Black Belly Wife

When Murong Yunshu came to the seaside, the ship stopped at sea, with a certain distance from the shore. It seemed that there was no one on board the vessel from a distance, and it was a bit eerie.

"Didn't you say he was practising his sword on the ship?"

"Yeah. Old East and the others went along with him. Strange, why isn't there any movement? I'll go over and check."

"Wait." Murong Yunshu called out to him and said, "There's something fishy about this matter. We can't just barge through."

Seeing Murong Yunshu's gloomy face, the North Guardian couldn't help but worry. "Then what should we do? We can't just stay here and do nothing, right?"

Murong Yunshu thought for a moment and asked, "How far can you swim?"

"I can't swim." North Guardian answered truthfully.

"Why?" Murong Yunshu asked, puzzled.

The corners of the North Guardian's mouth twitched as he said, "I'm afraid of drowning."

"......" Murong Yunshu suddenly felt a little affected by his brain. It was true that those who were close to the vermilion might not be red, but those who were close to the ink were bound to be black! She would stay away from these straw bags in the future, or she would be assimilated sooner or later.

Seeing Murong Yunshu's disappointed face, North Guardian hurriedly said, "Although I can't swim, I can fly."

Murong Yunshu gave him a blank look as she said, "Flying will make you an obvious target. Your act will only beat the grass and startle the snake. The only way to take them by surprise is by swimming through the water and quietly climbing aboard."

After hearing what she said, North Guardian responded with a chagrined look, "If I had known this day would come, I would not have turned Old West down when he wanted to teach me how to play in the water."

"Aren't you afraid he'll hold you down in the water and get you killed?" Murong Yunshu asked with a smile.

"That's what made me afraid!" North Guardian looked like he had met his soulmate at the end of the world, "I was afraid that he had that bad attention. That was why I refused his offer."

At that moment, Lu-er said, "Miss, I'll go."

"You can swim?!" North Guardian exclaimed.

Lu-er gave him a blank look and said unpleasantly, "Only fools don't know how to swim!" [T/N]

Ugh. North Guardian angrily shut his mouth.

Murong Yunshu, on the other hand, looked at Lu-er with a raised dark eyebrow and grunted, "Only fools don't know how to swim?"

Lu-er suddenly remembered that her master could not swim either and quickly corrected herself, "Only a fool knows how to swim!"

At these words, Murong Yunshu nodded slightly in a somewhat satisfied manner. "That's more like it."

Lu-er smiled. With her heart still fluttering with fear, she let out a sigh of relief. Fortunately, she was quick to react, or else Miss would have retaliated against her again. That was close, really close.

For his part, North Guardian looked at Lu-er with a twinkle in his eye. His look was filled with a desire to say something.

"What are you looking at?" Lu-er asked, feeling shy and annoyed.

North Guardian said, "Although it is often necessary to speak out of turn to please your master, it is the first time I have seen one who calls himself a fool."

Lu-er froze. Soon after that, she suddenly remembered what she said just now, and her face turned red just like a pig liver.

North Guardian looked sideways at her, with the corners of his mouth overflowing with a helpless smile. He really couldn't understand why Madam betrothed this silly little maid to him. He never showed his affection for this type of woman! He did solve many problems for Lu-er, but it was all out of friendship. As oppressed people, they should stay united.

Perhaps Madam had some good intentions for it. Otherwise, she must have been too bored and wanted to use them to spend her pastime. The more the North Guardian thought about it, the more likely the latter was. After all, life on the island was really boring. It was quite possible that the already strange Madam, with the Lil Leader in her belly, would come up with an unorthodox method to pass her time.

Thinking of his lifelong events being used as a pastime, North Guardian couldn't help but feel sad. He looked sorrowfully at Murong Yunshu. Madam, you can't always take advantage of your own people!

Murong Yunshu completely ignored North Guardian's grieving eyes and looked at the ship on the sea for a moment in contemplation. She suddenly said, "I remember that there is a raft in the forest."

North Guardian: "I'll get it."

Shortly afterwards, North Guardian carried the raft over and placed it on the sea.

Murong Yunshu instructed, "Get down on the raft and paddle with your hands. Remember, be careful. Make sure not to let them discover you until you know what's happening onboard."

"Yes." North Guardian immediately lay prone on the raft. Murong Yunshu then sent him out with a strong push. [+]

"Miss, why didn't you just let me swim straight through?" Lu-er asked.

"Can you fly?"

"No."

"So you can't go over there."

"But you just clearly said it was useless to be able to fly!"

Murong Yunshu stopped paying attention to her and stared at the ship, trying to see what was happening.

*

North Guardian paddled until he was close to the ship when he suddenly heard the sound of fighting coming from the cabin. He was about to leap onto the deck when he suddenly remembered Murong Yunshu's words before he left. So he held back and quickly paddled underneath the ship before quietly climbing up on the side of the deck.

The deck was empty.

After another careful look around to make sure the deck was genuinely empty, he leapt onto the deck and followed the sound into the cabin.

With just one glance, North Guardian was stunned by the situation inside the cabin.

King Sheng was tied up into a zongzi and thrown in the corner. Chu Changge was entangled with the nine Laughing Buddhas. While the Guanyin Man once again absorbed South, East and West's internal forces.

That was strange. The Guanyin Man's arms had been cut off by the Leader......all of a sudden, North Guardian took a closer look. He found that the Guanyin Man's two arms were made of iron with barbs at their ends. One was currently hooked into Old West's collarbone.

Seeing this situation, North Guardian lost his cool, grabbed a shovel beside him and rushed over, "You monster, how dare you hurt my brothers!"

"Lil North don't!" East Guardian shouted to stop him. With a grimace look on his face, he had a hard time speaking, "Don't come any closer, or you'll be absorbed just like the rest of us."

The shovel slipped from North Guardian's hand, and he was in a state of all six vital organs failing to work properly. The Guanyin Man was absorbing Old East, Old South and Old West's internal forces. It wouldn't be long before he drained them all, and by then, even if they didn't die, they would be cripples. As the Guardian of the Mojiao Sect, once you lose your martial arts skills, it would be best if they just took their lives. 

No way! He couldn't watch his brothers' internal forces be sucked dry! He couldn't!

"Leader!" North Guardian suddenly remembered Chu Changge, "I'll hold these nine monsters at bay. You go save Old East and the others!"

"You are no match for the Corpse Souls." Chu Changge fought hard while continuing saying, "You go save King Sheng. I have my way to deal with this."

"But……"

"Do I have to give the Black Wind Order?!" Chu Changge emphasised.

"This subordinate will take your order!" North Guardian's heart sank as he no longer looked at South, East and West as he hurriedly untied King Sheng.

Suddenly, the Guanyin Man laughed coldly. "Want to run away? It's not that easy!"

Before North Guardian could react, a sharp object stabbed his left shoulder. He rushed to counterattack and was able to get away. But, a piece of flesh was gouged out of his shoulder. The pain made him scream at the top of his lung.

King Sheng immediately tore off the sleeve of his robe and held down his wound. "How are you?"

North Guardian sealed the two acupuncture points around the wound, dried the blood from his shoulder, gritted his teeth as he said, "I can't die for a while. Madam is on the beach. Go to her quickly and tell her about the situation here. She must have a solution."

Knowing that he was also a liability here, King Sheng nodded and said, "Hang in there, I will find a way to save you."

*

Although Murong Yunshu could not see what was happening on the ship, she could see it swaying even more, and her heart could not help but tense up over time. Suddenly she saw someone jumping off and swimming quickly towards the shore. She clasped her hand and said in a deep voice, "When I tell you to run later, run as hard as you can and don't look back, got it?"

"Oh." Lu-er nodded obediently.

As the visitor came closer and closer, Murong Yunshu's heart hung higher and higher until she could see the visitor's face and then she breathed out a huge sigh of relief. [+]

It was King Sheng.

When Murong Yunshu saw that King Sheng looked distressed, she knew something big must have happened on the ship. She anxiously asked before he could even stand, "What happened?"

"There were ten monsters on the ship that trapped them." King Sheng took a breath and continued, "After I received General Wei's urgent message, I guessed that the person he met halfway must be you. So I brought my men to invite you over. I was attacked halfway, and all the soldiers who came with me were killed, leaving me alone to be held hostage by them. Fortunately, Chu Changge was clever enough to spot the problem on the ship from afar and got on board in time to stop them from disembarking. But he was also trapped on the ship as a result......"

King Sheng suddenly realised that Murong Yunshu was not listening to him at all, so he stopped talking and waited for her to come up with a solution. He could make powerful courtiers become prisoners overnight without much effort. However, he did not know how to deal with those monsters that could not be killed. He knew too little about the affairs of the jianghu.

Murong Yunshu's heart was burning with anxiety as she desperately tried to think of a way out. However, the more anxious she was, the less she could do, and the less she could do, the more anxious she became. Her face, which consistently showed that nothing could affect her, was filled with horror, and her forehead began to break into a cold sweat.

"Those people are so bad. It's only a matter of time before the birds take them away when they finally die!" Lu-er was so anxious that she stomped her feet.

Murong Yunshu raised her eyes with a jolt of joy. Putting her fingers in her mouth, she tilted her head towards the sky. She blew a few whistles of varying lengths, only to see two to three large brown birds flying from the horizon, followed by even more birds as they flew over in flocks. They suddenly changed direction as they passed the ship, swooped down, and went straight into the cabin.

"Vultures!" King Sheng exclaimed, "How do you know how to summon a vulture?"

After making sure that the vultures did not leave after flying towards the ship, Murong Yunshu truly breathed a sigh of relief. The corners of her mouth curled up into a faint smile as she said, "I've studied it."

Over the past month, Chu Changge had been practising day and night to improve his martial arts skills to defeat the corpse souls and had no time to spend with her. When she was bored, she would watch him practise when the weather was good and stay in the house to pass the time by herself when the weather was bad. One day while she was sitting on the beach watching him practise, she happened to notice a vulture flying in to pick up the dead fish on the beach. This amazed her because, as far as she knew, vultures did live by the sea.

Perhaps this was the will of Heaven. When she was bored from time to time, she began to try to train the vultures. Although she was not successful, she could at least summon them by whistling after ten days.

Vultures were the mortal enemy of all corpses.

Let's hope they were as strong as she wanted them to be.

Sometimes I wonder if Lu-er was faking her foolishness. But when the Author let us see what was on her mind, I found it was just my wishful thinking.