Little Alpaca – Chapter 197
by Little PandaVolume 5: Tribulation of All Beings
Don’t Look Like You’re at a Funeral.
The client placing an order spoke in a local dialect. The moment his speech quickened even slightly, she, an outsider, could only understand half and guess the rest.
“I’m sorry, could you say that again? I couldn’t quite hear you…”
On the other end of the line, the client’s voice grew increasingly irritable, but she could only endure it, coaxing him in the gentlest tone she could manage.
After finally hanging up from one difficult order call, her pregnant female colleague from the finance department in the inner office pushed open the glass door. She walked out, placing a stack of documents clipped with invoices on her desk.
“Xiao Qiu, it’s getting inconvenient for me to move around. Could you deliver this for me? I’ve sent the address to your WeChat.”
“But the phones…”
“Let Xiao Wu watch them for you.”
“I have to go take inventory in the warehouse with Li-jie later, we arranged that the day before yesterday…”
“This place is very close. Just run this errand for me. You’ll be back quickly, you’ll make it in time.”
“Oh.”
After a moment’s thought, she stood up with the things in her hand. Before she could even leave the company, she ran into her boss coming out of his office.
“Xiao Qiu, heading out? On your way back, grab me some bread. I didn’t go to the canteen for lunch and I’m a little hungry. Get it from the shop across the street. Anything is fine, just pick something.”
“Oh, okay…”
She couldn’t help but look down at the documents and invoices in her hand.
In that small stack of thin paper, she saw the sweltering heat outside. She saw herself, unfamiliar with the roads, nearly failing to find the destination. She saw herself being criticized by Li-jie for not being on time when she returned. She saw her boss, who had waited past his hunger, frowning and complaining that the bread she bought wasn’t to his taste.
The next second, she was sitting at a lively New Year’s dinner1 table, surrounded by countless familiar relatives talking and laughing. Every peer at the table was more successful than she was.
When it came time to toast and offer blessings to the elders, everyone else produced a continuous stream of witty remarks. Only she, the one who clacked away furiously on her keyboard online, couldn’t squeeze out a single satisfactory sentence for the elders.
“Yi Qiu is twenty-five this year?”
“Twenty-eight…”
“Still not married? Wasn’t that guy from the last blind date pretty good? He looked sharp, and his income is stable. You, you shouldn’t be too picky. In another two years, you won’t have any options left.”
“That’s right, at your age.”
So annoying. Isn’t it fine to be single?
She refused to settle for a lifetime with someone she didn’t like. She refused to be some man’s free nanny. Unless… unless he was very good to her. So good that he took care of her and protected her every day, freeing her from any financial pressure.
But how could an ordinary, average woman like her ever meet someone that good?
Someone that good would never fall for her.
So it was better to be alone.
Sitting alone in front of the computer, or lying in bed with her phone, scrolling through Weibo, reading novels. Occasionally, she’d resolve to find the time, grit her teeth, and finally catch up on the show a friend had been frantically recommending, which she had been putting off for ages.
Living seemed to be just that simple.
So simple that… she didn’t know when she had ended up standing blankly before the refrigerator. She opened it, took out a popsicle that wouldn’t cause her any financial stress, and fell into a long trance.
She felt like she shouldn’t be here.
This world she was so incredibly familiar with… it seemed to be missing something.
Missing something that should have been carved into the depths of her soul.
The ice in her hand melted, turning into a sticky, milky liquid that slid past her fingertips and dripped onto the floor. In an instant, it scattered into a wisp of spectral green spiritual light, which unexpectedly pierced into her heart.
In that moment, all sounds were hushed.
As she stood there in a daze, everything around her vanished like smoke and dispersed like clouds.
She was sprawled on the ground in an inhuman posture—it wasn’t a position she was familiar with, yet she didn’t feel the least bit surprised. She only stretched her furry neck and stared blankly at the woman sitting before her, sipping tea.
She wanted to see her face clearly, but the woman just ruffled her head, and her entire line of sight was completely blocked by a wide, drooping sleeve.
A strange anxiety made her shake her head and take two steps back, once again looking forward.
The woman’s face was deathly pale as she lay half-sitting on the bed. She looked incredibly weak, yet she extended a finger and gently tapped the spot between her brows.
“Because… you were willing to die with me.”
In that brief instant, all her memories, like a surging tide, rushed toward her across two different times and spaces, across thousands of years, allowing no resistance.
She had once unintentionally stumbled into that quiet and desolate Demon Emperor’s Palace. Protected by one person, she had passed through the grim and terrifying Demon Territory, walked along the River of the Netherworld that guided departed souls, and crashed into the scorching summer of the mortal realm.
She had once, cautiously and with great trepidation, tried to get close to that mercurial person—in Moshui, at the Xianlu Sect, in the Kunlun Dreamscape, and in countless towns and villages they happened to pass through.
She had once firmly believed that there was nothing wrong with being alone, until she grew accustomed to relying on someone and, inadvertently, changed a great deal.
That useless System once told her that this was just an ordinary one among thousands upon thousands of collapsed worlds. But she knew better than anyone that, to her, this place was the best of all worlds.
Yet there was a voice that she couldn’t get out of her head.
【Warning—Warning—】
【System has detected an anomaly in the Host’s soul status!】
What does a soul anomaly mean? Did I die? Or did the protagonists successfully ascend, meaning I completed my mission, and the System is forcibly sending me away?
She couldn’t go back. At the very least, she shouldn’t leave without a word.
She had promised to wait for You Yan to return…
When everything before her vanished, she began to run like a madwoman, sprinting through every familiar and unfamiliar wilderness in her memory, searching for the figure her heart yearned for most.
But suddenly, thin, long, shadow-like giant hands grabbed her limbs. They were icy and grim, relentlessly dragging her backward.
She struggled with all her might, screamed her lungs out, wishing she could use every ounce of her strength just to stay here.
“Get lost! Let go of me! I’m not leaving, I’m not leaving! I won’t go!”
The girl thrashed on the bed as if her life depended on it, her arms and legs sending the bedframe clanging and banging. Her crazed appearance, like a pig facing the butcher’s knife, was completely devoid of any semblance of grace.
After a long, awkward moment, the struggling girl slowly calmed down.
She tentatively squinted open her right eye. A small black dog had jumped onto her bed and was staring at her, its big, ruby-like eyes looking her up and down.
This wasn’t the guest house she and You Yan usually stayed in, but the furnishings were still in the style of the Xianlu Sect. She figured everyone must have moved her to a place with more people for easier care.
The white deer lay by the door, turning its head to watch her quietly. Xun Chi and He Xiuzhu were also in the room, and both of them wore extremely awkward expressions.
But it was precisely this awkwardness that filled Yi Qiu with a wave of excitement, as if she had been reunited with her closest family.
She was still here! She hadn’t gone back!
“System!”
【I’m here.】
“What’s the situation now? How is everyone? Is the Fei dead? Have I completed my mission?!”
【The current situation is very optimistic. The Fei has been slain at the Mass Grave north of Moshui City. The city’s residents are completely unaware of this.】
【The male and female protagonists have undergone the Heavenly Dao Thunder Tribulation and fully awakened their divine power. They only need to live out this life before they can shed their mortal bodies and return to their divine positions.】
【The story of this world has not yet truly reached its perfect conclusion. The Host has not yet completed all missions.】
She had just had a dream, and… and this was way too much information to take in.
The System said the situation was very optimistic, so everyone was fine. Xun Chi had gone with them that day and had now returned safely. You Yan must be fine too, right?
Is this the legendary ‘lying down to win’?2
Yi Qiu was stunned for a long time, unable to process what was happening. She subconsciously reached up to tidy her messy clothes and hair. Thankfully, she was dressed quite modestly, not even her feet were showing. Otherwise, she would have really been challenging the three worldviews3 of these ancient people.
As she was spacing out, Yi Qiu saw the folding screen in the room being put away. Outside the window, a light rain was falling, and the daytime sky was somewhat dim and overcast. This jogged her memory of what happened before she passed out.
She must have been dazed by the rain that night. Before she lost consciousness, she saw a figure.
Yi Qiu frowned and subconsciously glanced around the room, her gaze finally landing on He Xiuzhu.
If she remembered correctly, he was the one she saw. The figure of a person with a missing arm was always particularly thin and easy to recognize in a downpour.
But she clearly remembered that he hadn’t even been carrying an umbrella when he arrived. Why did he look perfectly fine now, while she was the one who had fainted? No matter how you looked at it, she had a bit of cultivation now, and she still had a lot of You Yan’s spiritual power in her body. Even if she couldn’t compare to one of the top disciples of the Xianlu Sect, the gap shouldn’t be that huge, right?
As Yi Qiu was thinking, Yue Zhuo, beside her, asked bluntly, “Little alpaca demon, the one-armed guy said you fell off the roof. Did you fall and become stupid?”
“I…”
“You’ve been unconscious for five days!” Yue Zhuo said, raising one of her little black paws as if trying to make a ‘five’ gesture. Unfortunately, a small paw wasn’t a human hand, and at first glance, you could only see four toes.
“You… what are you all doing gathered here?”
“Isn’t it because of the racket you were making? That little human girl from Huamo Pavilion came running from so far away, telling us in a panic—that something was wrong with you!” Yue Zhuo said, plopping down on the pillow. “Jian Li and I fainted because the Goddess was seriously injured. What happened to you?”
“Don’t even mention it. There was something wrong with that rain. I was shielding you the whole time…” Yi Qiu muttered under her breath, only to see a flash of surprise in everyone’s eyes.
“That rain… what was wrong with it?” He Xiuzhu asked.
“There was nothing wrong with it?” Yi Qiu couldn’t help but ask, astonished.
“Before Miss You left, she said that no matter what commotion we heard outside, we were not to rashly go and investigate. I was patiently holding back, but then I sensed an anomaly in the spiritual power where you were, and that’s when I discovered you had all passed out,” He Xiuzhu said. “I went out in the rain that night, but I didn’t notice anything unusual about the rainwater.”
“Huh?” Yi Qiu stared blankly for a moment, feeling her brain explode into a chaotic mess. It was completely overwhelmed.
If it wasn’t the rain, why did she feel so awful?
Could it be that the System mistakenly determined the protagonists had died and almost accidentally erased her?
No, no, that can’t be it…
“Where’s You Yan? Where is You Yan?” Yi Qiu shot up from the bed, her eyes suddenly filled with worry.
According to Yue Zhuo, five days had passed. You Yan must have returned by now. But from the moment she opened her eyes until now, she hadn’t seen You Yan at all.
That was absolutely impossible.
As she spoke, Yi Qiu’s gaze swept over everyone present, only to find that their eyes were all somewhat evasive.
“What’s going on?” Yi Qiu asked, her gaze inevitably turning to the most straightforward little dog in the room. She repeated her question, “What’s going on…?”
Yue Zhuo subconsciously turned to look at Jian Li, then at Xun Chi, as if still thinking. But Yi Qiu grabbed her head and turned it back to face her, a look of “shock” written all over the dog’s face.
After a brief silence, After a brief silence, the little black dog blinked and said, “Don’t look like you’re at a funeral,4 it’s creepy to look at. The Demon Lord… she… she isn’t dead yet!”
What do you mean, ‘isn’t dead yet’?!
Yi Qiu instantly jumped off the bed in a rage.
Footnotes
- The ‘nianfan’ is the family reunion dinner held on Chinese New Year’s Eve. It is one of the most important meals of the year.
- A popular internet slang term, ‘tang ying,’ originating from gaming culture. It means to win effortlessly, usually by being on a team with very strong players who carry you to victory.
- A modern Chinese term, ‘sanguan,’ referring to one’s worldview, values, and philosophy of life. To challenge someone’s ‘sanguan’ means to do something shocking or morally ambiguous that forces them to question their core beliefs.
- The chapter’s title idiom. It’s a blunt way of telling someone to stop looking so miserable or grief-stricken.
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