Ge Nianlan recalled the most traumatizing parts of the cursed artifact very easily, but when it came down to the daily life aspect, he could sit still for days, thinking about it, and still not get in answer. However, he clearly remembered that people looked down on him when he went to Yunkong Pavilion. Though…that could have been for other reasons. And if there was a treaty, could Huai Zhen so easily destroy Yunkong Pavilion?
But…that lunatic did so after Ge Jinsheng’s death. And as the Supreme Devil God, who else could stop you beside your own father?
Ge Nianlan sat in a daze through his lesson with Zhao Cuihong.
So, would a treaty help the world remain intact or not?
Gui Nianlan personally didn’t care about any treaty or rivalries. He just knew that if he survived, but the world still ended, then there was absolutely no point in him struggling! Therefore, he had to first stop the world from ending before he worried about his own survival.
…Well, the order of things was difficult to decide, really.
“Young Lord?”
Ge Nianlan snapped out of his thoughts as a cool hand swept up his fringe and pressed against his forehead. He looked at Zhao Cuihong dazedly as the beautiful man’s face creased.
“Are you okay? I heard from Lord Nie yesterday that you were also very distracted during lessons,” Zhao Cuihong said.
“I wasn’t that distracted,” Ge Nianlan protested. He took Zhao Cuihong’s hand from his forehead and absentmindedly held it.
Zhao Cuihong sat down across from Ge Nianlan and watched him silently.
Ever since Ge Nianlan had read the cursed artifact, he had changed a lot. It was a good thing that he was so bright now, but there was a strange seriousness that lingered around him that children should not have. Nowadays, he was always deep in thought. And when he smiled, Zhao Cuihong felt as if there was a different intention behind it. The innocence and ignorance that was always present had vanished, but Zhao Cuihong knew that Ge Nianlan was still the same boy.
“If there is ever anything troubling you, Young Lord—anything at all—please tell me,” Zhao Cuihong said.
Ge Nianlan looked up at Zhao Cuihong, who was smiling kindly at him.
“I will do whatever it takes to aid you. I could even put my life on the line,” Zhao Cuihong said. “I promise.”
Ge Nianlan returned the smile with a bright grin, but his heart screamed and kicked. Isn’t that just what he was afraid of!?
He was racking his brains to make sure no one loyal to him died, but here was one of them—basically swearing his life away!
Ge Nianlan sighed internally. If there was anyone he could tell, it was those two who already knew half of his secret. But even then, the cursed artifact went into little detail about how Huai Zhen’s relationship with those at Yunkong Pavilion were. If it was fine, then he would have at least spared Ye Mingxi and Baili Liuye, right? But he had even killed both of them!
“Zhao-jiejie,” Ge Nianlan looked up at the Fox Saint again. “Are lessons over for today?”
Zhao Cuihong looked taken aback. “Would you like them to be over?”
Ge Nianlan smiled sheepishly. He had spent the past month enthusiastically eating up whatever information he had been given, but after seeing Baili Liuye, he felt as if he were on a time crunch.
“I wanted to ask Lord Hanjing more about Gugu!” Ge Nianlan said as he held up the slumbering chicken with a pout. “He sleeps all the time, so I’m wondering if I’m doing anything wrong.”
Zhao Cuihong looked at the apathetic Ashen Phoenix in the boy’s hands. He wanted to tell Ge Nianlan that an Ashen Phoenix slept a lot in its early years, but after thinking about it, he only smiled. It would be good for Ge Nianlan to talk to people who did not belong to Black Mane Palace.
“Alright, let me tell you about your homework and you can be on your way.”
“Thank you, Zhao-jiejie!” Ge Nianlan sang.
Once Zhao Cuihong finished and Ge Nianlan had packed everything up, the boy rushed for the door. When he stepped out, he looked around the hall.
“Ling Tong!”
The puppet demon phased into existence nearby and strolled over. “Yes, Young Lord?”
“Do you know where Lord Hanjing is staying?”
“Yes.”
“Can you take me there?”
“Yes.”
Ge Nianlan struggled to follow behind the briskly walking Ling Tong for what felt like half an hour. When they arrived at the guest courtyard, Ge Nianlan immediately jumped in front of Ling Tong and stopped her from entering. Ling Tong stared at him with a few parts of surprise and confusion.
“You can’t enter.”
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.
“Qts cba?”
“Dfmjerf sbe jgf j Usatbc Vjlca! Tfrafgvjs, Obgv Rlf abiv wf atja atfs’gf tfgf obg j ajix jybea j agfjas, rb lo rbwfbcf bo remt tlut rajaer wjgmtfr lc klatbea olgra jccbecmlcu atflg qgfrfcmf jcv lcafcalbc, atfs klii olcv la fzagfwfis gevf, atfc atfgf kbc’a yf jcs agfjas ab rluc!”
Ling Tong blinked silently for a few seconds. The reasoning was there, but coming from Ge Nianlan, Ling Tong felt put off for some reason.
“What about you?”
“I can go in because I’m a child,” Ge Nianlan said with a cheeky smile. He started to run through the garden. “Anyway, stay here! It’s not like they’ll hurt me or anything anyway!”
Ge Nianlan looked back twice to make sure Ling Tong was staying at the entrance of the guest courtyard. Just as he was about to turn back around, he smacked straight into another person’s legs. He fell to the ground with a grunt and heard a short gasp overhead.
“Young Lord! Are you okay?”
Ge Nianlan dizzily looked up at Ye Mingxi as the man helped him to his feet. He gently patted the dirt from Ge Nianlan’s clothes and looked him over everywhere.
“Are you hurt anywhere?” Ye Mingxi frantically asked.
Ge Nianlan watched him turn over his hands and examine every inch of exposed skin. Sigu, who had been slumber peacefully on his shoulder, plopped onto Ge Nianlan’s head, clearly disgruntled.
“Lord Weidan, do you take care of children often?”
“I—huh?” Ye Mingxi looked up at Ge Nianlan and he brushed the small hands of any other dirt and small stones. “Of course. I look after the younger disciples quite often. That’s my job as the Pavilion Master. Now, what are you doing here, Young Lord? Were you playing around and got lost?”
Ge Nianlan shook his head. Just as Ye Mingxi released him, he turned around and held onto Ye Mingxi’s wide sleeves.
“Pavilion Master, I have something to talk to you about,” Ge Nianlan said.
“M-me?” Ye Mingxi raised a brow. “What is it?”
“I need advice,” Ge Nianlan said with a small pout.
“Um…and you wanted to ask…me?” Ye Mingxi pointed to himself.
Ge Nianlan nodded. He looked at the man seriously. “It’s very important! I can’t ask anyone else, because they might not take me seriously!”
Ye Mingxi understood. Because Ge Nianlan just learned that he often dealt with children, he felt that he was an adult to be trusted. Ye Mingxi smiled and found that this little boy was quite intelligent.
“Alright. Shall we move somewhere else to talk?” Ye Mingxi asked.
Just as Ge Nianlan nodded, he felt a weightlessness at his legs. His arms flailed slightly and Sigu squawked in discontent yet again. Ge Nianlan held onto Ye Mingxi’s shoulders and watched in surprise as the man started to carry him to a nearby gazebo.
In Black Mane Palace, only his father was really allowed to hold him like this and Ge Nianlan had few memories of his father holding him. He was stiff for a while, but he eventually relaxed in Ye Mingxi’s arms. Once he was sat down, he returned to his state of seriousness.
Ye Mingxi tried very hard to not laugh.
“So, Young Lord,” Ye Mingxi smiled as he rested his arm against the table, “What is it that you want to ask me about?”
Ge Nianlan fiddled with his fingers as Sigu hopped about on his head to make himself comfortable again.
“Don’t laugh,” Ge Nianlan warned.
Ye Mingxi adopted a very serious expression. “I promise you that I won’t.”
Ge Nianlan took a deep breath. “So, me and a few disciples are playing this game and it’s basically a game where you have to make decisions and those decisions lead to outcomes, right? It’s supposed to exercise your decision-making ability or something—I don’t quite remember the explanation—but I have a very difficult decision to make and I can’t decide. But if I ask people like the Saints for help, the disciples I’m playing with might find out and they won’t like it, so I ran all the way here to ask Lord Hanjing for help.”
Ge Nianlan glanced at Ye Mingxi. “But I bumped into Lord Weidan first and you’re less scary, so I thought it might be okay to ask you instead. Is that okay?”
Ye Mingxi nodded somberly, but, in reality, he wanted to throw his head back and laugh. This rascal was part of the Baili Clan? He was in the same family as the old bat, Baili Yueling, and Baili Liuye!? There was no way! This boy was a cute round little dumpling while his two elders were carved from ice! How could they be related at all? What an absolute darling!
Ge Nianlan breathed a sigh of relief. He looked at Ye Mingxi seriously again. “Okay, so, I need to tell you the character I’m playing as, is that okay?”
Ye Mingxi nodded. “Of course! I have a lot of time today.”
Ge Nianlan beamed. “Okay, Um…okay. So, the character I’m playing is someone who is easily bullied. He has a um…dis…dis…a…”
“Disability?”
“Mn! He’s a little foolish,” Ge Nianlan said. “So, he accepts lies easily and people tells him to do something, he’ll do it! But one day, he gets a dream from a very powerful deity and then he wakes up and realizes that he’s being used! So, in the bad conclusion, if he continues to be used, he’ll die and the world ends, because of this bad guy. And, obviously, I’m trying to get a better ending, but I’m not sure how to go about it.”
Ye Mingxi held his chin. The games of Yinxue Region were quite complicated and a little too brutal. Was that why children here came of age earlier than in Yunheng Region?
“Ahem, um…are there any other restraints to this game?” Ye Mingxi asked.
“There’s more plot,” Ge Nianlan said.
Ye Mingxi held onto his serious expression and crossed his arms. “Alright, let’s hear it.”
“So, there’s the big bad guy, who is also his rival—that’s the guy who destroys the world,” Ge Nianlan said with a wild hand gesture. Sigu swayed with Ge Nianlan’s head and squawked in irritation. “Um, so, this bad guy and my character are still children! But the bad guy gets bullied all the time and he eventually gets super angry at the world, so he ends up hating people. It’s actually the bad guy’s fault that my character dies in the future, because he tricks people into hating him! Oh, and the reason the bad guy doesn’t like my character is because they were swapped at birth, so bad guy sort of wants revenge or something? I think it’s misdirected hate. Um, and then the bad guy kills everyone.”
Ye Mingxi stared at Ge Nianlan. What a hardcore game.
“So, right now, I’m trying to decide what to do. My two goals are to survive and prevent the destruction of the world,” Ge Nianlan said with a troubled sigh. “I think the most important thing is to prevent the destruction of the world, because if my character survives, but the world still ends, that’s still a bad ending! The only reasonable way I can think about going about this is to kill the bad guy.”
“Wait, hold on,” Ye Mingxi stopped Ge Nianlan. “Does your character know that he was adopted?”
“Um, at this point, yes. Because of the deity granting him a vision.”
“Does your character and the bad guy live in the same household?”
“No, they’re different.”
“Then, it’s easy! Just have your character tell the truth, and then the bad guy won’t be bullied anymore and he won’t hate the world anymore.”
“But if my character ends up in the bad household and is bullied, it still won’t be considered a good ending! The ending I’m aiming for is one where he can live without being bothered,” Ge Nianlan explained.
“I see…” Ye Mingxi murmured. He glanced at Ge Nianlan. This boy was very meticulous. “Then…”
“Then?”
“Well, first off, I think killing the bad guy is out of the question.”
Ge Nianlan’s expression fell. “How come?”
“Because if it ever gets out that your character is not the real child, then his adoptive parents will be mad that your character killed their son.”
“And then that won’t lead to a good ending either,” Ge Nianlan said as his face paled.
“Exactly,” Ye Mingxi nodded. “Plus, you said he was a child?”
“Yes.”
“It would be difficult for a child to kill someone easily. Killing takes a lot of strength,” Ye Mingxi explained.
Ge Nianlan nodded with rapt attention. Ye Mingxi made a great point.
“Then, what should I do?” Ge Nianlan asked.
“Let me think,” Ye Mingxi said.
The two sat in silence for a few minutes until Ye Mingxi snapped his fingers.
“Okay! I got it.”
Ge Nianlan’s eyes lit up. “Okay?”
“The bad guy is still a child, which means there’s a chance for change, right?”
Ge Nianlan stared at him blankly before his expression slowly showed understanding again. That’s right! Right now, Huai Zhen was just a helpless little lamb who constantly got tossed around and bullied. Until he came into contact with devil Qi, he was just like any other bullied kid!
“Mmhm!”
“Then, your character should try to change the bad guy’s future,” Ye Mingxi suggested. He sighed. “Being bullied is a horrible thing. You’ll feel so isolated and alone. Some people might even feel like they’re not worthy of anything, because they’re constantly being put down. If the bad guy’s bullying is bad enough to make him hate every human, to the point of destroying the world, that probably just means that he has lost hope in humanity.”
“And how do I restore his hope?” Ge Nianlan asked.
“You have to be kind to him,” Ye Mingxi said. “If you show him kindness, he will surely become a better person!”
Ge Nianlan hesitated. “Is that it?”
“Of course! But it will take time and effort. For example, what do you do when a plant is wilting?”
“Pull it out?”
“No, no. You have to water it,” Ye Mingxi said. “If you water it and care for it long enough, it’ll slowly get better. In a lot of ways, humans are like plants. Just like water is the cure for a wilting plant and food is the cure for a starving man, kindness is the cure for a broken heart. Bad people don’t become bad without a reason—it is often because they have been hurt before, so they can’t find it in themselves to know kindness anymore. Besides, if you’re kind to someone, they will naturally feel gratitude! And if they feel gratitude, it’s less likely that they will harm you.”
Ge Nianlan sat in silence for a long time.
Ye Mingxi watched him hesitantly. “Does that help?”
Would it help? Although Yinxue Region wasn’t as evil and barbaric as those pampered folk in Yunheng Region thought it was, people here did often resort to killing faster than others. Perhaps killing the bad guy and then getting strong enough to kill the character’s adoptive parents would have been the better way to go.
“I…I think it does.”
Ge Nianlan nodded to himself.
Of course, it does!
Just like Nie Chenhui said—children are easily swayed! If Ge Nianlan is kind and patient to the broken-hearted Huai Zhen, then Huai Zhen will realize that there are still kind people in this world. And even if that plan failed, then, at the very least, Huai Zhen won’t try to frame him at every turn, right? This plan could buy Ge Nianlan a few years before he figured out what to do!
Besides, being kind was definitely easier than trying to get powerful fast in a short period of time!
However, Ge Nianlan thought of a new problem. How in the world would he contact Huai Zhen? The boy lived across a large stretch of water and in a world that Ge Nianlan could not even think of reaching. He could accept Baili Liuye’s invitation and go back to Yunkong Pavilion with him, but once the truth was out, Ge Jinsheng would definitely send out his troops to find his son. And, at that point, won’t Huai Zhen be found nearly immediately!? Then, Ge Nianlan won’t have time to brainwash—no—cozy up—no, wait—be nice to Huai Zhen!
The plan was definitely a good one, but how could Ge Nianlan enact it naturally and without arousing any suspicion?
“Young Lord? What brings you over here?”
The voice made Ge Nianlan jump. He looked over his shoulder as Baili Liuye walked up to them. His hair flowed freely past his shoulders and he wore only thin robes and a light coat.
Ge Nianlan slowly settled back down after realizing the person who spoke was his father. He glanced at him again in irritation. “I was asking Lord Weidan about game strategy?”
“Game strategy?” Baili Liuye asked. “For what game? Chess?”
“Just some game I’m playing with some disciples,” Ge Nianlan said. “Do you want to help?”
“Is there more?” Ye Mingxi asked.
Ge Nianlan let out a long, troubled sigh. “The idea is certainly good! But the bad guy lives so far away, so I don’t know how my character could naturally approach him. It’s also a place that my character can’t easily enter.”
Baili Liuye raised a brow. “Just what sort of game is this?”
Ge Nianlan summarized the situation for Baili Liuye. The man stood, somewhat shocked for several seconds, before cautiously asking: “Is this what children of Yinxue Region do in their free time?”
“It’s to temper the mind!” Ge Nianlan said in exasperation. “You wouldn’t understand.”
Ye Mingxi bit back his laughter. “Right, Liuye. You wouldn’t understand.”
Baili Liuye shot Ye Mingxi a look, then proceeded to sit down beside them.
Ge Nianlan placed his chin against the back of his hand and stared blankly out into space.
After a few minutes crawled by, Baili Liuye softly cleared his throat. Ge Nianlan and Ye Mingxi looked in his direction.
“In life, the best thing to do is to wait.”
“Wait?”
“Mn. Always keep an eye out for an opportunity,” Baili Liuye said. “And when the opportunity arises, strike down quickly.”
Ge Nianlan fell silent.
Wait? How long would he have to wait? Was there really not another way to go about this?
akdhakxhsj Ge Nianlan needs to be squeezed. boy jumped straight to considering murder akdhakdhsj
ALSO DYING AT THE ADULTS AKDHAKDH “what a hardcore game” i need to squeeze them too. 100% a thing a kid would tell you tho; i have HEARD things in my time;;;;
children are so silly LMAO thanks for reading!!
Thanks very much, it’s very interesting
thanks for reading!