Skinwalker Belle – Chapter 288 – The Cost of Being a Woman

The winds of the west always carried a coarse, sandy taste, feeling like sandpaper against the skin.

This was an abandoned small town on the edge of a no-man’s-land. Its original name had long since been worn away from the wind- and sand-eroded road sign, leaving only a fragmented character for “Town,” which looked particularly ironic under the setting sun.

The streets were lined with rows of empty buildings, most of their doors and windows shattered.

Clack, clack, clack.

The crisp sound of wooden clogs echoed through the deathly silent street.

Lin Fan walked very slowly.

Almost… gingerly.

Her signature red-and-white miko outfit was still spotless, but her back, which usually held a hint of languor and pride, was now uncharacteristically hunched over.

Her hands were no longer tucked into her sleeves like a master, but were pressed awkwardly against her lower abdomen.

“What kind of mess is this…”

Lin Fan stopped in front of a dust-covered long bench. Instead of sitting down directly, she first took a soft woolen blanket from her System Space and laid it down before slowly seating herself.

She sighed, her devastatingly beautiful face a picture of utter despair.

Who would have thought?

The “Silver-haired Goddess,” who regarded tens of thousands of Demonic Creatures as mere weeds and was worshipped by tens of thousands of people, was now facing the greatest crisis of her life.

Her period had arrived.

She had been through it many times before while wearing the Skin.

But Lin Fan had originally thought that after so many fusions—with the Nine-tailed celestial fox bloodline, the Dragon Clan genes, and even developing Spirit Energy circulation and Faith Feedback—her own body should have long since transcended basic human physiology.

But reality had slapped her resoundingly across the face.

And it was a particularly painful slap.

Moreover, the “flow” this time was practically a bursting dam.

“Is this what they call… the price of being a woman?”

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Lin Fan rubbed her faintly aching abdomen with a bitter smile.

This was a purely physiological pain that not even her Mental Strength could block.

It was like a system notification, constantly reminding her: no matter how high you fly, no matter if you’ve grown Dragon horns, you are still, in essence, human.

To prevent a scene of “splattering blood across the sky,” Lin Fan had no choice but to dig out a long-sealed pair of pure cotton underwear from her System Space and stick a sanitary pad on it.

The moment she put them on, the long-forgotten feeling of constraint made her extremely uncomfortable.

But there was no other way.

She couldn’t just fly all the way there, leaving a trail of blood and gore in the blue sky, could she?

The image was too beautiful for her to even dare to imagine.

Thus, the journey to the Kunlun Mountains, which should have taken only a few hours by flight, was dragged out into a five-day slog.

For these five days, she was like a young lady from a wealthy family on a tour, starting and stopping, resting in any decent-looking ruin she came across, and constantly having to be mindful of whether her current posture would cause a leak.

“The Goddess gets menstrual cramps. Who would believe that if I told them?”

Lin Fan ran a hand through her hair in frustration and fished a thermos out of her space.

She unscrewed the lid. Inside was piping hot brown sugar water.

Gulp.

A mouthful of warmth slid down her throat, and the heavy, sinking feeling finally eased a little.

Lin Fan let out a long sigh, just about to close her eyes and rest for a moment.

Snap.

From a street corner not far away, the faint sound of a dry twig breaking suddenly rang out.

Lin Fan couldn’t even be bothered to lift her eyelids.

The moment she had entered the town, her Mental Strength had already scanned the few little mice hiding in the shadows.

Five people.

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One level-three, two level-two Evolved beings, and two at the peak of level-one.

In the current Magic City or Western Sichuan, a lineup like this wouldn’t even be qualified to hold the shoes for a gatekeeper.

But in this godforsaken western wilderness, it could be considered a sizable raiding party.

“I just want to rest in peace. Why is it so difficult?”

Lin Fan sighed helplessly, screwed the lid back on the thermos, and returned it to her space.

Just then, several figures darted out from the shadows on both sides of the street.

The leader was a bald man with a face full of menacing flesh, carrying a modified bush axe in his hand, its blade still stained with dark red blood.

Behind him followed four bizarre-looking men, their eyes glinting with the greed and ferocity unique to those who had survived long in the wasteland.

“Well, well, look what we have here.”

Bald Head licked his chapped lips, his turbid eyes fixed on Lin Fan’s exquisite miko outfit and the dazzlingly white calves exposed beneath it.

“A lost little chick? Or a cosplayer? Those two horns on your head look pretty real!”

“Boss, this chick is a real looker! A hundred times better than those goods we played with back at the settlement!” A man as skinny as a monkey next to him swallowed hard, his eyes nearly popping out of their sockets.

They had been squatting in this godforsaken place for three days, originally planning to ambush a passing scavenger team or a lone Mutated Beast.

They never expected that while they didn’t catch a big fish, they’d snagged a fairy.

In this apocalypse filled with Mutated Beasts and Zombies, a woman with such fair skin and fine clothes was a resource even rarer than high-grade Crystals.

Lin Fan remained seated on the bench, not even shifting her posture.

She turned her head slightly, her rainbow-colored eyes calmly sweeping over the group.

There was no killing intent.

Not even anger.

Only a deep weariness from having her rest disturbed.

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“Scram.”

Lin Fan’s red lips parted, uttering a single word.

Her voice wasn’t loud, but it carried a biting chill.

Bald Head froze for a second, then, as if he had heard the world’s greatest joke, he exchanged a look with his men and burst into a fit of harsh, wild laughter.

“Hahaha! This little chick’s got some spice!”

Bald Head laughed as he took a few steps forward, casually twirling the axe in his hand. “Little sister, do you know where this is? This is the no-man’s-land! Out here, you can scream your lungs out and no one will come to save you.”

“Looking at you clutching your stomach like that, are you hurt? Or just starving?”

Bald Head thought he had seen through it all.

In this wasteland, a lone woman, no matter how cleanly dressed, was a lamb for the slaughter the moment she showed a hint of weakness.

“Come, let big brother give you a check-up.”

Bald Head reached out with a lecherous grin, aiming to grab Lin Fan’s shoulder.

Lin Fan watched the filthy hand get closer and closer.

In that moment, she couldn’t even be bothered to use her Mental Strength to crush his brain, nor summon flames to burn these people to ash.

She just felt annoyed.

When she was physically uncomfortable, her mood soured.

And when her mood was sour, this sight was even more displeasing.

“I said…”

Lin Fan’s head snapped up.

Her once-calm, rainbow-colored eyes instantly widened.

An impact of incomparably tyrannical Mental Strength erupted like a bursting dam!

“I told you to scram. Don’t you understand human speech?!”

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Boom—!

This pressure wasn’t aimed at everyone but was precisely compressed into a single line that slammed viciously into Bald Head’s chest.

There were no fancy moves.

It was like a high-speed train colliding head-on with a fly.

Bang!

Bald Head didn’t even have time to scream before his entire body exploded like an overinflated balloon.

A mist of blood instantly filled the air.

But strangely, the splattering blood and flesh were blocked by an invisible barrier about a meter away from Lin Fan.

Not a single drop landed on her miko outfit.

Clatter.

A broken bush axe fell to the ground with a crisp sound.

The four underlings, who had been grinning lewdly and about to close in, were now completely frozen in place.

The skinny monkey was stuck in the motion of swallowing, his mouth wide open, unable to make a sound.

His crotch was instantly soaked, and a yellow liquid trickled down his pant leg.

Dead?

Their boss, that level-three strength-type Evolved being, just… exploded?

This woman hadn’t even lifted a finger!

“Ah… Aaaahhh!!!”

After a few seconds of dead silence, someone finally reacted, letting out a blood-curdling scream and turning to run.

“Did I say you could leave?”