The Abused-Novel Female Lead Holds a Mad Brush - Chapter 18
Chapter 18: Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep
Pei Tianming, whose movements had been sluggish a moment ago, executed a massive leap!
He was genuinely terrified!
In an instant, thousands of ghost and spirit legends floated through Pei Tianming’s mind. He had been afraid of the dark and ghosts since childhood, and this situation made it even harder to suppress the turmoil in his heart—especially after seeing a disheveled female ghost flashing a wicked smile at him and reaching her hand out toward him!
Terrified beyond belief, Pei Tianming could no longer hold back the scream rising in his throat.
“Ahhhhhhhhhh—”
However, those hands did not stop because of his scream. Instead, with lightning speed, they grabbed his wrist, while a cold command echoed in his ear.
“Get down!”
Huh? That sounded a bit familiar?
His body reacted faster than his brain. Before Pei Tianming could even register what was happening, he had already bent down and hit the deck out of sheer reflex.
Yet there was something even faster than him—and that was Yu Jiaxue’s hand.
“What are you wailing for?”
Yu Jiaxue slapped the back of Pei Tianming’s head with the back of her hand, pointing speechlessly at her sleeve.
“I almost rolled down the stairs because you scared me.”
Pei Tianming looked along Yu Jiaxue’s finger and, sure enough, saw marks of scorching on her sleeve and wrist.
Only then did Pei Tianming touch his head in hindsight.
Just now, if he hadn’t frozen in place—forcing Yu Jiaxue to stretch out her hand and shove his head down—she wouldn’t have been injured according to her original movement trajectory.
It really did seem to be his fault.
Yet something still felt off.
Pei Tianming gasped a few times, barely managing to calm down. He turned his head, desperately trying to maintain the few shreds of sanity he had left, saying, “Th-thanks for your help, Fellow Cultivator Yu… Ahem, excuse me, can…can you let me up now?”
By the end of his sentence, Pei Tianming finally realized sluggishly why he was having such a breakdown.
He was still being pinned face-down on the steps!!!
Yu Jiaxue turned her head away, saying coolly, “If you want to get up and get knocked down by those fireballs and water balls, it makes no difference to me.”
Pei Tianming immediately shook his head in horror.
With the nape of his fateful neck pinned down by Yu Jiaxue, shaking his head right now made him look like a pitiful, helpless suckling pig waiting to be fed in a slaughterhouse.
After this brief exchange, Pei-the Suckling Pig-Tianming finally calmed down completely and began to think.
Fellow Cultivator Yu in front of him was a seasoned expert who had gone through rigorous trials. There had to be something extraordinary about her actions!
He needed to savor this carefully—savor it thoroughly!
He had been too panicked earlier to notice the difference. Now, after exchanging a few words with Yu Jiaxue, he realized that ever since he got down on the ground, those chaotic attacks of wind, thunder, water, electricity, and fire had stopped coming at him altogether!
Pei Tianming thought: As expected of an expert who has endured trials—terrifyingly formidable!
Faced with a choice between saving face and passing the trial, Pei Tianming decisively chose the trial without a moment’s hesitation!
“Nonsense!”
Daoist Yiyao, who was in charge of this trial stage, felt his vision go dark the moment he saw Yu Jiaxue’s actions.
He had never imagined that the flash of kindness he had shown back when creating this stage would be seen through by Yu Jiaxue—and even exploited to become what it was now.
Yes, “kindness.”
Daoist Yiyao would never admit that even after cultivating to his current level, under the brilliance of NASCENT SOUL cultivators, he still could not escape a certain low instinct of the mundane world: subconsciously looking out for fellow males to secure extra benefits for them.
“Such behavior is appalling—it is simply ignorant of the heights of heaven and the depth of the earth!”
Flustered and enraged, Daoist Yiyao slammed his hand on the table in fury, causing the soul-mark behind him to burst into brilliant light.
His soul-mark was different from most; it was a ferule, much like the ones used in mortal schoolhouses.
At this moment, the simple, rustic surface of the ruler was wrapped in intricate, crimson patterns, giving off an ominous air that made many disciples’ hair stand on end.
Any disciples who had the misfortune of being disciplined in a mortal schoolhouse couldn’t help but shudder, exchanging glances as many gasped in discomfort.
With blood floating over the soul-mark, Daoist Yiyao was clearly enraged to the absolute extreme.
Seeing that no one responded to him, he continued his outburst, saying, “The Hongmeng Scroll has always been upright and dignified, meant to test a disciple’s perseverance and state of mind. Is it a place for children to fool around?!”
Daoist Master Yuanru immediately refuted him, saying, “Where is she fooling around? Look at her—isn’t she, well, crawling pretty well?”
Toward the end, a trace of laughter leaked into Daoist Master Yuanru’s tone.
To be honest, he didn’t approve of Yu Jiaxue’s behavior either—after all, it was truly a disgrace to proper decorum. However, seeing his arch-rival Daoist Yiyao so furious made Daoist Master Yuanru utterly overjoyed.
Daoist Wanren sneered, saying, “The Daoist Master’s words are quite mistaken! For such a trickster who relies on petty tricks, even if she enters the sect, I fear she will hardly walk the righteous path.”
“Oh? How interesting.” Daoist Ninggui raised her brows slightly, her willow-leaf eyebrows curving into a lovely shape as she spoke unhurriedly, saying, “This Peak Master didn’t know that Daoist Wanren could actually divine heavenly fates now.”
The scene instantly fell dead silent.
Who in the Xihe Sect did not know that Eldest Senior Brother Shen Xuezhu was the most skilled in the art of divining heavenly fates?
Deterred by Shen Xuezhu’s fierce reputation, the disciples below didn’t dare look openly, but they couldn’t help glancing back and forth at Shen Xuezhu out of the corners of their eyes.
Through all the noise and commotion, Shen Xuezhu remained completely deaf to it all.
His gaze didn’t even shift, remaining fixed on the Water-Moon Mirror screen.
On the contrary, Yu Yinglian, who was sitting next to him, grew dissatisfied.
Grabbing Liu Ruxiu beside him, he spoke in a loud whisper, saying, “The young lady isn’t stealing, robbing, pushing people down the steps, or secretly harming fellow disciples. She’s merely crawling a bit—I really don’t know what certain people are dissatisfied about.”
This wasn’t an indirect mockery—it was a blatant, direct callout.
Who didn’t know that Poshang Peak’s chief disciple, Yu Guanghao, had used any means necessary to claim the title of “top candidate” during his entry trial years ago, even secretly earning the moniker “Toxic Jade Prince”?
Daoist Yiyao was so angry that smoke almost spewed from his seven orifices.
“You—”
“Do you think crawling is a bit embarrassing?”
The clear voice of a young girl drifted from the Water-Moon Mirror.
Daoist Yiyao’s breath hitched. He shot a fierce glare at Yu Yinglian, knowing full well that the disciples were all curious about the events inside the Water-Moon Mirror right now, making it useless to throw a tantrum at this moment.
Daoist Yiyao took a deep breath, silently taking note of the grudge to settle accounts later.
He turned his head back along with everyone else, only to see Pei Tianming nodding sheepishly.
Ever since he got down to crawl, although he had avoided those attacks, his speed had slowed down amidst the incredulous looks of the people around him.
“How could this be! How could anyone do this!”
A disciple who had just fallen from the upper section was covered in blood. Passing by the two of them, he spoke in utter disbelief, saying, “This is simply a disgrace to proper decorum!”
In front of the Water-Moon Mirror, Daoist Yiyao finally breathed a sigh of relief, saying, “Well said!”
Before his voice even faded, Yu Jiaxue let out a long sigh inside the Water-Moon Mirror, speaking with earnest gravity, saying, “Little brother, you still haven’t discovered the truth of this trial stage!”
Daoist Yiyao, almost choking to death on his own breath, said, “…”
Truth? What truth?
How come he, the creator of the test, didn’t know there was a truth to this stage?
The back-and-forth Q&A between the two across the Water-Moon Mirror matched up strangely well, piquing everyone’s curiosity to the extreme.
Many Xihe Sect disciples stared with burning gazes, wanting to see how Yu Jiaxue would explain it.
“Among the three thousand Great Daos, there will inevitably be arduous obstacles, demons, and monsters. When facing difficulties, is fighting to the death the only path available?”
“No! Of course not!”
As Yu Jiaxue spoke, her passion surged, her voice growing even louder as she said, “This stage is named Hongmeng, which is meant to tell us that the primordial chaos holds tens of thousands of possibilities. Rather than engaging in intrigues with those chaotic things—wasting energy and exhausting mind and body for nothing—it is better to forge a new path and march forward with panache! Only then do we do justice to the Great Dao and to today’s fine scenery!”
System, saying, [She’s even rhyming?!]
The system didn’t think Yu Jiaxue’s speech would carry any persuasive power, but it had overlooked their current predicament.
Most of the disciples on the Hongmeng Scroll were quite young, many of them having barely experienced the ways of the world. The wave after wave of attacks earlier and the miserable screams of those falling continuously had already left them physically and mentally exhausted. Seeing Yu Jiaxue so relaxed, hesitation had already taken root in their hearts.
The only reason they hadn’t immediately mimicked her was simply out of youthful “pride.”
However, now that Yu Jiaxue had delivered such a convincing, grand philosophy—and with a follower already taking the lead—everything that once seemed impossible suddenly became viable!
More and more people bent their backs.
As the leader, Yu Jiaxue grew increasingly confident, even remembering to make a twisted hand-heart on the ground while crawling to cheer on those behind her at all times.
“Hold fast to your intent! Do not waver!”
“Three thousand steps upon the Hongmeng Scroll; three thousand steps, three thousand trials. If you and I give up just because of this tiny hardship, how can we prove the Great Dao?!”
“Crawl with style! Crawl with confidence! This is the earnest guidance and deep underlying meaning that the exam elder of this Hongmeng Scroll stage intended for us!”
In front of the Water-Moon Mirror.
Xuanyuanzi rarely lifted his eyelids, saying, “Those words just now actually sound somewhat interesting.”
As a healer, he naturally preferred that as few people get hurt as possible.
Whether inner demons or wounds of flesh and blood, the fewer people visiting his Chilun Peak, the better.
Shen Xuezhu set down his teacup, offering a faint smile as he said, “Looking at it this way, far from being a ‘trickster’ fooling around, this disciple is actually carefully pondering the deep meaning of this trial stage.”
Prompted by Shen Xuezhu’s remark, everyone instantly recalled the previous argument.
Daoist Ninggui blinked, looking at Shen Xuezhu thoughtfully, while Daoist Master Yuanru also nodded, casting an appreciative gaze toward Shen Xuezhu.
Mm, not bad.
This disciple of Uncle Qingyunzi was far more flexible than the man himself.
Sect Master Xihe-jun loved watching a good show most of all.
He simply asked on behalf of the crowd, saying, “Yiyao, did you really think this way? Truly far-sighted!”
Daoist Yiyao was completely bewildered.
On one hand, he felt that Yu Jiaxue’s load of nonsense just now was damnably reasonable. On the other hand, he felt a dull throb in his head, as if he had been struck by some unknown object.
Daoist Yiyao couldn’t help but ask himself: Did I really… think this way…?
If he claimed it, he could easily gain the reputation of being “far-sighted.” After all, Sect Master Xihe-jun rarely praised anyone, and spreading the word would benefit his reputation.
But why did he feel so utterly aggrieved?! Dammit!
While Daoist Yiyao was agonizing internally, he had no idea that Xuan Yeyang—the successor he favored most—was currently encountering the nemesis of his life!
Xuan Yeyang, who had been ranked first, was currently enjoying the proud arrogance of being undefeated at the peak on the final three hundred steps, his handsome face filled with disdain and pride.
Until he heard a commotion behind him. Turning his head to look, his legs went weak, and he almost fell right off the clouds.
By Daoist Jiuyou above! What the hell were those things crawling up from behind ahhhh!
Yu Jiaxue, who was at the very front of the crawling group, realized there was still someone above.
She raised her head and flashed a friendly, terrifyingly wholesome smile.
“Khehehehehe, Fellow Cultivator, do you want to join us and crawl together?”
Xuan Yeyang’s vision went black.
Ultimately unable to hold himself up, he flopped down onto the steps.
White jade steps upon the Hongmeng Scroll; three thousand steps, three thousand trials.
Could this be the calamity destined for him as the future number one person of Xihe Sect?
Isn’t this way too horrifying!!!
