When Langxia woke up again, Gui Yin was no longer in his room. He stilled for a moment and looked around in the darkness.
He had just woken up from a nightmare and was still riled up. For a brief moment, he felt panic, but when he realized that nothing felt different in his soul, he calmed back down.
Langxia sighed and held his head for a moment.
As he was waking up, the Void Saint flashed through his mind again.
His last words, as mocking as ever, continued to ring through his mind. His eyes narrowed and he slowly stood.
It was night time now. Most people would be asleep around this time. He knew that Gui Yin, specifically, should already be dreaming. Su Wen and the others may still be doing rounds around the palace, but most other servants and guards had already retired for the night.
In the stillness of the evening, Langxia quietly walked through the halls of his home until he found the room he was looking for. Yet, before he could knock on the door, the door slowly swung open.
Yankui flinched when he saw another person in front of his door. His fingertips flickered for a moment before the fire went out. A surprised look painted his face. He looked up at Langxia with innocent glee.
“Shush,” Langxia pressed a finger to his own lips. He glanced down the hall towards Gui Yin’s room.
Yankui nodded in understanding. He lowered his voice. “Yìfù, is there a reason you came looking for me so late at night?”
“Do you need to use the restroom?”
Yankui’s face flushed slightly. He gave a short nod.
Langxia chuckled. He gave Yankui’s short hair a toss. “You go ahead. I’ll wait for you on the balcony at the end of the hall.”
Yankui nodded and quickly rushed to deal with his business first.
When he returned, he found Langxia on the balcony, as he had said. His face was turned towards the sky. The moonlight cast a faint, otherworldly glow on the side of his face. Yankui had to slow to a stop to admire this rare kind of beauty. But after admiring, his steps quickened. It would be rude of him to keep his godfather waiting!
Langxia glanced over at Yankui. He gestured for the young man to sit on the railing. Once the young man was settled, Langxia slowly pulled his gaze back to the magnificent view below.
“Has anyone told you about what happened after you left?” Langxia softly asked.
Yankui shook his head. “I only gathered that there was a fight…”
“Mn, there was,” Langxia said. “I dealt with the Void Saint.”
Yankui’s eyes slowly widened.
Langxia glanced at him. “He didn’t treat you well, but he was your father nonetheless. I figured you had the right to know.”
Yankui clenched his hands on his lap. His brows furrowed as he observed Langxia closely. “He’s dead? Are you sure?”
“Mn. The two of us fell into Scattered Spirit Ridge,” Langxia said. He thought about it for a moment, before deciding to explain what had happened. “Originally, I was only taking the opportunity to shake him off. Maybe distract him, so that I could leave too. But when we fell in, he was oddly excited. His grip on me tightened, unlike what I had originally thought, and I ended up having to sacrifice my arm to get out.”
Yankui’s eyes widened. He straightened and leaned closer. “Then! Did you send a finishing blow to him in anyway?”
There was a franticness in Yankui’s eyes. Langxia narrowed his eyes slightly, but nodded. “I concentrated energy into my false arm and let it explode. Before I left, I saw him scatter to dust.”
Yankui breathed a sigh of relief. He sat back as if a large weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He slowly nodded. “That’s good…That’s good…”
Langxia frowned. He reached out and rubbed Yankui’s head. “Even if he was still alive, he wouldn’t dare do anything to Kunlun.”
Yankui instinctively held Langxia’s hand to his head as he denied the statement. “It’s not that. There’s actually something in Scattered Souls Valley!”
Langxia slowly raised a brow. “What do you mean?”
Yankui’s eyes sparkled as he took Langxia’s hand off his head and held it loosely. “Yìfù, did anything else happen when you were down there?”
Langxia thought about it some more. He had used the arm as a bomb, then kicked the Void Saint down. He definitely saw the Void Saint explode before he left, but also…
“Something else exploded,” Langxia recalled. That was how he had propelled out of the ridge, despite his weakened state.
Yankui’s eyes widened. He excitedly shook Langxia’s hand. “You’re amazing!”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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Yankui giggled. He cleared his throat and looked at Langixa properly. “Yìfù, have you heard about the reason that man was after Gui Linghuo and me yet?”
“Rba ja jii. Olcuteb lr ralii gfmbnfglcu jcv fnfc ktfc atfs jrxfv tlw yfobgf, tf kjrc’a mifjg jybea atf vfajlir,” Ojcuzlj rjlv. “Ktf Xgfja Gfwbc, Hljb Jfcu kjr wfcalbcfv. Ccv Vlsl abiv er jybea j tlvfbea atja xlvcjqqfv qfbqif ab rjmglolmf.”
Yankui nodded as he listened to Langxia recount the details they currently knew. “This indeed has something to do with the Great Demon. The war was started because of him; all the sacrifices gathered are also because of him. I’m sure you and Laoshi have already guessed, but they’re gathering a plethora of resentful energy in order to summon Qiao Ceng from Whirlpool Prison. The place you and Laoshi visited was an old hideout. The battlefields were also where these lunatics gathered resentful energy. And Scattered Souls Ridge housed another massive furnace that purified the resentful energy before it was sent to the summoning altar. All they were missing was a vessel—that was why they targeted Linghuo.”
Yankui awkwardly cleared his throat. He shifted like a student who was waiting to be scolded. “They were planning on using me at first…but I hid my powers to appear weaker. Then, they saw Linghuo and their target changed.”
Langxia smiled in amusement. “But, last minute, you revealed yourself, so they took you away instead.”
Yankui nodded. He glanced at Langxia. “You don’t think that’s bad?”
“I think what you did was very smart,” Langxia commended. “It’s nothing to feel ashamed about. You were trying to survive.”
“I-I suppose,” Yankui said. He looked a little prouder of himself. He quickly cleared his throat. “Ah, anyway, the explosion you saw from below must have been from the furnace! And the reason that lunatic was so excited to go down there was because he could have sacrificed himself and you. Although Yìfù isn’t a devil cultivator, having a righteous cultivator as powerful as yourself would have sped up the process indefinitely. Not to mention, at that point, a vessel might not be necessary.”
Langxia raised a brow. “Is the vessel optional?”
“It is!” Yankui said. “If they gather enough resentful energy, they can take the entire primordial spirit out. Once that’s done, he can just make himself a new body. He doesn’t need a vessel. The vessel is just a short-term solution anyway. It will be abandoned as soon as he can get the rest of his primordial spirit out.”
Langxia nodded thoughtfully before he turned his full attention to Yankui. With amusement laced in his voice, he asked, “Is it really okay to tell me all of this?”
“Of course. Even if you and Laoshi kick me out after learning everything, it’s not like my loyalty every lied with them,” Yankui said. He smiled brightly. “Take this as my thank you for killing that man.”
The child before him was unlike the one they had met a few days ago. He was much brighter, kinder, and wittier. Langxia let out an internal sigh. It was a good thing that they made it in time.
“Do you have any more questions?” Yankui asked, his eyes shining brightly.
Langxia chuckled and shook his head. He thought about it a moment longer and looked at Yankui. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Like…?” Yankui’s voice slowly reddened. He coughed loudly and lightly slapped his cheeks. “Was I that obvious?”
Langxia tilted his head as he waited for his explanation.
“It’s just…those lunatics in Yinfeng Valley are either skeletons or their faces are missing chunks. And I grew up in the lower realm, so even if I did see normal people, they were all average,” Yankui said. He glanced at Langxia and smiled sheepishly. “It’s nothing. It’s like admiring artwork. That’s all.”
Yankui’s staring problem had actually been pointed out several times by a few people while he was at Yunjing Pavilion. After a while, everyone stopped mentioning it, so Yankui had thought he had gotten better. Perhaps they had just gotten tired of mentioning it instead.
“And there’s already someone in my heart, so there’s no way that I’d look at another man,” Yankui murmured seriously.
Langxia laughed. He suddenly realized the so-called joy of child rearing that Gui Yin occasionally rambled about. He nodded with equal seriousness.
“Don’t worry, Xiao Kui, I understand,” Langxia said.
Yankui breathed a sigh of relief. Thank goodness. He glanced at Langxia again—this time, he was extra careful. “Is there anything else?”
“How many furnaces did you say there were?” Langxia asked.
“There should be five! It’s to mimic the five points of a pentagram,” Yankui said as he attempted to make a pentagram with his fingers. He scrunched his face slightly as his hands fell back to his side. “Though, if you ask me, it’s quite an ugly pentagram. Unfortunately, I only know the location of two of them. I believe the one that Qin-jie mentioned no longer counted as one of them. After I was discovered there, they moved it somewhere else. I do know that there is one in Half Star Ocean and I believe there is also one in Yongxiu.”
“Yongxiu?” Langxia’s brow raised at the familiar name.
“Yes! It’s that place full of spirits and demons in the lower realm!” Yankui said. “They have a really broad gambling scene over there too. I heard you can get whatever you want if you’re willing to test your luck. There’s also a really famous brothel over there. What’s it called? Hongyan—”
“Why are you two patients talking about brothels in the middle of the night instead of sleeping?”
Yankui jumped out of his seat. He stood and would have fallen over if it weren’t for Langxia’s timely help. He wobbled for a second as he adamantly shook his head.
“No—no, it’s not like that! I-I was just telling Yìfù about Half Moon Cult’s hideouts,” Yankui desperately explained. His face grew redder and redder until Gui Yin snorted.
Langxia looked at Gui Yin helplessly. He stood and patted Yankui’s back. “He’s just teasing you.”
“I…o-oh,” Yankui shrank into his neck.
“Head to bed,” Langxia said.
“Y-yes…” Yankui lowered his head and quickly ran off.
Gui Yin harrumphed in amusement as he watched Yankui run off. “He was all bearing his claws and teeth the other day. Who would have thought he had such thin skin!”
“It’s because you caught him at such a bad time,” Langxia said.
Gui Yin glanced at him. He narrowed his eyes and tapped him with his fan. “Why’d you stop me? I was having fun.”
“The kid just got here. Can’t you give him time to adjust first?”
“Since when have you been so considerate? Oh. Is it because he’s your child?” Gui Yin asked.
“If Linghuo and the others came here under similar circumstances, I would act the same,” Langxia said.
Gui Yin raised a brow. “Why do you sound like a stepfather who’s trying to defend himself?”
Langxia raised a brow and shifted closer. With a lowered voice, he whispered, “Am I not?”
Gui Yin pushed his face away with the leaves of his fan. He was just about to walk off when Langxia sighed and took a hold of his wrist.
“Where are you going?”
“Back to bed,” Gui Yin said.
“Alright, let’s go,” Langxia nodded and began to walk towards his room.
“Hey, mongrel, what are you doing?” Gui Yin asked.
“Going back to bed.”
“To my own bed.”
“You don’t have your own bed here,” Langxia said with a small shrug. He glanced at Gui Yin and smiled sweetly. “I’m not going to let you sleep all night.”
Gui Yin rolled his eyes to the Heavens.
If only the implication of the words matched reality.
When day broke, the previously blank map had been marked over several times.
There had been marks around Ghost Valley, marks around the previous battlefield, then a few closer to the shores before Whirlpool Prison.
Gui Yin stared at the map silently and finally huffed in irritation. He tossed the brush down and glared at Langxia, who had fallen asleep sitting up. He loudly snapped Fenghua open and watched as Langxia slowly opened his eyes.
“You dragged me over here and made me stay up all night, but you fell asleep instead?!”
Langxia swallowed a yawn. He lightly touched the top of Gui Yin’s head. “It’s your turn to sleep.”
“We weren’t even taking turns!”
“I’m still recovering,” Langxia said, his voice suddenly becoming far hoarser than it was just seconds ago. He pouted and softly coughed. “Qinle, can’t you be a little gentler to me?”
“Your pitiful act isn’t going to work,” Gui Yin scoffed. He threw the map at Langxia and stood.
He stretched out his waist with a grunt and decisively face-planted into Langxia’s soft bed. He rolled around for a moment and grabbed a random pillow to hug as he looked over at Langxia, who was still contemplating the map.
“Those are the areas I think they’re in. They have to be in places with a lot of resentful energy, right? Or perhaps, there’s a chance people won’t care if their neighbors randomly go missing?”
“They’re all in the lower realm.”
“Do you think ghost cultivators dare act in the Upper Realm?” Gui Yin asked with a small pout. “Even if everyone is useless, they still try to keep their own territories free of trash.”
“I suppose,” Langxia said. He set the map down and softly tapped its surface. He looked at Gui Yin. “Where do you think we should go first?”
“Mm…why not the two places Xiao Kui knew about? The others are just guesses. We might as well head to places where we know there will be a furnace,” Gui Yin pointed out. He let out a short sigh. “It’s too bad we can’t go now.”
Langxia glanced at him. “We can go.”
“I thought you were still recovering,” Gui Yin said. “Is the recovery circumstantial?”
Langxia was unable to argue against him.
“Just be good and stay in your Huigu Palace until you can get fitted for that arm of yours. How long is it going to take? A month? Two months?”
“About a month,” Langxia said. He refocused his attention on Gui Yin. “Are you going to be staying in Huigu Palace until then?”
“Do you want me to?” Gui Yin asked. He rubbed at his eyes before closing them and sinking into the sea of pillows. “I don’t know. I was thinking of heading back to Shuangye Peak for now. I’m still a Peak Lord, you know. And the sect master is still comatose. The more hands on deck the better.”
Langxia softly nodded. “That makes sense.”
He stood and quietly made his way over to the bed. He sat down and pulled the blanket over Gui Yin. Gui Yin opened one eye to look at him. His brows furrowed slightly and he rolled to his side.
“What are you doing?”
“Tucking you in,” Langxia said.
Gui Yin scoffed. He closed his eyes again. “Anyway, I’ll probably head back.”
“Then, we won’t see each other for a month.”
“I suppose not.”
“I won’t even be able to send you notes.”
Gui Yin opened an eye. “Why?”
“I’m still weak,” Langxia said, his voice falling hoarser again.
Gui Yin rolled his eyes. He placed his foot on Langxia’s stomach and gave him a light kick. “Like I said—your recovery feels very circumstantial.”
Langxia chuckled. He held Gui Yin’s ankle and gently moved his foot to the side. “It’s true though.”
“Fine, whatever,” Gui Yin mumbled. He yawned and closed his eyes again. “I don’t need your stupid notes.”
Langxia chuckled again. “Take Wu Feng with you.”
“Not Su Wen?”
“Do you prefer Su Wen?”
“I don’t have a preference. He’s just the one who’s usually around, isn’t he?”
“Xiao Kui isn’t used to it here at Huigu Palace yet. A-Qi is a bit intimidating since she’s so outgoing. Besides, she usually follows my direct orders. Su Wen is more talkative, so I was thinking of leaving Su Wen with him.”
Gui Yin nodded. “A very thoughtful idea. Alright, I accept.”
Langxia smiled. He was about to stand, when Gui Yin put his leg on him again.
“Where are you going?”
“Freshen up.”
“You’re recovering,” Gui Yin said. “Patients should sleep more.”
Langxia raised a brow, but obediently kicked his shoes off and climbed into bed with Gui Yin. “Is it cold?”
Gui Yin hummed as he burrowed deeper into the blankets. His head turned slightly towards Langxia as a content smile crossed his face. “This is much better.”
Yankui i love you, so cute (๑˃ᴗ˂) mwah!
also i didnt fully process how cool Langxia is!! one explody arm deals a lot of damage. does he need more followers?? i want to swear loyalty forever
ALSO ALSO GUI YIN AND THE!!! THE LITTLE TEASING!!! AND THE!!!!! END THERE JUST!!! YEA
Mr. Palace Lord is very giving, and he accepts job applications if you manage to reach his front door uwu
thaks for reading!!!
Wahh, I’ve finished my binge. V sad.
I am usually sceptical about reading original novels, only because most translated works are already completed. But I am very very VERY glad I decided to give this story a chance. I am very invested in watching the rest of the story unfold. Thank you so much Author for bringing this story to us and I cant wait to read more. <3
aaa i’m glad you liked it so much!! thanks for reading!