Chapter 19 Lucky Fellow
In Ji Ma’s eyes, regardless of gender, every person’s chest was surrounded by a seven-colored cyclone, symbolizing seven desires, clearly visible even from behind.
Ji Ma directed her gaze towards the adventurers. As expected, among their cyclones, the blue cyclone symbolizing greed and the purple cyclone representing lust stood out, as large as two fists.
The other cyclones were about the size of apples, nearly filling their chests with deep colors. Compared to the desire cyclones Ji Ma had seen in the hall a few days ago, whether in size or hue, they were several levels higher and easier to manipulate.
“Tsk, a bunch of fish enslaved by their desires,” Ji Ma felt pleased, “deserving only my control.”
At that moment, a loud shout suddenly cut through the clamor of the tavern, standing out like a crane among chickens.
“I won! Hahaha! Today it’s on me!”
The winner’s voice sounded somewhat familiar. Ji Ma turned her attention to where the voice came from.
She saw a horse-faced man standing up, puffed up with pride, his face flushed with excitement, looking a bit familiar.
Ji Ma grasped the edge of her hood to cover her face and stepped closer. Wasn’t this the overseer who had taken one gold coin from George in the morning?
In front of him, a greasy round table was filled with Gwent cards and several glasses of strong liquor. It was a gambling game, and today the horse-faced overseer seemed to have good luck. He had a pile of copper coins in front of him, mixed with a few silver coins.
In front of the others were only a pitiful small pile of copper coins. Across the table from the horse-faced overseer was a fat man who looked particularly miserable, his face red as he angrily took a few copper and silver coins from his money pouch and placed them in front of him.
“I had a blast today! There was a dumb arse with a bucket helmet trying to feed those mud men. I whipped the reins, glared at him, and scared him so much he dropped his jerky into the water and even handed me a gold coin.”
The horse-faced overseer continued to boast, “Tsk, if I hadn’t felt sorry for him, I’d have had him give me his little wife. She’s been following such a coward, and she’s so pretty; she must be suffering a lot. Better to enjoy life with me.”
Ji Ma’s golden eyes were filled with coldness as she took a few steps to the left, moving out of the horse-faced overseer’s line of sight. She activated her “Desire Eyes” to look at the sweat-soaked back of the overseer.
The seven swirls of his desires appeared in her sight. The most prominent were three intertwining cyclones: pink jealousy, yellow arrogance, and purple lust. Among them, the pink jealousy was especially striking.
Ji Ma didn’t rush to act but instead began analyzing this, as it was a good habit that helped her understand her extraordinary abilities and level up faster.
These three desires intertwined, with jealousy as the main element.
This indicated that this morning he had developed lust for me, then became jealous that I belonged to George, and finally viewed George’s kindness as weakness, arrogantly thinking of him as a fool, thus looking down on George… and this furthered his jealousy towards him; hence, jealousy became the dominant sentiment.
Heh, fish. Without taking a few heads, their low intelligence won’t learn what it means to have respect.
In her thoughts, Ji Ma had already guessed the overseer’s mindset quite accurately.
She raised her index finger slightly, ready to provoke his jealousy.
At that time, his companions would make some sarcastic comments, and she would step in to put on a show… The horse-faced overseer’s jealousy would lead him to crash into George’s sword.
No! That’s too risky. Involving myself makes it easy for George to become suspicious.
Ji Ma calmed down; she wouldn’t underestimate the intelligence of her enemies. The raised index finger dropped.
Just then, the fat man sitting opposite the horse-faced overseer stood up, his eyes red, impatiently waving his hand:
“Quit bragging!”
With that, he pushed the sorry little pile of copper coins in front of him forward and nearly shouted, “Let’s go again.”
The horse-faced overseer ignored him, continuing his rambling without any pause.
“That helmeted kid wore outdated armor probably scavenged from some corpse. That iron-gray color went out of style a decade ago. The adventurers say he kills too much, that’s why he talks so little; everyone’s afraid of him. I say they’re just cowards…”
The fat man stayed motionless, glaring at the horse-faced overseer’s incessant bragging, his eyes growing redder. He wanted to signal that he was very angry, but the horse-faced overseer didn’t pay him any mind and continued to boast.
Ji Ma, in front of the fat man’s chest, saw a bright green rage cyclone, as vivid as a green hat.
The corner of her mouth curled slightly as she beckoned with her index finger. The green rage cyclone in the fat man’s chest swelled suddenly like an exploding balloon, filling his entire chest.
“Shut your mouth!” the fat man bellowed, slamming his hand on the table, scattering copper coins everywhere. “Don’t you ever take a piss and see what you really look like? Just because a knight gave you a gold coin, you can brag for this long!”
“What did you say? Say it again!”
“I said, you’re just a beggar!”
“You fat pig! Can’t take losing, can you?”
“What!” The fat man was furious, gasping for breath as he kicked over the round table; his two companions immediately grabbed him to the left and right. They urged:
“Calm down, calm down; we’re all friends here.”
The adventurers watching nearby all turned their heads. It seemed like just an ordinary squabble, a typical friendship breaking apart.
But this was anything but ordinary.
As Ji Ma passed by the staircase, she turned back, pretending to be attracted by the quarrel. She beckoned quietly at the horse-faced overseer with her pinky finger and saw the pink desire cloud expand, filling the horse-faced overseer’s chest. She directly went upstairs.
Unbeknownst to the horse-faced overseer, he recalled the knight he had seen in the morning. The knight was clad in full plate armor, majestic and taller than him, with a little girl servant beside him, cutely glancing at him with a charming allure.
He felt a pang of sourness and shouted at the fat man: “What did you just say?”
Spittle flew onto the fat man’s face.
“A beggar who took a gold coin from the knight!”
Ji Ma reached the second floor, and the shouting intensified again.
She stepped lightly, walked up to the door, unlocked it, entered, and closed it behind her, cutting off the sounds of the argument.
George, who was sitting on the bed reading by the alchemical lamp, looked up and asked, “Did you find out? I thought you’d be downstairs for a while.”
“It’s chaotic down there; people are arguing. I was afraid someone would take me away.”
As Ji Ma said this, she moved closer to George. He expressionlessly put the book behind him. Unable to help herself, Ji Ma glanced at the cover and casually remarked:
“Master is still very thoughtful.”
“I told you not to call me Master—”
A loud, high-pitched voice interrupted George from upstairs.
“Ah!!!!!!!!”
George immediately drew his giant sword and said to Ji Ma, “Follow me.”
Ji Ma took out her crossbow and loaded it, following behind George. The two of them exited the room and went downstairs.
In the first-floor hall, nearly all customers stood up, forming a circle. The large woman was pale, clutching her chest.
The two stood at the top of the stairs, peering over the crowd to see a corpse. The body lay face down on the ground, with a large hole in its head, blood-soaked and messy. The horse-faced man’s face lay sideways in a pool of blood, his eyes wide open in shock.
The weapon was a hammer, with some bloodied hair stuck on it, lying next to the corpse’s right hand. A gold coin had fallen from an overturned table, rolled through the blood, and hit the horse-faced man, landing in the blood pool, the coin’s face smeared with blood.
That gold coin was exactly the one George had “bribed” him with in the morning.
George recognized the horse-faced man: “Is it him?”
“Who?” Ji Ma grabbed the handrail, bouncing on her toes, trying to see the body.
“It’s the overseer who whipped the slaves this morning; he treated the slaves like livestock.”
“Good for him; he deserved to die.”
George patted Ji Ma on the head, “Little kids shouldn’t say such things.”
“But I really think it’s great.”
“Just think it in your heart; don’t say it out loud.” George said, “Go find out what happened.”
They went down, and Ji Ma casually approached a concerned bystander.
“They were gambling with Gwent cards, and the dead man was boasting that a knight was a fool, handing him a gold coin and so on. The loser got impatient and started arguing. In the heat of it, the fat man grabbed the hammer and smashed his head.”
As she spoke, the enthusiastic crowd shivered, “It was like avenging a father; after knocking him down, the fat man sat on him and hammered his head a dozen times before fleeing. Everyone was scared.”
George shook his head and said, “Gambling harms people.”
They returned to their own room, and George didn’t forget to educate her, “Ji Ma, never gamble in the future.”
“Yeah, it’s too scary.” Ji Ma nodded, “I’ll go memorize my lessons first.”
Ji Ma sat on a high stool, facing away from George, and the corners of her mouth finally couldn’t help but slightly lift.
At this moment, a warm current flowed through her body. It felt like a warm towel gently wiping her from head to toe, leaving her feeling at ease. She sensed that her mastery of the succubus’s extraordinary abilities had deepened, and this wonderful sensation was like her previously stiff left hand suddenly becoming as dexterous as her right hand.
Being familiar with the system, Ji Ma knew this phenomenon indicated her capabilities were being reinforced.
She slightly closed her eyes and affectionately called out the system, seeing a line of text in the message bar.
“DM: As your understanding of playing a succubus deepens and you become familiar with how to apply the ‘Apostle of Desire’ ability, your mastery of extraordinary abilities has advanced. You can now check for ability updates.”
Ji Ma opened her personal interface.
“Name: Ji Ma”
“Faction: Neutral Evil.”
… Update complete.
“Provoke Desire (Updated): You can now provoke multiple desires simultaneously in the same person. You can see the desires of the crowd and incite the desires of many individuals, manipulating them at your whim, but the larger the crowd, the greater the consumption. As you level up, the scale of the crowds you can provoke will also increase.”
So powerful! Although the consumption is high, human emotions can infect one another, magnifying desires in the crowd. This means that as long as I make a subtle provocation, dropping a spark, under the crowd’s support, the spark could become a bonfire, roaring and even burn down an entire city.
Ji Ma assessed this ability very positively. She opened her eyes, filled with joy from her gains.
At the same time, she didn’t neglect the message from the message bar, summarizing her upgrade experience in her mind.
The system praised my deep understanding of the succubus, probably due to my targeting of George’s “meaty” aspects; heh, leading others astray is indeed the nature of a succubus.
This time, merely playing with a fish resulted in so much experience. It shows that I did perfectly, without involving myself, unnoticed, without anyone realizing anything was amiss, and deceiving everyone.
Seduction, deception, manipulating people’s desires from the shadows. This must be the Apostle of Desire; I’ll need to follow these role-playing rules in the future.
I’m really clever; just wait, traitors and those untouched virgins, I’m coming back.
Ji Ma smiled faintly, and the wicked words on the pages of the religious brainwashing book became endearing. Absently, she twirled her hair, exposing her white neck, picked up a pencil, and began to transcribe.
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By the way, you actually enjoy watching butt-smacking; the number of comments surprised me.
