Chapter 2657 — The Centipede Goes Up in Flames
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
It was the dead of winter. The fountain was a warm-water one, true, but the weather was far too cold, and the water in the basin had already begun to crust with ice. The moment Zhong Yongliang plunged in, he was frozen so badly his teeth chattered—yet at last the flames on his body were put out.
He scrambled out of the basin at once and sneezed. "What the hell? How did I catch fire for no reason at all?"
"Brother Liang, that Drunken Centipede is still in your sleeve—you don't think something's happened to it?" What Gao Xiaofu had on his mind was the Drunken Centipede, and he had no idea how it was faring now.
"Right—my centipede!" Zhong Yongliang gave a start. Only now did it come back to him that the sleeve which had caught fire was the very sleeve where the Drunken Centipede was kept. Who knew what state the creature was in? He hastily chanted a beast-speech spell, meaning to call the Drunken Centipede out—but even after the spell was finished, the centipede did not emerge. At that, Zhong Yongliang was frightened out of his wits.
In a panic he turned the sleeve inside out, and at last he found the Drunken Centipede within—but was this still the Drunken Centipede at all?
The Drunken Centipede had dried into a husk of a centipede. Even though Zhong Yongliang was soaked through, the centipede was still red all over and smoking. Zhong Yongliang was scalded badly and, on sheer reflex, flung the Drunken Centipede to the ground...
"Why is the Drunken Centipede smoking? Could it have been the one on fire just now?" Gao Xiaofu stared at the centipede on the ground, utterly baffled.
"This... what's going on here?" Zhong Yongliang stared at the Drunken Centipede on the ground, dumbstruck. This was his trump card for challenging Wei Zhao! And now the Drunken Centipede had mysteriously caught fire, had dried up into a husk, and was plainly dead. But what was he to do about the match this afternoon? And how had the centipede died in the first place?
The two of them were standing there puzzling it over when Gu Mengyao and Wei Zhao came running quickly toward them. There was nothing for it—Zhong Yongliang hastily rolled the dried centipede up in his sleeve, his face wearing an expression more wretched than words could tell...
"Xiaoshu, how are you?" Gu Mengyao ran over, seized Shen Yushu's hand where she lay on the ground, and called her name. She and Xiaoshu were the closest of friends—for all their squabbling day to day, when real trouble struck, she was the one who cared most.
"Yaoyao, don't panic. Let me have a look first!" Seeing that Shen Yushu on the ground was still breathing, Wei Zhao breathed a sigh of relief. As long as she had breath in her, things would be all right!
"Mm..." Gu Mengyao knew she could not be of any help, so she hurriedly stepped aside and made room for Wei Zhao.
Wei Zhao laid his fingers on Shen Yushu's pulse and carefully examined the state of her body. Gu Mengyao, meanwhile, glared viciously at Zhong Yongliang. "Zhong Yongliang, was this your doing?"
"What do you mean, my doing..." Zhong Yongliang wore a mournful face, the very picture of a man who deserved to die. Gu Mengyao studied him for a long while; she could not tell why he looked so grief-stricken, but his expression did not seem like that of a man who had just laid hands on Xiaoshu. How could Gu Mengyao know that Zhong Yongliang's Drunken Centipede had dried into a husk...
"Xiaoshu seems to be fine—she's simply fainted. All her internal functions are normal, her breathing is steady, and she shows no sign of poisoning. It's rather like the way one passes out from drinking too much, except there's no alcohol in her system. That's strange—could she simply be exhausted?" Wei Zhao said, somewhat puzzled, after carefully examining Shen Yushu's condition.