Roaring Dragon-Chapter 69: Looks Like Great Qian Might Really Fall Because of Me

Sha-sha-sha~

Crack—

The sound of leaves rustling and snapping came from the dim woods.

Xie Jinhuan gripped the Zhenglun Sword like facing a mortal enemy, eyes locked on a small earthen mound ten paces away.

The mound wobbled. Then, as the massive shape stood up and its millstone-sized head turned his way, he finally saw what it was — a giant wild boar.

Covered in bristling black hair, the boar’s tusks were two feet long, its shoulders over five feet tall. From a distance, it looked like a baby elephant. Bloodshot eyes, flaring nostrils—it snorted and began pawing the ground when it spotted this uninvited guest.

Scratch... scratch...

Xie Jinhuan saw this and cursed his useless servant girl under his breath. A bad feeling welled up inside him.

After all, "One pig, two bears, three tigers"—running into this beast in the mountains was damn near a death sentence. In his current state, taking down this wild boar would be even harder than killing Taishu Dan.

No way... Am I, a dignified third-rank martial warrior, about to be gored to death by a wild pig in the mountains...?

Wait a second—this might not be just any pig...

He suddenly recalled the time his ghost wife made a horse go berserk, and an idea sparked.

“Hey, Great Beauty Ye, can you possess that wild boar?”

...?

Ye Hongshang was sitting on a tree branch with her red parasol slung over her shoulder, ready to watch the show. She frowned at his question.

“You trying to ride the pig, or ride me?”

Honestly? Xie Jinhuan wanted to do both right now. Horses were basically useless in these overgrown hills. He lowered his voice.

“Come on, quick! Before it runs off!”

Ye Hongshang gave him a helpless look, then raised her slender right hand and curled a finger.

At once, the wild boar’s feral glare softened. It clopped forward in dainty steps, then dropped to its knees before him, tail wagging like a damn puppy.

Thud—

Xie Jinhuan’s eyes lit up. He tied the little horse he'd bought in town to a tree and vaulted onto the boar’s back, thighs clamping its sides.

“Hyah—OH SHIT—!”

RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE—!

The half-ton beast bolted like a mad thing, crashing through underbrush and vines, carving out a dirt trail through the woods with a thunderous roar.

Clinging tightly to the boar’s bristles, Xie Jinhuan barely kept from being thrown off. Branches whipped his cheeks, stinging with every strike, but damn—this thing was fast, like thunder on hooves. In moments, they’d cleared a ridge and were hurtling down the other side.

Ye Hongshang floated ahead, clearly enjoying herself.

“Better not let this story get out,” she chuckled. “If you ever become a peak-tier cultivator, this pig might be remembered in legends right alongside you.”

Xie Jinhuan had always been carefree. Seeing their destination drawing near, he shouted back:

“As long as I survive this, I don’t care if I ride a pig—or marry a ghost and become Number One Under Heaven!”

“Heh~”

Ye Hongshang twirled in midair and transformed into a scarlet phoenix, golden flames trailing from her wings as she flew alongside him. She looked like Death’s own harbinger.

Xie Jinhuan charged forward beneath her, momentarily basking in the wind—spring breeze beneath my hooves, joy in my heart, that kind of vibe.

But the joy didn’t last long...

Night of the Sixteenth, Eighth Month

Only seven days had passed since that stormy night when he woke up.

The moon was bright. The tattered old tent still stood deep in the forest, only now blanketed in fallen leaves.

Inside, the bedding and junk hadn’t been touched. Even the tomb-robbing journal lay casually discarded to the side.

But near the collapsed grave shaft, all the surrounding vegetation had withered—darker and more lifeless than the forest around it.

Standing in the abandoned camp, Tiangang Mace in hand, Xie Jinhuan stared at the strange scene around the hole, brows furrowed.

“What the hell happened here?”

Ye Hongshang stood at his side, gave a shrug.

“The purpose of a Demon-Suppressing Tomb is to sever a being from heaven and earth—to starve them of spiritual energy until they die. Now that the tomb is damaged and leaking energy, even though I’m not inside anymore, my body’s absorbing everything nearby to recover on its own.”

Xie Jinhuan’s eyes widened in sudden understanding.

“Good thing it’s autumn—won’t look too strange. But come next spring, nothing’s gonna grow here?”

“It’ll grow again. But you won’t be around to see it.”

“...?”

Xie Jinhuan frowned, glancing at the breathtaking ghost woman beside him.

“What do you mean by that?”

Ye Hongshang spun her red parasol and explained matter-of-factly:

“The withered plants are just collateral. What I’m really absorbing is the ambient spiritual energy in the environment.

“If you don’t find a way to reseal the Demon-Suppressing Tomb soon, once I regain even half of my strength, this half-broken tomb won’t hold me.

“Then the spiritual energy from all four seas will surge toward me. My soul will fully return, my power restored—and you can finally fulfill your promise and screw me till I cry.”

“...Wait. You mean even if I don’t dig you up, you’ll still get out?”

Ye Hongshang nodded.

“The tomb’s already been breached. If I really wanted out, I have a dozen ways. Forget hiring someone—if I just possess Lin Wanyi, I could dig myself out.

“But I didn’t know what I’d do once I’m out, and I didn’t want to hurt you. That’s why I’ve been waiting for you to decide. If you want to seal me up, I’ll help. If you want to unseal me, I’ll back you up.”

Xie Jinhuan suddenly felt that ghost wife of his was... genuinely considerate.

But Great Qian? Great Qian might be screwed.

He still didn’t know her full background, but any spirit who’d been buried for a hundred years and was still kicking definitely wasn’t some minor ghost.

If she was a righteous Daoist founder and mentally stable—then all’s well.

He’d have a drop-dead gorgeous ghost wife with god-tier cultivation. Worst case, he just becomes her boy-toy and doesn’t get beat up.

But what kind of proper young lady gets buried inside a Demon-Suppressing Tomb?

If she was a demonic being or her nature wasn’t completely suppressed, then when she breaks out, it would cause a massive disturbance. Danyang would notice first, then the entire Great Qian would mobilize to hunt her—and get wiped out in return.

He, chosen of the Succubus Path, would have no choice but to cling to her thigh, rise with her momentum, wipe out both righteous and demonic sects, and finally replace Zhao with Xie to claim the throne, filling the harem with immortal beauties...

Wouldn’t that make him the next “Venomous Strategist Xie Wenhe”...?

Better to betray the world than let the world betray me...

...Is that why I started digging up graves?

Xie Jinhuan felt like with his personality, he might actually do something that nuts if cornered.

Still, the right path was safer for now. So he asked:

“Can you control it? Like... stop your body from recovering, buy me time to level up and investigate your background?”

Ye Hongshang shrugged again.

“This isn’t cultivation—it’s natural recovery. Can you tell a wound to stop healing?”

Obviously not. Xie Jinhuan asked again:

“So, by next spring, you’ll be back to half power, and the tomb blows up?”

“Won’t take that long.”

“...Huh?!”

His heart dropped. “How long then?”

She smiled faintly.

“I told you our first meeting—I’d give you one month to decide.

“Normally, I’d be able to bust out in ten days. But the spiritual energy here’s weak, and the breach is small. So it’ll take closer to a month.

“You’ve already burned through seven days. That leaves twenty-two days and four hours.”

Clang—

The Tiangang Mace slipped # Nоvеlight # from his hands.

He’d thought the one-month deadline was a courtesy. If he didn’t decide, she’d just move on.

Never imagined she meant: if he didn’t decide, she’d break out on her own.

With the Dao Surge Pill, he’d barely reached third-rank, but his body was still heavily strained. Even if he finished the Dragonblood Pill, it’d be nearly a month from now—at best he’d be mid-third-rank.

At that pace, reaching second-rank would take a miracle, let alone first.

And if he didn’t hit first-rank, he couldn’t reseal the tomb. If ghost wife turned out to be some world-ending demoness... freёwebnoѵel.com

Xie Jinhuan took a deep breath.

The Zhao Dynasty might really fall because of me...

Sensing his despair, Ye Hongshang draped an arm over his shoulders.

“Where there’s a will, there’s a way. If you really want to seal the tomb, there’s still a shot.”

Xie Jinhuan felt the warmth of her leaning on him—only to realize he passed right through again. He grumbled and drew his hand back.

“What’s the plan? Don’t tell me it’s killing sprees for demonic power. That works fast, yeah, but you need to massacre whole towns. Even if I had the guts, there’s no way to pull it off in twenty days.”

She thought for a moment.

“That little Su brat’s Vital Tiger Pills—if they work as advertised, you could break into second-rank.

“With twenty days, you’ll finish the Dragonblood Pill and stabilize at third-rank. Add the Vital Tiger Pill, second-rank’s doable.

“To bridge the final gap, just pop another Dao Surge Pill—even if it damages your foundation.

“There’s no bottleneck in the mid-late stages of Divine Qi. If you can barely touch first-rank for half an hour, that’s enough to reseal the tomb.”

Sounded semi-doable.

“...If I take that many pills, I’m not gonna overdose and croak, right?”

Ye Hongshang raised a brow.

“You really think you can stuff yourself with pills and not have side effects?”

“...Huh?”

“But it won’t kill you. With the right heavenly herbs later, you can patch up the damage. And you might not even need to take the last pill—use the time to investigate. What if I am a good girl?”

Xie Jinhuan hesitated, then nodded.

“I’ll give it a shot. If I don’t get the pills done in a month, and I find out you’re not the sweet girl you pretend to be—we part ways clean, and you pretend we never met.”

“Ooh~”

Ye Hongshang looked heartbreakingly reluctant.

“I'm no heartless woman. If I come out, the first thing I’ll do is find you. I’ll be the big wife, Wanyi the second, and little Mo as the youngest.”

“......”

Tempting as that fantasy was, now wasn’t the time for daydreams. Xie Jinhuan turned to fetch the tomb robbers’ shovel from the tent and began digging a new pit in a hidden spot.

Scratch, scratch—

The wild boar he’d ridden sat wagging its tail at the edge of the camp. One wave from Ye Hongshang, and it came trotting over to dig with gusto. Way more useful than Meiqiu, who was still floating overhead acting like a supervisor.

After they dug a big hole, Xie Jinhuan tossed the robbers’ corpses, the tent, and their bags into it, then buried it all—also clearing out the withered plants.

Only once every trace was cleaned did he feel the tiniest bit at ease.

As long as no one discovered the tomb, he’d have twenty days without incident.

He had the Dao Surge Pill. The Dragonblood Pill was nearly done. And a damn good alchemist was right here with him. The only missing piece was the Sixty-Year Lotus Rhizome needed for the Vital Tiger Pill.

Twenty-two days wasn’t long, but it wasn’t short either. If he focused, he should be able to find one.

And even if he didn’t—maybe she really was a good wife?

In just over half a month, he could be spooning a celestial empress in his sixteen-foot divine ride...

Thinking of that, Xie Jinhuan lit up with new resolve. He vaulted onto the boar again, looked back at the place where the nightmare had begun, and gave the beast a nudge.

“Hyah—HOLY SHIT—!”

RUMBLE RUMBLE—

Dust flew through the wild hills. Like an arrow loosed from its string, they charged out of the mountains.

Meiqiu soared above. In just moments, man, bird, and ghost vanished into the forested peaks, leaving only the silver moon and stars to shine over the ancient tomb that had slumbered through countless springtimes and autumns...

—End of Volume—