566: Chapter 567 A Battle of Acting Skills! The Thousand-Faced Goddess's Tragic Drama Begins!

Half a day later.

Accompanied by a heavy hum, the flying boat landed smoothly on a clearing outside a dense forest.

Ahead lay the official road leading to Yunyuan City, but one had to pass through a dark, dense forest about ten miles long to reach it.

The canopy of this forest blotted out the sun; even during the day, it exuded a chilling, eerie vibe.

Su Chen gave a long, wide stretch.

Leading the group, he disembarked from the flying boat and strolled slowly along the small path carpeted with fallen leaves.

Mottled light and shadows flickered in the forest, and occasionally, an unknown spirit bird would let out a shrill cry, adding a touch of eeriness.

They had only walked about three miles.

Suddenly, an abrupt shouting came from ahead.

“Stop! You thugs who rob both wealth and virtue! Is there no law and order in broad daylight?!”

“I beg of you, please let this little woman go! I am just a poor passerby!”

The voice was delicate and helpless, laced with trembling and despair.

Su Chen's footsteps paused for a split second, and he raised an eyebrow slightly.

He tilted his head to look at Qian Duoduo beside him.

Qian Duoduo's small eyes, which were usually squeezed into slits by fat, were now wide open and alert like searchlights.

One of his hands subconsciously gripped his Storage Pouch tightly.

He lowered his voice and said, “Boss, the atmosphere ahead isn't right. In this desolate wilderness, I'm afraid there's a trap!”

Wang Baobao, on the other hand, was gnawing on a half-section of spirit ginseng she had picked up from somewhere.

She mumbled unclearly, “Boss, is someone ahead fighting over food? Can Baobao go help eat it?”

“Mm,” Su Chen responded casually.

He reached out and held back the eager Wang Baobao.

In his mind, familiar roasting bullet comments had already started frantically flooding the screen.

【Oh? A weak woman's cry for help coming from the dense forest?】

【This is way too classic. Out of ten cultivation novels, at least eight will write this kind of hackneyed plot.】

【It's either some Sect's Fairy in distress, eagerly waiting for the male lead to drop from the sky for a 'hero saves the beauty' moment and then offer herself in marriage; or it's a 'playing hard to get' honey trap, setting up a 'pig-butchering' scam to lure an honest man into a snare.】

【But sorry, regardless of which one it is, I don't have half a cent's worth of interest.】

【However... there's no harm in watching the monkey show.】

Su Chen's footsteps didn't stop at all; instead, they quickened by half a beat.

Turning a bend past a thicket of dense shrubs...

A small cleared space appeared before his eyes.

Three Loose Cultivators wearing black face veils and brandishing large sabers were surrounding a woman whose clothes were slightly disheveled.

The woman crouched on the ground looking pitiful, desperately clutching a small gray cloth bundle in her arms. She looked up with a face full of terror, shivering uncontrollably.

Su Chen's gaze lingered carelessly on the woman's face for a second.

It was a face that was more than pretty but definitely not stunning.

A pair of large Black Jade Lenses sat on the bridge of her nose, forcefully obscuring most of her spirit and features.

She was wearing a set of gray-blue worker's clothes made of coarse fabric, with pilling even visible at the edges.

At a glance, it was the cheap attire of a bottom-tier laborer.

Su Chen's eyebrows twitched upward uncontrollably.

This outfit... he had seen it before.

It was beyond familiar!

Wasn't this that deputy manager, Shen Que, who represented the Lingbao Trading Firm to visit the Yingxian Restaurant a few days ago?!

In an instant, Su Chen's internal bullet comments began scrolling at the speed of light.

【Wait!】

【How did this poor corporate slave end up in this desolate wilderness? And she's being robbed?】

Suppressing the doubt in his heart, Su Chen lightly swept his Divine Thought over the three masked 'bandits.'

【First-tier Quasi-Emperor Realm.】

【First-tier Quasi-Emperor Realm.】

【The shortest one isn't even a Quasi-Emperor; at most, he's at the Great Sage Peak.】

The combined cultivation of these three 'crooked melons and split dates' probably wasn't enough to withstand a casual punch from Wang Baobao while she was yawning.

Moreover, the positioning of these three people was simply painful to look at.

In this so-called 'vicious siege,' these three people were actually standing in a perfectly orderly equilateral triangle!

Their distance in steps from the woman was exactly the same!

It was as standard as standard could be!

How did this look like a robbery and murder in the wilderness?

This looked more like rehearsing a stage play on a Sect square, okay?!

The corners of Su Chen's mouth couldn't help but twitch twice.

He took another careful look.

What did he see?

He saw the bandit on the far left holding the saber; his wrist was shaking uncontrollably.

That definitely wasn't nervousness from his first robbery.

That was cold!

This fellow, in order to look cool in a set of night-traveler clothes, had dressed far too thinly.

The wind in the dense forest was blowing in chilly gusts; he was shivering so hard that even the back of his saber was clattering against the hilt.

As a dignified Quasi-Emperor Realm Cultivator with immortal essence flowing through his body, how could he possibly fear this bit of night wind's cold?

Unless he wasn't a real Cultivator at all, but was using some low-quality Magic Treasure to forcibly disguise his cultivation aura!

Unless... these three idiots were simply cheap background actors hired with temporary cash!

Su Chen understood everything in an instant.

But on his incomparably handsome face, not a single flaw was revealed, nor did he expose this clumsy performance.

In his mind, a thought that perfectly fit his salted fish persona was rapidly taking shape.

【This acting is truly bad enough to make one's grandmother cry.】

【The gazes of those three extras are shifting aimlessly.】

【And this Shen Que, her 'frightened' appearance is way too exaggerated, isn't it? Her shivering movements while crouching don't even look real; the frequency of her shoulder shrugging is as uniform as if she's wound up like a clock. One look and you can tell she practiced this in front of a mirror privately.】

【But—】

Su Chen snorted coldly in his heart, his footsteps pausing slightly.

【Just as well.】

【After our team left Peng City, we still have a long way to go to handle serious business. The team just happens to lack a maid to serve tea, pour water, wash clothes, cook, and run errands.】

【This girl was, after all, someone who served as a deputy manager in the Lingbao Trading Firm; her hands and feet should be quite nimble.】

【The most crucial point is, she must have angered that nickname and been fired, right? Otherwise, how could a dignified merchant guild executive end up wandering the wilderness alone and being so poor that she's getting robbed?】

【Since she's already this miserable, it's fine to let her follow me. Anyway, free labor is free labor; it would be a waste not to use it! If I don't exploit her, someone else will.】

After making up his mind, Su Chen's facial expression completed a seamless switch within a second.

From 'all-seeing playfulness,' he instantly switched to 'kind and enthusiastic young man seeing injustice on the road.'

He strode forward with large steps, feigning an air of righteous indignation, and casually pushed a palm against the shoulder of the masked bandit nearest to him.

“In broad daylight, under the clear sky, how dare you bully a weak woman!”

The bandit didn't even wait for Su Chen to apply force.

As if he had been electrocuted, he let out an 'Aiyo!' scream and fell backward with the momentum.

He rolled a good three or four times on the muddy ground covered in fallen leaves, even extremely exaggeratedly spitting out a mouthful of non-existent blood before lying motionless on the ground.

Playing dead.

He played it so professionally that he even held his breath.

Seeing this, the other two bandits shared a look with perfect tacit understanding.

They even skipped their lines, directly dropping their broken iron sabers with a 'clang' and bolting into the depths of the forest.

Their running pace and direction were unified, clearly a retreat route they had scouted and practiced countless times beforehand.

Su Chen, of course, did not give chase.

He even gave these extras' escape speed a negative score in his heart.

He turned around, flicked his sleeves, and walked up to 'Shen Que,' who was still crouching on the ground shivering.

He slowly crouched down.

On Su Chen's face, as exquisite as a painting, appeared an extremely gentle smile filled with sympathy and elder-like kindness.

“Shopkeeper Shen? What a coincidence, why is it you?”

Hearing this, Xie Jinghong slowly raised her head.

It had to be said that the Thousand-Faced Goddess's acting was more than ten thousand times stronger than those three extras who were just earning a basic salary.

At this moment, her face perfectly interwove the terror of surviving a disaster, disbelief, and the Soul-piercing gratitude of meeting a savior.

Her eyes were slightly red, the tip of her nose was tinged with a sorrowful pink, and her lips trembled as if she couldn't even speak coherently.

Her whole being was curled into a ball like a frightened little rabbit.

In the gaze she used to look up at Su Chen, she portrayed the image of a helpless weak woman to the life.

“Young Master... Young Master Su?”

Her voice was trembling, and that trailing note trembled just right—one bit more would seem affected, one bit less would seem dull.

“How... how could it be you? This little woman thought... thought that today's calamity was inescapable...”

Su Chen stood up, very casually brushed off non-existent dust from his palms, and sighed.

“Yes, what a coincidence. But then again, Shopkeeper Shen, why are you wandering alone in this desolate mountain range? Where are the Lingbao Trading Firm's guards and caravan?”

Hearing these words, Xie Jinghong abruptly lowered her head, her slender shoulders beginning to sob again at just the right moment.

A crystal 'teardrop' slid down from behind the Black Jade Lenses with extreme precision, leaving a heartbreaking tear track.

“The merchant guild... a great change occurred within the guild.”

She choked out, her voice laced with endless grievance and heartache. “The big boss... he didn't distinguish right from wrong. This little woman... this little woman has been heartlessly fired by the merchant guild.”

Su Chen's brow immediately furrowed tightly.

But his internal bullet comments were, at this moment, frantically flashing with the light of excitement.

【Indeed! I knew it! She was fired!】

【That dead nickname is simply not a human being! To fire a deputy manager who worked so diligently under him just like that—this Lingbao Trading Firm's corporate culture and employment system are simply rotten to the core!】

【This girl is also unlucky for eight lifetimes to be stuck with such an unreliable boss. Having been a fine gold-collar shopkeeper and now wandering the wilderness, so poor that even a few low-grade Loose Cultivators want to trample on her.】

【So tragic, truly too tragic.】

【But it's good that it's tragic! She has no one to rely on now, and I just happen to lack a free nanny. This wave is simply like being sent a pillow when I'm drowsy—a win-win!】

Su Chen cleared his throat.

He piled his face with empathetic sympathy and concern.

He leaned over slightly and extended a hand toward Xie Jinghong.

“Miss Shen, it's truly too dangerous to be outside alone. If you don't mind that this Su is a rough man, then follow our team for now. At the very least, I'll provide your three meals a day.”