I Am the Fated Villain
chapter-344

The light was dim, and the air in the dungeon was damp. Even the bloody and rotten smell in here that reminded people of corpses. In this space, despair and fear filled the air, making everyone shiver and shudder.

Jiang Chen and everyone inside all spotted the same restless and fearful expression they had on at first when Gu Changge and Hei Yanyu walked in. However, they soon calmed down as they got themselves ready to see how things were going to progress.

Although they had a vague guess that the man in white in front of them was no ordinary person, since he was much more terrifying than this queen-like woman in a black dress, they still subconsciously felt that he wasn’t a bad person. After all, he had a divine feeling to time, one which could turn them to dust if he so chooses. With someone who seemed to be like a god above the clouds, beautiful and untainted, it was hard for anyone to hold any dislike of him upon first impression.

Later, when they heard Gu Changge asking them questions, everyone was stunned as they couldn’t understand what he was saying.

Jiang Chen was the only one who felt uneasy out of nowhere. He especially felt that something was wrong when the white-clad man asked Xiao Ruoyin a question out of everyone else here. Even so, he didn’t think the man held any unfavourable thoughts of her. After all, from the man’s demeanour and gaze, from the start, it was as though he was merely looking down at some ants. Thus, he looked as though he didn’t care about them much.

Xiao Ruoyin might be beautiful, but the face of the woman in black was definitely the winner if compared.

What made Jiang Chen believe something was wrong was when he noticed Xiao Ruoyin’s previous words and her current expression. [She seemed to have known about this time travel a long time ago, which was why she had accepted our current predicament so readily.]

Even so, with how pale her face was becoming, Jiang Chen’s heart suddenly thumped painfully in worry.

[She seems to understand what that white-clad man is saying. Not only that, the man seemed to have realised it as soon as he entered this dungeon.] Jiang Chen subconsciously thought.

Sure enough, when he heard Xiao Ruoyin spit out those strange syllables, Jiang Chen understood the situation and was reeling from shock.

[She really seems to have known about this bizarre world. Maybe for a long time now. But, had she never revealed anything to me?] This brought about a bitter feeling in Jiang Chen’s heart.

“Goddess Xiao actually understood him? Why had she never told us of this before? What else is she hiding? She was the one who invited us to go to the ruin for the expedition, and yet, she is hiding so many things from us…”

The rest of the people, other than Jiang Chen, also looked at Xiao Ruoyin with their eyes wide in shock and disbelief. They would never believe it if she were to say that she had learned of their language during their few-day-long stay. After all, could even a genius master such a complex language in just a few days? The only plausible explanation was that Xiao Ruoyin was already fluent in this world’s language from way before.

As shock took over them, the looks on everyones’ faces started looking conflicted and enraged. It suddenly felt like the aloof beauty that everyone could only watch from afar had become a complete stranger.

They had lost too many companions before they arrived here. She should have at least told them something.

“Ah’chen, you…” Niu Tian sighed as he worriedly glanced at Jiang Chen. He knew about Jiang Chen’s relationship with Xiao Ruoyin.

“I am alright.” Jiang Chen waved him off. Although it was hard for him to hide the shock on his face, he managed to quickly calm down. Even so, the uneasiness in his heart continued to grow.

He turned to look at Xiao Ruoyin to ask her what the man in white was saying, but she kept her head lowered and slender hands clasped the whole time. Thus, she hadn’t noticed his gaze at all.

Eyes calm, the man in white in front of her still didn’t have any changes in his expression. It was as though everything in this world didn’t mean much to him.

Jiang Chen couldn’t understand what Xiao Ruoyin was saying to Gu Changge, but judging from Xiao Ruoyin’s expression, it was obvious that she was frightened and restless.

To be fair, they had suddenly arrived in a mysterious and bizarre world. A situation that made even Jiang Chen afraid, and he could only imagine how Xiao Ruoyin, who was just a woman, probably felt at this moment.

It was just that he didn’t let his fear show. Still, the helplessness he felt prompted him to clench his fists.

Right when Jiang Chen was worrying and thinking, Gu Changge spoke again. “It’s good that you understand me.”

It felt like spring rain had washed over everyone the moment he let out a small and gentle smile, which replaced his aloofness from earlier.

Probably sensing his change, Xiao Ruoyin calmed down a little and looked up at him, but she was still vigilant and worried. She didn’t know how Gu Changge had noticed that she could understand their language. Her initial plan was to first find out some news about this world, and then find a way to escape. She actually wanted to tell Jiang Chen about this just now, but was interrupted by Gu Changge’s arrival.

Even though Gu Changge was as refined as an Immortal, she couldn’t help feeling apprehensive and frightened of him.

“Come with me,” he smiled lightly with his eyes on her. His words were simple and straightforward as he talked to her while completely disregarding everyone else. “I have some questions for you.”

Xiao Ruoyin came to a stop when she heard that. Her beautiful hazel eyes peered at him anxiously, but she finally bit her teeth and stood up with her head hung low. The sight of her being too afraid to say no to him felt rather desolate and hopeless.

She had a feeling that whatever Gu Changge was looking to talk to her about was nothing good.

Just before this, many of her companions had lost their lives because they were taken away.

Even she did not actually expect such an outcome to happen at the ruin. If she did, she wouldn’t have acted so hasty.

Xiao Ruoyin couldn’t help feeling melancholy now. As calm as she might act, she was only a powerless woman right now. Even the psionic gun she used for self-defence had been taken away by them.

Seeing Gu Changge was bring Xiao Ruoyin away, Jiang Chen and the rest of them became alarmed, and they quickly asked out of concern.

“Ruoyin, what did he say to you?”

“Yeah! What is going on, Ruoyin?”

Jiang Chen, especially, had his face fall to the floor as he balled his fists. He somehow felt that Xiao Ruoyin was aware of what would happen next. And yet, he did not understand Gu Changge’s words, which irked him to no end.

“Jiang Chen…” She turned to glance at him with an agonised look on her face.

When he saw the despair on her face, Jiang Chen only felt a burst of anger and unwillingness to resign rushed to his head, making his eyes a little red. He couldn’t help but stand up suddenly as he glared at Gu Changge with eyes full of hatred and anger.

“Come at me! Let Ruoyin go!” he roared. He chose to stand up when everyone was cowering in fear and didn’t dare stand up for her.

His action immediately drained the blood from Niu Tian’s face, and Niu Tian quickly held onto him. “Calm down, Ah’chen. Don’t be reckless!”

[Jiang Chen! What are you doing!? Are you trying to get yourself killed? Why are you picking a fight with him? Don’t you already know how much weaker you are compared to him? He can most likely kill you with just a single breath! What’s more, we only currently know that Ruoyin can understand their language. We still can’t and don’t know what he said to her just now!]

“Jiang Chen…” Xiao Ruoyin was touched, and she looked at him. However, she seemed to have remembered something then as she clenched her jaw and firmly demanded, “You don’t have to worry about me. You have to live on.”

“Ruoyin!” Jiang Chen’s eyes only grew redder as his rage boiled. He could feel her despair as she gave him what seemed to be her final goodbye.

However, other than letting out a sigh, everyone else remained in their places. They couldn’t possibly bother themselves with her when they might not even be able to take care of themselve. They all believe Jiang Chen was being too hasty.

As expected, under everyone’s astonished and frightened gazes, Gu Changge suddenly frowned, displeased.

“Hmm?” In that instant, everyone felt a terrifying feeling of suffocation. It was as if the sky had collapsed, and the nearby air around them seemed to tighten around them, suffocating them.

“Ugh…” Jiang Chen, who was the first to bear the brunt, turned ashen immediately. He was suffocating from the feeling, as if he was drowning. When he could no longer stand against this terrifying pressure, his legs went limp, and he fell to the floor on his knees with a thud.

He couldn’t move an inch by the time his body was drenched in sweat.

At this moment, his skin, bones, flesh, and internal organs seemed to be crushed by a great force, making a crackling sound as blood seeped through. He could barely keep his eyes open when his vision turned scarlet.

Everyone else was filled with fear as they witnessed the scene.

“Jiang Chen!” Xiao Ruoyin unknowingly shrieked out of worry, her face pale. Still, she didn’t dare move because she knew what Gu Changge was capable of.

“I am not very patient, you know?” Gu Changge nonchalantly informed them.

“Ah’chen…”

Niu Tian was also gawking at Gu Changge without moving a muscle. After all, it was as though they were being stared at by a terrifying beast. He was so frightened that his soul trembled, and just like Jiang Chen, he fell to his knees when his legs gave out.

However, Gu Changge didn’t actually want to make things too difficult for them. He soon turned around and calmly exited the dungeon.

Xiao Ruoyin’s face was pale when she looked back at Jiang Chen worriedly, but she quickly followed Gu Changge because she didn’t dare to stop. Even she had fallen into utter despair, now knowing what awaited her.

“Ruoyin…” Seeing this, Jiang Chen growled and reached out for her to no avail. His vision soon turned dark as he lost consciousness.

Niu Tian and everyone else’s alarmed shouts could be heard next.

…

Hei Yanyu locked the prison up, and as she followed behind Gu Changge, she swiftly took a glance at Jiang Chen and the rest of them. “Young Master, should we still keep them alive?”

In her opinion, these mysterious people are no different from ants in front of Gu Changge. In fact, if it weren’t for their mysterious origins, she usually wouldn’t have even taken a second look at them.

“For now, yes,” he threw out, finding them to be interesting. Naturally, that was the only reason he didn’t blow Jiang Chen up and the rest up, destroying both their bodies and souls.

In addition to this, he noticed how Jiang Chen had a subtle fluctuation in Fortuity, even though it was still nowhere close to being abundant.

[If I am right, that guy should be a Fortuitous One. It’s just that his ‘cheats’ hadn’t awakened yet. Well, since the System hadn’t prompted me of anything just yet, it seems like it will still take some time before he fully develops. But, still, compared to this girl, he is still lacking. Oh well, he will certainly serve some use to me in the future. I just need to make sure that seedling grows to be a healthy leek first.] Gu Changge thought. In fact, neither Jiang Chen, Xiao Ruoyin or anyone else there was a Fortuitous One, with their own cliche. Despite that, Xiao Ruoyin’s Fortuity was alarmingly high. She would still be one of the people with Great Destinies even if she wasn’t a Fortuitous One.

Gu Changge had thought that the cliche they would have would be similar to the Nine Dragons Supreme Ruler at first. Whereby, an Earthling protagonist found the coffin of a Heavenly Emperor, and got transported to a world of cultivation with powerful ‘cheats’ but after seeing them, he realised that he had expected too much.

Furthermore, Jiang Chen and his group weren’t from planet Earth. Gu Changge was sure about this. However, this also disappointed him a little.

Xiao Ruoyin, who had been silently following behind the two of them, was listening to the conversation as her delicate body trembled slightly in fright.

Over time, she did feel more at ease after hearing Gu Changge say that they would keep her friends alive for now. Further on, her previous anxiety and fear had also dissipated. At this point, she felt that Gu Changge didn’t have any ill intentions towards her. He was just curious about her.

After leaving the dungeon, Xiao Ruoyin felt more relaxed when she came in contact with the long-lost sunlight, as she quietly followed behind Gu Changge.

She could see that this world was magnificent. All the things that she had never even dared to think about before had now appeared in front of her eyes.

Strange-looking races, Mystic Mountains with divine light, Silver Waterfalls hanging upside down in the sky, transcendental Immortals…

The sight made Xiao Ruoyin unconsciously suck in a deep breath, and her mood gradually calmed down for some reason. It felt as if she belonged here. It was a feeling that hit her, which was as odd as it was random. Somehow, she truly felt that this was the world she should have been born in.

They soon reached a magnificent palace, where Gu Changge casually sat down. His eyes were calm as they looked less like an untouchable deity, and more like a human now.

After Hei Yanyu served him tea, she obediently stood at the side.

If Xiao Yuoyin hadn’t seen her terrifying and cruel side that time, she might have thought that the woman in the black was always as obedient as she appeared to be now. Of course, she could easily tell that the woman’s subservient attitude and actions were all because of this extraordinary man in front of her.

Gu Changge blew on the steam drifting off the surface of his tea before he casually asked, “What’s your name?”

As Xiao Ruoyin stood there, she didn’t dare hide the truth. “Xiao Ruoyin. Xiao, as in the sound of whistling leaves, and Yin, from the word ‘music’.”

This was how she usually introduced herself. Before this, people had always thought she had a family name spelled in a different way.

“Oh, Xiao Ruoyin? That’s a nice name.” He nodded before adding, “I want to know about your world.”

If the souls of this group of people were stronger, he could directly search for souls without needing to go through the hassle of asking her.

After all, they were people from a modern society. Their entire civilization was leaning towards the side of science and technology, which consequently caused their souls to be many times weaker than that of even the mortals in the Upper Realm.

Xiao Ruoyin’s pupils dilated when she first heard that question. She didn’t expect him to ask this right off the bat instead of asking how they got here, or how she spoke the language of this world. This had truly caught her off-guard.

She could tell that Gu Changge knew a thing or two about their origin from his lack of surprise.

Even so, her complexion quickly recovered when she came to that conclusion.

She knew that Gu Changge had the means to know whether she was lying or not, and so she truthfully started without daring to tell a single lie.

“We all lived on an azure planet called Azurine before. It is completely different from here. The lifespan of people there is very short, and Qi Practitioners do not exist there. Even if we have various scientific and technological medical methods, there are very few who can live up to a hundred years old…”

She didn’t know if Gu Changge could understand her words, but he had never once interrupted her.

As he drank tea, he stared at her with interest and curiosity, seemingly absorbed in listening about her world.

When she saw this, she breathed a sigh of relief again, and became a lot more relaxed than she was earlier.

“Young Master, this is the weapon I found on her before. I have tried it. It is not very powerful. It doesn’t go through the skin of ordinary beasts, but it still penetrates them.” Right then, Hei Yanyu seemed to have remembered something as she took out an object from her storage ring and handed it to Gu Changge.

The appearance was almost the same as the handgun that Gu Changge was familiar with. The difference was that he could feel faint spiritual energy fluctuations from the item Hei Yanyu gave him, which made it seem different from ordinary guns.

Seeing this, Xiao Ruoyin explained despite not knowing if Gu Changge could understand her. “This is a psionic gun that requires a special kind of bullet. It is rare even in our world, and…”

If it weren’t for her special identity, she wouldn’t have owned a psionic gun even though her family back in her original world was a powerful one.

“Interesting” Gu Changge smiled. After sizing the weapon up, he returned it to her. From Xiao Ruoyin’s introductions, he had almost figured out what kind of civilization they had in the world she came from.

[It must be something similar to Earth, except that there are some kind of rare stones Xiao Ruoyin calls Spiritual Stones. It seems like they have special energy in them. So, her group had travelled to this world after she accidentally touched the Spiritual Stones next to the altar….]

“If there is spiritual energy, it seems that it has evolved from the cultivation side to the technology side. I wonder if there will be a recovery of spiritual energy…” The nonchalant words that he uttered with a smile made Xiao Ruoyin’s pupils dilate once more as the look on her face changed.

She had understood his words, but she didn’t know why he knew all this.

“Actually,” he started indifferently, ” I have come across people like you who came from one of the Lower Realms.” He didn’t go into those people’s backgrounds.

Even though Xiao Ruoyin was taken aback when she heard him, she didn’t doubt his words. It was just that she didn’t expect there to be people similar to them in this world. [I see. No wonder he wasn’t surprised by our origin. Just wanting to know something about our world.]

Seemingly having deep thoughts, he eventually let out a small sigh. “Your world sounds rather interesting. I will drop by to have a look when I have the chance.”

Xiao Ruoyin only gawked at him upon hearing his unexpected words. All of a sudden, the man with an ethereal and untouchable vibe, didn’t feel all that high up as before. He even started to feel like a common mortal.

With that, a huge chunk of the fear she felt towards him went away.

Instead of being evil, Gu Changge seemed like he was purely curious about their world.

After giving it a thought, she respectfully addressed him when she didn’t know how else to call him. “…Young Master, why does someone of your status care about matters related to us mortals?”

Even she did not know where she got the courage to talk to him like this.

Upon hearing her question, he glanced at her, and seemed to have smiled when he sighed rather emotionally, “You wouldn’t understand.”

Xiao Ruoyin only stared at his handsome face, which was enough to drive countless women crazy in her world.

From his sigh, she heard all kinds of emotions that made her think she was looking at a non-stereotypical Immortal. She couldn’t help wondering if this godly Immortal also had things he was worried about.

“If there is a chance in the future, I would like to take you to my world. But it is not as interesting as you think…” she mentioned while lightly grabbing the hem of her clothes. She still did not know how she had the guts to say something like this. With her current status, it was obviously treasonous to say this to Gu Changge.

After she finished speaking, she tried to maintain her composure despite feeling a little uneasy.

Surprisingly, Gu Changge didn’t become angry after hearing her words. He instead let out a casual smile that made him seem even more approachable. “Interesting. This is the first time anyone has spoken to me in such a manner. And you are a mere mortal, no less.”

Xiao Ruoyin was taken aback again when she heard what he said. Her delicate snow-white face then turned a little red when she suddenly thought of something. However, him not blaming her finally made her come to a conclusion, [He really means us no harm.]

She took a deep breath and spoke again, “To be honest, back when I was in that world, I would have had strange dreams since I was a child. I dreamed that I was an omnipotent deity flying into the sky, and sometimes I would even dream about the future. In fact, I was very worried that I had such dreams. I even started to believe I had some kind of disease, but that was only until I stumbled across an ancient book that no one else could understand. I somehow knew all the characters in it. I later studied archeology to try to find the world I saw in my dreams…”

That was how she had come to understand this world’s language. She had never told anyone this, not even Jiang Chen, who she had a very good relationship with in college. In fact, she herself did not know why she was saying all these things when it was only their first time meeting.

“Oh? How intriguing. It seems that you may have memories of your past life.” Hearing this, Gu Changge glanced at her with interest.

“Memories of my past life?” Xiao Ruoyin was puzzled, and her excited heart suddenly started thundering away. “Could it be? I was actually from this world in my previous life?”

Gu Changge must have noticed the longing and yearning in her eyes as he chuckled, “How else will you explain your fate being tied to this world?”

“My fate is tied to this world?” She froze as a strange emotion spread across her chest.

Just as she was deep in her thoughts, Ge Changge spoke again, this time with a slightly odd smile. “Yanyu, bring Lady Xiao for a bath. It must have been hard on her to be locked up for so many days…”

Xiao Ruoyin suddenly realised then how piercing the foul stench emanating from her body was after she had been imprisoned for several days. Back when she was in her world, she was known as an haughty and solemn Ice Goddess, that people could only admire from a distance. She had never been as embarrassing a sight as she was today.

[Is he complaining about my smell? Does this mean he had been putting up with my odour all this time?] She suddenly felt so ashamed that her cheeks started turning red.

Compared to before, she also started liking Gu Changge more. After all, not many people could be such a gentleman by putting up with her stench, while engaging in a conversation with her for so long.

Upon hearing his order, Hei Yanyu nodded in reply and brought Xiao Ruoyin away, leaving Gu Changge alone in the palace.

Relaxed, he finished the tea in his tea cup made of white jade, showing a smile of curiosity.

“How interesting. So, she is the reincarnation of the High Priestess of Destiny from the Immortal Palace? The so-called ‘Nihility Destiny Physique’ which allows one to control all time and space, cause and effect, and everything that is inconceivable, unpredictable, and indescribable…”