SecKill

"It's a deal. If I win, you let me go."

The stream babbled gently.

Lin Qingxue stood by the riverbank, holding her sword in one hand, looking suspiciously at Ye Shu on the other side.

To her surprise, Ye Shu hadn't taken advantage of her while she was unconscious. When she woke up, she specifically checked her clothes, and there were no signs of them being touched at all.

"He must still be pretending," Lin Qingxue thought to herself.

Because in her past life, Ye Shu didn't show his lecherous true colors right from the start either. Instead, it was during their shared life-and-death crises that he gradually revealed his true nature, eventually making her drop her guard and fall deeper and deeper into his trap.

In this life, no matter what, she absolutely would not be deceived by him!

"That's right, as long as you win, I'll let you go." Ye Shu stood by the river, smiling confidently.

Even though Lin Qingxue was in the Foundation Establishment realm and he was only in the Qi Condensation realm.

But he was the protagonist!

Wasn't fighting above his realm as easy as breathing?

So he didn't feel the slightest bit of panic; instead, he felt an eager excitement to try.

This actually made Lin Qingxue feel a bit uncertain and suspicious.

She didn't know what methods this lecher had used.

When they first met, he was clearly just a weakling at the third level of Qi Condensation, but now he had suddenly become a larger weakling at the ninth level of Qi Condensation. Although his aura was unstable, it was still unbelievable.

You have to know, even her Eldest Senior Brother wasn't this fast.

"He must have used some shady methods."

Lin Qingxue concluded in her heart, and her gaze toward Ye Shu carried a bit more disdain.

A guy who played with unorthodox tricks.

He was far inferior to her Eldest Senior Brother, who was open, upright, and had a solid foundation.

She really must have been blind back then to fall for such a shameless bastard who only knew how to take opportunistic shortcuts!

"I don't believe you, unless you swear an oath."

Lin Qingxue stared at Ye Shu.

This lecher was the most sinister and cunning; he would definitely go back on his word later, so she had to take precautions.

To her surprise, Ye Shu didn't hesitate at all. He raised four fingers and said seriously, "I, Ye Shu, swear here and now that as long as she wins, I will let Lin Qingxue leave without any further obstruction. If I violate this oath, may I be struck dead by five thunderbolts."

As soon as he finished speaking, thunder rumbled in the sky.

The oath was established.

Ye Shu lowered his hand and smiled faintly at Lin Qingxue.

"Is that acceptable now?"

Since things had come to this, wasting any more words would make Lin Qingxue seem indecisive and afraid to fight.

"Good! You said it yourself!"

"Let's fight!"

Following this sharp shout, the smile on Ye Shu's face vanished instantly, replaced by a calm, battle-ready expression.

Unarmed, with only his bare fists.

He stomped his foot, and the water surface instantly exploded. His entire body shot toward Lin Qingxue like an arrow released from a bowstring. Spiritual energy gathered in his right hand, and a terrifying sense of oppression radiated from his fist.

He threw a punch, bringing with it a howling wind.

The surrounding water surface exploded with a series of bangs, splashing in all directions from the wind.

Before the fist arrived, the wind had already reached her.

Lin Qingxue's hair danced wildly in the wind of the punch. Her pupils shrank slightly. This punch reminded her of the strike Ye Shu had landed on her lower abdomen earlier; even now, she still felt a dull ache in her stomach from time to time.

Almost subconsciously, she flipped her right hand.

Her spiritual energy gathered to its peak in an instant, and her longsword bloomed with a boundless azure glow.

"Mystic Azure Sword Technique, Breaking the Eternal Green!"

Clang!

The sword light was unparalleled.

Lin Qingxue's sword edge slashed out fiercely with the force of a thunderbolt, colliding directly with Ye Shu's fist.

In an instant, a blinding ball of light erupted.

The moment the two met...

Instant kill!!!!

Ye Shu was instantly sent flying backward. Bang, bang, bang! He skipped across the river surface like a stone, skipping all the way from one side of the river to the other. He smashed into the riverbank, rolled several times, and collapsed on the ground with his hands behind his back, his fate unknown.

Lin Qingxue: "......"

The spectating Danxia: "......"

Xiaobai: "......"

The scene was extremely quiet for a moment, with only the sound of the babbling stream.

Lin Qingxue maintained her sword-swinging posture, the expression on her face gradually shifting from fierce to stunned, and then to bewildered.

She... won?

It was that simple?

According to the normal flow of things, shouldn't there be a fierce battle first, then Ye Shu would reveal all his trump cards, and finally, disregarding martial ethics, use that previous shameless trick to win the match?

How did he fall before she even started trying?

"Hey! Are you okay?"

It took a good while for Xiaobai to react.

She immediately moved her short little legs, puffing as she ran over to Ye Shu's side. She pushed his shoulder with her chubby little hands, her big eyes full of worry.

"Hey, don't scare me, wake up."

"Look at you, why did you have to show off?"

"Now look what happened... you got one-shot. You... you can't die... You haven't helped me take back my luck and suppress the system yet... How can you die?"

Xiaobai was so anxious that her little face turned pale, tears swirling in her eyes.

Just as she was heartbroken and preparing to use her administrative privileges...

Ye Shu, lying on the ground, faintly woke up and grumbled,

"Cough, cough, cough... Don't... don't touch me..."

"I feel like all my bones are broken..."

Supporting himself on the ground with one hand, he shakily pulled a jade pendant from his clothes. The pendant was crystal clear and flowing with light, clearly an item of immense value. However, right now, it had a deep crack on it, and its luster had dimmed somewhat.

"If it weren't for my deadbeat old man's jade pendant, I really would have suffered big time just now."

"You're okay?"

Seeing that he still had the energy to speak, Xiaobai's eyes widened instantly, and she gave him an angry push. "Why were you playing dead if you're fine? You made me worry to death! You big meanie!"

"I was doubting my life..."

Ye Shu replied weakly.

"Aren't I the protagonist? Logically, fighting someone in the same realm should be like killing a chicken, and fighting above my realm should be as easy as drinking water."

"But in the end, she didn't even try."

"And I laid myself out first."

Just then, Danxia in the ring spoke up faintly: "So what you're saying is, you—a ninth-level Qi Condensation cultivator with a shattered dantian, an unstable foundation, a rushed cultivation base, no weapons, no martial arts techniques learned, a mana bar that costs three hundred times more, and zero skills—want to cross a major realm to beat someone who is in the late stages of Foundation Establishment with an intact dantian, a solid foundation, a stable cultivation base, a high-grade Earth-tier weapon, professionally trained martial arts, a longer mana bar than yours, and countless skills. Is that right?"

"What gives you the right? Just because you're the protagonist?"

Danxia's voice sounded as if she were saying, "You don't deserve jack."

At the same time, Xiaobai stopped talking too.

She covered her little mouth, her big eyes darting left and right looking guilty, while she stammered:

"Right, right, who told you not to work hard normally..."

Seeing her like this, Ye Shu knew something was up with her. Staring into her shifting eyes, he asked, "Are you hiding something from me?"

"N-no, I'm not."

Xiaobai hurriedly waved her hands.

"How could I possibly tell you that I actually forgot to tell you again: even though you're the protagonist, because of the system's existence, the villains and the female leads have stolen a portion of your destiny... so the female lead's strength... is about the same as yours under normal circumstances..."

"And the villain... is even a level higher than your normal state..."

"..."

Looking at Xiaobai's evasive gaze, Ye Shu remained silent for a moment.

After a long while, he finally spoke slowly:

"You mean to say that the female lead's strength is equal to mine at the same cultivation realm, while the villain's strength is a whole tier higher than mine at the same realm."

"Which means, even if I'm a realm higher than the villain, they could still fight across realms and slaughter me?"

Hearing him finish, Xiaobai nodded sheepishly.

"Y-yeah... that's exactly right..."

Hearing this, Ye Shu asked, refusing to give up hope.

"So the villain has everything. But I'm the protagonist, so I must have some sort of plot armor, right? There has to be something special about me, right?"

"Of course there is."

Xiaobai nodded with a serious look on her face.

Just as Ye Shu's eyes widened, thinking this little guy was finally being reliable for once.

He heard Xiaobai slowly say:

"As the protagonist, wherever you go, people will mock you. Noble families and wealthy clans will inexplicably harbor hostility towards you. Then, you can secretly hide your true strength, play the pig to eat the tiger, shock them all, and show off like a boss!"

"And what else!"

Xiaobai held up a second finger and said proudly:

"The factions you join in the future will be full of internal strife, deception, and even collusion with outsiders, all just to persecute you."

"Then you can grow through adversity, and eventually make a king's return to slap their faces hard!" She looked immensely proud, as if she had just described the greatest benefit in the world.

"So I guess I should be thanking you, then."

Ye Shu suppressed the urge to throw her into the river, gritting his teeth as he spoke word by word.

It turned out that as the protagonist, he didn't get a single benefit, but caught every single disadvantage. He stopped talking, simply lowering his head and burying his face deep into the river water beside him.

"Hey, what are you doing?"

Xiaobai was completely baffled by his inexplicable actions.

Ye Shu's voice came from underwater: "I'm challenging the record for the longest time holding one's breath underwater, to see if I can set an unprecedented achievement that no one in the world can match."

Xiaobai froze for a moment, then viciously kicked him.

"Dammit! How can you give up so easily? You are the Child of Destiny, the protagonist!"

"You mean, you want me to defeat my future peak self, who is also two realms higher than me, right? I think it's easier to break the record for the longest time a corpse stays unrecovered in a river..."

The two of them bickered by the river.

Meanwhile, on the opposite bank of the river.

Lin Qingxue watched Ye Shu get up, only to bury his face back into the river, and her elegant brows furrowed slightly.

"What kind of trick is this guy playing?"

"Whatever, no matter what, I'm the one who won." She sheathed her sword and turned to leave.

However, just as she took a single step.

A faint voice came from behind her.

"Who said you could leave?"