The Otherworldly Adventures of a Super Naive Girl

465: Zhu-en

The more she talked, the more her initial guilt faded and the more justified she felt. She really had nothing to do with the thieves. To retaliate against her like this was petty and malicious.

“Leave already. Xiao Wu said this is a competition and we have no obligation to help you.” Ink glanced at the girl who was now full of resentment. This kind of person who couldn’t handle things, it was better that they kept their distance. He didn’t want either of them to be entangled with her.

She shot daggers at Feng Wu as she was driven away. Too bad though, it was a waste. Feng Wu didn’t even notice.

The next day, Feng Wu and Ink packed up and started on the road together. Ink made a small sleigh out of wood and Sister Alpaca – she was indeed a monstrous beast – was able to pull both of them easily.

They only rode on the sleigh for a minute before running into people they knew.

Neither of them realized they had camped so close to another party. The people in that campground were also packing up for the morning. They had a mount as well, a fast and strong demon wolf, with a toboggan tethered behind it.

“Xiao Wu, Ink. It’s you guys. How lucky, you also found a mount? My demon wolf came from a chest too. I didn’t think mounts were available in other chests as well.” Zi Cheng greeted Ink and Feng Wu with a smile.

Seeing the alpaca made Zi Cheng wonder. Her system had clearly said there was only one mount in all the chests inside the arena, and that was the demon wolf in her possession. So where did this other one Feng Wu have come from?

The demon wolf raised its head and glanced at the alpaca. It had been unlucky and was chosen by the lord to be this woman’s here mount. On the other hand, the Sister Alpaca had voluntarily chosen to be mounted. Why did she do that?

The demon wolf never imagined there was a beast that stupid.

The Sister Alpaca gave the wolf a cold glance. I’m helping a friend. This is different. I’m doing this voluntarily. You were forced to let people ride you; it’s not the same.

Voluntarily. . .  what difference does that make? You’re still letting people ride you! The demon wolf couldn’t understand what the Sister Alpaca was thinking.

“I didn’t know we had camped so close to each other last night. You guys are really good to get here so fast.” Ink could see Zi Cheng wanted to ask about the alpaca. How was he going to let her get her way? He changed the conversation topic easily.

“Well we were also blessed with a mount, so of course we got here in good time; otherwise we’d still be at the base of the mountain.” Zi Cheng could see Ink wasn’t going to say anything else so she didn’t ask further and instead kept to his topic.

As they were talking, Yifu came out of the tent with another woman.

The woman glared at Feng Wu and Ink with hatred like they had killed her father. “Why are you here?”

“Zhu-en, what’s wrong? Do you know them?” Yifu asked curious, but in her heart she could already guess.

The girl named Zhu-en nodded fiercely. “They were the two who refused to help me and drove me away into the snow storm last night. If I hadn’t met you, I would have frozen to death and been forced out of the arena.” Zhu-en thought of how ruthless Feng Wu and Ink had been with her; the more she thought about it, the more resentful she became.

“These were the guys?!” The moment she learned this, Yifu looked at Zhu-en even more kindly. Anyone who hated Feng Wu was a friend of hers.

Yifu couldn’t wait to find fault with Feng Wu. “You were in the wrong Feng Wu. Do you even have any care at all for your fellow students? Senior Sister Zhu-en is a third year and you dared drive her away?! You’re too disrespectful towards your seniors!”

“Are you sick in the head, to talk like that? If, according to your statement, then don’t we all have to directly let the seventh-grade seniors win? As junior brothers and sisters, wouldn’t we be disrespectful if we accidentally won and caused them unhappiness?” Ink had been unhappy with Yifu for a long time so he clapped right back at her. He wasn’t worried about possibly offending any seniors with his words.

“What do you mean?! When did I even say that?!” Yifu glared angrily at Ink. “Feng Wu, do you always have to hide behind a man? Before it was Jier, who stuck around you all day, now it’s Ink all day long! It’s no wonder you became a mother at such a young age!” Yifu was vicious.

“Wah? That girl is too poisonous. What a vulgar thing to say,” said a guy watching the show on the screen. You really couldn’t judge people by their appearances. . . 

Yifu had no idea her every word and expression were being transmitted on screen for the audience to watch. It was transmitted in full 3D too.

“Wasn’t it?” Someone agreed readily.

“No. That Feng Wu really was too cruel. She threw that poor girl, Zhu-en, out in the snow. If someone hadn’t taken her in, I’m afraid that would have been the end of Zhu-en. She would have failed and been booted out of the challenge.” One of the girls felt pity for Zhu-en, who had been driven away into the cold.

“What the hell? Are you possessed by the Virgin Mary or something? This is a competition. Who would be fool enough to save their opponent? Feng Wu was right; a competition is a competition. You have no duty to save anyone.” This came from a much more sensible person.

Most of the students agreed with the statement, but a small minority felt Feng Wu didn’t care enough about her fellow students. Even if it was a competition, locking out a senior was too unsympathetic and cold-blooded a thing to do.

“You are jealous of me.” Feng Wu declared while looking at Yifu seriously.

Master said people who spoke ill of her were jealous of her and that she should pay them no mind. A person who was jealous and small minded would never learn and therefore would never become great.

“Jealous? Of you?! Dream on!” Yifu’s body was electric and about to explode; she was like a cat who’d just had her tail stepped on.

You’re a bitch who hook up with men and have children out of wedlock. Like hell I’d be jealous of you! Yifu raged furiously in her mind.

“Master says people who are jealous will not achieve great things. I suggest you clear your mind. If you continue like this, your strength will never reach the highest realm.” Feng Wu kindly shared some advice.

“You. . . ” Yifu was practically spasming. She suspected Feng Wu was sent to make her blood boil. The girl had to be doing it deliberately to make her mad!

“That’s enough Yifu!” Zi Cheng stopped Yifu, who was getting worked up by Feng Wu.

“Xiao Wu, I’m sorry. Yifu isn’t malicious. Please don’t take it to heart. But you know, what you did yesterday was wrong. I hope you can apologize to Senior Sister Zhu-en. . . 

466: Moving Towards the Desert

. . . even though it’s a competition, Senior Sister Zhu-en is still a senior. Why don’t you apologize and we’ll all move on. What do you think?”

Zi Cheng looked kindly at Feng Wu. Her proposal was a good one. It would increase her favorability score with Zhu-en while reconciling the two parties. Zhu-en wouldn’t bear a grudge against Feng Wu, so things wouldn’t be an issue for Feng Wu after they left the arena. It was good wasn’t it? And all Feng Wu had to do was apologize.

Neither parties would suffer a big loss and there wouldn’t be any hurt feelings. She never expected to encounter disagreement from Feng Wu though.

“I did nothing wrong; I won’t apologize. No one here is special and everyone is an opponent.” Feng Wu blinked and replied with a straight face.

“You’re right Xiao Wu. I support you!” Ink didn’t want Feng Wu to suffer under Zhu-en’s anger. It was obvious Feng Wu hadn’t done anything wrong, so there was no reason for her to apologize.

“Flower, let’s go.” Feng Wu ignored Zi Cheng’s group and called her friend to leave. Promptly enough, the Sister Alpaca pulled her and Ink away.

Zi Cheng looked on in disbelief as Feng Wu and Ink left. They actually left! Without so much as a by your leave!

It had been a long time since anyone treated Zi Cheng this way. She stood unbelieving for a moment. Why did Feng Wu reject her proposal? It was beneficial for everyone. Wasn’t Feng Wu afraid of offending a third year?

Did Feng Wu care? This girl didn’t consider things like that. The imaginary line between offending people and not offending them wasn’t something she could read.

“Xiao Cheng! Look at her! She didn’t give us any face at all!” Yifu notched another mark against Feng Wu in her mental book of grievances. One day she was going to collect.

Zhu-en looked gloomily at Feng Wu’s back. Who did that junior think she was? Acting so condescending toward her. Dared to not give her any face at all. Just wait until the challenge was over and they were all outside the arena. She would make sure Feng Wu understood the ramifications of offending a senior sister.

Zi Cheng was uncomfortable with the whole affair as well, but she still tried to comfort Zhu-en with some consoling words. Feng Wu just had a careless temperament and Zhu-en shouldn’t take it to heart. There was no real harm meant and so on and so forth.

Zi Cheng didn’t really care if Zhu-en believed her or not. It was Feng Wu’s decision to offend a senior sister; the girl would have to handle the consequences on her own. Zi Cheng was only a classmate, so all she could do was try to alleviate the situation with a few words.

Feng Wu and Ink ran to the front of the challengers, then sat down and grilled fish and drank fresh fish soup. Zhu-en had already faded from Feng Wu’s thoughts. Unimportant people were like passersby, and Feng Wu rarely spent energy to remember them.

“Xiao Wu, we should be able to reach the desert after today. But there won’t be much water there, so we should make sure we have enough food and water before entering.” Ink came to this conclusion after thinking about their situation.

It wasn’t a big deal to enter the desert one day later. The real difficulty lay in leaving the snowy mountain prepared for the next location.

“Catch fish!” Feng Wu’s eyes were bright when she spoke. She had been in love with eating grilled fish since yesterday.

“Yeah.” Ink replied absentmindedly.

After determining what to do, Feng Wu asked Sister Alpaca to find if there was a frozen lake or something similar nearby.

Sister Alpaca hadn’t been on the mountain long, but she already had a firm grasp of the layout. They found a frozen lake easily under her guidance.

They quickly broke through the frozen surface of the small lake and proceeded to fill their bags with water after catching a bunch of fish. They easily caught fish but it took them a long time to prepare their catch. Ink spent half the day roasting everything over the fire.

There was a lot of fish to cook but Feng Wu couldn’t help, so Ink was left to do all of it on his own. By the time he finished and they managed to pack everything away, it was already noon.

Sister Alpaca carried them down the mountain. From their vantage point, they could see the vast desert ahead. It was so unbelievable. The mountain was directly connected to the desert, truly worthy of being a virtual world.

While Feng Wu and Ink were gathering food, Zi Cheng’s group had rushed ahead. Zhu-en didn’t want to stay with Zi Cheng so they came to an agreement that she would part ways and each person would take a different path.

Zi Cheng didn’t object to the idea. She was not familiar with Zhu-en and didn’t want to risk someone stabbing her in the back.

On the other hand, Yifu was reluctant to let Zhu-en leave them. She and Zhu-en had bonded really well over shared commiseration about Feng Wu. As the saying went: an enemy of an enemy was a friend.

Other than Zi Cheng’s group, many others rushed from behind and entered the desert. This included Ming Xi, who had gone in along with Tian Ya.

Luis, Gerasi and Elena were approaching the base of the mountain as well. Feng Wu and Ink had fallen to the end of the pack.

Feng Wu didn’t know this, but even if she did, she wouldn’t have cared. She and Ink had already decided to enter the desert tomorrow anyway. They weren’t in a hurry and were slowly taking their time descending the mountain. It would be easy to get lost in the desert, so the first to enter wouldn’t necessarily be the first to leave. Other people also knew this, but the opportunity to enter early was too good to lose.

As more and more people poured into the desert, the number of those on the mountain dropped.

The next day, before dawn, Sister Alpaca took Ink and Feng Wu into the desert.

They put their thick clothes and heavy shoes away as these were inappropriate for the desert. The sled wasn’t usable anymore either without the snow. Feng Wu ended up riding on Sister Alpaca while Ink pulled them forward.

Ink was in charge of navigating and reading the large and complicated map. They couldn’t afford to make any mistakes; even a little error could mean being stuck in the desert. Ink felt better taking care of it himself; if left to Feng Wu, he was afraid they’d end up in a ditch or worse.

Unlike Feng Wu, Ink was able to quickly analyze the map and find the most efficient route for them to take.

The two people and one alpaca went deep into the desert.