Stranger Danger

Chapter 537: Blissful Red Dust

“What the…? Did he really need to go that far to kill two small fries?”

The Lampholding Protector was still making her way toward Ouyang De and Master of Swords when the ungodly explosion caused her to flinch a little. She subconsciously looked in the direction of the explosion and saw a single man flying out of the smoke and carving a deep gorge on the ground.

When her brain clicked, the Lampholding Protector exclaimed in shock and disbelief, “Senior brother?!”

The person lying on the ground wasn’t either one of the small fries. It was the one person she did not expect to see, the Joy Arhat. There was also a clear fist imprint on his chest.

Another silhouette slowly stepped out of the smoke. His face was etched with frustration and resignation. He was, of course, Ye Qing.

When the Joy Arhat saw Ye Qing, he climbed to his feet, let out a furious roar, and charged Ye Qing once more. At this, the young man could only sigh deeply.

“Why must you force my hand?”

He was just a small fry, so why must he endure the attention of these big shots time and again?

When the Joy Arhat got close, Ye Qing sidestepped away from a punch that was aimed at his head and took one step forward. His shoulder slammed hard into the monk’s chest and sent him tumbling across the ground like a tumbleweed.

The Lampholding Protector changed her mind and appeared behind the Joyful Arhat instead. She used both hands to neutralize the force affecting her senior brother and arrested his momentum with some effort. Then, she blocked the enraged Joy Arhat with a raised hand and watched Ye Qing warily, asking, “Who are you?”

“That line again? Are you people going to say that every time you run into an unexpected obstacle?”

Ye Qing sighed, but he wasn’t referring to the duo specifically. Since he came to Bei You, nearly every foe who tried to push him only to be pushed back hard had asked that exact same question, and for the life of him, he couldn’t understand why. Did they think it would save them from a beating or something?

Sure, it was partially because he was pretending to be Small Fry A, but come the fuck on!

“I told you I was just passing through.” Ye Qing shrugged helplessly. “But you guys just couldn’t catch a hint.”

The Lampholding Protector couldn’t say anything against that because it was true. A few seconds later, she clasped her hands in salute and apologized, “We see that now, and we apologize for our mistake. If you don’t mind, please evacuate the scene and leave us to our business. We promise to give you a proper apology when all is said and done.”

Although the young man felt like a late-stage Spirit Purifier, the fact he could sent the Joy Arhat flying with his shoulder proved that his physical strength was at least equal to a body-tempering late-stage Spirit Master, if not more.

She and the Joy Arhat were only late-stage Spirit Masters, and while they could probably kill the young man if they worked together, there was no way they could finish the battle in time for them to reinforce Master of Swords. That was how most battles against a body-tempering Spirit Master with a strong and vigorous body went, not to mention that they were injured right now.

Ouyang De’s “Grinning Fist and Impossible Move” looked weak and harmless on the surface, but it had injured them both to a certain extent. That was why she was attempting to reach an amicable resolution with Ye Qing right now. Once Joy Bodhisattva was dead, they had all the time in the world to settle other matters.

“I wanted to leave earlier, but you refused to let me go…” Ye Qing said slowly, “Now? I don’t feel like leaving anymore.”

The Lampholding Protector’s face turned grim and dark. In the end, her worst fears had come to fruition. “Are you sure about this?”

You fuckers really thought you could send me off like a dog like you didn’t just try to kill me?

“I don’t want to do this either. You’re the ones who forced me into this,” Ye Qing replied with a cold chill in his eyes. If he had a choice—a real choice—he wouldn’t get involved in this shitshow as a matter of course. No one knew better than him that he couldn’t afford a high profile right now. Unfortunately, Ouyang De had already dragged him into this mess, and he seriously disliked the way the Joy Arhat and the Lampholding Protector acted.

No, he wasn’t referring to the fact that the duo had tried to kill him. To be fair, Endless Sand was clearly planning to kill all witnesses, so of course they weren’t going to allow them to go scot free. However, one look at the Lampholding Protector’s expression, and he knew that they were going to come after him after they were done with their business. She was so bloody obvious he didn’t even need to read her emotions to know that. That was how arrogant she was.

Naturally, this displeased him greatly. He might not like to get into trouble, but he sure as hell wasn’t scared of trouble. Rather than waiting for his enemies to gang up on him at a later date, he would much rather ruin their plan and end their threat right now.

You fuckers want to kill Joy Bodhisattva, right? Well, that ain’t happening anymore. I wonder if you’ll still have the time to attack li’l old me when Joy Bodhisattva hunts down the two of you like the rats you are?

Technically, this wasn’t the only option he had. Since Ouyang De had screwed him over as well, he could choose to assist Master of Swords, the Joy Arhat and the Lampholding Protector and ensure that their assassination plot was a success. However, that would turn Ouyang De into his enemy. The trio didn’t fear Ouyang De because they were backed by Endless Sand, but he was but one man.

On top of that, Ouyang De clearly had the upper hand right now. Just how stupid would he have to be to help a bunch of losers he didn’t even like?

Of course, the biggest motivation behind his decision was the fact that his impression of Ouyang De was okay despite the fact that the old man just screwed him over. He didn’t think that Ouyang De would pull an “alright it’s time to silence the witnesses” shenanigan when all was said and done. Even if he was wrong, the old man at least injured the Joy Arhat and the Lampholding Protector before tossing them into his lap. That gesture alone was enough to sway him into joining Ouyang De’s side.

“Junior sister, go help Master of Swords. I’ll keep this brat busy.”

“Forget it. None of you are going anywhere.”

Thud! Ye Qing suddenly vanished in a burst of sound and dust. The next moment, he appeared behind the Lampholding Protector and threw a punch.

The punch was completely traceless, but as soon as it made contact with the woman’s back, it triggered a series of ripples. Each ripple contained an image of the Lampholding Protector, and they prevented Ye Qing’s fist force from reaching her true body. In fact, the distance between them was growing by the second.

It looked like they were standing right next to each other, when in reality the gulf between them could fill up ten thousand bodies of water and mountains.

“You can’t stop me,” The Lampholding Protector declared with an arrogant smile on her face. Her main movement art was called the “Dance of Whims and Wishes”. Created based on the Buddhist understanding that all things that existed and would ever exist were transient, it could turn what was real into an illusion, and what was an illusion into reality. Excellent at neutralizing forces and minimizing damage, it was how she was able to neutralize Ye Qing’s punch despite the terrible weight behind it.

“Is that so?”

Ye Qing smirked. If he couldn’t hit her, then he wouldn’t. His goal wasn’t to kill his opponent anyway. It was to delay them long enough for Ouyang De to finish off Master of Swords.

A thick fog rushed out of Ye Qing’s body and enveloped everything within a hundred meters of him in the blink of an eye. The Lampholding Protector flinched immediately. It was because she had lost all perception of her surroundings including sound. If she didn’t know better, she would have thought that Ye Qing had somehow teleported her to a completely different location.

The Lampholding Protector tried to dash in what she thought was where Joy Bodhisattva was located, but she was unable to find her no matter what she tried. It was almost as if the Joy Bodhisattva had disappeared into thin air.

Frowning, the Lampholding Protector waved her arm and tried to dispel the fog with a powerful gust of wind. She successfully pushed back the fog for about a meter or so before it swam right back into place.

“No, I can’t delay any longer,” the Lampholding Protector muttered under her breath. At this rate, Ouyang De was going to defeat Master of Swords and rescue Joy Bodhisattva, or Joy Bodhisattva herself was going to break out of her confinement. If either worst case scenario happened, they would all die.

Having made up her mind, an oil lamp slowly emerged from the Lampholding Protector’s head and rose higher. It was exquisitely crafted and adorned with a painting of nine naked women. The Lampholgind Protector then slowly raised her arms and maintained the pose like she was pretending to be a lighthouse.

A tiny light burned within the oil lamp, but within that light was a world of its own. Inside the light, countless male and female bodies were entangled with each other like a scene from the blissful Kingdom of Buddha.

When the oil lamp had risen about halfway into the sky, a seductive woman abruptly appeared in the air, held the oil lamp in her hands, and blew.

A wisp of lampfire shot out of the oil lamp, and the surrounding fog abruptly transformed into a raging inferno.

The inferno wasn’t just all flames. Naked celestials and Bodhisattvas were dancing amidst the flames while the sounds of sex filled the ears. It was an unusual, fiery sexual fantasy few could dream of.

The Lampholding Protector’s main cultivation art was called the “Blissful Rebirth Sutra”, and her Yin God was none other than the oil lamp she released earlier. The lamp was called the Blissful Lamp and why she was granted the title “Lampholding Protector”.

The technique she just executed was a Magia in the “Blissful Rebirth Sutra” named the “Blissful Red Dust”. When the Blissful Lamp appeared, it would manifest a facade of the red dust and the blissful Kingdom of Buddha. It would convert all of humanity into Buddhism.