Chapter 179: Ice Crystal (1)
When she’d created her character, Shen Jingbin had made herself as ugly as possible; turning herself from a 173cm beauty into a little loli who was just over 150cm.
In fact, she could pass off as a lolita with her height. She’d even seen many petite and cute lolis ever since she’d entered the game. Unfortunately, that very same height was what led to her body’s tragic proportions. When she thought of that, she truly respected Quiet And Steadfast. How much mental fortitude had he needed to have the courage to marry her and even flirt with her from time to time?
Of the three other people in their party, the two men could be excluded – they were well over 185cm tall. On the other hand, Morning Glory Chime was almost the same height as she was in real life. Regardless, she was now much taller than Shen Jingbin who was standing at the very back of the party; so Shen Jingbin was utterly hidden from view.
This was why Crying Fish wasn’t entirely at fault for not having spotted Shen Jingbin.
Quiet And Steadfast coughed and said, “Could I trouble you to move aside? You’re blocking our way.”
Just because Crying Fish was smitten with Quiet And Steadfast didn’t mean that everyone else in her guild was. A Mara vigilantly sized up their party as he inched closer to his Guild Leader, his eyes twinkling when he noticed Shen Jingbin hidden behind the party.
The Mara tugged at Crying Fish and said, “Leader, look over there.”
The Mara motioned with his eyes for her to look over at Shen Jingbin.
Only then did Crying Fish stop her torrent of verbal diarrhea. She followed the Mara’s gaze and a detail she’d previously neglected suddenly appeared before her very eyes.
“You…” She suddenly glared at Quiet And Steadfast. Whatever she’d originally thought of saying was stuck in her throat, and it took her a good long while to come back to her senses. Her beautiful face flushing red. “S-so you guys are together? Good job, Quiet And Steadfast. Are you trying to make me look like a fool? Is my one-sided love that amusing to look at?”
Why were some girls wired so strangely in this world? Shen Jingbin felt that Crying Fish had probably read too many romantic novels. Either that, or she’d watched too many brainless dramas that led her to continually believe that she was the female lead and that everyone’s life should revolve around hers.
“You’re blocking our way. Move over,” Quiet And Steadfast said, completely ignoring her one-man diatribe.
“Leader, take another look over there!” Shen Jingbin was never the focus of the Mara’s attention from the very beginning. He was more concerned about the fact that the Vice-Leader of Sovereign’s Descent was hanging around with Quiet And Steadfast from Jade Sea Pavilion. He helplessly tugged at his Guild Leader’s sleeve when he saw her paying attention to the wrong thing once again.
“Pure Crane? Why are you with Quiet And Steadfast?” Crying Fish finally noticed the presence of others on the scene, and a closer inspection revealed one of them to be Pure Crane. She glared at him, her beautiful eyes hiding the bitterness behind them before she immediately interrogated him. “Vice-leader Pure Crane, is Sovereign’s Descent trying to absorb two guilds?”
Life At First Sight and Sovereign’s Descent had mostly concluded their alliance talks and were only missing the formality of actually allying. However, she now saw Pure Crane standing together with Jade Sea Pavilion. He was someone who held more prestige in Life At First Sight; more than its official Guild Leader. Crying Fish, being the narrow-minded person that she was, immediately imagined a plot that spanned more than ten thousand words.
Pure Crane cleared his throat and took a step forward, bringing him to the very front of the party and said, “O Great Leader, since you can pursue Guild Leader Quiet so brazenly, I don’t think me partnering up with him to do a quest will cause any problems, right?”
After thinking about it for a moment, Crying Fish decided that that ought to be the case and followed up with another question, “A quest? What quest are you guys doing?”
“What’s it got to do with you?” Morning Glory Chime retorted.
Crying Fish swept a glance at her. “Where did you come from? What’s it to you?”
Pure Crane reached out his hand to hold Morning Glory Chime back and replied, “This is a personal matter, there’s no need for me to tell you. You brought a team here, so you should have something that you need to do too, right? That’s good. You go ahead and do what you must, and we’ll do the same. Let’s not disturb one another, alright?” He continued, not waiting for Crying Fish to reply, “O Great Leader, we must take our leave now. Please allow us to pass.”
Crying Fish looked over to Quiet And Steadfast who had his face partially concealed by a veil. She then turned her attention to Shen Jingbin, whose body was obstructed by Morning Glory Chime. An unpredictable look flashed across her eyes as she pondered something. However, in the end, she still decided to take several small steps and moved to the side.
Her actions served as a signal, and the rest of the people behind her immediately made a path for Shen Jingbin’s group. Without stopping, Quiet And Steadfast walked right through the path that they’d opened.
Crying Fish’s group only looked away from the other party when their silhouettes were completely drowned out by the vast ice passage that reflected light.
“Leader, are you going to let them go just like that?” A Dragonkin girl moved over to her ear and quietly asked her.
Crying Fish shot her a glance. “What do you want to do then? Do you think we can stop them with our numbers?”
The Dragonkin girl had a puzzled look on her face as she stared back at Crying Fish. “Even if Quiet And Steadfast is the number one player in the game, those two girls are newbies, right? We might not be able to defeat him even with those two dead weights dragging him down, but we might be able to keep her from leaving.”
At this moment, the Mara spoke up from the side, “Idiot. Do you think Pure Crane from Sovereign’s Descent is a pushover? Even though he’s not as good as Quiet And Steadfast, he’s also one of the top twenty experts on the strength leaderboard. Also, what you said about that ugly Daoist noob isn’t wrong, but she has the Divine Beast, White Tiger. It can take you out with just a single swipe of its claws when she summons it out. Other than that gorgeous looking Nymph, the rest of them aren’t people you want to provoke.”
The Dragonkin girl had a look of surprise on her face. She’d recently been focusing on levelling, so she wasn’t aware of the many things that had taken place.
Crying Fish squinted and said, “There’ll be ample time for that later, let’s not worry about this first. I feel annoyed looking at Quiet And Steadfast and that ugly girl together, but it’s fine as long as I don’t see them. Let them go; we have more important things to attend to.”