CH 33.2

Bai Lixin pursed his lips, “I can still make you happier.”

“Oh?” The man’s husky voice took on a hook, and there were some ambiguous hints in it, “How can you make me happy, by using that special scale of yours?”

To match this statement, a tentacle slowly moved to the tail and found the scale.

The suction cup buckled and lifted it.

Bai Lixin’s cheeks flushed red, and even in the sea, you could see tears welling up in his eyes.

“How about I make a bet with you?” Bai Lixin suppressed his voice and looked at the thick, powerful fog.

Dijia was intrigued, “What kind of bet? Tell me.”

Bai Lixin, “Give me one more chance. I can still beat you.”

Dijia, “What’s the bet?”

Bai Lixin, “If I win, you let me go back. If I lose… “

Dijia, “If you lose, use that little scale of yours to keep me happy.”

Bai Lixin’s blue pointed ears were all red, “Okay!”

A long, thin tentacle came to the end of Bai Lixin’s eye and, with a gentle sweep, wiped off a pure white pearl.

The tentacle carefully held up the pearl and retreated back into the deep, infinite darkness.

Dijia, “Sleep now, the bet will start another day. I’m tired.”

Under Bai Lixin’s surprised gaze, the tentacles rolled up the little merman and the dense fog gradually retracted and shrank to its original size.

The tentacles brought Bai Lixin out of the darkness, and instead of returning him to the model he had destroyed, they led him to the large bed.

As the tentacles descended and placed Bai Lixin on the bed, Dijia’s body shrank once more.

It did not stop until the thick fog had shrunk to just a head taller than Bai Lixin.

The insubstantial black fog then stretched out like a soft feather quilt over Bai Lixin’s body.

The moment the dark quilt came up, sleep struck.

Bai Lixin wanted to say something else, but his eyelids sank and he fell straight to sleep.

Seeing Bai Lixin asleep, the tentacles slowly retracted from his body and went back into the dense fog.

The thick fog slowly faded away, revealing a handsome face.

A quilt made of thick fog steadily covered Bai Lixin and the man’s body. The man under the quilt wore a plain black shirt, which was buttoned only to the third button, revealing a large area of tight, firm wheat-colored skin.

The man looked at Bai Lixin with burning eyes. The first two times, he had only used memories from the soul fragments to speculate, guess, and understand this young man who had tickled his interest.

This was his first time to actually touch the young man, and at such a close proximity.

The memories from the two soul fragments gradually revived and overlapped with the beautiful face of the young man in front of him.

His eyes fell on Bai Lixin’s clean forehead, and his long, bony fingers followed his gaze, reaching out to gently trace the beautiful face.

Long, thick lashes cast two shadows on the cheeks. The young man’s thick lashes were slightly curled but not in an exaggerated way. They had just the right curvature to make them look like two butterflies that were now trembling gently.

When his fingertips swept across the lashes, the already fluttering butterflies immediately flapped, as if they were about to take wing and fly in the next moment.

An indefinable feeling emerged in Dijia’s heart.

His eyes continued down to the young man’s upturned nose.

His fingertips slowly traced down along the bridge of his nose and finally rested on the faintly pink tip of the nose.

He could see the young man’s muscles pulsating and his skin flushing as he moved with all his might.

Not only his nose, but also his cheeks, shoulders, neck, and collarbone took on a pretty pink tinge.

Just like a budding rose in a garden, its delicate buds tremble in the wind.

The fingertips fell on the lips.

With a gentle pressure, the soft lips were squeezed and distorted.

It feels so nice.

No wonder two fragments of his soul loved this place so much.

Wide arms swept the little merman into his chest, and the man sighed softly, his empty heart seemingly filled with something.

Ever since he ascended to the 999th level, he could no longer extend downwards easily, and even if he went to the lower levels, he would not stay for long.

After obtaining the soul fragment from the Trial copy, he had once followed his memory to invade Bai Lixin’s room. However, it could only last for a short time, and sure enough, he was bounced back to his floor by the power of the rules within just a few minutes.

The 999th floor was a dream for others, but it was a cage for him.

The grandest of cages.

—

When Bai Lixin woke up again, the taskbar showed that it was already the next day.

He was alone in his bed, and Foggy Dijia was nowhere to be found.

He looked around the vast bedroom and finally saw a message on the bedside table.

It was inscribed on a stone slab, and he did not understand the words.

However, when he laid his hand on this slate, he was able to read it immediately.

—”You can first go back and we will make the bet another day. You can go straight out; the beings here will not harm you.”

Another day?

Where did Dijia go?

Bai Lixin: [S419M, any idea where Dijia went?]

S419M sighed: [I’m sorry, Lord host, I went into hibernation immediately after you fell asleep yesterday.]

Bai Lixin wasn’t that disappointed: [He covered me with a quilt made of fog at that time, and I fell asleep after that. It should be because of that fog, seeing as you were also affected. What about the escape game system? Does it know?]

The escape system didn’t want to answer, but it had to speak anyway: [No, I went into hibernation too.]

Bai Lixin: [Never mind, since he said he would come to us himself another day, let’s get out of here first.]

The door to the bedroom was open and instead of rushing off, Bai Lixin first looked around the room, where he soon found two tools that he could use.

One was an iron plate that had come off the model of the house; it was hard enough to be used as a shield against some of the attacks.

The other was a hook from the birdcage. He took the hook and tied the other end of the strong seaweed to the bed.

Thus, a weapon that could also be used in close combat and at a distance had been made.

Bai Lixin practiced with the weapon in the room for a while, making sure that he was completely comfortable with it before leaving the room.

The palace was very large, but Bai Lixin had mastered the direction of the sea water, and with the help of the currents, he was able to swim with little effort and with much greater speed.

Soon, he left the palace.

Just after leaving the palace, a split turtle emerged from a small mound in the corner of the palace.

Bai Lixin glanced at it, and the split turtle immediately burrowed into the sea sand and followed him.

It turned out that this little monster had been waiting for him here.

The split turtle was not moving very fast as it plucked at the sea sand. Bai Lixin wanted to test how far this split turtle could follow him, and he immediately increased his speed.

In the next second, he seemed to have a rocket behind him as he suddenly shot out. The water behind him turned into a shockwave from his acceleration, mixing with the calm sea water to make a muffled sound.

Just as Dijia had said in his message, he passed many “ancient gods” and their followers, but none of them attacked him.

Bai Lixin swam for a while before suddenly slowing down.

He felt a familiar killing intent in front of him, the same as the ball of flesh that had attacked him yesterday.

Visibility was poor here, but it was different this time.

He had now mastered the technique of feeling the flow of the sea with his body, a skill that was like the radar positioning of a dolphin. Bai Lixin’s arms made ripples in the darkness as he opened his ventral fins and used his body to receive feedback from the ripples.

He then mapped out the scene around him based on the feedback he received. This ability worked even better than binoculars. In these deep waters, binoculars could only see a short range of visibility, but this skill could sense distances of meters or even dozens of metres ahead.

However, there were drawbacks to using his hands to make the ripples; his perception was relatively slowed if he was using his hands to attack.

Perhaps when he returned, he could ask the other merfolk if there was any echolocation that could be used to locate and attack through sound waves.

Bai Lixin’s mind quickly pictured the shape of the murderous mass.

It was a round, chubby ball of flesh.

He had bumped into the ball of flesh that had attacked him yesterday.

This really was a case of a narrow road between enemies.

Bai Lixin moved closer, and the shape of the ball of flesh gradually became clearer. The ball of flesh was hugging and gnawing furiously on something again. It must have caught his scent and used the food to block his way.

Its healing ability was strong. The spot where Dijia had pierced had already healed, only that the flesh there was slightly lighter in color than elsewhere, so it must have just grown new flesh there.

This was just a follower that had lost its intelligence and been reduced to a beast.

But something had nearly killed him yesterday, and he had not even seen how he had been attacked.

There was only a flash of white light and a wound appeared on his arm.

But he was within Dijia’s domain at that time. Was this ball of flesh’s attack able to cross the domain?

Bai Lixin looked at the ball of flesh before him with vigilance. It was not that he wanted revenge, but that his opponent was pursuing him with great vigor.

But he also wanted to see how much of a chance he had of winning against this creature.

The ball of flesh was extremely unmartial, and a white light burst over it without saying a word!

Yesterday’s Bai Lixin was still dodging this white light in a wretched manner.

But today, he was not *Wuxia Amon.

The moment the white light came at him, he swung his tail around in a nimble circle to avoid the attack.

The shield was in his hand, but he did not dare try to defend against the white light with it.

The ball of flesh’s ability was strange. Could a shield defend against it if it could invade Dijia’s domain?

He could not allow himself to be injured as he was no longer in Dijia’s powerful protection. Who knew if his blood would attract even more powerful and dangerous creatures? He had to kill his opponent without sustaining any injury.

Bai Lixin quickly swam around the ball of flesh. He tugged at the seaweed in his hand, throwing the hook out and towards the ball of flesh.

The hook landed on the ball of flesh with a crisp crunching sound as gold and iron clashed.

Bai Lixin froze for a moment and hurriedly retrieved the golden hook.

The seemingly soft wall of flesh was surprisingly of the same density as metal.

The whole body of the ball of flesh was covered with this thick layer of flesh. It had no eyes, only a mouth full of sharp teeth.

There was a white light sprinting over.

Bai Lixin observed as he dodged. The only possible weak points on the other part were the mouth and the tender flesh that had just grown out where Dijia had pierced it yesterday.

It was just that this new flesh was wrapped up in the old flesh. Only by letting it expose the new flesh could one attack.

Then there were these white lights.

He found that the white light was not emitted from the ball of flesh, but rather appeared from the sea.

Thousands of thoughts flooded through Bai Lixin’s mind.

Could it be that all the creatures in the Northern Sea area possessed an unreasonable skill attack?

Just like Dijia, who could control the fog field, this ball of flesh also had some kind of skill, and this white light was its skill.

So, in order to demonstrate the power of the Ancient Gods, do the other creatures that live here also have a skill?

What about the split turtle? Could it be that immortality is the skill of the split turtle?

Three white lights appeared in front of Bai Lixin at the same time. But even with three, they could no longer harm today’s Bai Lixin.

This time, he could clearly see that the three white lights had indeed appeared out of thin air.

Bai Lixin looked at the round gurgling ball of flesh and then at the place where the white lights had disappeared, and dashed towards the ball of flesh with all his might.

The water behind him pierced into a circular ripple and made a muffled sound.

Bai Lixin spun around the ball of flesh at great speed, in a circle. He remained a distance of two meters away from it, which was not too far nor too near to it. 

The blue tail was turning into a galaxy around the ball of flesh.

The ball of flesh shook its head, somewhat dumbfounded.

Suddenly, seventeen or eighteen white lights appeared in mid-air.

Bai Lixin swiftly slashed through the water and the white lights fell into the ball of flesh instead.

A wailing sound came from it.

The ball of flesh revealed its new piece of flesh.

The hook that had been swung as he waited for the opportunity was immediately plunged into the new meat.

The current pushed against the hook, sending it deeper before it came across something blocking the way.

Bai Lixin paused, hooked the hook into the object, and pulled hard. A black insect was pulled out.

At the same time, the ball of flesh began to melt over like a lit candle.

Within a few moments, the sea was covered with this mass of disgusting rotten flesh.

The little black insect stared with two green beady eyes as its body swayed before running off.

But its body was hooked to the golden hook, like an earthworm.

So the ball of flesh was just a disguise, and this insect was its true body?

Seeing that the black insect was still moving, Bai Lixin flung an iron plate over and cut the insect off.

[Ding! Congratulations, player, for killing the A-rank monster, “Scavenging Monster” and gaining 2000 points. Your current total points are 2501 points. Please keep up the good work.]

If C-rank was 500 points and A-rank was 2000 points, then B-rank should be 1000 points.

The ground began to surge again.

The split turtles once again poured out, covering the rotten flesh and the scavenging insects, and feasting on them.

Bai Lixin just took one look at them and started to move on.

After swimming for about half an hour or so, he finally left the boundaries of the North Sea.

The pitch-black water in front of him suddenly turned a rich dark blue. He followed his memory and swam towards the Middle Sea area where the merfolk lived. He was about to swim to the Middle Sea area when he smelt a strong smell of blood in the air and a few familiar voices.

It seemed to be…Green Hair and the others?

When Bai Lixin swam over, he saw several mermen, including Green Hair, trapped in the middle of several giant jellyfish.

A jellyfish’s stinger had already pierced Green Hair’s arm, and that was the source of the blood Bai Lixin smelt.

Bai Lixin swam over with his hook in hand.

Green Hair saw Bai Lixin from a distance and started shouting.

Out of anxiety, Green Hair spoke much faster, and Bai Lixin could barely catch a few words.

“You’re alive! Little monster! Don’t come any closer! Run!”

With a raised eyebrow, Bai Lixin swung his fist up.

The current was carried up with Bai Lixin’s fist trajectory, and it flew straight at the jellyfish, punching them a few meters away.

But a few meters was more than enough.

His aim was not to kill these jellyfish but to save the mermen.

From the jellyfish’s broken encirclement, several mermaids immediately helped each other back.

Bai Lixin was uninjured and swam the fastest.

Green Hair looked at Bai Lixin’s back and suddenly called out, “Little monster, what’s that on your back?!”

Bai Lixin stopped with a frown.

On his back?

Was there something on his back?

Bai Lixin: [S419M, what’s on my back?]

S419M quickly sent a picture over to him.

In the center of his slender back was an extra black mark that looked like an open butterfly.