Evolution - Chapter 54
Chapter 54
Ji Changqing ran off in a flash.
Gu Changge waited where he was, looking calm and unbothered, but inside he was both nervous and excited.
He stood on high ground, watching the three of them close in on him in a triangular formation.
That annoying pest was among them, just as he’d expected.
“Didn’t think I’d see you in such a sorry state, Gu Changge. Not a single teammate in sight?” The pest’s face wore a sickeningly fake smile. “Or did your teammates see us coming and ditch you?”
“None of your damn business!” Gu Changge retorted without hesitation, fan in hand. “You seem to think you can manage the heavens and the earth, and now you’re trying to manage other people’s loyalty.”
The pest’s face darkened. “Hand over your points, and we won’t make things difficult for you. We’ll let you go.”
“In your dreams! If you’ve got the guts, come and take them. You think you can get my points just by running your mouth?” Gu Changge scoffed. “Keep dreaming, He Qingzhi. You can have anything you want in your dreams.”
“Looks like you want to try again next year!” He Qingzhi wisely stopped the verbal sparring and attacked, his sword held in both hands.
A sharp wave of sword energy swept toward him. For all his tough talk, Gu Changge’s response was surprisingly cowardly. He didn’t even try to block the attack, simply turning tail and running with his fan in hand!
He even trash-talked as he fled: “Wow, He Qingzhi, you’re so obedient! I tell you to make a move, and you do it just like that?”
He Qingzhi remained silent, his sword strikes growing fiercer as he pursued Gu Changge.
Their weapons were suited for different ranges—one for distance, one for close combat. If He Qingzhi could get close, he was confident he could thrash Gu Changge. Even if he couldn’t get right next to him, based on their past encounters, the internal energy released with their sword and fan techniques made them evenly matched.
In any case, this coward Gu Changge was the laziest person He Qingzhi had ever met, completely unworthy of being an Alpha.
Some people were just that infuriating—born with advantages others could only dream of, yet they never cherished them, only squandered them.
The thought fueled He Qingzhi’s attacks, making them even more ferocious.
It was three against one. Even with his teammates just flanking and not attacking, the pressure on Gu Changge was immense.
One fled while the other gave chase. Gu Changge would occasionally turn back to counter with a move or two, the hair-thin needles hidden in his fan attacks impossible to fully defend against. He Qingzhi maintained a relentless assault, powerful internal energy surging with each sword strike. Whether they landed any hits on each other was another matter, but their combined efforts kicked up clouds of dust, shrouding the area.
The other two didn’t join the attack directly. Instead, they watched the two combatants’ movements intently, adjusting their positions to maintain a formation that would allow them to strike together and take down Gu Changge at a moment’s notice.
Unknowingly, the four of them drifted from their original location and entered the area where Ji Changqing had set her trap.
The moment they stepped into the zone, they all sensed something was wrong.
There was a discrepancy between visual and actual distance.
Every attack missed its mark, without Gu Changge even needing to dodge.
Gu Changge placed his hands on his hips and laughed obnoxiously. “Come on, come on! All three of you can come at me! This young master isn’t afraid!”
He Qingzhi cursed himself internally. He shouldn’t have been so concerned with his pride. He knew this bastard was a troll, yet he’d still wanted to beat him one-on-one until he was spitting teeth! To hell with pride. He called to his teammates, “Attack together!”
Let’s take this guy out first!
The two who had been standing by immediately sprang into action. After all, for Gu Changge to consider them a seeded team, their skills and judgment were naturally top-notch.
They could also tell that while there was a discrepancy between visual and actual distance, and the direction of the deviation changed each time, the magnitude of the offset wasn’t large. If the three of them ganged up on Gu Changge, one attack might not work, but two or three would. Eventually, one was bound to send him flying!
The three attacked in unison, and Gu Changge was immediately overwhelmed, unable to fend them off. He cursed himself inwardly. He shouldn’t have run his mouth so much; he should have stalled with more trash talk.
Less than ten minutes had passed. Who knew if Ji Changqing’s “cute little beasts” would arrive to save him in fifteen minutes or half an hour?
If it was half an hour, he probably couldn’t hold out against three people for that long!
But complaining wouldn’t help. Ji Changqing had set up a simple barrier formation to help him last longer and had even taught him the incantation to exit it. But in the chaos of being ganged up on, his footwork had faltered, and now he was just as lost in the formation as the other three.
The three of them fought with earth-shattering intensity, sending sand and stones flying. After a few more powerful blows, the hastily arranged formation by Ji Changqing was nearly destroyed. The chance of their attacks “missing the boss” dropped significantly. Where before seven or eight out of ten strikes would go wide, now more and more of them were forcing Gu Changge to counter or dodge defensively.
Eventually, the pressure on Gu Changge mounted until he was so besieged he couldn’t even get a word of trash talk out.
The attacks from He Qingzhi’s trio grew tighter and tighter, nearly shredding Gu Changge’s protective suit to ribbons. He couldn’t help but wonder if Ji Changqing had deliberately tricked him into staying here to tie these people down, making it easier for her to collect the point items and leave.
If that was the case, even if she got into the Fourth Military, he’d make her regret it!
Gu Changge silently vowed.
Just as his suspicion was turning to despair, as he continued to dodge and attack numbly, almost by instinct, and just as a combined strike from the three was about to hit him and knock him out of the assessment, a sudden whistle pierced the air.
That whistle was like a miracle cure. It was as if Gu Changge had swallowed a divine strength pill; he instantly erupted with two hundred percent of his power and, as if aided by the gods, escaped the fatal blow.
Gu Changge was so moved he wanted to weep. Sis, from now on, you’re my real sis! I should never have doubted you!
Following the whistle came six arrows, flying in quick succession toward the three opponents.
They were evenly distributed—two for each person.
Their accuracy was extremely high, but they didn’t have much killing power. They were, after all, just homemade arrows.
The three swatted them aside casually, their assault faltering for a brief moment.
And in that instant, a long rope came flying from a distance, accompanied by Ji Changqing’s shout: “Grab it.”
Gu Changge reacted instantly, his left hand snatching the rope while his right hand swung his fan in a final attack, forcing the trio to take a step back to avoid it.
From her perch high in a tree, Ji Changqing gave a powerful tug, yanking Gu Changge into the air.
Gu Changge roared with laughter, calling out a smug “Goodbye” to He Qingzhi.
He Qingzhi snorted coldly and unleashed a powerful strike. At the same time, he pressed a mechanism on his sword’s hilt. A smaller, secondary blade shot out, tethered by a Thousand-Coil Refined Silk thread. It flew with the sword energy to the end of its tether, then spun back as the silk pulled taut.
In that single motion of release and retraction, the secondary blade, along with the flexible yet razor-sharp refined silk, used the cutting force of its high-speed rotation to successfully slice a gash into the parachute cord—a rope said to require a special survival knife to cut.
Seeing that it worked, He Qingzhi desperately chased after the rope, unleashing several more strikes, each faster than the last, and each one landing precisely on the same gash.
Ji Changqing and Gu Changge both cursed, “Holy shit!”
“Wow, Gu Changge, did you dig up his family’s ancestral graves or something?”
“He, do you have to be so ruthless?”
What kind of grudge was this? Why the need to be so utterly merciless?
The two of them yelled, but He Qingzhi turned a deaf ear and continued his assault.
With every slash, Gu Changge’s trajectory would change, and Ji Changqing would have to exert herself again, trying to swing him back toward their intended path—away from the three opponents and onto their escape route.
It was like a long-distance tug-of-war, with Gu Changge as the little flag tied to the center of the rope.
Just then, several beast roars echoed from the distance.
The two of them beamed with joy, while the three below paled slightly.
But soon, the joyful expressions of the two turned to horror.
The parachute cord, as if pulled by the strings of fate, snapped.
Gu Changge, who was at the apex of his swing, plummeted straight toward the source of the roars, like a bird diving into the woods.
Gu Changge let out a miserable cry, “Sis, save me!”
Ji Changqing couldn’t help but recall the tragic incident where this guy’s bad luck had left him hanging from a tree. He really was the chosen one of misfortune.
But even as her mind wandered, she didn’t forget what was important. Pushing off with her toes, she shot toward Gu Changge like a gale, closing the distance to try and rope him again.
While airborne, Gu Changge adjusted his posture, fan in hand, preparing for a forced landing in case Ji Changqing couldn’t reach him in time.
But Ji Changqing was reliable. She used every ounce of her strength to rope him again just before he fell into the stampeding herd of beasts, flinging him in another direction.
Ji Changqing really is dependable! Having narrowly escaped danger, Gu Changge felt like whistling in relief. But then he got a good look at where he was headed and nearly burst into tears. Could his luck get any worse? Out of the frying pan and into the fire.
Ji Changqing had barely managed to snatch him from the beast herd, and in her haste, she had flung him straight toward a cliff face.
Before hitting the cliff, Gu Changge struggled, unleashing a powerful move with his fan that he’d been saving for a long time. It kicked up a cloud of sand and dust, slightly slowing his momentum just as a leaping Ji Changqing caught him.
After catching him, Ji Changqing channeled her strength into her longspear, preparing to drive it diagonally into the cliff face to break their fall.
Gu Changge couldn’t keep his mouth shut. “Hey, looks like our luck isn’t so bad after all…”
The “all” hadn’t even fully left his mouth when the rock they had stabbed crumbled under their combined momentum and the force of the spear. Ji Changqing, who had put too much power into the thrust, and Gu Changge, whom she was holding, tumbled face-first into the dark hole revealed by the collapsing rock.
The entrance sloped downward. The two of them tumbled through the winding passage, bumping against the walls with loud thuds.
After some time, they finally fell out of the narrow, twisting tunnel and into a flat, open space. The two tumbling potatoes finally came to a stop.
Covered in dirt, bruised and battered, they lay sprawled on the ground, every part of their bodies aching. They gasped for breath, not wanting to move an inch.
That last half hour had been way too intense!
Especially Gu Changge. He’d been ganged up on, swung wildly through the air, nearly thrown to a pack of beasts, and almost smashed into a cliff. It had been a rollercoaster, and even with his carefree attitude, he felt overwhelmed.
“Sis, we’re not about to run into something else, are we?” he asked, feeling rather anxious.
He was starting to despair over his luck. All those wonderful phrases—“a turn for the better,” “good fortune after hardship,” “turning peril into safety,” “finding a way out of a desperate situation”—had nothing to do with him. The only phrase that stuck to him with undying devotion was “unending misfortune”!
Even someone like Ji Changqing, who was riding a wave of good fortune and had all the momentum of a rising star, couldn’t carry him. Instead, she got dragged down with him.
Ji Changqing roared, “Shut the hell up and stop jinxing us!”
If you know you have the talent of a crow’s beak—where good predictions never come true but bad ones always do—and a constitution that attracts trouble just by walking down the street, then you shouldn’t be such a chatterbox.
Look what a mess you’ve gotten yourself into!
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