Even after they’d left the small town and returned to Xuyun Sect, the storm was far from over.
Fang Zhiyuan began to sensitively feel that Lin Fuqing was looking at him strangely.
Although the Demon Lord would later swear to the sky with a helpless smile that this was definitely the look of “a drowning person longing for a life-saving straw.”
However, at the time, in Fang Zhiyuan’s perspective, the little immortal looked like he’d “suddenly discovered one day that the little stray dog he’d picked up and brought home could actually stand upside down,” which made him feel anxious and humiliated.
Fang Zhiyuan wished he could have thorns all over his body.
But Lin Fuqing followed him around like a ghost every day. Not only could he not get rid of him, but he also asked questions that made him even more angry and irritated.
It was a bright and clear morning. Deep in Mt. Xuyun, a huge stone wall stood tall. The upper part was covered with moss, and the lower part was covered with deep and shallow blade marks.
Fang Zhiyuan, who had just recovered from his injuries, held his sword in both hands, breathing evenly, trying to concentrate.
The blade was pitch black. He was no longer holding the tattered iron blade, but the immortal weapon “Zaiya” that Yin Changxin had personally forged for him.
He carefully narrowed his eyes and recited the mantra of his mental method in a low voice: “Flowing fire descends west, coldness dissipates in water, startling birds and beasts. Death awaits. The next blade at Kun position, nine points strength…”
Just a few steps behind him, Lin Fuqing was holding a paper bag and eating sunflower seeds. He blinked and asked, “Why do you want to protect someone who hates you?”
Fang Zhiyuan’s eyes twitched, and he tried hard not to be distracted. “…Kun position, nine points strength…”
Lin Fuqing persisted. “Why?”
The sword intent that he had finally gathered dissipated. Fang Zhiyuan gritted his teeth and felt a thin muscle on his forehead throbbing. “I didn’t.”
Lin Fuqing said, “You did.”
Fang Zhiyuan finally couldn’t stand it anymore and slashed at him angrily. “You did! I think you have an evil disease!!”
Lin Fuqing tapped his feet and lightly spun half his body. He saw an opportunity when the sword tip was about to arrive, and with his bare hands, he used his spiritual energy to push and pull, effortlessly snatching Fang Zhiyuan’s weapon into his own hands.
Shocked and angered, Fang Zhiyuan exclaimed, “You…!”
Lin Fuqing watched him steadily, playing with the long sword in his hand. “You’re not a person to swallow your anger, nor are you a fool who will smile even when being beaten. Tell me why.”
“Does protecting others make you happy?”
Lin Fuqing continued, “Even if it results in nothing good? If you’re repaid with evil for your kindness, will you still feel happy?”
Lin Fuqing said, “A’Yuan, what do you think of the savior immortal…”
Fang Zhiyuan covered his head, defeated by an exhaustion that was even more severe than blood loss. “That’s enough, shut up. Shi-ge, shut up.”
This had been going on for several days. Fang Zhiyuan finally couldn’t stand it anymore and just wanted to get rid of this guy as soon as possible.
He took a deep breath, pointed, and said coldly, “Come, look at what that is?”
Lin Fuqing looked in the direction of Fang Zhiyuan’s finger, and saw a bunch of wild immortal flowers growing on the cliff where they stood. The flowers were a light golden yellow color with a few wisps of rosy red, and the petals gently shook in the breeze, looking very lovely.
“Flowers?”
Fang Zhiyuan nodded. “Does it look good?”
Lin Fuqing agreed. “It looks good.”
Fang Zhiyuan continued, “Pleasant to the eyes?”
Lin Fuqing said, “Indeed.”
Fang Zhiyuan sneered, his tone calm. “Now if you walk over to this flower, it will wilt, and if you touch this flower, it will die. Will you stand far away and enjoy it with your heart and eyes, or do you have to walk up to it and pick a handful of smelly rotten flowers and dead leaves?”
Lin Fuqing remained silent, thinking for a long time before speaking, “Of course I should watch from afar.”
Fang Zhiyuan continued, “Okay, since you think the flowers are beautiful and pleasing to the eye, and you’re willing to watch them from afar. Now, if a yin monster wants to destroy the flowers—“
“Will you drive away the yin monster so that you can continue to enjoy the flowers, or will you let the yin monster destroy the flowers so that you will never be able to enjoy them again?”
“……”
Lin Fuqing fell silent again.
“Satisfied?” Fang Zhiyuan took two steps forward, snatched the sword from his hand, and said disdainfully, “Give me back the sword, and you, get out of here.”
When he took away the sword, Fang Zhiyuan didn’t notice that Lin Fuqing’s fingers were trembling slightly.
It was as if the skylight had suddenly opened up.
So that was it….that’s what it was…..
At this moment, Lin Fuqing suddenly understood Fang Zhiyuan’s way of thinking, which was extremely strange to ordinary people, obviously distorted, but had its own logic in a wonderful way.
Fang Zhiyuan was born with bad luck, so the happiness and perfection that ordinary people have was out of his reach.
Just like in that small town, the city lord would rather sacrifice his own life to protect the people, the people were grateful to the city lord, and the city lord and his wife were deeply in love with each other…These warmths were destined to be something that the calamity star could not experience.
After accepting this fate, Fang Zhiyuan showed no jealousy, resentment, nor hatred…
He regarded the beauty of the world as flowers that could only be admired from afar and not touched, and he was even willing to draw his swords to protect the beautiful flowers.
Even if the red roses had thorns, and the thorns pricked his fingers.
He was willing.
After all, for the star of calamity, it was worth it to enjoy this “pleasing sight.”
What else could he do? If he gave up even that, he would really…there would be nothing left but darkness and filth in all directions.
With clear sky and white clouds above his head and fragrant grass under his feet, Lin Fuqing stood in such a peaceful mountain, his chest surging with complex emotions.
He didn’t know what this feeling was called, he just knew that the pain mixed in it made it difficult for him to breathe.
Lin Fuqing turned around, his white robe fluttering. He saw Fang Zhiyuan walking away with sword in hand, and he suddenly said in a stern voice, “What if the flowers can live? Don’t you want to pick it?”
Fang Zhiyuan stopped without even turning his head.
He said, “I don’t want to.”
Miraculously, at this moment, an idea flashed through Lin Fuqing’s mind.
He suddenly understood what Fang Zhiyuan meant. When he said he didn’t want to, he didn’t mean he didn’t want to. What he meant was that he didn’t want to think about it.
Fang Zhiyuan gripped the hilt tightly and said coldly, “Lin Fuqing, you’re too greedy.”
“You’re not like me…I only ask for what I can get. I don’t have time to think about what I can’t get.”
Lin Fuqing’s eyes were sharp and stubborn. He spoke in a stiff voice, “Who said I can’t ask for it?”
With a wave of his hand, he plucked the bunch of immortal flowers on the cliff. Spiritual energy poured into the broken stems, and the flowers became even brighter and more colorful than when they grew on the mountain.
Lin Fuqing said, “I’ll give you what you can’t ask for.”
What he got in return was a mocking laugh from the calamity star.
“You? Can you afford it?”
Fang Zhiyuan turned half of his face away, his eyes sharp and piercing under his black hair.
“Lin Fuqing, you’re so greedy that you don’t know how to choose. You ask for everything and you don’t even think about whether you can afford to keep it! One day, you’ll lose yourself.”
Lin Fuqing lowered his eyes and held the flowers in silence.
“When that time comes…”
Fang Zhiyuan turned his head away, his eyes flashing with a dark light, fingers tightening imperceptively on the hilt.
“Remember this clearly. You brought this upon yourself. Don’t blame others.”
After saying that, Fang Zhiyuan turned and left.
Lin Fuqing held the immortal flower in his hand and stood at the edge of the cliff for a long time.
Since he followed Yin Changxin on the path to immortality, he always asked questions, asking the heavens, the earth, and the Dao. He dared to question everything, and no one could argue with him.
The master said that he thought too much, always thinking too deeply and too complicatedly. He looked well behaved on the surface, but was arrogant in his heart, like an untamed wild horse.
Only he knew how much.
Only this little calamity star he picked up could make him speechless.
Lin Fuqing lowered his head and closed his eyes, then lightly sniffed the fragrance of the flowers in his hands.
He still couldn’t see the world clearly, and didn’t know how to save it. But at least at this moment, he felt that he had seen an immortal.
The inner demon that had been lurking for many years disappeared overnight.
By the time Fang Zhiyuan put away his sword, the sun had already set and the crows were returning to their nests.
Zaiya dissipated in his hand after being sheathed, and the fatigue after the intense consumption swept through his body.
Dizzyly, Fang Zhiyian stumbled forward two steps. Unable to stand firmly, he fell straight down.
Fortunately, this was grass. There were no sharp rocks, so he was unafraid of falling. Fang Zhiyuan supported himself on the ground and waited until the feeling of dizziness passed before he slowly got up.
He stared at his hands that were shaking due to excessive fatigue, and realized belatedly that Lin Fuqing had not come to take care of him.
No matter that his training had obviously exceeded his physical limit, no one came to drag him back to rest and eat at noon.
This was……
Did he become angry and no longer wanted to pay attention to him?
Fang Zhiyuan remained silent, and a strange feeling emerged in his heart. When he’d said more outrageous things before, that person acted as if he didn’t care.
In confusion, Fang Zhiyuan suddenly realized what he was thinking. He felt a chill in his chest, and he wondered in astonishment: What’s wrong with me?
Wasn’t this what he’d always wanted? For Lin Fuqing to ignore him and to distance himself from him?
After all, he’d spoken harshly and badly to Lin Fuqing from the very beginning. Wasn’t today’s outcome what he’d wanted?
Fang Zhiyuan’s face darkened. If he wasn’t so exhausted that he lacked the strength, he would have slapped himself to wake himself up.
He just said that Lin Fuqing was greedy, but what about him?
He started to get addicted anyway.
Too exhausted, he had to walk back to the bamboo house where they lived, almost step by step.
As soon as he raised his hand to push open the door, Yu Hongtang rushed out and hugged his thighs. “Gun gege!”
“Who’re you calling?” Fang Zhiyuan’s face darkened, and he raised his hand to slap the door frame. Immediately, the corner of the frame became dented, and wood chips flew everywhere. (TN: Remember, from a previous scene when YHT first met FZY, she’d asked him for his name, and he’d said gun, which meant scram.)
“Hey, Yuan gege, what are you doing?” Yu Hongtang wasn’t afraid at all. She pouted and leaned on her hips. “Qing’er gege will have to fix it again.”
Fang Zhiyuan frowned and glanced at the empty house. “Where’s your Qing’er gege?”
Yu Hongtang exclaimed, “It’s all Yuan gege’s fault for interrupting me. I was just about to say it! Qing’er gege hasn’t come back yet. Isn’t he with you? Where did he go?”
“—What?”
Fang Zhiyuan was stunned. “He hasn’t come back yet? Then at noon…”
Yu Hongtang nodded. “Yes, he didn’t come back for lunch.”
The girl showed a rare look of uneasiness on her face. She lowered her head and whispered, “Xiao Hongtang is so scared. The last time Qing’er gege suddenly disappeared, he was sick outside…Then he had a fever for a long time and vomited blood. It was so scary!”
Yu Hongtang hadn’t even managed to finish speaking.
Fang Zhiyuan had already turned around and rushed out the door.
At that moment, the panic that exploded in his brain easily overcame the fatigue in his body.
Later, Fang Zhiyuan could hardly recall how he had run to that cliff.
He only remembered the sharp sound of the wind in his ears and the setting sun hanging in the distance above the mountain peak. It was a rough and steep mountain path, but he didn’t even stop once.
Until he climbed over a huge rock and turned onto the open cliff, and the sudden dazzling golden light made Fang Zhiyuan raise his hands to cover his eyes.
After a few breaths, he slowly lowered his arm.
As his vision became clearer, surprise gradually appeared on that usually stern face, and Fang Zhiyuan could hardly believe his eyes.
Flowers.
Under the grand sunset and colorful clouds, the originally lonely cliff was now lushly carpeted in flowers.
The boy in white robe, with his eyelashes lowered, holding a bouquet of flowers, was as beautiful as an immortal.
Lin Fuqing was still standing in the same place, his eyes half-closed, his hands carefully holding the same bunch of wild immortal flowers.
But what was originally just a bunch of light golden flowers had grown wildly in the palm of his hand, as if a miracle had descended and it was now blooming all over the cliff under the setting sun.
Branches with tender green leaves dangled from those slender white fingers, spreading and spreading…
It took root in the soil beside the cliff, sprouted branches and leaves, formed exquisite buds, and bloomed golden flowers, layer upon layer, like a soft and thick golden velvet blanket, enough to cover the knees.
When the wind blew, the waves of flowers really look like water waves, swaying with a rustle in distinct layers.
Even the stone wall where he had practiced swordplay and that was once covered with numerous blade marks was covered in madly growing flowers, giving it a soft, golden appearance.
“You……”
Fang Zhiyuan was dizzy from the overwhelming light of the flowers. He knelt on the ground, coughing and gasping for breath.
Lin Fuqing’s eyelashes trembled slightly, and the light of the setting sun splashed a hint of bright red gold on them.
He slowly opened his eyes as if he had realized something, turned his head and looked at Fang Zhiyuan. The silver tassels on his white fur coat moved without wind.
Fang Zhiyuan coughed so hard that he almost passed out. His back was soaked with a cold sweat. He looked at the flowers that had spread in front of him with shaking eyes, and suddenly realized something.
The reason why the immortal flowers grew so wildly was that it had absorbed the spiritual energy that overflowed when a cultivator broke through.
The spiritual energy of the surrounding heaven and earth was fluctuating, and the aura around Lin Fuqing was also subtly different.
Fang Zhiyuan just wanted to smile bitterly.
Did this just person break through?
Without meditating in seclusion, or the protection of elixirs or magic arrays, this person only spent a short time, from early morning to dusk, standing on such a broken cliff. Was he a monster or a god?
And he was actually so worried that he ran over to look for someone in such a panic. This was too funny.
Therefore, his worry about Lin Fuqing was just like an ant standing in front of a puddle after rain, worrying whether a lion would drown.
Lin Fuqing parted the waves of flowers and walked towards Fang Zhiyuan step by step.
It was a long-awaited breakthrough, and his meridians were awashed by the spiritual energy of heaven and earth for the first time in a long time, which made Lin Fuqing’s thinking a little slow and hazy.
The white-robed immortal lord was scented with flowers all over his body, and his hands were full of golden flowers. He tilted his head and asked softly, “A’Yuan…is it because I didn’t come looking for you?”
“…….”
Fang Zhiyuan’s fingers trembled with shame and anger, feeling like he’d been slapped in the face.
Good, very good…
He had just scolded Lin Fuqing for being too greedy, mocking him for not being able to give and hold, and yet his shi-ge was able to break through the realm that same day to slap him in the face…
And he still asked such a knowing question…
For a person like Lin Fuqing, who was free and easy in this world, what else could he want?
Clearly——
It was clear that he couldn’t ask for it and he dared not ask for it.
Fang Zhiyuan felt unwilling and sad at the same time. His heart was painfully bleeding, but he still clenched his fists and gritted his teeth. “…Yes.”
He used his stubborn and ridiculous self-esteem to try to suppress his uncontrollably trembling voice under a layer of coldness.
…Yes, ever since he was forced to stay in Xuyun, everything had been messed up.
Lin Funqing had easily peeled off the cold hard shell he built to protect himself and easily picked up his claws and kneaded them with a smile.
He actually already…
Fang Zhiyuan raised his head suddenly, his brows flashing blood red in the evening light, “Lin Fuqing…”
Being forced to this point, he could no longer be fierce.
Be it self-deception or bluffing.
Like a wolf cub that had been caught in a net, no matter how much it bared its fangs and howled, it would only look aggrieved and pitiful….Or…
Even though he knew this, Fang Zhiyuan still held back his embarrassment and said angrily, “It’s precisely because you didn’t come looking for me!——”
“…”
When his voice faded away, the atmosphere became tense.
Lin Fuqing lowered his hands with regret, and the golden flowers scattered.
“Yes.”
Before Fang Zhiyuan could breathe a sigh of relief, the little immortal raised his eyes again. He asked in a serious and puzzled manner, “…By the way. A’Yuan, why are you rushing to see me like this? What’s the matter?”
“After all, you couldn’t have been worried about me. Could it be that you couldn’t bear the hunger anymore and wanted to ask me to go back and cook for you?”
Fang Zhiyuan shuddered, his cheeks burning hot.
The wolf cub was immediately shot in his weakest spot and his tail became stiff.
—He was dead, he’d been killed.