Yan Xuanjing had learnt this from Lin Mu.
Before heading out in the morning, Lin Mu had kissed his forehead. Yan Xuanjing remembered the subtle tingling sensation and the lingering sweetness it left behind, which made him feel warm and comfortable.
He thought that perhaps a kiss might help cheer up Lin Mu when he was feeling down, as he couldn’t think of any other way to comfort him.
Despite the vastness of the Great Wilderness, there were not many monsters who allowed Yan Xuanjing to comfort them.
Elders wouldn’t show their vulnerability before him, and most of his peers were rivals. As for the younger generation, it was hardly worth mentioning.
There still wasn’t anybody that belonged to the younger generation that would run to him and cry, acting in a spoiled manner.
In Yan Xuanjing’s worldview, he rarely encountered monsters that would cry.
To be precise, it was monsters that would cry without a motive.
This was because, in the harsh environment of the Great Wilderness, every expression, every action, every decision had a purpose.
Monsters cried for various reasons – to charm others, to ensure their survival, to express dissatisfaction, to provoke, and so on. However, Yan Xuanjing rarely encountered monsters who cried purely as an emotional release.
Many elders had taught him that such emotional outbursts were a sign of weakness.
However, Yan Xuanjing never believed that the weak didn’t deserve the right to survive.
Even amongst the nine-tailed foxes, there were many who had drawn the short end of the stick and weren’t naturally strong, but had found other ways to rise to the top and cause trouble.
However, just because Yan Xuanjing didn’t deny the value of the weak didn’t mean he entirely agreed with them.
He believed that crying didn’t help, and the most important thing was to confront the issue at hand and find a solution.
Nevertheless, Lin Mu’s situation seemed to be a bit different.
The great monster who had rescued them was likely Yan Gui, confirming the suspicions that Yan Xuanjing and Yan Gui had.
Di Xiu had followed in Di Wu’s footsteps, and not only were the great monsters who had a good relationship with him unaware, but they also couldn’t find a way to help them.
For thousands of years, whether in the Great Wilderness or the Central Plains, they had been unable to locate the place where Di Wu was imprisoned.
Even if it was those places that had clearly been soaked in Di Wu’s power,
and had become places where evils dared not enter and spirits couldn’t prevail, they still couldn’t locate them. Instead, they attracted the attention of numerous individuals who sought to kill them
This time, if it hadn’t been for Di Wu coming out on his own and managing to find Di Xiu, one could only imagine what might have occurred.
Yan Xuanjing looked at the dazed Lin Mu, and explained, “before, I had guessed.”
Lin Mu heard his words and fixed Yan Xuanjing with a red-eyed stare. His eyes had lost the soft and affectionate look from before, and only gave a cold ‘oh’. He lightly touched the spot on his forehead where he had been kissed, turned on his heels, and walked into the house, closing the door in front of Yan Xuanjing.
Yan Xuanjing, who had the door shut in his face twice in one day, heard the sound of the door being latched from the inside.
“……”
He stood in silence in front of the door for a long time, thinking of Lin Mu’s expression as he entered the house. He brought a hand to his chest.
It was a light sense of anxiety, and the pain of being pricked by needles.
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.
Pa kjrc’a ragbcu, yea ecmbwobgajyif.
Ktf wbbv bo atf ilaaif Efijzfv Swqfgbg gfjiis wjvf qfbqif kbggs.
Tjc Wejcplcu mbcrlvfgfv ulnlcu Zlixs jcbatfg ags yea atfc cbalmfv obeg qjlgr bo lms ujhfr olzfv bc tlw.
Lf aegcfv ab olcv obeg ilaaif tfjvr rajmxfv bc abq bo bcf jcbatfg qffxlcu bea ogbw atf mbgcfg bo atf kjii. Pcrafjv bo gfagfjalcu jr atfs erejiis vlv ktfc tf ibbxfv atflg kjs, atfs uijgfv ja tlw klat jcufg.
“Baddie!”
“Bad monster!”
“Taking advantage of Lin Mu!”
“Also made Lin Mu cry! Bad!”
Yan Xuanjing’s gaze sharpened, and the little monsters immediately disappeared into the ground, slipping away until not a trace of them remained.
The fox spirit paid no mind to the small monsters and directed his attention to the locked door. He turned and left the small courtyard, deciding to seek out the mountain god for some items that might help someone calm down.
These kinds of items weren’t necessary for creatures like Yan Xuanjing, who was naturally composed and calm. That’s why he didn’t carry any with him. But Lin Mu clearly needed them.
This was one of the downsides of sacred trees like Di Xiu. Their powers were always directed toward others, and if they wanted to forget their own troubles, they could only consume their own fruits.
This was likely what they called ‘doctors should not self-medicate.’
Yan Xuanjing departed, and the little monsters emerged from the ground. They looked at each other before the little Ginseng, standing on his tiptoes, cautiously opened the side door and tiptoed inside.They found out that Lin Mu had hid in his room, and didn’t dare to bother him, so after circling around the door a few times, the little Ginseng, getting increasingly agitated, rolled up his sleeves and returned to the yard to deal with the pigeons left behind by Yan Xuanjing.
Lin Mu tightly closed the doors and windows of his room, drew the blackout curtains, and opened the blanket to lie down on the bed. He glanced at his mobile phone and realized that the call had ended.
He paused, examining the call duration, wondering if Da Hei had overheard anything on his end.
Indeed, Da Hei had overheard it all.
But as he recovered from the shocking news, he heard Yan Xuanjing comforting Lin Mu with an overly gentle voice on the other end of the phone, and it made his teeth ache.
— Had these two made plans in an attempt to make single dogs so jealous they died?
Da Hei was very angry.
However, that wasn’t the reason he hung up.
The crucial point was the revelation that Di Wu and Di Xiu were together, along with the information about the Taoist Temple terminated by Di Wu. Besides Di Wu’s aura, there was also Di Xiu’s aura present.
And this time it wasn’t considered too short of a time, and even if Di Wu had attempted to conceal that aura with the blood of those people, it had still been detected.
As this side received the news, the powerful monster who had initially saved them suddenly had a fit of anger.
Da Hei’s call was untimely, and the large monster standing nearby silently picked up on the key words in his speech. He quietly eavesdropped on the conversation on the other end, then reached over to turn off his mobile phone.
Da Hei met Yan Gui’s intense gaze and felt as if he had plunged into an abyss. In that abyss, he heard voices echoing from all directions, saying, “You don’t know about Lin Mu’s life experiences.”
After that, he nodded and said, “I don’t know.”
Yan Gui then withdrew his gaze and approached the person in charge of the operation, inquiring about the address with anger in his eyes.
He was different from this group of useless monsters and human beings. If he rushed over there now, there was a chance he could follow the aura and directly locate Di Wu.
Lin Mu lay on the bed, gazing at the small fan as it spun. After a while, he reached for his phone and called Di Wu.
Di Wu always answered Lin Mu’s calls promptly.
At that very moment, he was scrutinizing the jade on the table with utmost seriousness, painstakingly assembling the two handfuls of Di Xiu’s remains.
A part of Di Xiu’s soul had been reclaimed and recently integrated. Since this section of his soul had always resided in the Taoist Temple, it didn’t contain much lingering resentful energy.
Presently, both Di Wu and Di Xiu were endeavoring to transfer his soul into the remains that could be held in two palms.
With the remains of his original body, even if he couldn’t recover his entire original body or soul, Di Xiu could seek out a land abundant in spiritual energy and embed himself in the earth to grow for a thousand or even tens of thousands of years, eventually regenerating — although Di Wu had made it clear that he wasn’t prepared to give up on this matter.
Nonetheless, Di Wu was in a more dire situation. Too much time had elapsed, and he had been consistently drained to the point where he couldn’t return to the Great Wilderness to reclaim the power that once belonged to him. The strength, even if it had originally been his, was now unbearable for his weakened self.
However, in the current Central Plains, they could do whatever they wanted.
Di Wu looked at the illuminated mobile phone screen and turned on the speaker mode.
“Hey?”
Lin Mu’s voice sounded as he had been wronged, and brought a slightly nasally tone.
He either had a cold or had been crying. However, due to his half-monster constitution, it was difficult for him to catch a cold.
Di Wu looked at the faintly glowing lights on the jade and the small wooden blocks. He gently pushed them and signaled Lin Mu to calm down. “What happened?”
With one hand, Lin Mu kneaded the blanket. He thought about the information that Da Hei had disclosed to him, and with tightly pressed lips, he asked in a small and slightly hesitant voice, “Di Wu, my…… my father?”
Lin Mu’s tongue felt a bit stiff when he uttered those words, possibly because he hadn’t said them many times before or because he was quite nervous.
Di Wu furrowed his brow.
“I already know; my father is like you, isn’t he?” Lin Mu asked, sniffling.
“Have you already found him? How is he? Is he okay? Is there anything I can do to help?” As Lin Mu spoke, the nasal quality in his voice deepened. After a long silence on the phone, Lin Mu cautiously inquired, “Can I… see him?”
Di Wu looked at the table and saw that the speed of the light on the table was getting faster and faster, and after half a minute, they had all moved from the jade to the wooden block.
The wooden block was gradually compressed and stretched, and pieced together into a crooked and twisted human shape.
He sat up, with no face and no bodily details, and looked just like a poorly made wooden doll. There were also gaps and holes in his body, and he couldn’t even match the size of an adult man’s arm.
Lin Mu found it very hard to endure the silence over there, and licked his lips and said in a small voice, “a video…… or even a picture is okay.”
The distorted human heard Lin Mu’s words, stumbled toward the mirror on the table, and with great effort, raised the mirror to examine how he looked like now. After staring at it for a while, it turned back to Di Wu and shook its head vigorously.
“No.” Only then did Di Wu respond to Lin Mu, and gave a slightly irritated tut, “there was a little mishap. I’ll bring him to see you once he’s better.”
Lin Mu held the blanket tighter. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
Di Wu supported his face, looked at Di Xiu who was trying to form a face in front of the mirror, and said, “little ones in the family should just live their lives probably, and not get into trouble.”
Lin Mu responded with a subdued “oh.”
Di Wu chuckled. “You’re not going to try to persuade me now?”
“Persuade,” Lin Mu mumbled from beneath his blanket. “If you accumulate more sins due to killing, your soul could scatter. I don’t want your soul to scatter, and I don’t want Dad’s soul to scatter either. I’m sure my mother wouldn’t want that either.”
Di Xiu ceased his frenzied face-rubbing and turned around, stumbling to the side of the mobile phone. He sat down and nodded in agreement with Di Wu.
Di Wu looked at this little wooden man who gave out a soft and gentle atmosphere the minute he had returned to his original body and rolled his eyes.
This pair of father and son were really blood related.
A hundred percent.
“Can my father hear the phone?” Lin Mu asked.
Di Wu slumped back into his chair, “he can.”
“Dad, mum died. Five years ago.” After Lin Mu finished, he fell into silence, unsure of what to say next.
After a long pause, he spoke again, “The fruit you left behind, Mum didn’t eat it, but we still lived a happy life.”
Lin Mu really knew too little about his parents, and after finishing, he didn’t know what to say.
Di Wu looked at the still wooden figure beside the phone and decided to light a cigarette.
“I’ve seen you in the album.” Lin Mu thought of his mother, who had always looked through the album, and asked, “could mum see it?”
Di Xiu thought for a bit, and raised his two thin arms and clapped them together twice.
Lin Mu was taken aback but understood what he meant. “She could?”
Di Xiu clapped his arms again, affirming Lin Mu’s guess.
“That’s great.” Lin Mu muttered, sniffled, and laughed again, and changed the topic, “when can I see you?”
This question was a little complicated.
Di Wu took a smoke and said, “wait for a bit.”
“I’ve taken in some little monsters. A Ginseng Baby, two mimosas, and a small potato.” Lin Mu said, slowly.
Di Xiu clapped his hands together for his son, as a form of praise.
What was there to be proud about over a few little monsters?
Useless.
Di Wu rolled his eyes again.
Lin Mu thought for a moment, and said tentatively, “the Ginseng Baby gave me some seeds, and I’ve planted many spiritual medication in my small yard, they’re all already mature, and if they’re not harvested soon, they’ll spoil. I don’t know if it can help you.”
Di Wu and Di Xiu both paused.
Di Wu put out the cigarette using his own hand, and stuffed the unprepared little wooden man into his pocket, “big nephew, you wait. I’ll bring your father back now!”
Di Xiu: ???
Haha, I love Di Wu! 🤣
Omggg so excited for father and son to meet each other
I’ve caught up! Spent my whole day binge reading, this translation is amazing, love the notes with explanations! Thank you so much
Hope those medicines can help both of them..