Trafford's Trading Club

Chapter 1514: Chapter 241: Women Are Trouble, I’m Telling You!

“Want another cup?”

“No, thanks. This one’s enough. I haven’t had such good tea in a long time.” The Red Lamp Spirit was now cupping the teacup in both hands, sitting down on the steps where the Magic Lamp’s pedestal stood.

Boss Luo also picked up his teacup and sat beside it, but his gaze was on the entrance they had come through.

“That woman outside, is she your friend?” The Red Lamp Spirit suddenly lowered its voice and asked.

Luo Qiu thought for a moment and said, “Right now we’re classmates; we’ve only just met, so I wouldn’t call us friends. Because of some reasons we ended up coming to the desert… you could say we got swept into some incident by accident, and that’s how we finally arrived here.”

The Red Lamp Spirit nodded. Perhaps because it had vented the anger piled up over countless years, it no longer looked so ferocious; it even seemed a bit mild and amiable now.

It looked at Boss Luo and said, in the tone of someone who’d been through it all, “Good, not too much of a connection. I can tell you this: creatures called women are the most terrifying, the most unwanted thing under heaven! They don’t just harm you, they steal everything from you… especially beautiful women, they’re vicious like vipers and scorpions… that bitch!!”

Crack—!

Because of the force of its grip, the cup shattered at once in the Red Lamp Spirit’s hand… It seemed not to notice, its gaze glued to the passage at the entrance, gradually taking on a cruel glint—yet very soon, it sighed. “Even though she’s a woman, I still hope she can pass this trial. Otherwise, I don’t know how long I’ll have to wait for the next time.”

After Luo Qiu made his third wish, the Magic Lamp responded that it would have to wait for the next qualified person to appear—as far as the curtain wall’s situation showed, Claudia would be the next candidate.

But clearly, her chances of passing were quite low.

“Even if she manages to pass this trial by Will alone, she won’t necessarily be acknowledged by the Magic Lamp. After all, this is just a test someone who summoned me last time had people build later. Compared to the Lamp’s own recognition, it’s still different… It’s only that if you pass the trial, your chances of being acknowledged by the Lamp are higher.” The Red Lamp Spirit sighed again, speaking faintly: “Next time, I don’t even know when someone who can summon me will show up… You—if you’re not in a rush to leave, could you stay and talk with me a little longer?”

“Of course.” Boss Luo nodded, merely shifting his body a bit away, and said with a smile, “I also want to know more about the Fountain of Youth… if you’re willing.”

The Red Lamp Spirit said casually, “They call it the Fountain of Youth, but it’s not really any kind of divine artifact. Strictly speaking, it’s an extremely evil thing.”

The Red Lamp Spirit sank into its memories, slowly saying, “Back then, I was madly searching for the Magic Lamp, going through trial after trial. The place where that Fountain of Youth is was one of them… Where it lies, there are powerful monsters guarding it. In front of those monsters, even the strongest human warrior can be easily torn to pieces. When you’ve defeated these monsters and finally arrive before the Fountain of Youth, what awaits you is still a test of human nature.”

“There’s something wrong with this Fountain of Youth?”

The Red Lamp Spirit nodded. “It’s nowhere near as beautiful as people imagine. If you want to gain youth from it, you have to make an offering… You must cast a sacrifice into the spring, then drink its water to restore your youth. To put it bluntly, it strips time away from one person and transfers it to another—if you want to stay youthful continuously, you must keep feeding it young Life to Devour. And it’s not as if you can toss just anyone into the spring and succeed. The one who walks into the spring must do so willingly, offering themselves up of their own accord.”

“A Life for a Life, huh…” Luo Qiu couldn’t help bowing his head, sinking into thought.

The Red Lamp Spirit seemed not to notice the subtle expression on Boss Luo’s face. “This Fountain of Youth is just too evil; at the time I even wanted to destroy it. But all things have God in them, and since this spring exists, perhaps it has its reason to exist; I shouldn’t violate the laws of nature. So in the end I didn’t destroy it, I just sealed it away.”

It said bitterly, “Thinking about it now, I really should have destroyed it back then! And I absolutely shouldn’t have told that Wizard… let him cozy up with that bitch! A Wizard will definitely have ways to make people walk into the spring willingly… just like what he did to me back then… Huh? What are you going over there for? There’s nowhere to sit.”

“I want to take a look at this mural.” Boss Luo said calmly, “I’m pretty interested in history myself. These murals are a great chance to understand history.”

“Oh, I see. Then go ahead and look.” The Red Lamp Spirit nodded, then said warmly, “If there’s anything you don’t understand, you can ask me… it’s fine, I just want to find someone to talk to. These years, it’s rare to have anyone willing to listen to me. By the way, do you have a woman you love deeply? Let me tell you, women, they’re…”

Claudia… still can’t get out?

Everything inside the illusion is something you desire but never obtained… something that can make you willingly sink into it—something called desire.

…

…

“Claudia, what do you want to be when you grow up?” In the Courtyard, Professor Xie Jiatu held little Claudia in his arms and asked softly.

“I… um…” The little girl looked up at the blue sky, thinking hard, and quickly found her answer. “I want to be like Daddy, I want to go adventuring all over the mainland!”

“That’s not called adventuring.” Professor Xie Jiatu said, amused. “That’s part of Daddy’s job, studying the origins of ancient gods… Adventuring means running into lots of dangerous things. But most of the time Daddy’s work is very safe.”

“Then… then…” She was too young to understand any of this. She gnawed on her little finger for quite a while, then insisted, “Then I still want to be like Daddy and do research!”

“If that’s the case, then Claudia will have to study hard.” Professor Xie Jiatu lifted her high up.

All around them instantly turned into a Flower Sea, dreamlike and unreal.

…

…

In the passageway, icy cold, there was no great wealth, no Flower Sea… Claudia curled up against the wall, and suddenly came back to her senses.

She instinctively touched her own cheek and felt something even colder… seemingly water.

She raised her head; above her, drops of water were falling from the passage ceiling, landing right on her cheek.

Claudia took a deep breath and slapped her cheeks hard, making herself more awake… It seemed she had fallen into an illusion, but she couldn’t say why she’d sunk into that particular fantasy.

She did remember, though, that she’d followed in Luo Qiu’s footsteps and then gotten separated… Claudia shot to her feet. This passage only had a single straight route; she could only follow it, walking forward all the way.

Not believing in Ghosts and gods is a basic cultivation for someone who believes in science—a girl who’s set on becoming a mathematician wouldn’t be scared by this… or so it should be!

She’d barely had time to be frightened when she saw light ahead… Claudia sprinted toward the source of the light—an exit!

Before her was a huge room, firelight burning all around. In the very center stood two gigantic statues like guards, and on the pedestal between them sat an oil lamp that looked utterly ordinary.

Claudia froze for a second, then saw Luo Qiu… Luo Qiu was standing by a section of the wall, studying the murals on it.

“Luo?” Claudia tried tentatively, “You?”

Boss Luo turned around, glanced at Claudia, then a smile spread across his face. “Did you run into anything special on the way?”

“You… you’ve been waiting a long time?” Claudia frowned.

As for what happened in the passage, now that she tried to recall it, she couldn’t remember much at all—only that it felt like she’d just dozed off while walking.

“Not long.” Boss Luo shook his head, then added, “In fact, it was even faster than I expected.”

Claudia looked puzzled, then pointed at the oil lamp on the pedestal. “This… what is this place… and that thing?”

“Seems like it’s the thing those corpses outside the passage were trying to get.” Boss Luo said casually. “An oil lamp… maybe even a Magic Lamp.”

“And then after you rub it a few times, a fat blue Lamp God pops out and grants you three wishes, right?” Claudia rolled her eyes irritably. “I know the story of Aladdin!”

“Do you want to give it a try?” Boss Luo suggested.

Claudia shook her head, carefully looking around. “Can you please have some common sense? When something’s put in such an obvious spot, if you just pick it up, it’ll probably trigger some kind of trap!”

Luo Qiu smiled. “Classmate Claudia, you sure know a lot.”

Claudia said, “My father often goes out to survey newly unearthed ruins and the like. I’m not really interested, but I’ve heard enough that I know a few things… For example, this pedestal the lamp is on very likely has some kind of ancient gravity mechanism built into it. Once you remove the lamp, the gravity becomes unbalanced, and that triggers the trap here. Don’t assume the ancients’ stuff looks crude, so it’s simple. A lot of the time, their exploration of Power wasn’t any worse than modern people’s… they just lacked the kind of summarizing and systematizing needed to turn it into universal formulas, that’s all.”

“I’m glad you think so highly of the ancients’ wisdom, classmate Claudia.” Luo Qiu chuckled, then, under Claudia’s horrified gaze, directly lifted the lamp off the pedestal.

“You… you’ve got a death wish?!”

“But sadly, there doesn’t seem to be any of the… traps you mentioned, classmate Claudia.” Luo Qiu carried the lamp over to her. “Now, do you want to give it a wipe?”

Claudia opened her mouth, hesitated, then took the lamp… She eyed it suspiciously for a moment, then turned around, and with a look of disgust, used her sleeve to vigorously rub the lamp’s surface a few times.

Luo Qiu smiled wryly… pretty much everyone has moments like this.

When a miracle scene you once fantasized about as a child appears right in front of you… you’ll do things like this, things that seem ridiculously childish once you’ve grown up.

But the Magic Lamp didn’t react at all… a Magic Lamp that doesn’t react is nothing more than the most ordinary lamp.

“See? Nothing.” Claudia turned back around, holding the lamp, and shook her head. “Legends are just legends, they’re only there to fool kids… idiots.”

Luo Qiu only smiled noncommittally and glanced around. “This is already the end of the road, there’s no way forward… looks like we can only head back.”

“Then let’s go.” Claudia nodded and spoke without further fuss. “It’s still dangerous here, leaving early is better.”

As she spoke, Claudia casually stuffed the lamp into her backpack… Faced with Luo Qiu’s gaze at that moment, she explained, “It’s not every day you come to a place like this, and all we found was this one thing. No idea if it’s any good—take it back and have someone look at it, maybe it’s worth something… and even if it’s just ordinary junk, it’ll make a nice souvenir, right?”

Claudia’s reasoning was solid, and Boss Luo couldn’t even find a good argument against it… Only, watching the Magic Lamp get shoved into the backpack like that, he seemed to hear the Red Lamp Spirit living inside roaring in protest.

As if saying: See! Told you! Women are no good! No good at all! I told you!!

…

When they were almost out of the passage, Claudia suddenly asked, “Oh right, Luo, when you were in the passage, did you run into anything unusual… like, say, having a really long dream?”

“No.” Boss Luo shook his head and said calmly, “You? Did you?”

“I forgot.” Claudia shrugged, then stretched lazily. “But I definitely fell asleep… Mm, sleeping on the floor really is bad for the body… ah—!”

She suddenly cried out.

At the exit, a burst of intense light had suddenly shot in… the abrupt glare made it impossible to open their eyes. Once their eyes had somewhat adapted, they saw that in the room in front of the passage, at some point, more than a dozen burly men holding weapons had appeared!

The ones who had been chasing Aria across the desert!

Pa—pa—pa—!

Sustained clapping rang out, and from among the thugs, a man in his forties slowly walked forward, seemingly their leader.

He was still wearing combat gear—only the combat gear was layered over a long-sleeved white robe, making him look rather ridiculous.

“You… don’t come any closer!”

Claudia backed up two steps in terror… but for some reason, she suddenly remembered what she’d said before, so she forced herself to step forward instead, her hand trembling as she raised the handgun she’d just licked… found on that corpse.

“Give up resisting.” The leader of the thugs shook his head. “Hand over whatever you got from inside… and I’ll let you leave this place safely. Otherwise… you’ll end up just like these corpses all over the floor!”

Bang—!

Just as the man finished speaking, a sudden loud bang rang out… There was a flash of muzzle fire, and he felt a burning sting by his hairline!

A bullet… the bullet had grazed the thug leader’s temple, and the one who’d fired it was… Claudia!

Claudia’s hands were shaking even harder now, and she was on the verge of tears… She actually hadn’t meant to shoot, and she definitely didn’t want to get into a firefight with more than a dozen rifles, but there was nothing she could do!

Because… because she was too nervous, the little handgun had gone off by accident…

The man immediately roared, “Ki… kill them—!”