So It Was You Who Stole My Female Lead!

Gu Feidi quickly held Su Yang tightly in one hand and barely blocked the remaining two assassins with his other hand. He drifted back using his light movement skill, attempting to retreat from the range of battle.

The Tengyun Pavilion’s guards, who always focused on their Young Lord in their peripheral vision, immediately reacted and abandoned their fight with the Evil Sect. They began to gather in front of Gu Feidi, on guard against all the forces on the battlefield. 

It was not until now that the people in the scuffle realised that the battle had been shifted somehow.

However, before they had time to respond, they heard sharp sounds created by bone whistles all around them. 

Dozens of members from the E’Luo Gui Faction appeared like lightning from the rear of the strangely jagged boulders surrounding the battlefield. They quickly inserted themselves into the fight between the people from the Central Plains and the Evil Sect with their unnatural movement ability. They split the battle into complete mayhem, the two groups fighting had no choice but to fight on their own without support. 

The blood spilled in the chaos momentarily increased tenfold, and the situation suddenly became extremely vicious. 

At this time, Xu Yunzhan arrived with the conscious Huo Ying. He quickly responded and sent off a Central Plains signal firework. 

The firework was bright red, very eye-catching even with the daylight. They only hoped that other members of the Central Plains would see the distress signal and come help. 

Su Yang could only feel a burning pain on his back, and dark spots also started to creep into his vision. Although he was conscious, he could not resist the surge of tiredness, he knew he was about to faint. 

He grabbed Gu Feidi’s robe lapel tightly. He adjusted his internal energy and whispered in his ear, “Below the cliff…along the river…Sage’s tomb…it's down there...”

Gu Feidi embraced Su Yang tighter and said in a hoarse voice, “Don’t worry, I am here. Everything will be alright…”

Several expert fighters from the E’Luo Gui Faction bypassed the guards and headed toward Gu Feidi.  

They wielded their curved blades like a dance. Each strike was precise and heavy, with no hesitation or flaw. The joint attack synergised into a battle array that even Gu Feidi could not spot any weakness in. He could only defend against each attack reluctantly. 

Gu Feidi fought with one hand and clutched onto the almost unconscious Su Yang with his other hand. He was forced to retreat step by step, carrying various cuts from the onslaught. Defeat was staring him in the eyes. 

Currently, on the other side, Xu Yunzhan was trapped in his own fight, unable to break through. He could only watch Gu Feidi and Su Yang being cornered at the edge of the cliff. Desperation bled through each of his attacks so he could assist his friend. 

Su Yang blacked out for a while. He opened his eyes in confusion. He swayed in Gu Feidi’s arm, seeing that they were pushed closer to the edge, even the dark-blue river was visible in his sight. 

He listened to the sound of frenzy, fighting, shouting, and screaming behind him. He also heard Gu Feidi’s painful gasping and decided to let everything go with one single gamble... 

He gathered all the strength he had left, wrapped his arms around Gu Feidi’s waist, and made a great leap without hesitation—together with Gu Feidi, he fell down the cliff that was over thirty meters deep!

“Feidi—!”

Xu Yunzhan’s voice penetrated the battlefield and reverberated in vain on the empty cliff, “—Su Yang!”

Su Yang held Gu Feidi’s waist tightly. The wind blowing past his ear was like the sound of crashing waves.

He took one last glance at the dark eyes that were as bright as the thousand stars filled in the night sky, and a faint, beautiful smile appeared at the corner of his mouth. 

Quickly followed by losing his consciousness from the water splashing sound and the sharp pain.

Gu Feidi couldn’t hide the muffled groan from the impact, but he held Su Yang tightly and didn’t let go. After entering the water, he didn’t swim to the surface, instead, he covered Su Yang’s mouth and nose, swung both of his legs toward the current and headed deeper down the river.

Not long after their underwater journey, Gu Feidi noticed they were still being marked by their pursuer, as a few of the E’Luo Gui Faction members entered the water, few ran along the cliff shore, and a group of three or four boreal owls were hovering in the sky, informing their master in real time. 

If he couldn’t get rid of them, they would most likely catch up and kill him and Su Yang once he exhausted all of his strength or encountered a dead end in the terrain. 

Fortunately, the river seemed calm from the outside, but in fact the current was quick under the surface. Gu Feidi carried the unconscious Su Yang down the current and avoided fighting in the water. But he dared not stay in the water for too long. He tried his best to travel down the river as fast as he could. 

As the canyon narrowed and the river’s current became more turbulent, Gu Feidi could hardly move his body and could only let the current carry them. 

Suddenly, he faced a fork in the river ahead. 

On one side of the fork was obviously the main body of the river, and on the other side was an unknown narrow opening. From his point of view, he couldn’t tell if the passage in the gap was a thoroughfare or a dead end. However, the splashing sound of a waterfall clearly reminded Gu Feidi that there had to be a deep pit ahead, which was not a good place to go. 

However, the E’Luo Gui Faction was giving him no choice. 

A high-pitched sound rang from a bone whistle, and suddenly a large net was pulled up in the main river body. With the help of its turbulence, the net blocked the path ahead.

Seeing this, Gu Feidi’s already red eyes were almost bloodshot.

Rather than being captured alive by this cruel faction, it was better to fight till their last breath. They might find a way to live! He decided to take a chance and turn to the other branch of the fork. 

Therefore, he held onto Su Yang firmly, gritted his teeth, and used his internal energy to change his route, swimming to the cave where the river branched off. 

The entrance looked like the open mouth of a ferocious beast. With an earth-shattering force, it swallowed Gu Feidi and Su Yang in a single bite. 

Not far behind the crevice, the water rushed down and fell into a bottomless and extremely freezing underground river. 

On the bank of the canyon… 

A member of the E’Luo Gui Faction raised the bone whistle and blew out a series of rhythms resembling spooky laughter. 

The net was abandoned, and the boreal owls in the sky scattered, as if they had given up on their pursuit. 

* * *

In the pitch black underground river, Gu Feidi tried his best to carry Su Yang onto a flat stone bank. 

The stone bank was very small and narrow, barely able to hold two people. But at least they could leave the water to treat their wounds. 

Gu Feidi embraced Su Yang in his arms and made Su Yang lie face down on his lap. He examined the most serious sword wound on Su Yang’s back. He caressed around the wound to determine what his next step would be. 

Su Yang’s breathing and pulse were very weak, perhaps due to blood loss. Even his temperature dropped. Gu Feidi used his internal energy to warm Su Yang up and heal his wounds. He took off his outer robe to clean the wound. 

They left their larger luggage on their horses, so when they fell into the water, Su Yang only had the clothes on his back, while Gu Feidi had only a small medicine bag that he carried for emergencies. However, he didn’t know how effective the medicine would be after being soaked in the cold water. 

He groped in the dark and applied the paste like powder on Su Yang’s back wound. Moving his fingertips around to inspect if there were any other injuries. 

Immediately, his searching fingers stopped, then moved slower around a spot of skin, rubbing it carefully for a moment. He had to confirm they were indeed old scars that had been healed. 

Those scars were stacked in a disorderly fashion, and they didn't feel like flower tattoo, instead, they were like...

…words? 

Gu Feidi frowned in the dark and felt along the scar, trying to decipher the words. 

“You…Isn't this considered improper towards me?”

Suddenly, Su Yang’s weak voice rang out in the narrow underground river cave. 

Gu Feidi drew back his hand and said calmly, “You are awake.”

Su Yang groaned and complained, “I woke up from the pain. What did you smear on me? Is it supposed to be this painful?”

Gu Feidi comforted, “It’s a special medicine made by my Pavilion.”

Sucking in a pained breath, Su Yang supported himself up from Gu Feidi’s leg. 

He was aggrieved from the pain, or he needed to say something to distract his attention. He started blurting out words with little thought, “I think Shizun must have predicted this, or at least expected this would happen. But I am glad she had Di Ling Shijie teach us.”

Gu Feidi didn’t interrupt him. 

Su Yang lightly scratched his nose awkwardly and finished mending his explanation, “...She must have reckoned that we would often run into situations like this, being in caves without light. So Shizun had Di Ling be our model and have her teach us how to identify our position without sight.” He finished with a few awkward chuckles...

Gu Feidi was silent for a moment, but he still added nothing to Su Yang’s mumbling, instead, he said, “We can’t go back the same way. If we want to survive, we need to find another way out.”

Su Yang opened his mouth, but he didn’t know what to say.

When he woke up, he found that he had been taken into a strange cave. He immediately knew that Gu Feidi’s protagonist’s halo had activated again. 

Last time, they had mistakenly entered the cave in the Jade Mirror Lake, which triggered the Hidden Pearl Pavilion plot. This time, in the wasteland, he could already guess which plot they triggered now, even if he had to count with his toes!

Although he was the one who dragged Gu Feidi down the cliff, he also wanted to curse his luck on finding the Sage’s tomb. But now Gu Feidi really found a cave in the wasteland that is incompatible with the surrounding environment, Su Yang felt the numbing sensation creeping from his neck to his scalp.

Where was the plotline that cultivated the feeling between the female lead and the protagonist? 

How did he also steal this important character development point! 

First it was the brotherhood plot he stole from Xu Yunzhan back in the Hidden Pearl Pavilion, now it was Pu Lingyun’s relationship plot in the False Tomb of the Sacred Swords.

Was his transmigration task here not to go through the plot, but to go against heaven?!

However, he was not to blame for stealing Pu Lingyun’s role this time. After all, she didn’t even come to the wasteland from the start. Even if he wanted to promote the relationship between the female lead and the protagonist, it was like asking him to cook rice without being provided a single grain. 

Thinking of this, Su Yang asked a question that had been on his mind since the start, “Why didn’t Pu Lingyun come to the wasteland?”

The only sound was Gu Feidi’s breathing, as he remained silent for a long time, before he said, “We just made a narrow escape from death, and this is what you ask? You really want to see her?”

Su Yang choked out two fake laughs. “Ah! Well…actually…”

Gu Feidi interrupted with a snort, “So you really wanted to take her away, but you caught the wrong person?”

Su Yang: “…”

This simply…Even a hundred words could not be used to explain himself!

Gu Feidi didn’t wait for Su Yang’s reply. He looked at the speechless Su Yang before filling the blank. “... I don’t blame you. She has a lively and straightforward personality. She is very likeable.”

Su Yang recalled the wayward temper of the loud and bizarre girl. He thought of the many times Fan Xi had teased her to near laughter or tears. Beauty must be in the beholder's eye if both Gu Feidi and Fan Xi like her. 

But since his transmigration to here, the butterfly had flapped its wings and blown the scene with the female lead in the wasteland away. He must not speak ill of the female lead in front of the protagonist, he must maintain their positive relationship! 

So Su Yang agreed with him in a very exaggerated tone, “Indeed. Not only that, Lingyun has a very beautiful appearance, not to mention her martial arts ability. With her good nature, she would make anyone like her.”

Gu Feidi spoke no more. He changed his posture to lean against the stone wall and hid his clenched fists in his arms. 

Su Yang didn’t notice Gu Feidi’s negative mood, and continued to ask without giving up, “But, why didn’t she come to the wasteland?”

Gu Feidi finally answered, “She hasn’t finished her training in the House of Jade yet.”

Su Yang was surprised. “Wait, what? How? She hasn’t made a breakthrough…”

“She is waiting for Fan Xi.” Gu Feidi suddenly chuckled and cut in. “She and Fan Xi both practiced under Li Shijie, so it was natural for them to be close. Fan Xi has not yet broken through, so she stayed behind, saying she wanted to finish her apprenticeship with Fan Xi.”

Su Yang: “!!!”

Damn you, Fan-Er!

So it was you who stole my female lead!

Gu Feidi paused for a moment, then continued, “You are on good terms with Fan Xi. You should be happy to see him following his heart.” 

In Su Yang’s head: ‘It’s not about following his heart, it’s about Pu Lingyun’s role as the heroine!’

‘And you, what kind of protagonist are you!? Why are you so lax toward your own love interest? Are you not afraid Fan-Er would run away with her right under your nose!’

Thinking of this, Su Yang sighed helplessly. 

The turmoil caused by the butterfly’s wings was giving him such an enormous problem. Before, he made things up too simply. 

Hearing Su Yang’s sigh, Gu Feidi finally asked the question he had been holding back, “Do you really care for Lingyun?”