Chapter 74: You Can Use a Bow and Arrow
“So, which of you shall drink? You, or your wife?”
Shen San: “She drinks.”
Lu Yunxi: “I’ll drink.”
The two spoke in perfect unison, momentarily startling the man in the black robes. Then, he erupted into a long, grating laugh.
After he had his fill of laughter, he looked at Shen San with a twisted expression. “Did you see that? This is the woman you love. She disregards your life for her own. Do you still love her?”
Shen San’s expression turned odd, while Lu Yunxi remained completely stone-faced.
“Excuse me, how much for the water?” Shen San asked helplessly, seeing that his master had no intention of engaging in the conversation.
The man in black was clearly eager to sow chaos. “Oh? Are you certain you want her to have it? You’re just going to lie here and wait for death?”
“Yes, I—” Before Shen San could finish, Lu Yunxi grabbed his arm.
“That’s enough, Shen San. Don’t ask again.” She leveled a calm, cold gaze at the merchant. “Let’s go. We can survive without his water.”
“But Master—” Shen San began, frowning.
Lu Yunxi turned and walked away without a second thought. Even though she knew logically that Shen San was a player who couldn’t truly die, hearing the merchant speak so casually of his demise made her chest tighten with an uncomfortable knot of anger.
She kept her head down, marching quickly through the sand, her heart heavy. What is wrong with me? she scolded herself. He’s just a player! We are from completely different worlds. Why am I getting upset over a fake death?
“Master!” Shen San called out, scurrying to catch up with her.
He looked at his master, who had suddenly plummeted into a dark mood, feeling entirely at a loss. In his presence, she was always the picture of calm and composure. He had never seen her look so… lost.
“Master, what’s wrong? If you don’t like that guy, we can just ignore him!” He carefully reached out, tentatively touching her shoulder with one finger.
Lu Yunxi raised her head, giving him a long, complicated look. Do I really see this guy as my apprentice?
She took a deep breath, tilted her head back, and closed her eyes. Lu Yunxi, you’re going crazy, she thought silently. You aren’t even from the same dimension. You treat him like a disciple, but to him, you’re just an NPC.
“Master?” a cautious voice whispered.
When she opened her eyes again, her emotions were back under lock and key. She offered him a teasing smile. “It’s nothing. I just suddenly remembered something.”
Seeing her return to her usual self, Shen San breathed a massive sigh of relief. “Master, you were scary just then. I thought—”
BOOM—
Lu Yunxi’s eyes snapped shut as she violently shoved Shen San to the side. In the same motion, she threw herself into a backward roll, narrowly avoiding a lethal strike that blasted the sand where they had just stood.
“What are you doing?!” she hissed, her gaze icy as she glared at the approaching man in black. If her reflexes hadn’t been razor-sharp, they both would have been killed instantly.
The man in the black robes wore a grotesque smile, his voice rasping with malice. “What am I doing? I’m going to send both you bastards to hell!”
Shen San’s expression turned grim. He drew his massive broadsword and stepped in front of her. “We didn’t provoke you. Are you sure you want to take on both of us alone?”
Lu Yunxi wondered if the man simply had a vendetta against couples. The problem was, she and her disciple weren’t even a couple!
“You’ve misunderstood,” she said, hoping to avoid a fight. “We are master and disciple, not lovers.” Walking through the desert was draining enough; she didn’t want to waste energy on a senseless brawl.
However, her words only seemed to fuel the man’s rage. He raised his hand, unleashing a flurry of magical combos that caused the desert floor to explode in a deafening crackle of sand and heat.
“Stop pretending! I won’t believe your lies! You wretches, just die!” His black robes billowed in the desert wind, making him look exactly like a stereotypical villain from a television drama.
Shen San charged forward, his heavy sword carving through the air. With a thunderous clang, the blade struck, but the merchant’s cloak acted like enchanted steel, effortlessly deflecting the blow. The man in black swung his arm, trying to throw him back, but Shen San seized the opening and drove his blade toward the man’s midsection.
Lu Yunxi watched the exchange, her brow furrowed as she searched her spatial inventory for a weapon. Shen San was Level 68, but the man in black was Level 78. That ten-level gap was a chasm. Level 70 was the threshold for “Master” rank; many players spent their entire lives trying to cross it. As an advanced-tier fighter, Shen San was at a severe disadvantage against a true Master-level expert.
Though she had only recently hit Level 71, she was technically a Master herself. Her eyes lit up as her hand finally brushed against her bow.
Just as she pulled it out, Shen San’s defense crumbled. He was sent flying back by a powerful blast. Even as he tumbled through the air, he yelled, “Master, run!”
Seeing Shen San hit the ground and cough up a spray of pixelated blood, Lu Yunxi abandoned all pretense of being a helpless NPC. She drew her Orange-grade bow and took a solid stance.
“Ten Thousand Arrows!”
A storm of shimmering light-arrows erupted from the bow, raining down on the man in black. He sneered, allowing the “rain” to pelt him, but as he realized the arrows were actually piercing his defenses, his face darkened.
“It seems you’re a better fighter than that brat!” the man spat. “I thought you were a useless civilian, seeing how desperately he protected you.” He caught sight of Shen San’s shocked face and burst into a taunting laugh. “Oh? It seems you’ve been hiding your true strength from him. If you don’t even know each other’s secrets, how can you claim to be a pair?”
Lu Yunxi ignored his babble. She kept her arrows flying, determined to overwhelm him before he could regain the initiative. Even with her high attack power, however, that damned cloak was a problem; it reduced the lethality of her shots significantly.
After a few minutes of intense exchange, she took a moment to shove a bun into her mouth to restore her mana.
“Is that cloak Gold-quality?” she demanded. Her Orange-grade bow was among the best in its tier, yet it couldn’t penetrate the fabric. It had to be a Gold-tier artifact.
Whether out of arrogance or pure confidence, the man didn’t stop her from eating. He just laughed. “Hahaha! You have a good eye! This is indeed Gold-grade. Your shabby little arrows will never breach it!”
By now, Shen San had finally managed to top off his health bar. Hearing the merchant’s boast, a plan formed in his mind. He lunged forward, not with his sword, but with his bare hands. He grappled the man, pinning his arms and wrenching the cloak aside.
“Master, now! Do it!” he roared.
Lu Yunxi didn’t hesitate. She lunged in, snatched the black robe away and stuffed it into her spatial backpack in one swift motion, then leaped back to open fire.
Without his Gold-tier cloak, the merchant was revealed to be a fragile mage. Even though he was a Master-level expert, his physical defense couldn’t withstand the combined assault of a high-strength warrior and a Master-tier archer. Together, they finally beat the man into the sand.
Exhausted, both of them collapsed onto the hot sand, too tired to care about the heat.
Once she caught her breath, Lu Yunxi checked the loot. There were dozens of bottles of water—half of which she immediately tossed to Shen San—along with a Gold-quality staff and the cloak they had snatched. While the staff was useless to both of them, the cloak was a massive find.
But as she inspected the cloak more closely, she found a surprising hidden detail.
“Shen—”
“Master!”
They both spoke at once, then paused, looking at each other. Lu Yunxi gestured for him to go first.
“Master… so you can use a bow and arrow?” Shen San laughed awkwardly, his hand nervously playing with the sand. He didn’t quite know how to articulate the feeling in his chest. He had always assumed he knew her, but it turned out he knew nothing of her past, her skills, or her secrets.
He realized then that he had subconsciously treated her like an NPC. Despite her looking and acting so human, he had still been looking at her through the lens of a game.
