The woman's eyes widened just the same but contrary to the shock on Qiu Ling's face, her expression immediately brightened into a happy smile. "I didn't know you were coming! Did you bring Jing Yi with you? Do you want to hold the wedding today?!" There seemed to be stars glittering in her eyes, making even Qiu Ling recoil a bit.
He certainly wasn't disinclined to finally marry his beloved but … Why did it have to do something with this damned servant girl?!
Qiu Ling ground his teeth. Wouldn't everything go wrong with her here? It seemed this woman was only talking about helping him hold his wedding but in truth, she was out to sabotage him so he wouldn't be able to free his beloved! Ah, it was actually not anything surprising. Wasn't this woman always going around gushing about how handsome this guy or that man was? His beloved was so beautiful it was a matter of fact that she would fall for him after spending some time with him.
Oh, no! He had actually let something like this happen and now this woman would try to stand between him and —
"What are you doing?" Xin Lan who had already been on his way to enter the dungeons came back frowning when Qiu Ling's steps stopped. He definitely didn't want to bother with him but leaving him alone … Wasn't that just asking for him to ruin this opportunity?
When he saw the woman in front of Qiu Ling Xin Lan's frown grew deeper. It seemed he had still been too careless. Qiu Ling had actually managed to invite trouble already. He lifted his hand, prepared to strike her down when the woman jumped at him, her eyes gleaming.
"Whoa! You're the fifth … No! The fourth most handsome man I've ever seen!"
Qiu Ling also shuffled over and looked from Hong Bao to Xin Lan and then back again. "The fourth most handsome? What about the other three then?"
Hong Bao blinked. "What do you mean what about the other three?"
"Who are they?"
"Naturally, that's Senior Martial Brother Liu Cheng, my brother-in-law, and you."
Qiu Ling nodded. It seemed she had already told him something like that before …
Hong Bao tilted her head and took a closer look at Xin Lan. "There was actually that guy called Xiao Li at the Hei Dian Sect and I thought he was the fourth most handsome person I'd ever see but looking at you, you're way more handsome than he is. Although … Why are you wearing a mask?" Hong Bao tiptoed to look at it more closely.
Xin Lan narrowed his eyes but didn't answer. Instead, he turned to Qiu Ling. "We don't have time for this. Or could it be that you don't want to save your beloved anymore?"
"Save him?!" Hong Bao straightened up. "What happened?"
Qiu Ling sighed. "Ah, it's such a long and sad story …"
"You could come to my house and tell me. I even have tea!" She smiled and squirmed on the spot. "Senior Martial Brother Liu Cheng gave it to me."
"Qiu Ling!"
Faced with Hong Bao's curious look and Xin Lan's quickly darkening expression Qiu Ling came to a difficult decision. He just cut the story short. "You see there was some accident and now my beloved is imprisoned in some secret realm and we need one of your prisoners to get him out of there because only that guy can open the array surrounding the realm."
"Huh? That's terrible!"
"Mn." Qiu Ling nodded gravely. "So I don't have time to chat with you now. I need to go and set that guy free first and then save my poor beloved." He made to follow Xin Lan but Hong Bao grabbed his sleeve.
"Eh, wait!"
"Didn't you listen just now?" Qiu Ling furrowed his brows and yanked his sleeve back. "I really have to hurry! My poor beloved is all alone." With that strange Senior Martial Brother Yu who is definitely into him and following some sinister plan to seduce him!
"Then you should wait even more! Didn't you say that the one you need is a person from our sect? I can help you find him!"
Xin Lan who had wanted to leave stopped at that and turned back. "You could lead us there?"
"But of course! Look at this!" Hong Bao pointed at the jade amulet she wore on her waist. "This means I'm one of the disciples of Elder Gan!"
Qiu Ling looked at her blankly but Xin Lan nodded. "Alright. The one we're searching for is called Bai Mu. Someone of mixed descent. He was imprisoned because of his demon blood."
Hong Bao tilted her head the other way. "Do you know what he looks like?"
This time Xin Lan was stumped for words. How would he know how that person looked like?
Qiu Ling was doing a bit better. He thought of his uncle-in-law and pondered how to describe him best. After all, his child should look a lot like him, right? "Well … He's handsome. Certainly not as handsome as me but he probably won't lose out to Xin Lan."
"Certainly won't lose out to him?" Hong Bao turned to look at Xin Lan again but wasn't really satisfied. "Really, why are you wearing that mask? Can't you take it off?"
Xin Lan frowned and turned to Qiu Ling. "This isn't leading anywhere. Let's just go and look for him ourselves."
Qiu Ling didn't really think the same way. Wouldn't searching for him take much longer than just having Hong Bao lead the way? He just had to make her realize which of the prisoners that Bai Mu guy was. Xin Lan had probably been a bad example. After all, he was wearing some strange mask all day. How should she judge how good-looking he really was? And, well, even though he didn't like Xin Lan very much he probably had to admit that he was more handsome than his uncle-in-law.
"Alright, maybe he's not exactly as handsome as Xin Lan. He's probably … about as handsome as that Xiao Li guy you mentioned." Well, he had no idea who that Xiao Li was but he shouldn't look much better than his uncle-in-law, right?
Hong Bao pursed her lips and pondered. "As handsome as Xiao Li?" She thought back to the face of that strange person. "Ah! I know now! You should have said that he looks like Xiao Li in the first place! Come with me!" And with that, she turned around and hurried into the dungeon.