255: His supernatural powers failed! He was caught red-handed by the Empress!

Su Chen felt as if his brain had completely turned into a pot of boiling mush.

He remained stiffly suspended in mid-air, eyes wide and round, mouth agape, as if he had been struck by lightning.

[I... Holy crap?]

[What's the situation?!]

[Wasn't I a mosquito? How did I change back?!]

[The Divine Ability... the duration of the Divine Ability is up?!]

Boom!

This realization was like a bolt of thunder that ruthlessly pierced through Su Chen's Divine Soul!

His completely stalled brain finally restarted after a burst of ear-piercing buzzing.

Immediately after, a chill from the depths of his Soul submerged him like the tide of an abyss!

[I'm finished! Finished, finished, finished! It's BBQ'd! I've completely messed up this time!]

[It's a misunderstanding, a misunderstanding! I didn't want to watch, yet I was caught red-handed! What kind of Hell-level difficulty social death scene is this?!]

[If I say I came here to scrub your back now, is it still in time?]

[Or should I immediately kneel, hug her legs, and admit my mistake while crying my eyes out?]

[No, no, no. With a woman like Ji Hongxue's character, the more I beg for mercy, the more she'll think I have a guilty conscience, and the more miserable my death will be!]

[Calm down! Su Chen! You must calm down!]

[Who are you? You are the Divine Son of the Longevity Su Family! You are a man who has seen great winds and waves! What does a mere social death scene matter?!]

[Right! As long as I'm not embarrassed, the one who's embarrassed will be someone else!]

Su Chen roared frantically in his heart, trying to inject a sliver of courage into himself to face death.

In the bath, after Ji Hongxue experienced her initial shock and daze, the color instantly drained from her jade-like face, which had been flushed from the steam, turning it into a deathly pale.

The next instant.

"Splash!"

The sound of water exploded.

She stood up abruptly from the water, bringing with her a spray of water and crimson petals.

Under Su Chen's dazed gaze, Ji Hongxue waved her jade hand.

A wide Nine-Phoenix Gold-Thread Bathrobe appeared out of thin air, instantly wrapping her perfect body—which made heaven and earth pale in comparison—tightly and securely.

Only after doing all this did a trace of life return to Ji Hongxue's pale face.

But immediately following that, an indescribable shame and fury, like magma erupting from the Earth's core, crashed through all her rationality as an emperor!

"Su! Chen!"

She squeezed out those two words from between her teeth, one by one.

The voice wasn't high, but the misty steam in the bathroom seemed to instantly freeze into ice shards!

Boom!

A surge of extremely condensed Imperial Dragon Qi transformed into an invisible giant hand and ruthlessly slapped toward the man in mid-air who deserved ten thousand deaths!

"Bang!"

Su Chen only felt a tightness in his chest as an unmatched force struck him; his entire person felt as if he had been hit head-on by an immemorial divine mountain.

He lost all control over his body and flew backward like a cannonball.

"Boom!"

Su Chen's body smashed heavily against the wall made of Ten-Thousand-Year Warm Jade, then fell to the ground with a "thud," leaving him dizzy and seeing stars.

[Crap! You're murdering your own husband!]

Su Chen felt as if his internal organs had been displaced, making him grimace in pain.

[This woman's strike is way too ruthless! Not even giving me a chance to explain?!]

Before he could even crawl up from the ground, a golden wind laced with a cold fragrance rushed toward him.

Ji Hongxue's figure appeared before him like a ghost.

She looked down from above at the disheveled Su Chen sprawled on the ground. In the depths of those profound Phoenix eyes, flames of rage churned, nearly burning the man before her to ashes.

"Why are you here?"

Her voice was as cold as eternal black ice that never melted.

Su Chen's brain operated at an unprecedented speed.

What to do?

How to explain?

Say he flew here while sleepwalking? No, that excuse has been used.

Say he came to protect her because he sensed an assassin? Even less likely; not even a real fly could get into this place!

In the nick of time, a flash of madness crossed Su Chen's eyes.

I'll risk it!

Today, I'll show you what a... true Best Actor looks like!

Under Ji Hongxue's cold killing intent, Su Chen not only didn't panic, but instead, his face showed a perfectly timed confusion and a hint of... pleasant surprise, as if he had survived a disaster.

"Hongxue?"

His voice carried the hoarseness and uncertainty of someone who had just "woken up."

He struggled to sit up from the ground, rubbing the back of his head which throbbed from the impact, and looked around in confusion.

"I... why am I here?"

He looked at Ji Hongxue, his clear eyes filled with innocence and bewilderment.

"Wasn't I... just sleeping in the room at the theater?"

"Could it be... that the Seventy-Two Transformations went out of control again?"

An expression of annoyance mixed with lingering fear instantly appeared on Su Chen's face.

"I knew this newly obtained Divine Ability was unreliable! Last time it was sleepwalking, and this time it randomly teleported me?"

"Sigh, it's too dangerous, truly too dangerous! What if it teleported me to some desolate land or forbidden zone? Wouldn't I be dead for sure?"

Su Chen muttered to himself while beating his chest and stamping his feet, his heartbroken appearance making it seem as if he were the biggest victim.

That acting, that demeanor, those lines—it was simply flawless!

As Ji Hongxue watched his "lifelike" performance, those Phoenix eyes burning with rage narrowed dangerously.

Divine Ability out of control?

Random teleportation?

This excuse sounded so outrageous, so absurd.

But... for some reason, looking at Su Chen's handsome face filled with "sincerity" and "innocence," the heaven-burning fury in Ji Hongxue's heart actually dissipated by a fraction, as if by some strange coincidence.

She remembered the records in Su Chen's diary about his so-called bizarre Divine Abilities. There was no such concept as a Divine Ability in the Xuanyuan Continent, and she didn't know what a Divine Ability was; she naturally assumed it was something like a Cultivation Technique.

Could it be... that something really went wrong with the Cultivation Technique?

The moment this thought surfaced, Ji Hongxue startled herself.

No!

Impossible!

This bastard is definitely doing it on purpose! He's a complete rogue! A scoundrel!

But... what if?

What if what he says is true?

For a moment, Ji Hongxue's heart was in complete chaos.

Looking at the man still acting there, she couldn't be angry, yet she couldn't quite believe him either; she fell into an incredibly tangled contradiction.

Su Chen keenly captured the change in Ji Hongxue's expression and knew his Best Actor-level performance was working!

[It's working!]

He was delighted in his heart and decided to add more fuel to the fire!

He climbed up from the ground with a look of lingering fear, brushed the dust off his clothes, and then looked at Ji Hongxue with an incredibly sincere and concerned gaze.

"Hongxue, are you alright?"

"My sudden appearance just now didn't scare you, did it?"

"Don't worry, I'll leave right now! I'll never use this broken Divine Ability recklessly again!"

After saying that, he turned around to leave, putting on the air of a true gentleman who was "definitely not a lecher and would disappear immediately."

However, he had only taken two steps.

From behind, a cool voice carrying a hint of gritted teeth sounded.

"Stop right there."

Su Chen's footsteps instantly froze.

He felt a chill on his back.

[No way? She still doesn't believe it?]

[Do I really have to perform turning into a mosquito on the spot? My spiritual energy is empty, big sister!]

He stiffly turned his head back.

Then he saw Ji Hongxue staring fixedly at him with an incredibly complex gaze.

In that gaze, there was shame, anger, suspicion, and a hint of... playfulness that even she hadn't noticed.

"Since you're already here."

Ji Hongxue slowly walked toward him.

The golden bathrobe trailed on the ground, making a soft "rustling" sound, each step seeming to tread on the tip of Su Chen's heart.

She walked up to Su Chen, her cold and peerlessly beautiful face coming very, very close.

Su Chen could even smell the fatal body fragrance on her, mixed with the fresh scent of petals after her bath.

"Then why don't you..."

Ji Hongxue's red lips slowly curled into a dangerous yet charming arc, exhaling like an orchid.

"...stay and chat with me for a bit."