Shock!Straight Man Long Aotian Secretly Hides The Villain’S Skirt Chapter 18

Lu Yi was suddenly stunned by those words.

If he hadn’t been implanted with the Love Gu, then what did all the things he had done to Xie Rong recently, all the dirty fantasies he’d harbored about him, count as? Did they all come from his true heart?!

He had developed genuine feelings for a villain, a demonic figure obsessed with tormenting others.

The chaotic thoughts in his mind gradually cleared. Lu Yi remembered the Gu egg he had coughed up.

Or rather, he had never forgotten it; he had just been deceiving himself so thoroughly that he had actually believed the lie.

“You dared to play me.” Xie Rong spoke, his voice extremely slow and calm.

“I…” Lu Yi managed to choke out a single word, his throat constricted.

He wanted to say, if he could be so captivated by Xie Rong without the Love Gu, shouldn’t Xie Rong be even happier?

He also wanted to ask, since there was no Love Gu, and since his feelings were genuine, what exactly was Xie Rong dissatisfied with? Why was he so angry?

“You deserve to die. No, not just you—all of you deserve to die.” Xie Rong flung his neck away and strode quickly out of the secret chamber.

Host, what are you going to do?

“Do what? What can I do?” Xie Rong smiled, his delicate brows pressed low over his eyes. “Naturally, I’ll do what a villain should do.”

He walked out of the Bamboo Hut and saw several baskets full of oranges piled beside the steps. Jin Jiuzhou, who had been waiting for a long time, stepped forward and said stiffly, “Valley Master, all the oranges have been picked. I truly cannot stay. I am not a casual man like Lu Yi.”

Xie Rong walked straight past him, his robes fluttering, silver ornaments tinkling, wrapped in a lingering fragrance.

Jin Jiuzhou thought, he was like a butterfly.

By the time he snapped out of it, he had already followed this poisonous butterfly to the Five Poisons Cave.

He watched as Xie Rong took the jade flute from his waist and placed it against his lips.

A cold, aggressive flute melody echoed throughout the entire Miedie Valley. Jin Jiuzhou was initially confused, until the Gu worms in his meridians began to riot, gnawing at his energy channels more fiercely than ever before.

He stumbled and fell to one knee, his face pale, struggling to suppress any sound.

Blood slowly seeped through the skin of his arms, the tiny spots connecting to form the outline of his meridians.

The flute music was not enough; it continued relentlessly.

Host, stop quickly! The System cried urgently. Your Extreme Yin Gu has not been fully refined. You cannot continue playing like this!

The white slime slid down Xie Rong’s arm, trying to interfere and snatch the jade flute, but he coldly flung it onto the ground.

Host, stop!

Xie Rong’s heterochromatic eyes were strangely calm. His pale fingertips skillfully manipulated every hole on the jade flute.

A trickle of blood slowly overflowed from his lips.

Then from beneath his nose, his ears, and finally, blood even streamed from beneath his eyes.

Xie Rong seemed oblivious to the pain. The flute music was steady and exhilarating.

Jin Jiuzhou crawled to his feet and desperately hugged his calf. “Stop… isn’t it enough if I stay and become your male consort?”

Xie Rong kicked the idiot away.

The flute music suddenly shifted to a higher key. Poisonous insects and venomous snakes from the Five Poisons Cave continuously crawled out, excitedly heading in all directions to search for food.

Jin Jiuzhou lay on the ground. Because he was too close to Xie Rong, the Gu worms bypassed him.

Yet, this didn’t stop him from coughing up blood, his pupils already unfocused from the pain.

The sensation was no less than having all his meridians severed.

The flute music was just about to reach the most passionate part of the tune when a sharp, aggressive cry of a hawk suddenly sounded overhead, forcefully drowning out Xie Rong’s flute.

Xie Rong abruptly looked up.

The cold moon hung high. Several goshawks circled in the night sky. Suddenly, one hawk swooped down and snatched a snake Gu.

Followed immediately by the second, the third, the fourth…

His snake Gu, his children carefully nurtured with his blood, were about to be eaten by the hawks.

How could this happen? Why is the plot half a month early?!

Xie Rong’s eyelids were red as if weeping blood. He turned and grabbed Jin Jiuzhou’s collar, his beautiful face utterly distorted, his voice trembling. “Was it you, or Lu Yi?!”

“It wasn’t me,” Jin Jiuzhou looked up at the hawks in the air, stunned. “Those are… the eagles of the Imperial Guard Camp.”

The Imperial Guard Camp was where the royal family trained hidden guards. Since the current Emperor was weak, the Imperial Guard Camp had long since only obeyed the Empress Dowager.

Jin Jiuzhou knew that he and Lu Yi had spent too much time in Miedie Valley and had failed to deliver good news. The Empress Dowager had lost patience. She was determined to capture Xie Rong, even if it meant burying everyone captured in Miedie Valley along with him.

“Isn’t the Imperial Guard Camp part of your court?”

Jin Jiuzhou: “Yes.”

“They’re all court lackeys, yet you claim it wasn’t you!” Seeing another snake Gu about to be snatched by a hawk, Xie Rong threw Jin Jiuzhou aside. His slender body dropped down, and he frantically shielded the snake in his arms, ignoring the skin scraped raw on his arms.

“Xie Rong!” Jin Jiuzhou threw himself over Xie Rong.

The goshawk swooped down, tearing the skin and flesh on the man’s back.

If that claw had struck Xie Rong’s delicate skin, he might have lost half his life.

Jin Jiuzhou came back to his senses, staring blankly at the little demon he was protecting in his arms.

What was he doing? Was he protecting the master on Lu Yi’s behalf?!

…

Inside the secret chamber.

Xie Rong’s shackles were extremely strong; only he could open them. Lu Yi finally managed to smash them open by force, only to be tormented by the Gu worms agitated by the flute music. He was drenched in sweat, his lips pale, his entire network of meridians stinging as if exploding.

A wisp of choking smoke drifted in through the forgotten entrance to the secret chamber.

Lu Yi’s expression changed drastically. He struggled to climb up from the ground.

When he ran out of the secret chamber, he was choked by the thick smoke that rolled toward him.

Coughing, he covered his mouth and nose and ran out of the Bamboo Hut. He hastily drew a bucket of water from the lake and extinguished the fire on the orange tree.

Then he ran back to the Bamboo Hut to put out the fire on the other orange tree in front of it.

“Xie Rong? Xie Rong?!” Lu Yi anxiously looked around, but saw no sign of anyone.

He kept fetching water with the wooden bucket to put out the fires while searching for the person.

Even after his clothes were burned with holes and his face was blackened by smoke, he still hadn’t found a single soul.

It seemed as if he were the only one left in the entire valley.

Lu Yi stood before the empty Five Poisons Cave, breathing heavily, his eyes bloodshot.

He was like a stray dog, standing here lost and helpless, unable to find his master, yet powerless to do anything.

“Lord Lu.” A sharp voice came from behind him.

That voice shouldn’t have been here.

Lu Yi turned around and saw the Empress Dowager’s head eunuch holding a fly whisk, disdainfully waving away the surrounding smoke and dust. Behind him followed a dense crowd of people who approached him.

“You haven’t been poisoned by the Gu, how did you safely pass through the poisonous forest—”

Lu Yi’s words cut off abruptly. He stopped looking at the head eunuch, his gaze sweeping over the crowd, his pupils suddenly contracting.

A prison cart forged from dark iron was heavily surrounded by the masked Imperial Guards.

Inside the prison cart, that slender figure leaned against the bars. His dark hair was scattered and messy, and his tattered skirt couldn’t hide the black bruises on his knees. His silver ornaments were smoked black, and his wooden clogs were gone. He hugged the single snake Gu he had left, muttering unfamiliar South Xinjiang words, soothing the snake in his arms without sparing a glance for anyone around him.

Lu Yi felt as if a whip had struck his heart, stripping away all his rationality.

He was the person in the world who hated Xie Rong the most, the person who had been tormented the most severely by Xie Rong. He hadn’t even had the chance to take revenge on Xie Rong—by what right did these people treat him like this!

Lu Yi’s eyes were bloodshot. He took a heavy, hot breath, like an enraged lone wolf, and viciously kicked the head eunuch away, charging toward the cage.

“Why are you all standing there stunned? Stop him quickly! Don’t let him ruin the Empress Dowager’s plans!” The head eunuch shrieked, scrambling up from the ground in a panic and straightening his official’s hat.