Regardless of how anyone else felt tonight, Yun Qi was in a very good mood. He stood at the front door, lightly tapped his toes, and pushed it open.
Hearing the sound, Wen Zui slowly turned his head. He stared at Yun Qi with a deeply resentful gaze, attempting to awaken the man’s conscience through sheer condemnation. Unfortunately, Yun Qi possessed no such thing.
Yun Qi drifted over and casually released the spell bound to Wen Zui’s body. He then flicked Wen Zui’s chin as if inspecting a pet.
“How about I take you camping?”
The System chimed in: “Master, what are you doing now? Are you planning to elope with Wen Zui? That will not work!”
Wen Zui moved his aching body and stood up with a grimace. He scrutinized Yun Qi from head to toe with suspicion. “Did money fall from the sky outside just now?”
Yun Qi was speechless. Did Wen Zui think everyone in the world loved money as much as he did?
As if sensing Yun Qi’s exasperation, Wen Zui threw himself onto the sofa. He propped his chin on one hand and said, “I would rather you take me to fight people.”
“I am afraid you would be beaten to death,” Yun Qi replied with a smile, emphasizing the words “beaten to death.”
Hearing this, Wen Zui curled his lip. “That is overprotection and overcorrecting!”
“Fine, fine. In a while, I will catch a spirit beast for you to play with.” Yun Qi coaxed him perfunctorily. He blinked and asked curiously, “What kind of spirit beast do you want? Your Master can reluctantly satisfy you.”
Wen Zui’s eyes darted around, and a mischievous grin spread across his face. He leaned in close and touched Yun Qi’s knee. “I want a baby snake.”
Yun Qi raised an eyebrow. He reached out and gave Wen Zui’s firm backside a pinch, teasing, “With a rear this size, giving birth to two clutches should be no problem.”
Wen Zui’s face flushed bright red. His lips trembled as he leaped from one end of the sofa to the other.
“You pervert!”
On the bus to Lanwu Mountain.
It was raining outside, and the bus windows were damp with mist, marked by intersecting streaks of water. This was Yun Qi’s first time on such a vehicle. Initially, he was quite excited, but he soon began to frown.
The smell of old leather seats mixed with the scent of muddy radishes and poultry droppings crowded the air. He reached out to touch Wen Zui’s hand and spoke in his mind, “Do not scream in a moment.”
Before Wen Zui could react, a blue light flashed. Yun Qi returned to his original form and dived directly into Wen Zui’s down jacket.
Since absorbing that elixir, Wen Zui had not seen Yun Qi’s true form. Now, a snake as thick as an infant’s forearm was coiling around his upper body. The coarse scales rubbed against him repeatedly, quickly creating pink marks on his skin. Wen Zui grit his teeth to keep from gasping aloud.
The culprit, meanwhile, comfortably found a spot for his triangular head and flicked his tongue happily. Wen Zui had no choice but to pinch the snake’s tail to vent his frustration.
“Have you grown larger again? You are so heavy!”
“Hmm, you fed me until I got fat,” Yun Qi replied in a lazy tone, sounding as if he might fall asleep at any second.
Although Wen Zui did not want to admit it, being tightly entwined by Yun Qi brought him a profound sense of security, despite the slight difficulty in breathing. It felt as though he were a fetus in a mother’s womb; the feeling of being encircled made him feel happy. It seemed to compensate for the regret of his childhood, when he envied other children for being held by their parents while he was always alone. The swaying bus acted like a natural cradle, making Wen Zui feel incredibly drowsy. He eventually fell asleep along with Yun Qi.
“Hey! Lanwu Mountain is here! Those getting off, move quickly!” The driver’s booming voice came from the front. Wen Zui woke with a start, performed a carp leap, quickly donned his hiking backpack, and got off the bus.
Once the vehicle had pulled away, Yun Qi transformed back into human form beside Wen Zui.
“What exactly are you bringing me here to find?” Wen Zui grumbled as he dutifully carried the camping equipment.
Yun Qi raised an eyebrow and smiled. “You guessed it?”
“I am very smart! I know you too well,” Wen Zui retorted, though he was smiling.
The System finally caught on as well. It landed on Yun Qi’s head in confusion. “Master, are you bringing Wen Zui to find that celestial herb from the original novel?”
“But the original book only mentioned it in passing. One of the protagonist’s lackeys fell into a hole while climbing Lanwu Mountain and, on the verge of death, ate a herb at random. By chance, he entered the third level of Qi Refining. Nothing else was mentioned. How do you know where it is? Besides, it might not even be useful to you.”
“Who said I know where it is?” Yun Qi replied as he led Wen Zui deeper into the mountains. “I am here to try my luck. My main goal is to avoid Liu Ruoling coming to the house. I can block WeChat messages, but I cannot stop the person.”
“The longer the misunderstanding lasts, the harder it is to resolve. Won’t the mission to break them up be completed then?”
The silver light on the little ball paused for a moment before shining brightly. “Master is mighty! Why did I not think of that!”
Yun Qi smiled and flicked the eyesore away.
Soon, darkness fell. Wen Zui quickly set up the tent and crawled into his sleeping bag. He closed his eyes, his cheeks bunched up in a high grin, but he lost his smile in the next second.
“Master, why did you come in again! It is too hard and uncomfortable!”
“Oh,” Yun Qi replied, showing a complete lack of snake-like empathy.
In the middle of the night, a full bladder forced Wen Zui to open his eyes in the dark. The wind was howling outside, and he did not particularly want to go out. However, he had drunk too many beverages before bed; his lower abdomen felt heavy and uncomfortably bloated.
He sighed silently, carefully peeled the snake coiling around his upper body away, put on his down jacket, and left the tent. Even if he was used to sleeping together, he had no desire for Yun Qi to watch him use the bathroom!
The flashlight beam reflected off the snow with a shimmering glow. The crunching sound of his footsteps was somewhat therapeutic, but since they were deep in the mountains, horror movie tropes kept flashing through Wen Zui’s mind. He only regretted watching those scary films now.
He did not dare go too far. He found a bush to relieve himself, but just as he pulled up his pants, he thought he heard someone calling his name. Goosebumps instantly broke out across his back. Wen Zui felt a chilling wind behind him; his neck felt as if it were set in plaster, unable to move at all.
“Xiao Zui, Xiao Zui,” the voice called.
It was ethereal and gentle, yet laced with a hint of eeriness, as if a ghost from a folktale were deliberately mimicking a human voice while hiding skeletal remains beneath the skin.
“Xiao Zui, it is Auntie Zhen. Turn around and look at me, won’t you?”
Auntie Zhen, my foot! How could she possibly appear here!
Wen Zui slammed his eyes shut. In a moment of desperation, he gathered the spiritual energy in his dantian into a single cord and shoved it upward. The invisible shackles binding his body shattered instantly. He took off running, losing his flashlight in the process. All that remained were his ragged breaths and his pounding heart racing against the howling wind.
After an unknown amount of time, as if submerged in a thick fog, Wen Zui hunched over in exhaustion, sweat dripping onto the snow.
Rustle.
Footsteps suddenly sounded behind him. Wen Zui forgot to breathe. He stood frozen, his limbs stiff, as if he had lost all strength to take another step.
If I die, I die! I will fight this damned monster today!
Wen Zui cursed fiercely in his mind and spun around, only to see a playful look on Yun Qi’s face. His soaring heart crashed back into his chest. Overwhelmed by a mix of emotions, he wanted to cry and laugh at the same time. Finally, he simply jumped onto Yun Qi, wrapping his legs around the man’s waist.
“You scared me to death!”
Furious and annoyed, Wen Zui opened his mouth and bit toward Yun Qi’s jade-like ear. To his shock, instead of venting his anger, he felt half of his front tooth snap off.
Wen Zui was stunned. “Can you not just let me bite you!”
Despite losing half a tooth, Wen Zui refused to get off Yun Qi. He buried his face in the crook of the man’s neck, feeling like crying. His speech was going to be a whistling mess!
“Hehe,” a vibration came from Yun Qi’s chest as he laughed. “If you had asked before biting, your tooth probably would not have broken.”
Yun Qi held him with one arm but felt the posture was strange, so he shifted to a piggyback ride. He laughed cheerfully and said, “Go ahead and bite; it is soft now.”
Skeptical, Wen Zui reached out to pinch the man’s earlobe. A warm sensation traveled from his fingertips into his heart.
“Hmm? Why are you not biting?” Yun Qi tilted his head slightly in confusion.
“Be… ah!”
A sudden feeling of weightlessness made Wen Zui scream. This was followed by the sensation of flesh hitting soil, as if they had suddenly fallen into an endless yellow dirt pipe, plunging downward.
It took a long time before Wen Zui regained his senses. He felt around in the pitch black; the only thing he could see was a faint green glimmer in the distance. He soon determined that he and Yun Qi had fallen into a cave. The air was thick with the pungent smell of sulfur, and the temperature was much higher than outside, making Wen Zui sweat in his down jacket.
Wait, sulfur?
Everything he knew about snakes rushed to his mind. He remembered TV shows where even Lady White Snake suffered immensely after drinking realgar wine. Wen Zui became instinctively nervous.
“Yun Qi? Yun Qi, are you okay? Change back to your original form quickly and hide in my clothes!” Wen Zui fumbled around frantically until he touched Yun Qi’s ice-cold hand, letting out a sigh of relief.
Yun Qi raised an eyebrow and obediently transformed into his snake form, coiling around Wen Zui.
The System thought: “Master, you are deceiving the protagonist again! How could you be afraid of sulfur? You clearly fell down on purpose because you knew the celestial herb was here!”
“How did I deceive him? I did not say a word,” Yun Qi replied with a hint of amusement in his voice.
He placed an illusion on Wen Zui and then flew toward the depths of the cave, toward the place where the green light flickered. He had to inspect the goods first, after all.