Chapter 23: Lost, Then Found Again at the Brink

The Origin Core still wasn’t right.

After two quarters of an hour in meditative breathing, Lin Zhuoyu still could not shake the feeling that the Origin Core in his inner palace was not his own.

A Golden Core of that size sat right there, yet the spiritual power it could muster was vanishingly small—and the moment he stirred it, a fine, prickling ache spread through him.

A damaged Origin Core was no small matter. After a moment’s thought, Zhuoyu drew a Floating Jade Mountain jade slip from Qingru and scrawled a few characters in flamboyant strokes with a thread of spiritual power, asking Shishu Qingxiao about his condition.

The jade slip soon transformed into a tiny crane and soared gracefully toward Floating Jade Mountain.

Zhuoyu stretched lazily and, gathering his robes, rose from the daybed.

He had barely pushed the door open when he found a pillar planted at the entrance—Qingshan Qi, whether just arrived or never having left at all, was standing beneath the wisteria trellis outside the corridor, eyes downcast, seemingly staring at something in his hand.

Zhuoyu arched a brow. “What are you doing standing around out there?”

Qingshan Qi slipped his hand behind his back without a trace. A faint squeeze—and somewhere in the empty air came the soft crack of jade shattering, noticed by no one.

“I was worried Elder Brother might have orders for me.”

Zhuoyu laughed despite himself. “You’re not my servant. What’s with all this ‘orders’ business? Go on—book a table of the best wine and food at the finest restaurant in Guping City, and have ten barrels of water heated so you can serve my bath and change of clothes with servile gratitude.”

Qingshan Qi: “?”

Watching Qingshan Qi tilt his head at him in bafflement, Zhuoyu dropped the smile and said gravely, “Little brother, I was joking.”

Qingshan Qi: “Ha. Ha. Ha.”

Zhuoyu decided the man’s mind truly was a single unyielding track. If he ever wandered the world alone, someone would surely sweet-talk him out of everything down to his last crumb.

Ah. If he hadn’t met me, what would this child ever do?

“Rest here,” Zhuoyu said. “I’m making a trip back to Lingshu Mountain.”

Qingshan Qi was puzzled. “Why go back?”

“That Great Demon may be dead, but its corpse is still there—and the common folk haven’t been settled yet…”

Zhuoyu went on at length, but to Qingshan Qi it all felt tedious. He couldn’t fathom why the man cared about such trivial trifles.

Qingshan Qi was about to reply when his inner palace abruptly shuddered, and he began coughing beyond his own control, the color draining from his face in a flash.

Zhuoyu hurried to steady him, thumping him hard on the back. “Are you all right? What’s happening?!”

Qingshan Qi nearly coughed blood from that Buddha’s-Palm of a blow. “Thank you, Elder Brother. Much better now,” he said weakly.

Zhuoyu rushed inside to pour him tea.

Seeing the feigned illness working, Qingshan Qi’s brow lifted subtly. He was just planning how to keep Zhuoyu here when his divine sense suddenly caught movement outside Cang Manor.

Someone was coming. Cultivation considerable—and more than one of them.

Qingshan Qi’s eyes narrowed.

Zhuoyu charged back out with the tea, moving so fast he nearly dumped half the scalding cup over Qingshan Qi’s head.

Qingshan Qi had long since internalized the fact that Zhuoyu could not serve another soul to save his life. He caught the half cup with flawless precision, downed the hot tea in one go as though immune to pain, and curved his eyes. “Thank you, Elder Brother.”

Once the itch in his throat was soothed, Qingshan Qi drew the teleportation artifact from his sleeve, his voice somehow gentler—though that might have been the scalding.

“Elder Brother, this artifact records the location of its last teleportation. If you want to go to Lingshu Mountain, this will take you straight there.”

Zhuoyu couldn’t be bothered with Wind Riding. “That convenient? Then what are we waiting for—give it here.”

Qingshan Qi said quickly, “I want to come with you.”

Zhuoyu eyed him suspiciously. “But this artifact can only teleport one person, can’t it?”

Qingshan Qi: “…”

Qingshan Qi ground his teeth, unable to understand why he had ever designed such a stupid trap to test Zhuoyu. Now he was the mute eating bitter Coptis—suffering in silence, unable to speak of it.

Fortunately, the Young Master could act.

“Alone here… I’m a little afraid.” Qingshan Qi dropped his gaze, producing that same cookie-cutter fragility as before, and murmured, “Will that Rabbit Demon want to kill me too? The way the Fox Demon killed my parents?”

Nothing undid Zhuoyu faster. He soothed him at once. “He won’t. Divine Physician Cang Zhou is a good demon, famous for it—not at all like those rotten foxes.”

Qingshan Qi: “…”

Qingshan Qi very nearly shattered his steel teeth, then reddened around the eyes and looked at him, lost. “Really?”

Zhuoyu: “Mm.”

Zhuoyu softened. After rummaging through Qingru for a good while, he produced two Teleportation Talismans. “Fine, fine, fine—I’ll take you along. The Great Demon’s Barrier is gone anyway; the talismans can pass in and out freely.”

Only then did Qingshan Qi smile, stepping forward to catch Zhuoyu’s hand on instinct. Zhuoyu lifted his arm aside—half deliberately, half not—told him to keep his footing, and burned the Teleportation Talismans.

The instant the two figures dissolved from where they stood, another divine sense came sweeping down like a shroud over the sky—and missed them by a hair.

Cang Zhou was brewing medicine for Qingshan Qi. The rabbit, up to no good, cackled “heh heh” as he threw in handful after handful of bitter Coptis.

Then someone knocked at the door.

Cang Zhou assumed the dead fox had finally stopped haunting the Little Immortal Lord, and turned around, stammering, “This medicine, t-t-take it while it’s good—it purifies the heart and clears toxins…”

But one focused look, and he found a man in Demon Suppression Bureau uniform standing outside.

Cang Zhou: “…”

Would this ever end?!

Even a rabbit bites when cornered. Cang Zhou shot to his feet in a fury. “What is wrong with your Demon Suppression Bureau? Back and forth, back and forth—I’ve told you there are no demons here! Do you not understand human speech?!”

The newcomer’s sword rasped out of its sheath in an instant.

The rabbit froze, gaze trembling down onto the sword’s inscription.

The Wuyou Sword… Yan Linyuan—eldest disciple of the God of Slaughter.

My life is over.

Cang Zhou very nearly fainted from fright. “C-Commander Yan, s-spare my life…”

Yan Su’s face was bloodless, his lips cracked and dry. His voice came out hoarse. “Those who were treated here—where have they gone?”

Cang Zhou’s terror of Yan Su triumphed over the dead fox’s tyranny, and he sold the fox out at once, finger stabbing forward. “In-in-in-in the inner courtyard…”

Yan Su: “The courtyard is empty.”

“Impossible,” Cang Zhou said, baffled. “They were just here.”

Yan Su had already blanketed the entirety of Cang Manor with his divine sense and found no trace of a living soul—as if even the traces of their passing had been scrubbed away.

“What did the two of them look like?” Yan Su asked.

The Identity Talismans recorded by the Envoy at Guping City’s gate listed a pair of brothers surnamed Lu—one in the Spirit Solidification Realm, one in the Half Core Realm—the elder sickly and frail, come to seek treatment from Divine Physician Cang Zhou.

Seeing that Qingshan Qi had actually bolted, Cang Zhou instinctively wanted to beg Yan Linyuan for rescue.

But at the critical juncture he remembered his own life was still clutched in Qingshan Qi’s hand, and swallowed the humiliation, saying stiffly, “Just… just a pair of brothers. The elder one’s core was damaged. Here, this is his medicine—but who knows, perhaps the two had pressing business and left first.”

Yan Su repeated: “Their faces.”

Cang Zhou gestured as he spoke. “The elder was shorter; the younger taller, looked after him in every way…”

Yan Su’s patience ran out entirely. He pressed two fingers together, tapped them to Cang Zhou’s brow, extracted a strand of spiritual power with unerring precision, and flicked it onto the scroll in his palm.

The scroll unrolled, bearing exactly the two figures as they lived in Cang Zhou’s memory.

Yan Su’s expression abruptly went rigid.

It was not Lin Zhuoyu.

The pair in Cang Zhou’s memory had plain, unremarkable features and looked alike; one glance was enough to see not the slightest shadow of Zhuoyu in either.

Cang Zhou stood there with his head retracted into his shoulders, sneaking one eye open for a peek, and recoiled inwardly. Who even are these people in the picture? It dawned on him quickly: the dead fox must have played some new little trick on him—he seemed to have foreseen that the Demon Suppression Bureau would come to inspect his memories.

How very cautious of him.

Yan Su very nearly crushed the scroll in his grip. After a long silence, he sheathed his sword and turned to leave.

Clinging to the doorframe, Cang Zhou watched the little God of Slaughter depart, then slammed the main gate shut and let out a colossal sigh of relief. Ever since Qingshan Qi arrived, he had lived in perpetual dread, quaking in his boots. Right now he honestly wanted to knock himself out with a stick and wake a month from now, when “dead fox” would be a dead fox in actual fact.

The more he thought about it, the more he giggled.

He hadn’t finished giggling when a ripple of spiritual power stirred in the courtyard.

The Immortal Lin and that cursed, thousand-cuts-deserving thing had returned.

By all rights it shouldn’t have been this fast.

When Zhuoyu and Qingshan Qi arrived at Lingshu Mountain, they found a hundred li in every direction razed flat by Guan Shan, and the common folk nowhere to be seen.

Only after asking around did Zhuoyu learn that Ling Wensong, the newly appointed Commander of Guping City, had taken the survivors away to be settled, and the Great Demon’s corpse had been removed as well. The two had no choice but to teleport back.

Zhuoyu perked up. “Ling Wensong is actually in Guping City now? Life really does make old friends cross paths anywhere—saves me a good deal of legwork.”

Twice torn through the void by teleportation, Qingshan Qi, devoid of spiritual power, went paper-white.

Zhuoyu had been about to march straight back out without a pause, but seeing how truly frail the man was, he had no choice but to help him to the inner chamber and settle him into a seat first.

Cang Zhou bustled over bearing the freshly brewed Coptis soup—the freshly brewed medicine—and reverently begged the Young Master to take his medicine.

Qingshan Qi cast Cang Zhou a glance and noted that the sigil between his brows had been tampered with. A sinister smile curled the corner of his mouth.

In no hurry, he took a slow sip of the medicine, nearly gagged, and forced his face to stay composed as he mumbled to Zhuoyu, “The medicine’s bitter…”

“Then shall I pat your head for you?”

Qingshan Qi: “?”

Qingshan Qi dutifully produced two “ha has.” “There are a few spirit fruits on the tree in the courtyard that look terribly sweet. Could you pick some for me, Elder Brother?”

Cang Zhou’s eyes bulged in disbelief. Those were spirit fruits he had cultivated for nineteen years—one more year and they’d be ready for medicine!

He opened his mouth to protest on the spot, but one languid glance from Qingshan Qi shut it again.

Zhuoyu flashed a “leave it to me” gesture and strode off sedately to pick fruit.

The moment Zhuoyu was gone, Qingshan Qi shed his invalid act, fixing Cang Zhou with a glacial stare. “Are you thinking that now my cultivation is gone, it’s the perfect chance for your revenge?”

Cang Zhou seethed in silence. “D-don’t dare.”

Qingshan Qi knew this rabbit-livered creature had neither the guts nor the means. He said coldly, “Who came here today?”

“Yan Linyuan.”

Qingshan Qi’s fox eyes narrowed instinctively. “Yan Su of Floating Jade Mountain?”

“The very same.”

“He came looking for someone?”

“Mm.”

Qingshan Qi’s gaze drifted outward. Zhuoyu was picking fruit—or rather, having no idea whether the things were even ripe, he had simply taken a stick and started whacking the tree like someone knocking down dates, unripe fruit raining down pell-mell across the ground.

Cang Zhou’s heart shattered.

Zhuoyu was whacking away at his leisure when a familiar voice sounded beside him.

“Zhuoyu?”

Zhuoyu turned in puzzlement—and froze.

Eldest Senior Brother?

Yan Su, who should have been far away on Floating Jade Mountain, stood there a short distance off, travel-worn, his face terrible to behold, staring at him as though he could not believe his eyes.

Yan Su had already left Cang Manor, wandering in a daze with no notion of where else to search. In the jostling crowd, someone had barged into him, knocking the scroll from his hand; it unfurled across the ground in a clatter.

Yan Su hadn’t bothered to pick it up—until his gaze chanced to fall on the painted figure’s neck.

At the Adam’s apple: a small, easily missed mole.

Yan Su’s heart slammed once, heavily, and clutching the last thread of hope, he turned back.

Zhuoyu stood beneath the spirit fruit tree, sunlight filtering through the shade onto that porcelain-jade face—and the inner demon coiling around Yan Su was blasted apart in an instant.

Having brushed past death’s door, Zhuoyu’s temperament had matured considerably; unlike last time, he didn’t snap, and said with perfect courtesy, “Eldest Senior Brother, what are you doing here—”

The words had not yet fallen when Yan Su strode forward and flung both arms wide, and—like a man reclaiming a treasure lost and found again—crushed Zhuoyu against his chest.

Zhuoyu went blank.

His Eldest Senior Brother’s heartbeat pounded faster than Zhuoyu had ever known it, so fierce it seemed to beat through two layers of thin robes and set Zhuoyu’s own nerves strung tight in sympathy.

The hand that gripped a sword had always been steady as bedrock; now it shook as it cradled the back of Zhuoyu’s head and pressed him into the crook of his neck, taking inventory, inch by inch, of Zhuoyu’s warmth, his breath, his heartbeat.

Alive. Still alive…

Zhuoyu had never seen his Eldest Senior Brother lose his composure like this. He stared blankly at the man’s profile, and belatedly a question he had overlooked surfaced. He had gambled his life at Lingshu Mountain; though he’d scraped back from the brink, at the moment of his gravest injury, his Life Lamp on distant Floating Jade Mountain would have dimmed to a dying flicker.

If Shizun and his Senior Brothers had seen that lamp on the verge of going out—what would they have felt?

…Was that why Yan Su had crossed ten thousand li to find him in Guping City?

In that instant, Zhuoyu’s heart gave a small, sour twinge—guilt or sympathy, he couldn’t tell. He reached up and wrapped his arms around Yan Su’s waist, nuzzling into the crook of his neck, and soothed, “Senior Brother, I’m standing right here, whole and healthy. It’s all right. It’s all right.”

Yan Su opened his mouth and could not produce a single word. He could only hold him tighter.

The embrace squeezed the air from Zhuoyu’s lungs, but he didn’t complain—only rose onto his toes and managed a few desperate breaths.

Only after a long while did Yan Su steady the wild swing of his emotions, slowly releasing Zhuoyu. His voice was raw.

“Come home with me.”

Zhuoyu balked. “Wait a little longer. I’ve only been out a few days—I haven’t even entered the heart of Lingshu Mountain yet. What’s the rush to go back?”

A flash of crimson crossed Yan Su’s eyes. Seeing that Zhuoyu actually meant to press deeper into Lingshu Mountain, he seized his wrist. “We go back now.”

Zhuoyu: “Sss—”

Yan Su snapped back to himself and let go at once. Zhuoyu retreated several steps, rubbing the ring of red marks around his wrist, frowning at him. “I will go back. But not now.”

Yan Su closed his eyes briefly, voice husky. “Shizun has been worried sick over you.”

“Perfected Zhou’s divinations are dead accurate—I’m blessed with fortune’s favor; even calamity turns aside for me.” Zhuoyu arched a brow and snapped back, “And you’re not my training companion. Since when do you get to decide for me when I go home?”

Yan Su: “You…”

As the two faced off, a frail voice drifted over from the side.

“Elder Brother?”

Qingshan Qi shuffled out, propping himself weakly against the doorframe, gazing at the pair with pale, anxious eyes. “This is…?”

Zhuoyu pursed his lips. “This is a Senior Brother from my sect.”

Qingshan Qi coughed gently a few times. “So it’s Commander Yan. I’ve long heard your name.”

Yan Su’s entire being was fixed on Zhuoyu; whether strangers lived or died was nothing to him. He’d meant to ignore the man entirely—until a casual flick of his peripheral vision caught something, and his gaze cut over, cold as a drawn blade.

Qingshan Qi wore a Snow Plum Daoist Robe that fit him perfectly, red plum blossoms embroidered across it—and at the cuff, just visible, two peach blossoms sketched in a few clumsy stitches of red thread.

From childhood to now, every gift Zhuoyu had ever given him was, without exception, a snow robe patterned with red plum—and on every new robe, Zhuoyu would embroider a few peach blossoms with his own hands, a mark of his own gifting. The Eldest Senior Brother was to be overflowing with gratitude, to treasure his kindness at all times, and to bring him candied hawthorns on his return.

But this robe…

was on the body of another man. A stranger.