Chapter 7: The Original Female Lead Who Delivers Supplies in an Apocalypse Novel (6)

Everyone: “…”

[What a massive, juicy piece of gossip!]

The crowd collectively turned their gazes toward Xuanyuan Chengze and Xiaoran. The expressions on those two faces could not have looked more unsightly.

Xuanyuan Chengze: “…”

[Nonsense! When had I ever taught Ji Qinghe how to use talismans?!]

[It was true that Xiaoran and I had sex once, but I had repeatedly checked to ensure no one was around before doing it. How could Ji Qinghe possibly know?]

He was terrified that Ji Qinghe would grow powerful just like in his past life, which was why he kept her around but completely hid the existence of the talismans from her. 

[How could I have possibly taught her how to use them?]

Xiaoran: “…”

Her newly wiped face instantly flushed a deep red.

The apocalypse had only begun two months ago, so most people still clung to a sense of shame. She still cared about her reputation. Having her intimate affair with Brother Chengze exposed by Ji Qinghe in front of everyone—and worse, framed as a tool used to blackmail him—made her want to murder Ji Qinghe on the spot.

Chen Yan’s face dropped instantly. His eyes brimmed with red rims as he stared directly at Xiaoran, his voice trembling as he asked,

“You… you two are really together?”

Bai Quan also looked at Xiaoran with a thoroughly wounded expression.

The two of them were Xiaoran’s university classmates and had harbored deep feelings for her for a long time. She had always publicly claimed that she only viewed Xuanyuan Chengze as an older brother. Who would have thought the two had already secretly rolled around between the sheets? What did that make the two of them?

The happiest person present was Liu Xiaotao. The joy on her face couldn’t be suppressed even if she tried. Ever since joining this team, she had fallen for Chen Yan, but his heart belonged to Xiaoran, leaving Liu Xiaotao to pine in sorrow for a long time. She never expected Ji Qinghe to drop such a massive bombshell today. This ought to make Chen Yan completely give up on Xiaoran!

The rest of the crowd let their eyes dart back and forth among Ji Qinghe, Xuanyuan Chengze, and Xiaoran.

Before the apocalypse, they used to scroll past videos of original wives beating up mistresses all the time and never thought much of it. But a month into the apocalypse, the power grids and the internet had gone down. They hadn’t watched television or scrolled through short videos in ages. Now that a live-action version was playing out right in front of them, they had to seize the opportunity to get a front-row seat.

Noticing the varied, chaotic looks from the crowd, Xuanyuan Chengze hurriedly bellowed,

“Don’t listen to her nonsense! I am not together with Xiaoran. We are completely innocent!”

He stepped closer to Xiaoran.

“Xiaoran, tell them, isn’t that right?”

Xiaoran: “…”

Her eyes were brimming with pure disappointment. 

[Why wouldn’t he just admit it?]

[Since Ji Qinghe had already spoken the truth in public, and her attitude clearly showed she didn’t care about Brother Chengze anyway, wouldn’t it be better to just break up and be together openly?]

Reading the unspoken plea in Xiaoran’s eyes, Xuanyuan Chengze pressed again,

“Xiaoran, speak up!”

He had his own secret constraints; he couldn’t break up with Ji Qinghe just yet, nor could he allow the team to alienate him over the talisman matter.

Xiaoran bit her lip, but in the end, she complied,

“Ji Qinghe, don’t slander people out of nowhere. I am not together with Brother Chengze.”

Ji Qinghe pointed at her own nose, then pointed at the surrounding spectators.

“Do you think everyone here is blind? Are we supposed to pretend we didn’t just see the two of you shooting glances at each other?”

After calling them out with that single sentence, she dismissed it perfunctorily,

“Alright, alright, let’s just pretend you two aren’t together. But I still have to thank you for teaching me how to use the Immobilization Talisman.”

Xuanyuan Chengze: “…”

No, wait! He had intentionally steered the topic toward a romantic scandal with Xiaoran precisely to divert everyone’s attention from the talismans. Yet this dead woman had dragged it right back with a single line!

The faces of the few ability users who actually trusted him turned sour once more. While they didn’t throw a tantrum right in front of the crowd, they were already preparing to find an opportunity later to interrogate him about what was going on.

Originally, they had been ready to genuinely accept Xuanyuan Chengze as their team captain. They never expected him to be such a double-dealing hypocrite. 

True, the relationship drama was between him and his girlfriend, but he had repeatedly ordered them not to tell his girlfriend about the talismans, while he turned around, taught her the method himself, and then let Chen Yan use a talisman against her. Wasn’t that just setting up his own teammate to take the fall?

Fortunately, Ji Qinghe could be counted as half one of their own, so no catastrophic blunder had occurred.

But if they put themselves in Chen Yan’s shoes, they found it absolutely intolerable.

Seeing the hostile glints in the eyes of those few ability users who shared the same foul traits as Xuanyuan Chengze, Ji Qinghe knew her drive to sow discord had successfully worked.

Excellent. Let Xuanyuan Chengze deal with the massive headache.

“Chen Yan, alright, let’s continue the match.”

Chen Yan had just gotten his heart broken before his romance could even begin. How could he possibly be in the mood to compete with her?

“Beat it!”

“Oh my, what a fiery temper you have. How dare you tell this old lady to beat it! You think I’m just going to humor you?!”

Ji Qinghe lunged forward and kicked him right to the ground. Before Chen Yan could even process what was happening, he went flying backward. Then, a heavyweight crashed down on his torso as a flurry of punches rained onto his face in rapid succession.

It was only when Xuanyuan Chengze came rushing over, shouting to stop her, that the beating paused.

“Ji Qinghe, that’s enough!”

Suddenly, Xuanyuan Chengze was also sent flying back by an abrupt kick from Ji Qinghe. His reflexes were sharper; instead of crashing into the dirt, he used the momentum to flip through the air, bracing himself with one hand against the ground before springing right back onto his feet.

“You are truly being completely unreasonable! I shouldn’t have tolerated you time and time again just for the sake of you being my girlfriend. Today, I’m absolutely going to teach you a proper lesson.”

Ji Qinghe felt as though she were listening to some absurd fairytale. That bastard actually had the nerve to utter those words? Setting aside how brutally he had tortured the original host in her past life, let’s just look at this current life.

Previously, he had repeatedly enabled Xiaoran when she constantly shortened the original host on rations. Whenever the original host went to him seeking justice, he would always say that, as the captain, he faced all kinds of difficulties. He would tell her to just endure it for his sake.

In a mere two months, the original host had endured until she was as thin as a bamboo pole of a height of 167 centimeters, yet weighing less than eighty pounds.

What made it even worse was that a good portion of those supplies had actually been found by the original host herself. But because they were part of a team, any food found had to be turned in and distributed collectively.

“Heh… then come at me.”

Ji Qinghe didn’t wait for Xuanyuan Chengze to make the first move. She flashed right in front of him, flipped him over onto the ground in one swift motion, and began raining down a barrage of kicks and punches. 

Within seconds, not only were the remaining two blisters on Xuanyuan Chengze’s face popped, but his face also began to swell up at a speed visible to the naked eye.

After being pinned down, Xuanyuan Chengze desperately wanted to counterattack. However, Ji Qinghe was like Popeye after eating spinach; she pinned him down so heavily that he couldn’t get up at all. 

He frantically contacted his dimensional trading system in his mind for assistance, but even then, there was absolutely no way to throw Ji Qinghe off his body.

“Ji Qinghe, if you’re going to be this heartless, don’t blame me for being unjust!”

Ji Qinghe slammed a fist right onto his mouth.

“Heh, you say that as if you’ve ever been fair or just to me at any point in time.”

In the next instant, she felt a numb, tingling electric current surging through her body. Oh, right, she had forgotten—this bastard possessed a lightning-element ability.

However, this voltage level seemed rather pathetic; it was a far cry from the heavenly tribulations she had faced during her ascensions.

Nevertheless, this physical body was far too weak. Getting zapped a little bit was fine, but if the electrocution continued, problems would inevitably arise. 

With that thought in mind, Ji Qinghe delivered a few more harsh kicks to Xuanyuan Chengze’s body. To finish it off, she slammed her palm squarely against his chest, driving in a single strand of thread that she had pulled from her red silk ball.

It wasn’t that she wanted to go through all this trouble, but she had already experimented earlier during her fight with Chen Yan. 

When she tried striking other parts of the body, the red silk thread simply wouldn’t sink in. She knew this was due to the suppression of the world’s laws, so she could only test it out on the chest. Who would have thought it would actually succeed?