Love from the Male Protagonist’s Harem

 Chapter 49-Gathering Ancient Spirits

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Translated by Snowfall77

 

 

 

 

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It’d been 30 seconds, the half-minute was up!

Xia Ge tore her eyes away from the north platform, threw her last material in the furnace, and quickly made a gesture with her hand.

Carefully driving the qi she collected by her movements into the furnace, Xia Ge fused it to the melting dan.

Another wave of vertigo hit, and Xia Ge clenched her teeth.

——“Don’t worry, it absolutely won’t be a problem!”

That was what she’d said with her own mouth……to that young lady in red and white.

Therefore, absolutely no problems allowed.

Huo Bai, carelessly refining, inadvertently caught Xia Ge’s motions in his peripheral vision and was stunned for a moment.

——Dan Jue?

The boy was using Dan Jue?!

Up on the north platform, Ye Ze was also startled: “What’s that bastard doing?  You don’t need Dan Jue to make a Bigu dan!”

Black eyes calmly watching the boy practicing rapid and unpredictable Dan Jue, Gu Peijiu’s face remained inscrutable, yet her fingers tightened around the red ayara tucked in her sleeve.

Dan Jue could draw the lingqi of heaven and earth.  If it was successful, a first-class dan would be refined.  But if it wasn’t——

Gu Peijiu’s expression imperceptibly fell, her lips slightly thinning.

Images were overlapping before Xia Ge’s eyes, so she closed them, the Dan Jue technique of her hand quickly shifting.  She didn’t know why, but when she’d started aligning the lingqi her Dan Jue collected, the 3 formations she’d seen in the old ancestor tomb had begun running through her mind.

Dan Jue and those formations had no outward similarity, other than that they both allowed the drawing in and distribution of lingqi.

Except the tomb’s formations and Dan Jue……it was a bit alike……?

Huo Bai was already cognizant of the heavy scent of blood in the air, but now even an incredibly concentrated Mao Qing noticed something was wrong.  Not taking her eyes off her furnace, she wrinkled her nose and asked the person next to her: “Huo Bai, do you smell something strange……is it the furnaces?  Are they rusty or something?
That’s not rust.

That’s……the sweetish, metallic odor of blood.

Huo Bai slightly turned his head and trailed his gaze down Xia Wuyin’s body.  As Huo Bai observed him, Xia Wuyin shifted his body slightly and Huo Bai could see that the ends of his robe were leaving a thin trail of blood on the ground beneath him.

Still, Xia Wuyin was completely focused, eyes closed, as if utterly unaware of the blood flowing from his body.

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Huo Bai stared steadily at Xia Wuyin’s face for a long time until finally withdrawing his scrutiny and answering Mao Qing: “Mm, I guess the furnaces are rusty.”

“Tsk……really the furnaces for the entry examination should be in better condition, it’s disappointing,” Mao Qing griped, but said nothing further.

The formations hovering in her brain, Xia Ge was still dizzy.  Her fingers shook, and subconsciously she changed a movement of the Dan Jue to follow one of the lines of the tomb formations!

Xia Ge suddenly opened her eyes, pupils contracting.  She wanted to stop her gestures, but she couldn’t.  It was like the lines she was copying of the 3 tomb formations had irrevocably altered her Dan Jue!

As soon as she had first altered her movements, the flow of lingqi had immediately and subtly altered, triggering unexpected consequences!  The atmosphere around the furnace wildly surged with devilish gusts, and the sky overlooking the field instantaneously turned foreboding!  No matter how much Xia Ge regretted not stifling her movements, it was too late.  While the weather turned unstable, vast amounts of lingqi wildly streamed to her furnace!

Vicious winds blowing tumultuously, furnaces shaking disturbedly, and riotous lingqi all forced Huo Bai, Mao Qing, and those others near Xia Ge to break their focus!

Mao Qing squinted at the unmoving boy at the center of the commotion, her face darkening: “What is he doing?!  He, he……is he even doing liandan?!”

Huo Bai stiffened himself against the fierce air currents: “……yes, it’s liandan!”

“Isn’t he deliberately hindering others?!”  Slamming a hand on her table, Mao Qing ground her teeth, the flames of her furnace reflected in her eyes, “I won’t be disturbed by this inconvenience!  I will—place first!”

The next second, piercing through the storm, a warm light poured from Mao Qing’s furnace, and a shimmering Bigu dan shot out!

A high grade golden Bigu dan!

Snorting to himself, Huo Bai moved his hands, siphoning some the gathering lingqi into his own furnace.  Then he clapped his hand on his table and a golden dan with fine red veins emerged from his furnace.

A Xue Bigu Dan!

But no one paid any attention to the two talented youths, one who’d refined a gold Bigu Dan and the other a Xue Bigu Dan.  Instead, with confused amazement, every spectators’ gaze was fixed upon the figure in the center of the howling storm of lingqi——

Xia Wuyin!

The person who’d shown up out of nowhere at the last second!

Xiaoqing fiddled with a sleeve unconsciously, saying to Chu Yao: “Miss, do you see that boy in black……Miss?”

Turning around to find that Chu Yao was gone, Xiaoqing froze, then looked back towards the black-clothed boy out in the field, detecting a blue figure flying through the ominous clouds!

Ye Ze had also been giving Xia Wuyin his unwavering attention, and the second he realized something was awry, he’d wanted to rush over to his friend.  However a hand pressed down on his shoulder, seemingly hitting a pressure point, and Ye Ze found himself unable to move.

“Wait.”

A light breeze swept past Ye Ze, and there were now two figures, one blue, one red, speeding towards Xia Wuyin!

The young lady’s chilly, detached voice faintly echoed.

——“I will bring him back.”

 

 

 

At the west platform of Danfeng’s field—

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Perched on his hide-covered shoulder, a red-beaked bird chirped in Baili Qing’s ear and Baili murmured back: “It’s actually an old spirit gathering form?  ……off you go, Chiluan.”

Immediately a golden gleam shot through the bird’s lacquer black eyes.  Flying from the platform, its wings spread impossibly wide, instantaneously filling the sky like a rising phoenix.
 Raw power exuded from it, from the tips of its sharp talons to its clear, resounding cry.

Hearing Chiluan’s distinct call, countless birds from Lingxi’s 3 peaks came.  Chiluan began a gentle song, wings smoothly riding the air currents, and the other birds sang along with him, inhaling the roiling lingqi into their feathered bodies.

“It’s Chiluan of Shoufeng!!”

“Oh my goodness——”

Spectators gasped in admiration and surprise, but Xiaoqing was still gawking at Chu Yao’s empty seat, mind blank——

Did the young miss really run off to try and save that boy?

 

 

 

Ignoring the chaos swirling around her, Xia Ge was completely focused on her rapidly transforming Dan Jue and the violently coalescing lingqi it’d gathered.  She was unable to regulate the lingqi as it streamed into the furnace, and she knew it was going to be more than the furnace could withstand!

It couldn’t go on like this——

The furnace would explode!

With that thought flashing through her mind, Xia Ge exerted all her strength to try and halt her motions.  Yet from the moment she’d incorporated the tomb formations into her Dan Jue, she hadn’t been able to stop.  The unbridled lingqi was driving her body, forcing her to complete every step!

No longer under her command, Xia Ge’s numb, manipulated body continued the wildly changing Dan Jue, gathering more and more lingqi to the point of disaster!

She could not let this Dan Jue finish!  She had to stop it!

But her body, she couldn’t control……

No, there was a way!

Turning her right foot and angling her body, Xia Ge’s hands kept moving……until she ferociously rammed her wounded abdomen directly into the corner of the table——

Safely on the other side of the turmoil, Huo Bai watched Xia Ge’s actions in a subdued mood.

Was the boy trying to kill himself faster?

How badly must that have hurt?!

The deep pain she’d just inflicted on herself managed to pierce its way past Xia Ge’s numbness.  And the moment her suicidal stimulus gave control of her movements back, Xia Ge started reversing her Dan Jue!

She would turn it back!

Observing with wide eyes, Mao Qing was confused: “Why did Xia Wuyin hit himself with the table?”

Huo Bai, more sensitive to the lingqi fluctuations than Mao Qing, narrowed his eyes, grabbed Mao Qing by the collar, and left the field in a flash!

After a second’s respite, the wildly surging lingqi recoiled and devoured Xia Ge!  A horrible droning sound filled her skull, the repercussions of the Dan Jue reversal more fierce and terrifying than she’d anticipated……lingqi had filled the furnace beyond its capacity……

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One breath before it exploded, Gu Peijiu’s ayara wrapped itself around the boy clad in black, sweeping him out of the center of the storm and into her embrace.

Witnessing this, Chu Yao slowed, but then, with a click of her tongue, she used her momentum to kick the lingqi-filled furnace high into the air.  And the furnace, having reached its final limit, violently exploded!

Like a glittering display of fireworks, the mid-air blast filled the sky with light.  Three gold orbs soared up high, the rich fragrance of dan covering the whole field.  While, accompanied by Chiluan’s song, golden light suffused the clouds!

“I can’t believe it——”

“Is that a Xuan-level dan?”

“There’s 3!  It’s the Sanshangjin dan!  It’s actually Sanshangjin dan!”

“That kind of lingqi——”

“Who the hell was that?!”

Xiaoqing stared amazed the dan hovering above, as Chiluan and the other birds continued faintly singing.  The storm somehow transformed itself into light, sweet fragrance filled the air, and soft lingqi turned the clouds rosy.  It was almost unbearably magnificent in its perfect poeticness.

And the dan had been refined by some nobody kid.

Sanshangjin dan, something that even a Xuan-level master wouldn’t necessarily be able to refine.

When such a dan was made, heaven and earth would show a new face.

 

 

But Xia Ge wasn’t aware of any of it.  Her world had folded into the agony in her abdomen, the pain of the lingqi backlash.  The only outside elements were the indistinct perfume of sandalwood and someone’s arms around her, keeping the agitation and fury at bay.

Soothing, steadying, making one feel safe.

Warm and tender.

——who?

Had her furnace blown up?

Had she……failed?

No……that couldn’t be right.

But so much wild lingqi……her furnace had definitely exploded!

Not only had she failed, she’d probably gotten people injured!  Someone might die!

Die!  Die because of her……

In an instant the fear of causing someone’s death outweighed all of Xia Ge’s physical suffering.  She grabbed the sleeve of whoever was holding her, her body’s pain knocked aside by the abyss of fear and dread that’d opened up inside her heart, and pleaded in a trembling, hoarse voice: “Please……save……die——”

Who——it didn’t matter who——

——please……save them……I screwed up……I’m sorry.

No one can die——

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No one……

Please, no matter who, please……

Although engulfed in misery and about to completely lose consciousness, the delicate, blurry fragrance of sandalwood lingered at the edge of Xia Ge’s senses.  A voice spoke, cold yet setting hearts at ease.

“No one is going to die.” A young lady’s soft tones.  “Rest.”

……rest.

Xia Ge’s extreme apprehension was slowly calmed by those gentle words, and she allowed a pill to be put in her mouth, its flavor bitter on her tongue.

She dazedly wondered what kind of medicine it was?  It tasted so awful.

In any life, she loathed taking medicine the most.

But she should rest……or something……

Ha, she wasn’t tired, she just hurt a lot, that was all……

“”

[Ding! Congratulations To The Host For Refining The Sanshangjin Dan!  The Host Is Rewarded With 30 Points And The Branch Line Profession Of Liandan Master Is Opened!]

[Additional Congratulations To The Host For Discerning The Shanggujuling Formation!  Reward Is 10 Points!]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

上古shànggǔ the distant past / ancient times

聚  Jù to gather together

灵líng spirit

 

Xuan-level dan-more or less meaning highest grade