenade destroyed the stone monument, Miao Yan waited for a few seconds. When the explosion subsided, she moved to the river bank, pulled out her gun and shot at the surface of the river.

Just now, she was able to notice how her opponent had swiftly reacted to her actions. The moment the hand grenade exploded, her opponent had already dived into the river.

From the moment she found out about the other party’s presence and launched her attacks, this opponent had successfully dodged her attacks. His rate of reaction and decision making skills were first-rate. This in turn caused Miao Yan to turn serious.

She had entered this instance dungeon ahead of time. Unexpectedly, she would find an Awakened of such calibre in here.

Miao Yan continued shooting into the river. First, she fired out a suppressive fire. Next, she pulled out another hand grenade. She was planning to toss it into the river, but…

Her body suddenly stumbled.

Lowering her head, she saw that a hand had suddenly shot out from the surface of the river to grab her ankle. A sense of foreboding struck Miao Yan. She only had enough time to get into a defensive posture before her body was pulled into the river. She did not even have the time to kick the hand away.

As expected of Miao Yan, the moment she was pulled into the river, she had already prepared herself. She held her breath. Thus, after being pulled underwater, she did not choke. Instead, she retaliated swiftly. As her opponent’s other arm came at her, she sent her knee out. At the same time, she also sent her elbow forward…

Chen Xiaolian, who was also underwater, raised his hand to block the incoming knee. The force behind the attack elicited a bitter smile from Chen Xiaolian.

This woman was seriously going in for the kill. This attack from her could have broken the backbone of an ordinary human.

As for the elbow, Chen Xiaolian did not dodge. Bracing himself, he moved his arm to take the elbow strike. When the elbow landed, the pain nearly forced open his mouth. Cold sweat oozed out from him.

This time, Chen Xiaolian dared not be careless. He managed to grab Miao Yan from behind with an embrace and dragged her down into the depths of the river.

He decided to subdue this woman this way. Otherwise, he would have no chance to even speak up.

Miao Yan realized that her opponent was planning to drag her to the bottom of the river. She sneered inwardly. Next, instead of struggling against the downward movement, she used her hands to grab her opponent who was behind her. Next, she displayed her melee skills.

The two of them then became entangled in a melee, knee strikes, elbow strikes, joint locks…

Both of them were experts. That was certain in Miao Yan’s regard. As for Chen Xiaolian, after going through so many battles, he was no longer the same Chen Xiaolian from his first time in the Mausoleum of Qin Shihuang’s instance dungeon. Additionally, they had both enhanced their bodies and were able to hold their breaths for a long time. They were able to engage each other underwater for a good five to six minutes.

The both of them took some damage. Chen Xiaolian’s sternum was hit twice and he nearly coughed out blood as a result. Miao Yan, on the other hand, was struck in the lower abdomen area. The pain caused her to choke on her saliva. Next, Chen Xiaolian’s face was nearly smashed in by Miao Yan only to have her fist deflected away by Chen Xiaolian.

Generally speaking however, Chen Xiaolian was the one to suffer more. Firstly, his strength was still behind compared to Miao Yan. Secondly, he did not go all out due to his feelings.

After fighting underwater for a few minutes, they finally ran out of oxygen. They abruptly disengaged and moved to the surface.

Chen Xiaolian’s head broke through the surface of the river. He had just inhaled when Miao Yan’s head emerged somewhere less than two metres away. A dagger appeared in her hand as she stared icily at him.

Chen Xiaolian quickly paddled backward to put some distance between them. He shouted, “Wait! Wait! Stop fighting! Stop fighting!”

Miao Yan’s eyes narrowed – from what Chen Xiaolian knew of this woman, every time she narrowed her eyes like that, it meant she was about to become furious. She was about to unleash her killing moves.

He quickly took advantage of what little time was left to shout, “Miao Yan! Stop fighting!”

A chilling glow had begun to radiate from Miao Yan’s dagger when she heard this opponent of hers calling out her name.

Miao Yan’s face instantly flickered. She kept her dagger and moved herself backward.

“You… … you know me!”

“I…” Chen Xiaolian opened his mouth but Miao Yan’s face suddenly flickered and she hissed, “Quiet!”

Next, she sent a signal to Chen Xiaolian.

Thankfully, Chen Xiaolian had fought by her side before. Thus, he was more or less able to understand her signal. He quickly imitated Miao Yan’s actions. The two of them inhaled deeply and sank back into the river. There, they watched…

After 10 plus seconds, the sound of footsteps came from the upper reaches of the river…

They belonged to several Awakened ones. Clearly, they were a small team. They ran in a panic and every one of their backs had arrows sticking out from them. From all outward appearances, they were all in a miserable state.

Behind them came the sound of a uniformed pace.

A formation of terracotta soldiers charged forward at breakneck speed. Their armours were all similar and their pace orderly. The pikes in their hands were like a forest. Additionally, there were also archers among them. They held onto bronze crossbows from the Qin Dynasty…

A hail of arrows were unleashed and a few Awakened ones fell down.

The arrows from the crossbows were very sharp and powerful. They were able to instantly kill off some Awakened ones and pin them to the ground. The low-grade protective suits on them were simply incapable of blocking off the hail of arrows.

It did not take long before the terracotta soldiers caught up to the Awakened ones and began fighting them. The terracotta soldiers were very good at engaging the enemy. After catching up to their targets, they continued to keep their targets busy while smaller teams swiftly rushed to the front to flank the Awakened ones.

Soon enough, those few remaining Awakened ones were surrounded near the banks of the underground river.

After a round of battle and a series of miserable screams, which lasted no more than half a minute, those few Awakened ones were all killed off. Some of them, with arrows in their backs, fell into the river and their corpses drifted along.

The terracotta soldiers were like a killing machine. After exterminating those Awakened ones, they quickly got into formation once more. Then, they began marching in that same orderly pace as they moved down along the river…

Chen Xiaolian and Miao Yan, who were inside the underground river, witnessed all that transpired. The both of them came to a tacit understanding to not interfere. After the terracotta soldiers had all left, the two of them poked their heads out of the surface of the river. After exchanging glances, they silently climbed up the riverbank.

Chen Xiaolian looked at Miao Yan.

She was already wearing a form-fitting leather jacket, which accentuated her voluptuous figure to begin with. After getting soaked inside the river, her form-fitting leather jacket clung tightly to her body. Her appearance now was enough to cause some men to blush.

Miao Yan however, did not appear to notice anything wrong. After climbing up the bank, she quickly moved to examine the corpses of the Awakened ones. She showed no hesitation to rummage through their personal effects. When she found something useful, she would throw them into her storage equipment.

Seeing what she was doing, Chen Xiaolian did not hesitate to follow suit. Rummaging the corpse of one of the Awakened ones, he saw that there was a fairly well-made sword. He weighed it with his hand for a moment.

[B] class item.

If this were the him from back when he had first experienced this Mausoleum of Qin Shihuang instance dungeon, he would certainly have considered this item as a treasure.

Presently however, Chen Xiaolian only gave this [B] class weapon a glance before tossing it into his Storage Watch.

Chen Xiaolian would never use this anymore. He would bring this item with him only for the sake of throwing it into his base’s Energy Smelting Furnace to transform it into energy points.

“Just a bunch of weaklings with nothing good. They don’t even have a storage equipment.” Miao Yan shook her head.

After saying that, she turned to look at Chen Xiaolian and said, “You equipment is pretty good.”

Chen Xiaolian noticed that Miao Yan was looking at the Storage Watch that he was wearing… it was a modified item given to him by Fatty, Skyblade’s son.

A genuine high-grade item.

Miao Yan studied Chen Xiaolian for a moment.

“[A] class protective suit, keen combat senses, a good level of strength. Obviously, you have enhanced your body before. Although your combat skills are still somewhat rough, your responses are very fast. A vast amount of combat experience…” Miao Yan slowly spoke, “Someone like you cannot possibly be a nameless nobody. However, why have I never heard of someone like you?”

Chen Xiaolian pulled his lips to the side and squeezed out a rather unsightly smile. “You really do not recognize me?”

“No.” Miao Yan shook her head without any hesitation. Next, a killing intent radiated out from her eyes. “How do you know me?”

“… eh, that…” Chen Xiaolian smiled wryly. Seeing the growing killing intent in Miao Yan’s eyes, he quickly took a step backward and waved his hands as he said, “Stop fighting! Stop fighting! I mean you no harm! I will answer whatever questions you have for me. Seriously, I really don’t want to fight you.”

Miao Yan was a clever one. She could hear the overly familiar and intimate tone in Chen Xiaolian’s words – that tone was something that could only exist if they had a certain degree of friendship.

Hearing that tone cause Miao Yan’s brows to furrow. Her heart grew curious.

“You seem very familiar with me.”

“… … eh… … we had drank wine together and fought some monsters together.” Chen Xiaolian smiled wryly. “That kinda makes us friends.”

“But why do I not remember that?” Next, Miao Yan’s face turned into shock. “Could my memories have been erased?  Impossible!”

“Err, I really have no way of explaining that. At the very least, there is no way to explain it to you in a few sentences. This… … let us talk about this slowly.”

…