Yin Huizhi followed the cue and changed his tune: “Then it is not good.”
Xie Ling: “…”
Xie Ling was so annoyed he laughed. The anger in his heart came and went quickly. With his eyelashes lowering, he transformed back into that mercurial Young Master Xie. He commanded haughtily, “Get in, and close the door.”
Yin Huizhi had grown accustomed to his occasional bouts of madness. He turned around briskly, shut the door, and walked with him toward the inner room. The residence Shen Zhihui arranged was very large, and even the inner room was incredibly spacious. Xie Ling walked in and, with natural ease, took a seat on the most comfortable cushioned couch.
Yin Huizhi followed behind him. As soon as Xie Ling sat down, he handed over the demon core in his hand: “Your item.”
Xie Ling did not even look at him. Closing his eyes, he said, “Keep it with you for now.”
Yin Huizhi’s eyelashes fluttered slightly. Before he could speak, he saw Xie Ling raise a hand in a “shush” gesture, his eyes still half-closed. He had no choice but to walk over to the small table, place the demon core down, and take a seat on a wooden stool.
“Come here.”
He had just sat down and the stool was not even warm yet when he heard Xie Ling, who was leaning on the soft couch, calling him. Yin Huizhi exhaled. Patiently, he returned to the couch and asked with his head lowered, “What is it?”
Xie Ling’s slightly furrowed brow smoothed out. He lowered the hand that had been rubbing his temple and lifted his eyelids. The two pairs of eyes met briefly once more. Between the rise and fall of dark lashes, Yin Huizhi saw many bloodshot streaks in those eyes.
He looks very tired, Yin Huizhi thought quietly.
Xie Ling adjusted his sleeves and legs, sat up straight, and yawned, looking quite exhausted. This appearance was so deceptive that it caused Yin Huizhi to let down his guard. When Xie Ling’s palm pressed against his lower abdomen through his thin sleeping robes, he did not even have time to retreat.
“What are you doing?” Yin Huizhi cried out in surprise.
Xie Ling, however, had anticipated his reaction. His other hand pressed firmly against Yin Huizhi’s lower back, holding him motionless. Spiritual power flowed from Xie Ling’s palm, creeping up his spine and limbs, shackling his body so that he could not move an inch.
“Do not move.” The voice carried a faint warning and was just as spine-chilling as the hand pressed against his abdomen. That hand applied gentle pressure and began to probe downward without any hesitation.
All other thoughts were instantly pushed to the back of his mind. The blood in Yin Huizhi’s body rushed to his head, and he felt as though he might explode with rage: “Are you sick in the head!”
Xie Ling remained deaf to his words.
“Let go! Xie Ling! Are you crazy?!” Yin Huizhi was so frustrated he wanted to bite someone, and he blurted out, “You damned cut-sleeve! Let me go!!”
Xie Ling’s fingertips paused for a moment before he slowly let go. Yin Huizhi bounded a great distance away, looking as if he wanted to fly straight out through the roof.
“Your state is much more stable than before. We can prepare to extract the toxins,” Xie Ling remarked calmly while looking at him.
“You,” Yin Huizhi’s heaving chest gradually stilled. As he recovered his senses, he asked blankly, “Were you just checking my dantian?”
“Otherwise? What did you think I was doing?” Xie Ling’s brow arched slightly as he accurately repeated the words used just moments ago, “‘Damned cut-sleeve’?” As if finding the term novel, he followed up with a question: “Were you talking about me?”
Recalling the thoughts he just had, Yin Huizhi felt a wave of shame. His face turned various shades of red and blue as he replied dryly, “I heard it somewhere. Perhaps it is just a rumor.”
“That may not be the case.”
A sudden force accompanied those words, dragging Yin Huizhi back violently until he fell onto Xie Ling’s lap. Xie Ling’s peach-blossom eyes lowered, looking at him with a half-smile: “What if I actually am a cut-sleeve?”
Yin Huizhi tried to move, only to find he was pinned down again. Gritting his teeth, he maintained a forced, polite smile and said, “Young Master Xie, that is your private business. Whether you are or not, you do not need to specifically inform me.”
The expression of embarrassment and annoyance on the youth’s face was truly entertaining. The weariness between Xie Ling’s brows dissipated slightly. He leaned down until they were face-to-face and playfully hooked Yin Huizhi’s chin: “Why not? I see you are quite a,” being so close, it was impossible not to see that face clearly, down to the tiny mole beneath the eyelid. Facing this overly familiar face, the praise Xie Ling intended to give suddenly became difficult to voice.
He paused strangely and changed his words: “Passable to the eye.”
Yin Huizhi: “…”
What a reassuring evaluation.
Even though he knew Xie Ling was intentionally teasing him, he still could not help but take a deep breath. He said through gritted teeth, “In that case, Young Master Xie, can you let this eyesore of a person up now?”
“…” Xie Ling frowned, clearly disagreeing with the term. “I did not say you were an eyesore.”
Despite saying that, he withdrew the force pressing down on Yin Huizhi’s back and legs. Having been bracing himself, Yin Huizhi unexpectedly lost his balance and tumbled down. The bridge of his nose slammed into Xie Ling’s knee, causing him to let out a muffled groan.
Xie Ling: “…”
He looked at Yin Huizhi, who was propped up by one hand while clutching his nose with the other, wearing an expression of pain. Xie Ling asked with a touch of disbelief, “How can you be so clumsy?”
Yin Huizhi quietly endured the pain for a moment, but finally reaching his limit, he snapped, “If you did not tease me on purpose, how could I have fallen? Young Master Xie, is bullying a mortal without spiritual cultivation your idea of being ‘smart’!”
Xie Ling fell into silence. Just as Yin Huizhi thought the man had finally found his conscience, Xie Ling spoke slowly: “But even if I lost my cultivation, I would not be as clumsy as you.”
Yin Huizhi sneered: “Heh.”
As he knelt on the ground clutching his aching nose, Xie Ling’s slightly raspy voice sounded from above: “If you do not want to be teased by others, then reconstruct your dantian as soon as possible. There is no benefit in delaying it.”
The hand Yin Huizhi was using to brush dust off his sleeves paused and then slowly lowered. He stared at the gaps in the wooden floor and asked softly, “Why exactly are you helping me?”
At some point, Xie Ling had closed his eyes again. Propping up his head, he said, “Is it important?”
“It is important,” Yin Huizhi looked up and said word by word, “I do not believe there is such a thing as help without a price in this world.”
He said “without a price,” rather than “without a reason.” At that, Xie Ling chuckled lowly. No one understood or agreed with that sentiment more than he did.
Xie Ling sighed softly: “Then what about Ji Huixue?”
“What reason did Ji Huixue give you that made you trust him so much?”
Yin Huizhi did not understand why he suddenly mentioned his senior brother, and his brows furrowed deeply. What about Ji Huixue? He had also thought about this question countless times. He had never asked, and Ji Huixue had never proactively mentioned it. However, through years of being together, he realized that Ji Huixue was simply that kind of person. He was an idealist who did not seek rewards or concern himself with cause and effect.
Yin Huizhi believed that even if the person Ji Huixue encountered while descending the mountain years ago had not been him, Ji Huixue would not have made a different choice. In Ji Huixue’s eyes, there was only his theory of world peace and prosperity. Saving a cat or dog, saving him, or saving the world were all the same. There was no difference.
Facing Xie Ling’s questioning, Yin Huizhi did not speak much of these things. He said in a matter-of-fact tone, “He is my senior brother, and we both belong to the Guanlan Sect. Of course, I trust him.”
Xie Ling burst into laughter. The burning pain at the corner of his eyes spread silently. He nodded with a mix of mockery and realization, then asked back, “Belonging to the same sect?”
Without waiting for Yin Huizhi to respond, he asked and answered himself thoughtfully, “That makes sense.”
“Yin Huizhi, I will give you a chance to join my tutelage,” he said in a gentle voice. “That way, we can be considered as belonging to the same sect, and you can trust me with peace of mind.”
Yin Huizhi stared with wide eyes, speechless for a long time, thinking the man was indeed having another episode. He shook his head and said helplessly, “Young Master Xie, you must be joking.”
“Joking?” The corners of Xie Ling’s mouth curved, but there was no mirth in his eyes. “I fear there will come a day when you beg me to do so.”
Yin Huizhi was now even more certain he was having an episode. He nodded along with his words: “Mhm, perhaps.”
“…”
Yin Huizhi did not hear a follow-up. He looked up in confusion and realized the madman had fallen asleep in the middle of speaking. It was simply unbelievable. Since the age of three, Yin Huizhi had developed a regular routine with his mother: waking up at five in the morning and sleeping at nine in the evening. He never felt sleepy during the day, so he could not understand Xie Ling’s extraordinary talent for falling asleep instantly.
Glancing down at his own clothes, he was hesitant about whether he should wake Xie Ling. This person had pushed open his door early in the morning before he even had a chance to take off his sleeping robes. Now that the sun was fully up, he wanted to change. But with someone else in the inner room, it felt inconvenient no matter how he thought about it.
He hesitated for a while, finally deciding to wake Xie Ling and ask him to go to the outer room, when his gaze caught a dark red stain spreading on the cushion.
Is that blood?
His gaze moved upward, past Xie Ling’s closed eyes, the faint dark circles beneath them, and the lingering gloom between his brows. The demon core on the table was emitting a soft light, with ice-blue spiritual energy surging around it. On the day they first met at the cold pool, Yin Huizhi still had his spiritual power. Although he could not detect Xie Ling’s true cultivation, he was certain the other did not possess an ice-type spiritual root.
Similarly, he was sure Xie Ling would not hand over something he had worked so hard to obtain for no reason, unless this item was intended for him from the beginning. And then there was the Bone-Transforming Pill that Xie Ling had spent a fortune on at the auction.
Yin Huizhi stood there dazed for a moment with a confused expression. After a long while, he quietly took his clothes and went to the other side of the screen to change. The room was so quiet that a pin drop could be heard. As Yin Huizhi took off his upper garment, he suddenly felt something and frowned, looking toward Xie Ling. Through the translucent screen, the figure on the couch remained in the same position as before, not moving at all.
It must have been an illusion. Yin Huizhi looked down and continued dressing. As he finished adjusting his belt and walked out, his footsteps suddenly froze. The person on the couch was smiling brightly, and there was no telling how long he had been staring. Upon meeting Yin Huizhi’s gaze, he showed no guilt whatsoever. Instead, he intentionally looked him up and down with a meaningful gaze.
“…” Yin Huizhi’s fists gradually clenched, and he felt a strong urge to curse. But if he were so easily provoked into losing his mind, he would not have been able to endure all those years at the Guanlan Sect. He asked flatly, “Does it look good?”
This time it was Xie Ling’s turn to be stunned for a moment. Then his smile deepened, and he said slowly, “It looks good. If it did not look good, why would I be watching?”
“Was I not just ‘passable’ to the eye?” Yin Huizhi threw his changed sleeping robes into the laundry basket, grabbed the silver-gray hair ribbon from the table, and tied his hair. He asked back with a straight face, “Now it looks good again?”
Xie Ling said composedly, “The face is passable, but the body looks good.”
Knock, knock, knock
A knock on the door forcibly dispersed the annoyance on Yin Huizhi’s face. He suppressed his emotions and said in a deep voice, “Enter.”
Hearing this authoritative tone, Xie Ling raised an eyebrow. The wooden door opened, and Shen Zhihui stood at the entrance. Seeing the two people in the room, his expression was one of surprise: “Master.”
Xie Ling’s smile faded slightly: “Who are you calling?”
Shen Zhihui’s eyes widened. Realizing the implication of the words, his back instantly stiffened.
“Come in,” Xie Ling said, applying pressure lightly before dismissing it with a wave of his sleeve. “Speak if you have something to say.”
Shen Zhihui walked in obediently and stood before them for a few seconds, seemingly lost in thought. “Young Master, since Master has returned, I will no longer be specifically responsible for your daily needs,” Shen Zhihui finally turned and said gently to Yin Huizhi. “The morning meal will be delivered as usual today.”
Yin Huizhi naturally had no objection and nodded. He noticed that Shen Zhihui’s attitude toward him today was much more distant, perhaps because Xie Ling was present. After finishing his explanation, Shen Zhihui subconsciously looked at Xie Ling. In doing so, he also noticed the bloodstains on the couch. His face changed drastically, and he observed Xie Ling’s features with uncertainty. Following the strong spiritual energy fluctuations in the room, he looked at the demon core on the table and seemed to understand something. His face turned pale.
“Master,” he said with a heavy heart, asking Xie Ling, “Shall I treat your injuries?”
“Mhm,” Xie Ling did not refuse. He stood up with a flick of his sleeve, but he actually swayed for a moment. Shen Zhihui immediately moved forward and supported his arm and shoulder. Xie Ling pushed him away and said casually, “My legs are numb.”
Watching from the side, Yin Huizhi’s heart sank slightly. He was no fool, and he knew that this was not just numb legs. Were the injuries on Xie Ling’s body truly that severe?
The door was closed by those who left, and the sound of footsteps gradually faded away. Yin Huizhi stood in place for a while, then walked to the window and propped up the frame. A warm breeze poured in from the window. The outside was empty; aside from a few guards, there was no one else in sight.