9: Chapter 9 Acting

Crying sounds came from the dense forest.

Wang Shouren thoughtfully sized up the crying woman in white before him.

The woman was around sixteen or seventeen years old and extremely beautiful.

Full of youthful vitality, her curves were full and plump where they should be, and her waist was slender enough to be grasped with a single hand. Her skin was as white as snow, so tender that water could be pinched out of it.

If placed in his past life, she would be several times more beautiful than a beauty pageant model, prompting Wang Shouren to take a few extra glances.

The atmosphere became somewhat bizarre for a moment.

Seeing the man's gaze lingering on her body, the woman in white, who had originally embraced a determination to die, suddenly conceived other thoughts.

"Young Master, this humble maid was relieving herself here. You suddenly barged in and scared this humble maid."

Striking first to accuse?

Wang Shouren looked at her with interest, "Then why did you run?"

"You chased me, so I ran away out of fear. Besides, that black dog of yours is too fierce." As she spoke, she tearfully moved a little further away from Xiaotian.

That action and expression made it seem as if Wang Shouren was the malicious villain with ulterior motives, and she was merely mistakenly identified as a bandit Cultivator by coincidence.

"Heh, I don't have time to waste with you. I killed all four people on the mountain. I am a generous person; since you love acting so much, I can send you down to keep them company."

As Wang Shouren's voice fell, the qingfeng sword in his hand was already slightly raised. A cold gleam flickered at the tip of the sword, and his killing intent was completely unmasked.

The expression of the woman in white changed drastically. Seeing that acting innocent was useless, her eyes rolled, and her whole body suddenly softened.

With a thump, she fell to her knees on the ground, tears streaming down like rain, looking pitiful enough to arouse anyone's sympathy like pear blossoms drenched in rain.

"Young Master, spare my life! This humble maid was also forced by circumstances. Those four coerced me. As a weak woman and a minor Cultivator at the third layer of Qi Refining, how could I resist them?"

She knelt and moved forward two steps, lifting her face. Tears rolled down her fair cheeks, dampening her lapel.

"If Young Master is willing to spare my life, this humble maid... this humble maid is willing to be a slave and a maid, acting like an ox or a horse to repay Young Master's great grace."

Speaking up to this point, she slightly lowered her head, revealing a section of fair and smooth neck. Shyly and timidly, she raised her eyes to glance at Wang Shouren. That pair of eyes was rippling with water, carrying three parts of fear, three parts of shyness, and four parts of pitifulness.

"Although this humble maid's cultivation is low, but... but I can also tend to Young Master's daily life. Since Young Master lives alone in the mountains, you must lack someone warm and considerate..."

While speaking, she actually raised her hand to gently untie the first button of her outer robe, her lapel slightly agape, revealing a trace of snow-white collarbone.

Wang Shouren's gaze paused slightly.

Right in this split second—

The five fingers of the white-clad woman's right hand suddenly flipped, and three streaks of black light silently shot out from her cuff!

Those black lights were as thin as ox hair, quenched with an eerie dark green luster. Their momentum was extremely fast, aiming straight for Wang Shouren's three vital points: his face, throat, and heart.

This sudden change happened in a hurry, and the two were no more than a few feet apart. Even if ordinary Cultivators were somewhat on guard, it would be extremely difficult to dodge.

A hint of smugness had already floated into the woman's eyes. This set of "Three Ultimate Needles" was her trump card for saving her life. No fewer than five or six Cultivators had died under this move, among whom quite a few were in the Middle Stage of Qi Refining.

However.

Her smile froze on her face.

Those three poisonous needles stopped abruptly half a foot away from Wang Shouren's body, as if they had crashed into an invisible wall, hovering in mid-air and trembling with a buzzing sound.

Above the needle tips, purple electric arcs crackled like a dense electric net locking the poisonous needles tightly.

From beginning to end, Wang Shouren did not take half a step back.

At some unknown time, his right fingertips had already condensed a streak of purple thunder light, and amidst the flowing thunder glow, low thunder rumbles faintly echoed.

It was precisely the thunder-type Spell—Thunder Barrier.

The force on the three poisonous needles was worn away inch by inch by the thunder light. With three crisp sounds of ding, ding, ding, they dropped to the ground, their tips piercing into the soil while the surrounding green grass instantly withered and turned black.

The woman in white's pupils shrank abruptly, and she cried out in shock: "How is that possible—!"

Before her words fell, the thunder light at Wang Shouren's fingertips suddenly flared up.

A purple electric arc as thick as a child's arm flew out of his hand, precisely striking the woman.

"Ah—!"

The woman's miserable scream exploded in the dense forest.

Electric light roamed and wrapped around her entire body, making a crackling explosion. Her body violently twitched out of control, her limbs spasmed, and her entire person shook non-stop like a sieve of chaff.

When the electric arcs dissipated, the woman had collapsed limply to the ground, wisps of green smoke rising from her entire body.

Her robes were charred in many places, her hair stood on end strand by strand, and red marks scorched by the electric arcs were everywhere on her face and arms.

Her body was still twitching slightly, her hands and feet were so numb that she couldn't even raise them, and her lips trembled, unable to say a single word.

Wang Shouren slowly walked forward, looking down at her from a high position.

"Your acting skills wouldn't even get you an extra role in my past life."

His voice was flat, without anger or complacency, only a knowing taunt.

After a long while, the woman finally recovered a bit of sensation from the paralysis.

Raising her head to look at Wang Shouren's half-smiling face, she finally understood that the man before her had never been dazzled by her beauty from the very beginning.

Those extra glances of scrutiny were merely like a cat toying with a mouse.

"I... I know I was wrong."

Her voice was hoarse, carrying a crying tone, but it also had a bit more authenticity.

"Young Master, spare my life. I swear I will never seek revenge and will never be enemies with the Wang family again. I am willing to swear a Heavenly Dao oath; if I violate this oath, may my cultivation be completely abolished and my Divine Soul be utterly destroyed!"

Hearing this, the corners of Wang Shouren's mouth curled up slightly.

"Just now on the mountain, those few were much tougher than you."

The woman's body trembled.

"I am not in the same boat as them!"

She hurriedly defended herself, "I only met those four by chance and collected some Spirit Stones to make up the numbers. They died here, and I don't feel a shred of sadness, let alone avenging them. Young Master, please discern clearly that I truly have no friendship with them!"

Wang Shouren was noncommittal, just quietly looking at her.

That gaze was like a pool of deep water, calm without ripples, yet it suppressed people so they couldn't breathe.

The woman bit her teeth, finally as if making up her mind, and struggled to prop up half her body.

"Young Master, this humble maid has one... one barrier-breaking pill. I am willing to offer it to Young Master, only asking to exchange it for my life."

"A barrier-breaking pill?"

Wang Shouren's eyebrows truly furrowed for the first time, stirring waves in his heart.

The barrier-breaking pill was a precious Medicinal Pill for Cultivators in the Qi Refinement Stage to Breakthrough Bottlenecks.

Different from ordinary qi gathering pills, the barrier-breaking pill was specially used to help Cultivators in the early and Middle Stages of Qi Refining break through Bottleneck restraints. Its medicinal efficacy was fierce yet did not harm the Foundation, and there were almost no side effects.

In the world of immortal cultivation, such a Pill Formula was likewise monopolized by the Sect. Although the price of a barrier-breaking pill could not compare to a foundation establishment pill in terms of terror, it was often priced exorbitantly without a market in the markets.

The Wang family was a large and prestigious family of immortal cultivation, yet there were only a handful of them left within the clan, used by the clan's most talented descendants for advancing at critical moments.

Back when his father, Wang Yaozu, was pushing for the Late Stage of Qi Refining, he hadn't even been willing to use one.

This Loose Cultivator unexpectedly had a barrier-breaking pill?

"As a Loose Cultivator at the third layer of Qi Refining, where did you get a barrier-breaking pill?" Wang Shouren asked in a deep voice.

There was a combination attack Formation and a barrier-breaking pill—these few people were definitely, definitely, definitely not ordinary Loose Cultivators!!!