Spiritual energy surged into her staff, and with a loud boom, it shattered into splinters, flying everywhere. Di Jinming, having read her mind, was rapidly teleporting to get out of her range of attack.

“Nice try, bitch!” She rapidly compressed the air around her, and released it in the direction of her fleeing First Senior Brother. The wooden shards hurtled through the air at him, staying intact due to the spiritual energy she had infused into it earlier. Murong Yingyue followed after, compressing the air below Di Jinming, who had turned around and set up a formation.

A sphere shone around him just seconds before the wooden shards all simultaneously expanded towards him. It was as if he was in an enormous spiked wooden ball. Meanwhile, Murong Yingyue had readied the compressed the air below him, ready to blast him away if he made any more moves.

After a few seconds, Murong Yingyue was sent a mental message from Di Jinming.

How did you know?

It was pretty obvious the moment I realized you only left the ground once, even though you could have easily teleported away. It was easy from there since you didn’t use the formations on your sword to attack me. Your formations use a lot of spiritual energy, and the only thing I saw on you was your space ring. You had way too many opportunities to abuse your teleportation ability, but you didn’t, because you needed your spiritual energy to attack with the formations on your sword.

And then your bitchass sent all those wooden shards at me. His thoughts sounded petulant, and Murong Yingyue gave him a shit eating grin, though he couldn’t see it.

It’s not my damn fault that your mind decided to go offline and stupidly drain away more of your spiritual energy by trying to teleport away.

It is your fault, bitch! You were going to compress the air below me to blast me back into the air, what was I supposed to do?

Ha! Not so invincible without your healing ability, are you?

You were lucky that a splinter cut my face so you could figure out where my healing came from. Murong Yinyue let the wood pieces fall back to the ground, shrinking back into tiny parts. She strode up to him and gave him a quick right-handed hook to the jaw.

“Luck is part of strength!” She declared shamelessly. “Are you going to say me hitting you was luck again?”

I let you hit me because you’d skewer me with your wooden staff if I moved!

“Excuse, excuses.” Murong Yingyue replied dismissively. “By the way, would you mind speaking aloud so Feifei knows what the hell is going on, and the readers don’t have to keep reading italics? It gets confusing after awhile.”

“Huh? Readers? What are you talking about? There’s no one here.” Murong Yingyue facepalmed. Shit, I forgot. Fucking author, you forced that wall break too hard.

“Forget about it.” And very “miraculously,” he did.

“Anyways, do you concede?” She asked Di Jinming, raising an eyebrow. He stayed silent, clearly conflicted.

“Of course...” He said trailing off, and Yingyue knew what his answer was going to be. Taking a preemptive strike at him, the wooden shards expanded against him again.

“Not.” With a sweep of his sword, the wooden shards in front of him were completely demolished, turning them into dust. Murong Yingyue glared at him.

Her martial arts could expand the dust, but it wasn’t very efficient to use so much spiritual energy on something like that.

Which reminded her of how much spiritual energy she had left. Murong Yingyue wasn’t a crazy ass powerhouse with limitless spiritual power (until it was convenient for the plot and the MC would have to go for a training arc to defeat some unsurmountable opponent), and the move she had just made had emptied her reserves to a bit less of one-third of the original.

No, as a member of the non-OP characters, Murong Yingyue would have to perform the long-lost art of preparation. This meant she stuffed every offensive artifact she owned into a space ring on an unmentioned trip into her cottage in the period of time between returning to the mountaintop and dragging out her Third Junior Sister, which was completely intentional so the readers would be “surprised” at the sudden turn-around of the match once she unleashed her secret weapon.

Yeah. Something like that.

To prevent Di Jinming from reading her mind and countering the effects of the artifacts, Yingyue made sure that even she didn’t know what she had with her.

She flicked her hand, and a palm-sized box shot towards Di Jinming. He teleported away - but not to the ground. Murong Yingyue had kept the air underneath him compressed so even if he managed to get healed from touching it again, he would just get blasted back up in the air, making it pointless and a waste of his spiritual energy.

The box burst open, and its pieces disappeared. Shit, I used a one-use artifact? What a pity, I wanted to save those up. Murong Yingyue waited for a reaction, as did Di Jinming, but nothing happened.

She waited longer. Nothing.

She waited even longer. Still nothing. Di Jinming looked awkwardly up at her, debating whether or not it would be safe to move.

Yingyue felt her cheek twitch. It wasn’t a dud, was it? She was pretty sure she chose powerful ones that would work in any situation so-

It was silent but powerful, and she felt herself getting jolted towards the place where the box had just been. Spacial energy twisted in that moment, and a hole was punched through reality. Di Jinming stood still, hovering in the air and completely stunned. The space between them was nearly nonexistent, their bodies being within an arm’s length from the other, as if it had simply disappeared.

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“Did you just use a-” Murong Yingyue wasted no time, jumping backward. His head whipped forward as a wooden pole struck the back of his head. It continued to extend, bending down into Murong Yingyue’s hand. It shrank into a perfectly sized staff and as she hefted it over her shoulder she smiled widely.

“Eat it, bitch.” She pointed her weapon right at his stomach, and it shot out, piercing through it. Di Jinming was still in shock at the ancient tier artifact she had just pulled out, eyes fixed on where the box had activated. A second after her staff had gone through his stomach, he looked up at her, eyes incredulous.

“Did you just use an ancient tier artifact? This is only an eighth realm spar at most! That’s a fucking waste of a powerful artifact. Do you even know how valuable an ancient tier spacial artifact is? They’re worth a hundred normal ancient tier artifacts. And it was a one use artifact, so you can multiply that value by at least five. You’re not even wasting money anymore, you’re just burning it!” Murong Yingyue shrugged.

“Hey, at least it’ll keep me warm.”

“...”

“Whatever, let’s continue ‘kay?” Di Jinming looked down at his stomach, which still had her staff poking through. He sighed.

“I don’t dare continue against such a wasteful person as you. I won’t continue fighting with you.”

“So you admit defeat?” Could it be? Will my day finally come?

“Seeing as I put down my guard because of your artifact...”

“Just say it straight! Yes or no? Is it that fucking hard?”

“...Yes.” Sweet! Achievement Unlocked! Male Lead defeated! It was pretty anti-climatic, but I’ll take it! Murong Yingyue retracted her staff, letting him fall down to the ground, landing on the ground with a solid thud. Already, the hole in his torso was being sealed up, and in a couple of seconds, it was completely gone. He hopped back up to his feet, changing his robes quickly.

“Awww, dearie, you think I’m your male lead? That’s so cute of you! Why don’t you give your future hubby a hug, hm? C’mon!” Yingyue’s fist instantly met his face, slamming against the mask (which didn’t break, because face it, the face under the protection of the mysterious mask can only be bypassed through sheer luck or the male lead does it willingly). She had forgotten he could read her mind, and furthermore, had gotten too comfortable around him because of one victory. Di Jinming’s back met the dirt again.

“Dear,” He told her from his spot on the ground, “Hit me anytime you like. You can even hit me harder if you like, I’ll do it for you! See, look how amazing your husband is!”

“Shut up, you shameless pervert!” She froze slightly. “Fuck! How dare you make me use such a common insult! I swear, every female main character has said that to the male lead!”

“Keep digging holes for yourself, my sweet wifey~ Your wonderful hubby doesn’t mind, he wants 2 b with u 4ever~” He told her, getting up off the ground and quickly changing robes again. Goddammit, does he just have an endless supply of green robes?

“Like hell I will! I preferred you when you actually didn’t have an excessively exaggerated personality! And what’s with the chatspeak?” Di Jinming’s face became solemn.

“For you, I will do anything. Do you prefer me serious?” Then he smiled widely.

“Or do you want me to be a fool?” He went back to calm.

“Or do you like the cold but sweet kind?”

“What the hell? Stop acting like your personality is like an ice cream flavor I can pick!”

“But it is...” Di Jinming murmured, instantly teleporting in front of her and stroking her cheek with a large hand. His eyes oozed seductiveness as they met her own.

“Feifei! Feifei! Emergency! I’m allergic to fake ass bitches! Get me away from this manwhore!” Murong Yingyue shrank and ran, while Di Jinming let her go with a satisfied smile on his face.

Lu Fei had been standing still in disbelief, eyes wide with shock at their fight and interaction after it. Her Fifth Junior Sister’s yells had brought her out of the daze, and she snapped to attention.

“Yueyue! You’re so amazing! Of course I’ll help you! You’re strong enough to beat him now!” The two female disciples ran at each other, and time slowed to capitalize on their beautiful pure friendship that was absolutely not based on how convenient it was to be with the other at the time.

However, at the last moment, Murong Yingyue ducked down, sweeping her leg at Lu Fei. She was promptly tripped, and fell down face first into the dirt.

“Yueyue!” She wailed. “What was that for?”

“You were a pretty good target, so why not?” Lu Fei shrank back.

“It can’t be... you’re still mad?”

“What do you think?” Murong Yingyue rolled her eyes, turning back to her First Senior Brother.

“Hey, how about we make a deal? You use your mind reading powers to help me drive away or get rid of main characters, and I’ll supply artifacts for you. You seem pretty interested in them, so how about it?”

“Sure. Why not? I came down here to extort some treasures out of Master anyways, and it would be easier to just get them from you.” He agreed easily. “But,” His voice sounded awkward. “I kind of planted a suggestion in some kid’s mind to become obsessed with you for some entertainment.”

“...What?” That fucker! Though... it does explain a lot.

“Remember that kid? The weird puppet guy? Yeah, I sort of made him obsessed with you, and if I tried to change him back, it wouldn’t work. It’s been far too long, and he was already attached to you.” Murong Yingyue pursed her lips, thinking.

“Then how about this? If he comes after me, you have to drive him away for free. I’ll pay you for anyone else, and you can’t purposely lead them towards me and alter their minds. You’ll also have to tag along for Master’s trips since that’s how I get my treasures. We can work out the rest of the details later.”

“Alright. I’ll drop by later.”

“Nice doing business with you.” They shook hands, and Yingyue made to leave, only to be stopped by Lu Fei.

“Why didn’t First Senior Brother use more formations? Couldn’t he have beaten you with them?” Di Jinming glared at her.

“Dumb bitch, you can’t even tell that she’s ranked up to the late seventh realm. You’re still in the same realm as her, so you have no excuse. She would’ve shrunk my formations or expanded it into my direction.” Lu Fei shrank back fearfully from him, ducking behind Murong Yingyue. Murong Yingyue heartlessly pushed her Third Junior Sister away, leaving her exposed to Di Jinming.

“Feifei, I’m siding with him. You’re seriously slipping. How could you not tell? I wasn’t even trying to suppress my spiritual powers. But,” she sighed helplessly. “As your Fifth Junior Sister, I will help you.” Lu Fei leapt at Murong Yingyue to hug her, unaware of the mental exchange her Fifth Junior Sister and Di Jinming was having. Just when she was about to wrap her arms around her, she was pulled violently backwards, falling over on to the ground.

The masked face of her First Senior Brother loomed ominously over her.

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Bonus:

Murong Yingyue: Hahaha! I'm free! I don't have to deal with this main character bullshit anymore!

Yun Siye: You know, you could be a side character. It wouldn't matter if you beat up our First Senior Brother since he could also be another side character that you were destined to fall in love with.

Murong Yingyue: Shut the hell up! What do you know? As far as I'm concerned, being a side character could be better! I could be used once or twice in a storyline then forgotten for the rest of the plot.

Yun Siye: Or you could end up being a catalyst to advance the plot. What would you like? A kidnapping, a massacred family, or a situation where you're cornered and have to be saved by the main character?

Murong Yingyue: There's a reason I'm so confident I won't become a main character. Come closer and I'll tell you.

Yun Siye: Really? Tell me! I want to- ow! Why did you hit my head?

Murong Yingyue: You dumbfuck, don't you dare jinx me! If I do end up becoming a female lead, don't even think for a second I won't toss you out as a sacrifice to turn a wuxia novel into a BL one!