Chapter 243: Going Underwater
He had to admit that Taiping Dao’s wound medicine was still very miraculous. Although using it felt like Ice and Fire Two Heavens, making it hard to endure, in merely half a day’s kung fu, Lu Yun’s wound had already healed, and he could enter the water.
Although Su Yingxiu held a different view, Lu Yun still insisted on going into the water to explore.
He first ate dozens of White Jade Silver Fish that Su Yingxiu had caught, then circulated qi and regulated breath for half a day, adjusting his condition to its peak, before standing at the edge of the underground river.
But he saw Su Yingxiu step toward him, raise her slender jade hand, untie the belt of her robe, and the wide black robe silently slid off, revealing her narrow shoulders, slender waist, long legs, and a ***perfectly flawless figure, which entered his sight.
Lu Yun only felt a surge of hot blood, his throat dry, and subconsciously wanted to shift his sight, but it was as if he had been hit by the Immobilization Technique—his neck simply wouldn’t obey.
“Where are your eyes looking?” Su Yingxiu gave him a shy glance, but intentionally or not, she puffed out her chest, making that pair of jade peaks even more erect and proud. She didn’t forget to tease Lu Yun verbally: “Can’t hold it in anymore, huh? Your nosebleed is flowing out…”
Hearing this, Lu Yun’s old face reddened, and he involuntarily touched his nose—there was no nosebleed at all. At this point, he also saw clearly that Su Yingxiu was wearing a tight leather wetsuit. The wetsuit tightly wrapped her limbs, fitting her body seamlessly, no wonder it misled him in the darkness.
“Didn’t you say you weren’t going?” Lu Yun turned his head away, hurriedly asking a question to break the awkwardness.
“I’m afraid of the dark.” Su Yingxiu said weakly, then giggled: “Going down together, if something happens, we can look out for each other.”
Lu Yun stopped dwelling on the matter; what Su Yingxiu wanted to do wasn’t for him to decide. But Lu Yun couldn’t help asking again: “How did you anticipate we’d need to enter the water?”
“Better safe than sorry.” Su Yingxiu stroked the smooth wetsuit on her body and smiled: “Actually, this isn’t just a wetsuit; it can also keep warm and resist fire, and it offers considerable protection against arrows and hidden weapons. When I put it on, I didn’t think we’d be entering the water today.”
For this woman’s words, Lu Yun had long learned to believe only half.
“After entering the water, stay right behind me.” Lu Yun stopped talking nonsense, gave the instruction, and cast his gaze toward the pitch-black water surface.
“Mm.” Su Yingxiu nodded and smiled sweetly.
Lu Yun then dove headfirst into the underground river, and Su Yingxiu gritted her teeth, following closely by jumping in after him.
The river water was bitingly cold; as soon as they entered, both felt the cold pressing in, and they hurriedly circulated their internal energy, dispelling the cold while maintaining their body temperature, and swiftly swam forward underwater.
In the blink of an eye, they reached the rock crevice where the river water flowed in; the current here grew even more turbulent, almost sucking people in. Su Yingxiu, following behind, was better off, with Lu Yun blocking most of the pressure for her. Lu Yun, taking the brunt, had no choice but to circulate fifty percent of his true force, constantly striking the water in the opposite direction to resist this immense suction.
Lu Yun finally stabilized his body, and Su Yingxiu poked her head out from behind him, patted his shoulder, then pointed ahead.
Following Su Yingxiu’s pointing, Lu Yun strained to widen his eyes and saw, deep in the crevice, a pitch-black cave entrance two feet wide. The river water surged madly out from that cave entrance, forming a constantly rotating vortex under the water surface.
Lu Yun first pointed at himself, then at the cave entrance. Then he pointed at Su Yingxiu, and finally at the spot. Meaning, he would go explore, and she should stay put.
Su Yingxiu hesitated, but still shook her head.
Lu Yun was helpless and could only go along with her. The two surfaced to catch their breath, then dove back underwater, heading straight for the cave entrance.
As soon as they neared the cave entrance, a terrifying suction enveloped them both. In the blink of an eye, they were sucked into the cave.
.
Inside the cave entrance, the water flow was exceptionally turbulent, and the waterway varied in width, with frequent turns. Even though Lu Yun had circulated seventy percent of his cultivation, he still couldn’t contend with the power of nature. He could only adjust his strategy, going with the flow, and use all his energy to prevent collisions.
Lu Yun was already struggling so much, let alone Su Yingxiu. She understood earlier than Lu Yun, but even just preventing collisions left her overwhelmed. Each time, she had to exert full effort to avoid the danger of smashing straight into the stone wall.
Hitting the stone wall at this speed would certainly cause severe injury, not to mention surviving this surging undercurrent.
Su Yingxiu had no choice but to rally all her spirit, using every ounce of strength to control her posture. Each time just before nearly hitting the stone wall, she unhesitatingly struck toward it, slightly altering her forward direction to dodge the terrifying impact.
But the water flow was truly too turbulent, and the waterway too uneven; in just a dozen breaths, Su Yingxiu had already unleashed over a dozen moves, clearly feeling her energy depleted and internal energy exhausted…
She hadn’t opened the Ren and Du Meridians, so persisting for a dozen breaths in this terrifying current was already remarkable…
But the undercurrent wouldn’t open any backdoor just because she was a genius. After being carried forward by the flow for over twenty breaths, the waterway narrowed, and the undercurrent’s speed increased again. Su Yingxiu was already exhausted and couldn’t withstand such great suction; her body lost control and was instantly swept by the fierce current toward the hard rock beside the cave entrance.
Just as she paled in terror, thinking her end had come, she felt her hand grabbed by someone, then her body yanked backward, narrowly avoiding the collision unscathed.
No need to look; Su Yingxiu knew who had saved her. Like a startled little animal, she gripped Lu Yun’s hand tightly, no matter how he gestured, refusing to let go.
Lu Yun was helpless and could only reach out, pulling her into his arms, wrapping her with his body, then suddenly raising his cultivation to eighty percent. Circulating the Gui Shui Zhi De Fist learned from Xie Bo, he used hands and feet together to adjust their posture, like a swimming fish, barely maintaining their form amid the extremely turbulent chaos.
Lu Yun finally grasped some knack for dealing with the undercurrent when suddenly he felt Su Yingxiu struggling and trembling in his arms. Looking down, he saw bubbles streaming from her mouth and nose—clearly, she had exhausted the air in her lungs and could no longer hold her breath…
In urgency, Lu Yun unthinkingly pinched Su Yingxiu’s nose tip with his fingers while pressing his mouth to Su Yingxiu’s lips, passing over a breath. Su Yingxiu immediately sucked greedily, finally steadying her breathing…
The two thus pressed body to body, mouth to mouth, until they were flushed out of the cave by the raging current!
.
As soon as Lu Yun and Su Yingxiu exited the cave, the powerful current propelled them to the surface. As soon as his head emerged, not caring to open his eyes, Lu Yun desperately gulped in big breaths of air; only after a good while did the burning pain in his lungs subside.
If it were just him alone, passing through this dark river wouldn’t be too easy but certainly not this miserable. But dragged down by Su Yingxiu as a burden, the situation was entirely different…
Being alive and surfacing was practically thanks to the heavens.
Once Lu Yun caught his breath and wiped the water from his eyes, he realized Su Yingxiu was no longer in his arms, floating several feet away on the water surface, looking at him thoughtfully.
Lu Yun had thought she would feign shyness and say something like, ‘That was my first kiss,’ but he hadn’t expected her to be so quiet.
This instead made Lu Yun feel guilty; after climbing ashore, he lightly coughed, circulated qi to dispel the cold while saying to Su Yingxiu: “Sorry, Miss Su, necessity overrules propriety, please don’t take it to heart.”
Su Yingxiu seemed not to hear his words, only focusing on circulating qi to dispel the cold.
