Chapter 21 Part 1: You’re staring at me so intently, don’t you have anything else to do?
He stretched out his hand and took the medicine bottle, at the same time shaking the spoon in front of Liao Chen again. “I didn’t expect the Demon Palace to have sweet osmanthus jelly. I used to love this. This time, it tastes like plum blossom. Have you ever had it?”
Perhaps thinking that he was about to drink the silent poison, Liao Chen’s mood calmed down a little. He said, “The children in the palace also love to eat it.”
His lips approached the spoon, and he opened his mouth—
Yan Jingyu suddenly pulled it back and stuffed it into his own mouth. “I just remembered that you’re a patient now and can’t eat these cold things. It’s better if I—cough, cough, cough, cough…”
Liao Chen’s anger dissipated before it could flare up. Yan Jingyu covered his mouth and coughed for a while, shaking his head regretfully. “I’m getting old. I can’t stand even a little bit of cold air. Let’s put this aside for now. Shall we have a meal together?”
Liao Chen finally picked up his chopsticks.
Yan Jingyu coughed twice more. “We haven’t really eaten together much, have we… We were always fighting and killing each other every time we met. You did smash a few of my dining tables, though.”
“Which immortal lord loves to eat as much as you do?” Liao Chen said. “Three meals a day, not a single one missed.”
As long as he had locked onto his general location, if he went to wait for him at mealtimes, he could catch him eight out of ten times. But later, Yan Jingyu also learned to be smart. Once he had a new feud with him, he would stay in his residence to eat. For a while, Liao Chen really couldn’t do anything about him.
“So later, when you couldn’t find me outside, you sent people to the good local restaurants to inquire, knowing that I would definitely order takeout, and you even secretly poisoned my food.”
“Who told you to be so greedy?” Liao Chen was not ashamed. “I also know that you eat roasted chicken every two days, only the left leg. You have a bowl of soup every noon, and your favorite is Mountain and Sea Soup, but you have to have pork rib and lotus root soup once a month. For breakfast, it’s usually plain congee and side dishes. At night, you like to eat cold things, like sweet osmanthus jelly, ice cream, cold dumplings… Your favorite is red bean products, and your most hated food is fish, because you loved to eat it when you were a child, but your mother wouldn’t let you eat too much, so you ate it secretly and got choked many times, and learned your lesson.”
Yan Jingyu’s mouth was agape, almost dumbfounded. “…Forget the rest. Only the left leg of the chicken, how did you come to that conclusion?”
“This Lord observed that every time you eat chicken, you face the chicken’s belly towards you and use your right hand to tear it. Therefore, it’s always the left leg. Is there a problem?”
“…” That’s not because I only eat the left side, it’s because only the left side is easier to tear!
Yan Jingyu smiled, then lifted his chin. “I also know about you. You rarely eat, unless Chi Yuan is hosting a banquet, then you have to. But when you’re on a mission alone, if no one is with you, you’ll buy some food yourself, not very fixed… usually whatever you see on the roadside, sometimes it’s red bean sweet osmanthus jelly, sometimes it’s sweet green bean soup or fresh meat shaobing… but you don’t seem to like any of them very much, and you don’t eat them often. You spend most of your time cultivating, you never sleep, and you like to act alone. Once someone is around, you become particularly alert and find it difficult to calm your mind when cultivating… Hmm, your swordsmanship is top-notch, but your wood carving skills are even better than your swordsmanship! Those demonic beasts on the shelf are all extinct, and some you have hunted and killed before. Am I right?”
Liao Chen lowered his eyes. “You know alchemy and also artifact refining. You are curious about everything and have to try everything. Anything you haven’t seen before, you have to try it yourself…”
“You are not curious about anything. You only know how to cultivate. When you’re tired from walking, you’ll sit down to rest, and you’ll still cultivate for half an incense stick’s time, even if you can’t even complete a small heavenly cycle. But if someone interrupts your cultivation, you don’t get angry, as if… you’re already used to being interrupted.”
Liao Chen looked at him again. “You didn’t drink before you were seventeen. The first wine you drank was Nine Heavens Immortal, with Qin Zhongyou, in your backyard, secretly, on the eve of your birthday. Later, Nine Heavens Immortal became your favorite wine.”
“You…” Yan Jingyu paused, thinking for a long time. “You never drink…”
“You like to sit on the edge of the Cloud Sea and fish with bare feet, with a bent hook and some of your favorite food as bait. You once caught a green-scaled eagle and were pecked all over, and it took a long time to heal.”
“…”
“For a while, you wanted to learn how to sing opera and even went to find a master. You were at the forefront when it came to acrobatics, but as soon as you opened your mouth to sing, all sorts of problems arose. Because you sang so badly, your master felt that taking your money was too unconscionable and had to ask you to leave the opera house.”
“…”
“They say the princess of the Hongmeng Kingdom is the most beautiful woman in the world. You were curious how beautiful she really was…”
“Alright, alright, alright.” Yan Jingyu interrupted him. “You’re staring at me so intently… don’t you have anything else to do?”
Although he said he wouldn’t eat anymore, Yan Jingyu still had a few more mouthfuls of the sweet osmanthus jelly, all small bites. Liao Chen picked up the congee and took a sip, pursed his lips, and said, “You ruined my plans several times, and Chi Yuan ordered me to kill you no matter what.”
“And if you couldn’t kill me?”
Liao Chen did not answer. He just glanced at Yan Jingyu. “When are you going to drink the silent poison?”
“After I finish my meal.” Yan Jingyu changed the subject. “Where’s the Wenjun Lüyi you apologized with last time? Bring it out to go with the food.”
Liao Chen took out a jar and handed it to him. Yan Jingyu held it and sniffed it. “It’s indeed a good wine, but it’s still far from Nine Heavens Immortal.”
Liao Chen’s smiling expression faded, and he said coldly, “Of course it can’t compare to your love-pledge wine.”
“…” Yan Jingyu poured himself a cup and drank it. “You sneaked into my backyard, and you’re still justified?”
“The young master of the Yan Clan’s seventeenth birthday. Hutian was overcrowded. Countless merchants hung red silk on the cloud buildings, and the celestial walkways were filled with your favorite sweet cheese. Hundreds of pleasure barges were suspended in the air, and the entire cultivation world came to admire your name. For those few days, the streets of Hutian City were empty, far surpassing the once-in-a-century Grand Cultivation Assembly… Your Yan Clan entertained so many guests. What’s so strange about me mixing in?”
“You even mixed in, but you didn’t kill me?” Yan Jingyu drank a few mouthfuls of wine and gradually became a little lost, his body slumping, his posture becoming relaxed. “You just spied?”
“I had never seen such a magnificent scene,” Liao Chen said. “If I had killed you, there would have been nothing to see.”
Yan Jingyu swirled his wine cup, propping his elbow on the table, smiling. “You’re really a little phoenix from the mountains who has never seen the world… Now that you’ve become a lord of a realm and control the authority of a region, the Demon Palace has become a desolate city in your hands. In the polar night, there isn’t a single light. If it were me, I would light up the entire Demonic Domain and keep it burning until the end of the polar night…”
The corners of his eyes were a little red, he didn’t know if it was from the wine or from reminiscing about his past glory.
“You like lively places so much, you should go back to Hutian.”
“Who doesn’t like lively places?” Yan Jingyu tilted his body and looked at him with a confused expression. “If you don’t like it, why did you linger at my birthday banquet? There are only puppets in this palace of yours. Where did the demon servants Chi Yuan left behind go?”
“I dismissed them.”
“Hmm… why did you dismiss them? If you kept them, they would have a means of livelihood, and you would have some people… demonic energy around you.”
He seemed a little drunk, his cheeks red. He rested his chin on his hands and looked at him seriously, like some harmless little demon waiting for its teacher’s answer.
“I don’t like having people around.”
“Why?”
Yan Jingyu’s head tilted as if it had no bones, and he blinked his eyes.
Liao Chen hadn’t eaten much to begin with. He put down his chopsticks and said faintly, “It’s not safe.”
Yan Jingyu’s eyelashes fluttered.
He wanted to ask more, but he felt that it was about enough. His current state was just right, a little tipsy, but not completely drunk. He didn’t want to go out and sleep in the freezing cold front hall again. He could take this opportunity to stay here. And besides, he hadn’t drunk the silent poison yet.
Yan Jingyu directly curled up his body, tilted his head, and fell onto the white jade bed.
“How did my alcohol tolerance get so bad…”
His voice was very soft. Yan Jingyu was a little worried that he would be discovered pretending, so he wrinkled his face, turned over, and lay on his stomach, covering his face with his hands, and mumbled, “I’m not drunk…”
If he were sober, Liao Chen would definitely force him to drink the rest of the silent poison and then kick him out.
He had already discovered that it wasn’t impossible for him and Liao Chen to have a calm conversation, provided that he was well-behaved and didn’t provoke the other. If they were at loggerheads, it could only lead to a raging fire.
Liao Chen was genuinely a little doubtful, but considering that he had almost died at the hands of Qin Zixuan, he felt it was reasonable. He had heard that people were more likely to get drunk when they were sad…
Yan Jingyu is still sad for that kind of person.
He suddenly felt a surge of anger and cursed, “Fool.”
“…” Yan Jingyu held it in and didn’t move, still pretending to be unconscious, but his heart was inevitably a little confused, and he cursed back silently: Sicko.
Something suddenly crawled under him. Yan Jingyu held back and didn’t move. Not until something also pressed down from above did his body become warmer.
He gently stroked what was under him with his bent fingers. The feeling changed from smooth jade to a fluffy fur blanket.
The fur was long. When he pressed his fingers down, the gaps between his fingers were filled with warmth.
Yan Jingyu rubbed his cheek against it and soon fell into a deep sleep.
Hutian, Yaoguang Valley.
The snow fell heavily. Qin Zhongyou clutched his chest, his steps messy as he walked through the corridors of the Yan estate. Ruan Qixi trotted beside him, trying to support him several times, but was pushed away by his hand.
“Zhongyou, how…”
“How is his injury?” Qin Zhongyou waved his hand to avoid Ling Dannan’s support and walked all the way to the bed, gazing at Qin Zixuan on the couch. “What happened?”
“He is seriously injured,” Ling Dannan said from the side. “His entire spiritual abode was pierced by the Soul-Tethering Lock, and his soul was also severely damaged… It was Yin Shi who did it.”
Qin Zixuan’s breathing was weak, his expression dazed. Not until he saw Qin Zhongyou did he seem to come back to his senses. “No, he’s not… he’s not young master Yan,”
Ruan Qixi immediately looked at Qin Zhongyou. The latter’s lips moved slightly, and he nodded. “I know.”
“Young master Yan is already gone… You must, succeed in your immortal ascension. Don’t be deceived by Liao Chen…”
“Alright.” Qin Zhongyou put his hand back, pulled up the quilt, and said, “I know. You rest well.”
Qin Zixuan’s soul was already unstable, and he soon fell unconscious again. Zeng Huacai came up to help Qin Zhongyou up and said in a low voice, “His core is completely shattered, and his meridians are all destroyed… Yin Shi seems to have deliberately spared his life.”
The few of them moved to the outer room and sat down. Qin Zhongyou pressed an elbow on the edge of the table, his face pale. “Where is the shadow-recording pearl?”
“It was all shattered when we brought it back.” Ling Dannan spoke, and a few small fragments appeared in front of them. Fleeting images flashed within, clothes and human limbs cut into countless pieces. “We can’t see anything.”
