Below the stage, Lu Yang was doubled over with laughter, tears practically streaming from his eyes.
Zhao Po wanted to laugh as well, but feeling it was improper to mock Meng Jingzhou, he did his best to hold it in.
Meng Jingzhou's face darkened. The girl had abolished her ancestral rule just to avoid him—what else could he say?
Having repealed the ancestral rule and no longer bound by its constraints, Qingluo felt as if a vast new world had opened before her. She promptly dismantled the stage and headed home.
Meng Jingzhou leapt down from the stage and glared fiercely at Lu Yang, who was still laughing, and at Zhao Po, who was struggling to keep a straight face.
The three youths, one corpse, and one horse entered the city. Perhaps Meng Jingzhou's romantic luck—his peach blossom luck—had been suppressed for so long that it was now erupting all at once, completely unstoppable.
First, they encountered a young woman selling herself to bury her father. Dressed in hemp mourning robes, her fair looks were still evident. She declared that to bury her father, she was willing to sell herself as a servant or a concubine. Upon seeing Meng Jingzhou, she called out timidly, "Young Master," making his heart itch with excitement.
Although this young woman possessed no cultivation at present and had missed the optimal age for training, the Immortal Fairy saw what made her special at a single glance.
"How interesting. This little girl selling herself possesses an exceptionally rare Delusion-Breaking Dao Physique. Though she looks frail now, that is merely her Dao Physique accumulating power. In another six months to a year, once the Dao Physique fully awakens, she will soar to the heavens and swiftly catch up to the cultivation speed of her peers."
"If an old fellow with a discerning eye spots her, takes her as an apprentice, and whisks her away for a few years, her achievements will be even greater."
There were Nine Great Immortal Physiques in the world, among which Tao Yaoye's Feathering Immortal Physique and the Sixth Elder's Immaculate Immortal Physique were numbered.
Aside from the Nine Great Immortal Physiques, there were also the widely known Thirty-Six Dao Physiques. While the potential of a Dao Physique was below that of an Immortal Physique, it was already enough to qualify one as a supreme talent, earning a place in the future struggle of the Golden Age, and making them worthy of serving as a right-hand lieutenant to geniuses like Lu Yang and Meng Jingzhou!
Meng Jingzhou knew nothing of the girl's backstory or special physique. He simply found her pitiable and pretty, so he took out the money to buy her.
And then, he got swindled.
Taking the spirit stones, the girl claimed she was going to bury her father—and vanished without a trace.
The three went to report the crime, but the yamen officials stated that this girl was a serial offender. They would open an investigation, but warned them not to get their hopes up, as she was notoriously elusive.
***
"Little beauty, just yield to this young master! I will grant you endless wealth and glory!" A wretched laugh drifted over, unmistakably belonging to a scoundrel.
Meng Jingzhou grew exhilarated. He was familiar with this plot! Lu Yang had bragged to him about something like this before, and he had envied it for ages.
"Halt! How dare you try to force yourself upon a respectable woman before my eyes?!" Meng Jingzhou stepped forward with righteous indignation and intervened heroically.
After thrashing the wicked young master along with his entire family from top to bottom, even their Old Ancestor came out wailing, crying foul and swearing never to offend again.
The little beauty wept tears of gratitude toward Meng Jingzhou. "In my next life, this humble woman will surely work as a beast of burden to repay Benefactor's great kindness!"
With that, she fled for her life, unwilling to linger around Meng Jingzhou for even another second.
***
Just as the three were about to check into an inn, they heard arguing.
"Lü'er, don't you know how I feel about you? I truly love you! Why do you keep rejecting my affection? Is there something I did wrong?" A richly dressed young nobleman with a gloomy expression gripped a girl dressed in pale green, relentlessly pressing her with questions.
Unable to endure the gloomy young nobleman's pursuit any longer, the girl named Lü'er caught sight of the extraordinary bearing of Meng Jingzhou and his companions, and her eyes lit up.
"I truly cannot accept your feelings! I already love someone else!"
The gloomy young nobleman clearly did not believe her. Shaking his head, he said, "Lü'er, stop lying to me. I don't believe you."
She pointed at Meng Jingzhou and said, "It's him! He's the one I love! We have already pledged our lives to each other!"
Meng Jingzhou thought to himself that his peach blossom luck had finally arrived, even sending voice transmissions to brag to Lu Yang and Zhao Po.
Lu Yang advised Meng Jingzhou not to act rashly and broke down the situation for him:
"That gloomy young man is clearly a ruthless local tyrant, someone not to be crossed. He wants Lü'er all for himself, and since Lü'er dislikes his kind, she's looking for a shield."
"You certainly don't fear local thugs like him, but Lü'er doesn't know that."
"You and Lü'er are complete strangers. Lü'er knows nothing of your identity, has no clue how strong you are, and doesn't know if your background can outmatch that gloomy fellow. Yet just to ward off his advances, she pushed you straight to the front to shoulder all the pressure."
"Under circumstances like that, do you really think Lü'er likes you?"
***
The three stayed at the inn. That night, a woman clad in night-traveler garb crashed through Meng Jingzhou's window. She wore a veil, revealing cat-like emerald eyes.
Her eyes were filled with flushed heat and she panted heavily, looking as though she had been poisoned and needed masculine yang energy to detoxify, or else face the danger of exploding to death.
With only her and Meng Jingzhou in the room, there was seemingly only one solution.
The woman shot Meng Jingzhou a look of utter disgust, produced a Detoxification Pill from her storage ring, swallowed it, and found it exceptionally effective. She then fluttered away into the night.
In her line of work, going out on a mission naturally required full preparation.
Throughout the entire encounter, Meng Jingzhou didn't even get the chance to speak a single word.
***
After resting for the night, the three prepared to set out. Just as they checked out and stepped out of the inn, they encountered a fairly attractive young lady from a wealthy family, who rushed over specifically to ask for Meng Jingzhou's help, looking at him as though she had found her savior.
"Excuse me, are you from out of town?"
"I am."
The wealthy young lady breathed a sigh of relief. "That's wonderful! Mother won't recognize you. Here's the thing: my mother has been constantly nagging me to get married, but I don't want to. So I made up a lie and told her I already had a boyfriend. I've been making excuses all this time, but today I can't dodge it anymore. Mother insists on meeting him. Could you pose as my boyfriend? I'll pay you for your trouble!"
Meng Jingzhou gladly agreed.
"What's going on here?" Zhao Po asked in surprise.
"Who knows?" Lu Yang shrugged, not paying it much mind.
The meeting with the parent went unusually smoothly—Meng Jingzhou laid out his family background, character, cultivation, and sect, all of which made him the ideal candidate for a husband. Yet the young lady's mother adamantly refused. The more she looked at Meng Jingzhou, the more she disliked him. In the end, she even drove him out of the house, warning her daughter never to associate with him again.
Afterward, the young lady secretly sought out Meng Jingzhou to explain: "I'm really sorry. The moment I saw you earlier, I found you quite obnoxious. My mother is a lot like me, so I figured she'd feel the same way. There was no way she would agree to you being my boyfriend, which means she won't urge me to get married anymore."
"Here's the agreed payment. Let's never see each other again."
Meng Jingzhou: "..."
*Damn it, this crappy curse isn't any better than before!*
Along the way, Meng Jingzhou encountered endless peach blossom luck. By the end of their journey, he had finally exhausted it all, and the three successfully arrived at the Corpse Driving Sect.
Chapter 420