Volume 1, Chapter 62: Is Her Name Gu Yanchu?

Just as she was shrieking and ordering someone to summon the authorities, a voice rang out behind her: “Let’s see who dares move!” A gleaming long blade pressed beneath her throat. Madam He choked off her cry with a squawk like a startled chicken and dared not shout again. She stood gaping and gasping as though she had asthma.

Seeing the several “grannies” with their hands clasped and eyes shut, murmuring prayers, too afraid to look at him, their faces wearing the woeful air of “If I don’t go to hell, who will?”, Shan Shan was struck by an idea.

Once, the Black Tortoise had been a dashing, debonair divine beast. Now he had fallen so low. What word could capture such sorrow?

The next morning, the warm sun rose early, as if to congratulate Tian Tian on her promotion.

Manager Qin paid no heed to the laughter and jeers of the people below. He kept his eyes on the three half-sized jars and waved to the shop assistant.

He Changdi’s body stiffened at Chu Lian’s movement. Then he fixed her with a dark gaze.

Could something major be about to happen? Shan Shan rubbed her nose. She couldn’t be sure; even intuition wasn’t always right.

She had meant to recruit soldiers from among the prisoners, but after thinking it over, Shan Shan gave up on the idea.

The next day, however, the factory’s notice board was surrounded by a huge crowd. Curious, Tian Tian squeezed in with the others.

A dozen days later, the two countries finally worked through the remaining formalities, signed an agreement, ended the state of war, and restored trade between them. The items and ships they had detained were, of course, returned to him as well.

One of the photographs showed Orochimaru with his face covered in white snake scales, his eyes revealing an exquisite chill.

Perhaps this jutsu consumed a great deal of chakra, but Kirito had a One-Tail now, so the problem of insufficient chakra was clearly solved.

When Su Qingci followed the adjutant through the tent flap, she saw Ji Yanzhou leaning an elbow on the table and propping up his head. His ink-black hair was loosely bound with a single jade hairpin, lending him the graceful air of a frail young nobleman, yet the proud, cool bearing of a military commander showed between his brows.

Watching Xu Ye bent over, pulling out iron nails, Song Wanying suddenly thought that her husband really was rather handsome.

Zhao Wei’s gloomy mood also lifted somewhat the moment he received the lunchbox. After murmuring a quiet thanks, he left with Li Zexiang.

On second thought, these water-pink jade-green room buns were several times larger than ordinary buns, and their wrappers were made from pure, lean pork. The process alone made them rather difficult to produce.

Xi Chengyi merely smiled and said nothing. He did not like making grand claims before things had even begun; it was not his way.

On the surface, apart from the Leaf Village still fighting on two fronts against the Rain and Sand Villages, the shinobi world remained relatively peaceful. The Stone, Cloud, and Mist Villages made no major moves.

If he had to agonize over the Guardian Deity’s thoughts at every meeting, he would eventually worry himself into an early grave.

The sea bass used for “Old Clam Pearls” had to be on the large side, since its belly was to be filled with rich broth, pigeon eggs, quail eggs, soft-shelled turtle eggs, fish balls, shrimp balls, and other ingredients.

Though he was the Crown Prince of the Divine Realm, he could not even taste the most ordinary foods enjoyed by the common people of the mortal world.

Amid the bustling crowd at the Internet Conference, Shuai Ting was looking around when Chu Xiangge suddenly took her by the arm.

As it happened, Mario was lucky this time. After Andein returned from the courtyard, he brought Faya—who had finally started feeling cold, presumably because the magic item had run out of time—back to the room. Not long afterward, Mario came rushing in, shouting, “Something terrible has happened!” and startling Faya.

“If you don’t like it here, you don’t have to stay just because of me.” Ye Zinien’s voice was low, but clear.

Though Qing Yi had dealt with the Immortal Sword Sect cultivators here, she still felt the sect itself was the most dangerous place.

And especially after Ye Zinien and the others had been deceived again and again, it was only because they were showing remarkable restraint that they hadn’t charged in and beaten the impostor Lin Quan to a pulp.

Hao Ren watched him go buy porridge again. He had bought vegetable porridge and red-date-and-yam porridge. Hao Ren remembered that she had a sweet tooth and always kept candy in the office. One was savory and one sweet. Was the sweet one for her?

There was no excess blood at the corner of his mouth, and a faint, pleasant fragrance clung to him. Delicate kisses gently dried the dampness on Cen Mu’s face, then slowly traveled down from the bridge of his nose.

“Rrr… snore…” She had only just finished mumbling when she fell asleep again, her fluffy head resting on his shoulder. Her warm breath brushed his neck, tickling him until he didn’t know what to do.

When I opened the music box and its lovely melody began to play, Qin Niang, who had been watching television, was naturally drawn to it. She lifted the box in her slender, pale hands and wound it up, copying my movements.

“I’ve said everything I needed to say. Starting today, that’s your position. You can’t keep loafing around and running off every day, and you can’t be late or leave early. Understand?” Guo Chaofeng looked at me sternly.

We drank until two or three in the morning, I think. Then my Tibetan buddy Suoci and I went to his place to eat a leg of lamb.

“Neither of us can kill the other right now. Why don’t we each give a little? I’ll hand over the Blood Jade Ring, and you let me leave with the Taiji Primordial Stone. How about it?” said the Evil Daoist.

It was strange, all right: having a monster’s head and a human body, with long membranous wings, flying through the air had an uncanny feel to it.

It was strange. When photos were posted to the forum, they might disappear because of a slow connection or an unstable server. But transferring them from a camera to a computer was just a matter of copying files from the memory card. Yet they weren’t on the computer either. That didn’t seem right.

“You can call me by my name. My surname is Zhao, and my given name is Qifeng. The city god here lost his spirit when his temple fell into ruin, so my superiors reassigned me here to oversee the life, death, rewards, and punishments of the county’s people. As it happens, I only took up the post yesterday,” Zhao, the Underworld Official, said solemnly.

Suddenly, for some reason, four words surfaced in the depths of Changmen Niepo’s mind: the Sage of Divine Insight knew everything, understood everything, and could calculate anything without ever making a mistake.

As dawn began to break, Guan Yao’s phone rang. After Ye Tianci had just tended to her, she had spent the night in a frenzy, yet she felt not the slightest bit tired. Instead, she seemed to possess a peculiar beauty, as if she had weathered a storm.