TUMBT : Chapter 76

Author: Chai Jidan

Translator: synecdoche-acookie

Proofreader: KainGuru

Mu Xueshi stood on the ground with a frustrated look on his face. He was very restless in his heart. When Su Ruhan left, he felt that the air around him had become eerie. As the strange event that took place early this morning continued to reverberate in Mu Xueshi’s mind, he could not help but shiver.

There was only one low-grade oil lamp inside the room, and Mu Xueshi was dying to smash that low-grade oil lamp into dozens of pieces to illuminate the entire room. Otherwise, it would be dismal in the house, and there would be countless strange shadows. In fact, those shadows were not strange at all. It was only Mu Xueshi’s ideation that was strange and nothing more.

The more scared Mu Xueshi was, the more that he could not help but define what he could not see in the house as various kinds of frightening objects. One moment, he mistook an earthen jar for a skull; the next, he mistook the window paper cutting decor for a person’s face; and finally, he regarded the phoenix attached to the screen as a specter…

In the end, Mu Xueshi could not contain the fear in his heart. He began to rummage through chests and cupboards in the house in search of cloth paper scrolls that he could use to paste onto the window. He wanted to cover all of the translucent parts so that he would not see any shadows.

Mu Xueshi did this over and over again for the most part of the night. In the end, he finally managed to tie up all of the cloth papers in the house. He pulled these tied-up cloth papers into a banner, then hung them over the window to cover the meager moonlight from outside. As he worked on setting this up, Mu Xueshi slightly felt at ease. When he felt that he was almost done, another hand suddenly appeared beside him and started to assist him in tying up the last corner of the window lattice.

Mu Xueshi was unable to say thank you because his whole body stiffened at the moment and the blood in his brain stopped circulating. He did not hear any noise, but the inexplicable arm before him was indeed real. Mu Xueshi saw it pulling the curtain with his own eyes, but he did not dare to look at the person beside him, because he feared that there was no one beside him, just like the arms that entangled his ankles during the day.

“Ah!!!” Mu Xueshi screamed, then he immediately fainted due to insufficient blood circulating in his brain.

After he fainted, the so-called curtains hanging on the window were pulled down by that person in black clothes. Judging from the figure of that person in black clothes, it was clearly a woman. She had a silver rapier on her waist and her face was covered with black cloth, but it could not conceal that woman’s gorgeous face. The woman had the same pair of eyes as Mu Xueshi that were as clear as a stream of water and as radiant as a ray of light, but hers were more bewitching.

Looking at Mu Xueshi’s lovable sleeping posture, the woman caressed his delicate face with her slender fingers, with a gentle smile on her face. The looming outlines of his face under the moonlight could render people in a daze.

Like the feeling of being summoned, when Mu Xueshi opened his hazy eyes, he had a look of fear at first, but he gradually calmed down after seeing her eyes. The woman before him gave out a very familiar feeling. Mu Xueshi mused over this thought. Although it was their first time meeting—perhaps it was just an illusion—this woman felt so familiar to him, as if he had known her for many years…

The woman lightly smiled at him. The upturned corners of her mouth made the black cloth on her face slightly move. Mu Xueshi stared in awe at her smile, then he muttered: “You’re so beautiful… Elder sister looks like a fairy.”

The woman reached out and covered Mu Xueshi’s eyes, then she caressed them. As if his mind and soul complied with her gentle touch, Mu Xueshi fell into a deep slumber.

When the Third Prince sneaked into Mu Xueshi’s room, the woman had already disappeared. The Third Prince’s heart tightened. He inwardly suspected who that person was. If he were to base it on the figure, that person appeared to be a woman. It was nothing like a malicious golden silkworm. However, there was only a handful of women in the royal court, so a matchless beauty was even a rare sight. With that thought in mind, the Third Prince could not help but chase after that person in black clothing.

That person in black moved at a very peculiar speed, and just when the Third Prince had chased her out of the Palace of Winter’s Verge, that woman had already vanished without a trace. And so, the Third Prince was astonished by his discovery. The seven battle arrays that he himself had laid upon in the palace’s premises had been obliterated by nine-tenths by the woman, a greater part of the eerie fog had been lifted, and even those several hundreds of millennium-old venomous insects that were active in this fief were not spared. Only a deathly silence awaited him now.

The Third Prince bent over and picked up a gray flaky material and discovered that it was the carapace of a golden silkworm. This thing seemed to have been all over the ground. A mere hundred of these highly poisonous insects were vanquished through this woman’s soft fingers, making the Third Prince spout smoke through his seven orifices [1].

([1] To seethe with anger.)

---

[PREVIOUS CHAPTER] TABLE OF CONTENTS [NEXT CHAPTER]