My father is the main character, but the female leads want to kill me.

After dinner, Wen Qianyi and Lin Ran left hand in hand, and little Lin Chong took Ye Wanxi to enjoy some alone time, leaving Mu Shishuang alone.

She stood in front of her house, looking out at the dark, still-rainy house, and felt a sense of loneliness.

That surprised her somewhat. In all her years of life, she thought she had gotten used to being alone, but now she was finding it a little hard to adjust.

Looking back at the dimly lit and somewhat empty room, Mu Shishuang wondered if she should follow Lin Ran's example and add some flowers, calligraphy, and paintings to decorate it, as it was a bit monotonous now.

"Lin Ran is going to help me get rid of the fire poison tonight. Should I prepare in advance?"

Mu Shishuang felt that she had nothing to do anyway, so she went to the washroom, took the bath tub to the side hall, pulled the curtain, poured out a lot of cold water, and then went to the kitchen to boil hot water. After going back and forth for a while, she sweated a lot.

After wiping herself down with a towel, she sat alone at the large table near the door, looking at the storybook in her hand under the dim light.

Time passed quietly, and it was past midnight. Mu Shishuang added more hot water, but Lin Ran still didn't appear. For some reason, she felt a little disappointed and frustrated.

This inexplicable feeling surprised even Mu Shishuang herself.

"What's wrong with me?"

Mu Shishuang couldn't help but ask herself, "In a sense, I was being taken advantage of by Lin Ran. How could I expect her to come over?"

She's starting to feel a little confused about herself.

As darkness fell and the candles on the candlestick nearly burned out, Mu Shishuang realized that the task of expelling the fire poison today had probably been forgotten, after all, those two were very busy people...

"Close the door, wash up, and go to bed!"

Mu Shishuang murmured softly, her voice filled with a sense of loss that she herself was unaware of. She arrived at the gate and was about to close it when a voice suddenly reached her ears from the dark, rainy night.

"Still waiting so late? Looks like I got back just in time!"

A golden streak of light descended from the sky and landed in front of Mu Shishuang. Lin Ran was soaked by the rain, and her hair was wet and stuck to her face. Looking at the somewhat disheveled Lin Ran in front of her, Mu Shishuang felt as if her heart had been stolen. She would probably never forget this night.

All that waiting and suffering was just to make that moment of meeting even more beautiful…

.....

88. Lotus emerging from water

"I went to help Qianyi, and I completely lost track of time... I was thinking of rushing back to check on you. If you were asleep, I would cleanse the fire poison tomorrow, but I didn't expect you to still be awake. You must have been waiting for a long time!"

Beside the bathtub, Lin Ran was preparing a medicinal solution to clear away the fire poison according to the method given by Qianyi, chatting occasionally with Mu Shishuang behind her.

Mu Shishuang leaned against a pillar, her quiet eyes fixed on Lin Ran's back. Her cool voice seemed to carry a hint of resentment: "Wasn't it supposed to be tonight to clear away the fire poison?"

That's correct...

Lin Ran placed the medicine bottle on the table beside her, turned around and looked at Mu Shishuang apologetically, saying, "This time it was my oversight. I won't make you wait so long next time."

Faced with Lin Ran's sincere apology, Mu Shishuang couldn't help but turn her head away. She didn't want to meet Lin Ran's gaze. To be precise, she wasn't used to Lin Ran being so good to her. She felt unworthy. The better Lin Ran treated her, the more deeply she felt about her previous actions, and the more she felt...not even human...

"I'm just a prisoner, you don't need to apologize to me," Mu Shishuang said calmly, taking a deep breath.

"When did I ever treat you like a prisoner?"

Lin Ran was taken aback. He looked at Mu Shishuang with a strange expression. Did he really think that all the good food and drinks he had been providing for her during this time counted as being a prisoner? Whose prisoner was so well taken care of? Was she a pig? Thinking about it, it seemed that pigs really were like that.

Mu Shishuang was speechless for a moment. She didn't know how to answer and used silence to avoid such an answer.

The room fell silent again, so quiet that you could clearly hear how many raindrops were falling outside, so quiet that you could hear the other person's rhythmic breathing, so quiet that you could hear the passage of time...

"Forget it, let's not talk about this anymore!"

Lin Ran's voice was the punch that broke the "time freeze." He pointed to the bathtub and walked towards the curtain: "I'll step aside for a bit. You go in and soak in the bathtub first!"

Mu Shishuang only dared to raise her head after Lin Ran left. She had developed this ostrich-like habit of keeping her head down. She glanced at the figure outside the curtain. Under the dim yellow light in the room, she could see a dark shadow moving there.

She moved gracefully to the clothes rack and neatly arranged her clothes on it. When her fingertips touched her undergarments, she hesitated for a moment, but then she put them on the rack as well.

The pale yellow candlelight contrasted with her jade-like, lustrous white skin, much like the light of a firefly against the bright moon. The perfectly placed touches of pink added a youthful vibrancy to the white complexion.

She was not plump, but she was by no means skinny.

She was tall and aloof, like a flower on a snow-capped mountain, but she was also a dandelion that had lost its branches and leaves and was drifting aimlessly in the wind.

With her bare feet pressed against the earth, one could almost hear the sound of them rubbing against each other. As her feet gently glided across the calm water, one could almost hear the soft water weeping.

"thump!"

Rou Shui's cry of pain, at that moment, drowned out the torrential rain outside and reached Lin Ran's ears with unparalleled clarity. He knew that Mu Shishuang had already entered the bathtub. He took out a booklet containing many relevant information about expelling the fire poison.

Even though he had become familiar with the process several times, he still insisted on strictly following the steps outlined in the booklet, just to be on the safe side.

Stepping through the curtain, Lin Ran was immediately greeted by a scene before her: clothes on shelves, a bathtub filled with a simple, emerald-green, brownish-red medicinal solution...

Lin Ran took out a crystal-blue pill and held it to Mu Shishuang's lips. He glanced down at the booklet, and after Mu Shishuang swallowed the pill, he immediately began the next step…

As a result, he felt a warm and damp sensation on his fingertips, which made Lin Ran look up and see Mu Shishuang accidentally touch his fingers while swallowing the pill.

Lin Ran had only ever seen this move with one sly fox before, and she never expected to see another one like it today.

But unlike that vixen who did it intentionally, Lin Ran was more inclined to believe that Mu Shishuang did it unintentionally. This woman's hatred for him was extraordinary; if she really wanted to, she would have bitten off his finger.

Lin Ran withdrew her hand, came behind Mu Shishuang, gathered spiritual power at her fingertips, and drilled into Mu Shishuang's body to accelerate the medicinal effect. Frost began to form on Mu Shishuang's body.

Lin Ran's spiritual power also activated the medicinal liquid in the bathtub. The emerald green liquid gradually turned brownish-red, and the liquid became scalding hot, bubbling and rising with a white mist.

The process of expelling the fire poison officially began. Next, we focused intently on repeatedly expelling the scarlet, foul-smelling fire poison from Mu Shishuang's body until the medicinal liquid became clear.

However, Lin Ran does not possess heavenly fire, so he can only rely on his abundant spiritual energy to activate the medicinal liquid and clear away the fire poison. Clearing away the fire poison would be much more difficult and laborious for him than for Wen Qianyi.

But there was no other way. The accumulated fire poison needed to be cleared as soon as possible so as not to affect Mu Shi's double bones. Qianyi was busy recently, so Lin Ran had to take over.

During the treatment, Mu Shishuang simply kept her eyes closed and endured the pain, occasionally opening them to look at Lin Ran before closing them again.

After the medicine was completely used up, Lin Ran quickly stopped and slumped into a chair, panting heavily. He picked up a towel that had been placed aside and wiped the sweat from his face. His shirt was soaked through. This delicate manipulation of soul power was truly not something a human could do.

Seeing Lin Ran like this, Mu Shishuang felt a pang of pity and couldn't help but ask, "Are you... are you alright?"

Lin Ran rolled her eyes at Mu Shishuang and complained, "Why is a prisoner so concerned about his master!"

But as soon as she said that, Lin Ran regretted it a little. Sure enough, she was so tired that her mind was a little foggy, and she didn't know how to speak properly.

He quickly observed Mu Shishuang's expression, and seeing that Mu Shishuang had no reaction, he breathed a sigh of relief, but still said somewhat belatedly, "Don't take my words to heart!"

"fine!"

Mu Shishuang shook her head. Her heart was not really affected by these words. She had heard far more vicious things than this. Lin Ran's attack power was also somewhat restrained compared to before.

"The expulsion of the fire toxin this time was quite effective. The deeply accumulated fire toxin in your body has been completely cleared, leaving only a little. However, we cannot rush the process of eliminating the fire toxin. Your body is still relatively weak, so we..."

After recovering, Lin Ran summarized the treatment, thinking that he probably wouldn't need to clear Mu Shishuang's fire poison for a while.

The previous cleansing was too harsh. Next, we should focus on strengthening the body's foundation and restoring its vitality. Once the body's energy has recovered sufficiently, we can then carry out a final cleansing of the fire toxins.

"I'll do whatever you say, I don't care!"

Mu Shishuang nodded. She didn't want to stay in the bathtub any longer, so she stood up...

"Wow!"

Just then, a streak of purple-white lightning flashed across the sky, instantly illuminating the dimly lit room, allowing Lin Ran to see what a lotus emerging from the water looked like as soon as she looked up.

No matter how Lin Ran looked at Mu Shishuang before, she remained calm. Perhaps it was because Mu Shishuang was either unconscious or suffering from fire poison at that time. She was either as red as a cooked shrimp or as black as an eggplant, a deep purplish-black color.

But now this fleeting scene appeared before his eyes, and his heart was stolen by the beautiful sight. He was stunned for a while before Lin Ran quickly turned her head to the side and said anxiously, "Why aren't you wearing anything today?!"

"uncomfortable!"

Mu Shishuang responded indifferently. She climbed out of the bathtub, still wet, and prepared to walk to the shelf to get a towel to dry herself off.

"Oh, if you're not feeling well, then you can..."

Lin Ran was thinking of turning back to teach him a lesson when he saw a scene that shocked him. Then... he fled the side hall, stood by the window, and pushed it open to let the cold wind blow in to clear his head.

But no matter what, one thought kept popping into his mind, and he couldn't suppress it no matter what he did.

"Both sisters are like little white tigers!"

……

When Mu Shishuang came out dressed, Lin Ran was nowhere to be seen. She never expected that she could scare Lin Ran away with her appearance.

Remembering Lin Ran's gaze at that time, Mu Shishuang couldn't help but lower her head. Unfortunately, she could only see the clothes on her chest. She patted her lower abdomen with her small hand, recalling some sisterly plots she had read in those storybooks.

She guessed... Lin Ran must have been thinking about her and her sister just now, right?

For a while afterward, Lin Ran even deliberately avoided going to Mu Shishuang's place, but when everyone had dinner together in the evening, she still couldn't help but meet Mu Shishuang's strange gaze.

Lin Ran, on the other hand, felt a little guilty. This was mainly because his thoughts were not very healthy, and he immediately thought of some dirty things. He felt as if he had been seen through by Mu Shishuang's gaze.

After a busy period of preparation, the qualifying rounds for the All-Continent Academy Competition of Linghua Academy have finally come to an end. Among the ten students selected, those whom Lin Ran had high hopes for were all included, especially Fu Yuemei, who performed exceptionally well and won first place in this qualifying round.

Lin Ran planned to give the child a small test later, and then pass on the Flower Sect's inheritance to the child, hoping that the child could revitalize the Flower Sect. If she could persuade the child to develop in the Li Dynasty, it would also be a great help to Li Yuhan.

Although he had his own agenda, he still respected Fu Yuemei's idea. If she wanted to go to the Central Region and venture into the heart of the continent, he couldn't stop her, could he?

Not long after the qualifying rounds ended, Qiu Qingzi also called Lin Ran over.

As soon as he entered Qiu Qingzi's office, the woman tossed a scroll into his hand. After examining it closely, he frowned and looked at Qiu Qingzi with some incomprehension.

"Why are so many sects participating in the Continental Academy Tournament? This is hardly a proper academy tournament. You might as well invite the entire continent to come and play in the secret realm!"

It's no wonder Lin Ran was so angry. The main reason is that this continent-wide academy competition is limited to academies operating on the continent. What are you trying to do by suddenly adding so many inexplicable sects? What are the Azure Dragon Academy and Holy Sky Academy, the leaders, doing?

……

89. Show your power

In Qiu Qingzi's office at Linghua Academy, Lin Ran and Qiu Qingzi fell silent upon learning that the secret realm of the Continental Academy Competition would soon welcome the participation of numerous sects. They looked at each other, unsure of what to say next.

"Have you told the dean about this?" Lin Ran suddenly asked.

Qiu Qingzi shook her head, rested her chin on her hand, and tapped the small roly-poly toy on the table with her slender fingers. She said helplessly, "I don't even know what to say now. Things have changed too fast, and the impact has been too great!"

The involvement of sects has increased the uncertainty of the secret realm, making it even more difficult for Linghua Academy to emerge victorious.

"Why aren't Azure Dragon Academy and Holy Sky Academy stopping them? They're just letting so many sects squeeze in?" Lin Ran was a little confused. The more people there are, the harder it will be to snatch the treasures in this secret realm. How could those two academies allow sects to join?

"It's said... that the eight major sects above also intervened this time..."

"Could it be that those guys are going to send their own young leaders to participate, just like they did with that secret realm in the Death Mountains of Jiezhou before?"

Lin Ran's eyes widened. If it were as strong as the secret realm of the Mirror Moon Saint Emperor, wouldn't that be incredibly difficult? Perhaps Linghua Academy should just give up and conserve its strength for the next session!