Chapter 10 – I’m Not a Girl!

Su Ming casually grabbed a Lust Ghost. When the ghost saw that his captor was such a tiny loli, he burst into laughter.

“Little sister, you don’t actually want to have some fun with big brother here, do you?”

Su Ming casually dispatched a nearby Fourth Realm ghost with a wisp of ghostly qi. The Lust Ghost was instantly terrified and at a loss. Although he was at the Fifth Realm, he knew this loli before him was clearly not as simple as she looked…

The Lust Ghost immediately dropped to his knees: “Big sister, whatever you need, just say it. As long as you spare my life.”

Su Ming: “Tell me, is there a Flood Dragon around here?”

The moment the Lust Ghost heard “Flood Dragon,” fear gripped him: “Y-yes… there is. If I may ask, what business does big sister have going there…”

Su Ming: “You seem to know something. Spill it.”

Lust Ghost: “Uh… well, it’s like this. Legend says that whoever can kill the Flood Dragon will gain an extraordinary power. But when the military swept through earlier, they didn’t manage to kill it. Does that count as intelligence?”

Su Ming was curious. Why hadn’t they killed the Flood Dragon? Surely the nation could send someone capable of dealing with a single Flood Dragon.

The Lust Ghost continued: “That Flood Dragon has already reached the Ninth Realm. The strange thing is, for the past five years, a man and a woman have come every year to challenge the Flood Dragon, but they’ve all failed.”

Su Ming grew even more curious: “Every year?”

The Lust Ghost hastily knelt again: “Yes, every year. Big sister, spare me—I’ve told you everything I know. Can you let me go now…”

Su Ming couldn’t quite figure it out. Why did they come to challenge it every year? Why didn’t the military attack? Was it to make the Flood Dragon submit to them? What would be the point of that…

Thinking about it, she suddenly felt that maybe she shouldn’t go after the Vermilion Bird after all. Wasn’t that essentially opposing the military? That seemed a bit dangerous…

Su Ming looked at the Lust Ghost with a kind and benevolent expression, then asked in a soft voice: “How about this—guess whether I’m male or female. Guess right, and I’ll let you go.”

The Lust Ghost took one look and answered without hesitation: “Female!”

And then the Lust Ghost turned into a ghost bead, which Su Ming tossed into the system space.

Blood Soul Ghost asked Su Ming: “Hehehe, master, aren’t you a girl though?”

Su Ming clenched her fists. She hadn’t expected Blood Soul Ghost to be so obedient when she first arrived, but now she was getting snarky too, huh…

Su Ming: “Damn, I forgot to ask him where exactly the Flood Dragon is.”

Blood Soul Ghost looked into the distance and suddenly spotted a massive figure drifting through the sky: “Master, master, it seems to be over there.”

Su Ming looked toward the distance and saw that the figure floating in the sky was indeed the Flood Dragon. With her Grandmaster Realm sensory abilities, she could perceive that a battle was taking place over there.

Su Ming: “Let’s go. We need to hurry.”

Meanwhile, back at the base, they could sense that Guo Dong and Yun Shang had already begun attacking the Flood Dragon. However, because ghostly qi was thick in that area, they couldn’t tell what was happening.

But the company commander was more concerned about that Sword Ghost. He noticed that the Sword Ghost hadn’t gone berserk—it seemed more like it was being controlled by someone, and it hadn’t attacked any of the students.

Su Ming and Du Liang’s points had already reached over two thousand. Since they were splitting evenly, plus the original point difference, Su Ming was now in first place, with Du Liang and Shi Zhen tied for second.

Shi Zhen was grinding her teeth in frustration. She hadn’t expected Su Ming and Du Liang to suddenly appear out of nowhere. At this rate, in half an hour she’d be in third place.

Of course, it was really just Sword Ghost doing all the slaughtering. Du Liang, Ice Crystal Turtle, and a group of chef ghosts started chatting and eating, though Du Liang complained that the food these chef ghosts made was truly awful…

Du Liang thought to himself, could these ghosts have been beaten to death in their past lives for cooking so terribly?

Just as he was thinking, Sword Ghost came back carrying another pile of ghost beads and beast cores. However, since Sword Ghost was Su Ming’s ghost, all the spoils he obtained were left for Su Ming.

Du Liang didn’t mind either. After all, Su Ming was the one carrying the team, and their family wasn’t short on these resources anyway. If Su Ming liked them, she could have them.

Ice Crystal Turtle’s job was also very simple—just to safeguard Su Ming’s spoils.

Now his back was already covered with all kinds of beast cores and ghost beads. If Su Ming hadn’t allowed the chef ghosts to eat the spirit beast corpses, Ice Crystal Turtle would probably have had to carry those back too…

Ice Crystal Turtle was on the verge of tears: “A turtle’s life is not easy…”

Late at night, Ice Crystal Turtle and Du Liang had both fallen asleep, while the chef ghosts were still trying to replicate Su Ming’s cooking. There was no helping it—hers really was better than theirs.

Sword Ghost stood guard around the perimeter. If he had any consciousness, he would probably have complained quite a bit, since he was the strongest among them besides the Flood Dragon and the loli Su Ming inside, and now he had to stand watch for a bunch of pathetically weak ones…

One chef ghost asked the Chef Ghost Leader: “Are we really going to follow that human? I have a feeling he’s not reliable.”

Chef Ghost Leader: “What else can we do? We haven’t gotten out of here in years since we were captured. Besides, the boss’s strength is definitely not as simple as it appears on the surface. See that Sword Ghost over there? Do you think he could have been taken down with ordinary tricks?”

At that moment, Ice Crystal Turtle’s shell inexplicably ached. It seemed he once had an experience of being used as a thrown projectile by Su Ming to take down Sword Ghost directly…

The Chef Ghost Leader continued speaking to his underlings: “What we really want is just a peaceful place to cook, isn’t it? If the boss can really deliver that, why wouldn’t we follow?”

Su Ming hadn’t expected that the Chef Ghost Leader would help consolidate the team’s unity. From then on, this group’s loyalty to Su Ming reached an astonishing one hundred percent.

Don’t underestimate that number—after all, even some ghost pets or beast pets couldn’t achieve one hundred percent loyalty to their ghost tamers or beast tamers. This could be considered a miracle in itself.

At this moment, the loli-form Su Ming was hiding in the shadows, watching the Flood Dragon battle the saint and saintess of the Heavenly Saint Sect. She could see that the few pseudo-sacred beasts were about to reach their limit.

Guo Dong gritted his teeth and persisted: “I didn’t expect him to get stronger again. I’m afraid we can’t take him down, let alone the one inside.”

Yun Shang said calmly: “Then let’s leave.”

The Pseudo-Black Tortoise blocked one final attack from the Flood Dragon before collapsing heavily to the ground, gravely injured. The Pseudo-Azure Dragon and Pseudo-Black Tortoise launched one last Thunder Burst and Wind Blade attack, which the Flood Dragon blocked.

The Flood Dragon taunted: “Year after year you challenge and year after year you fail. This year, you’re not going to run away like cowards again, are you?”

Guo Dong sensed something wrong: “Even if you’re at Early Ninth Realm, how can you withstand the attacks of the Three Sacred Beasts?”

The Flood Dragon sneered: “Tch, your Three Sacred Beasts are all pseudo-sacred beasts. Not only that, you even erased their consciousness. They’re just empty shells. Never mind me—even the heavily injured one inside could take you all down!”

Guo Dong grew anxious: “Ours are all genuine! What are you barking about!”

Flood Dragon: “Fine then, I’ll make you face reality.”

With that, he began gathering icy energy in his mouth, charging up his breath attack.

Su Ming watched without any sense of urgency. After all, none of these people were on her side—let them fight, and if they killed each other, so be it.

However, Su Ming noticed that the woman seemed a bit off, as if she wasn’t all that interested in snatching Vermilion Bird away.

Just then, a voice suddenly rang out: “Su Ming!”

Su Ming instinctively turned around, but quickly realized something was wrong—she had already transformed into her loli form, so no one should have been able to recognize her.

What’s more, neither she nor Blood Soul Ghost had sensed anyone approaching at all…

(There’s a vote in Chapter 3. Readers who have made it this far are welcome to participate. Thank you.)