Having stayed in the darkness for a long time, Shen Shu could see without light. As soon as he raised his head, he caught sight of Pei Zizhuo standing tall and straight.
Delight instantly welled up within him. Just as he was about to voice his congratulations, his gaze drifted downward across the other man’s chest. A broad expanse of Pei Zizhuo’s chest lay bare, his white outer robe loosely draped over his shoulders without any fastening. The whole outfit looked undeniably breezy and carefree.
“Why are you not wearing your clothes again?” Before he could utter his words of gratitude, Shen Shu was startled into slumping onto the ground. The conversation shifted abruptly as a flurry of questions tumbled from his mouth.
Pei Zizhuo raised his chin, signaling for Shen Shu to look down at his feet.
Shen Shu looked down and noticed a long, slender sash wrapped around his ankle. The subtle pattern of the fabric matched the white robe. It turned out this was the reason Pei Zizhuo had not put his clothing on properly.
What an embarrassing misunderstanding. Shen Shu’s ears flushed red as he apologized repeatedly, unwinding the sash and handing it back.
He rested for a moment before finally realizing that Pei Zizhuo was not wearing the sachet. The sachet was connected to Shen Shu’s spiritual sea; as long as Pei Zizhuo stepped beyond its range, Shen Shu would sense it.
Yet here Pei Zizhuo was, standing right in front of him, and his spiritual sea had given no warning at all.
“When did you come over?” Shen Shu asked, perplexed.
Rather than asking why he had trailed him, Shen Shu merely asked when he had arrived, displaying an utter lack of suspicion.
Pei Zizhuo raised an eyebrow, bluntly piercing through the pretense. “Are you not going to ask why I followed you here first?”
Shen Shu had always kept his thoughts simple. He figured that Pei Zizhuo’s legs belonged to himself, and since no one was imprisoning him, he was naturally free to go wherever he wished.
Only when asked this question did it strike him as off. Was Pei Zizhuo suspecting him?
Shen Shu looked around at the ancient texts and spiritual materials strewn across the floor, recalling that he had left under the pretense of looking for magical artifacts. Aside from the precious cauldron and the alchemy furnace, there was really nothing here worthy of being called an artifact.
Moreover, he had accidentally wrecked the Medicine Pavilion. No matter how one looked at it, this did not resemble someone conducting proper business.
Pei Zizhuo casually tied the sash around his waist. He raised his brows and took in the surroundings, noting how dilapidated, desolate, and pitch-black the space was. It looked nothing like a place meant for storing treasures.
He had followed Danxiao down into the underground palace to see what tricks the man was concealing. Unexpectedly, right upon crossing paths, he had caught him tearing down the roof. Pei Zizhuo was never one for excessive mercy; if this person was rushing headlong toward death, why should he stop him?
Folding his arms inside his sleeves, the lingering scent of snow lotus rose from his clothing, involuntarily reminding him of the previous night.
That irritating fragrance had made him act as though possessed by a ghost, causing him to meddle and pull the man back. Pei Zizhuo’s gaze flickered, and he feigned indifference as he asked, “Is the artifact you were looking for right here?”
Seeing that his cover was blown, Shen Shu quickly thought of a response. “I did come to look for artifacts, but who could have known? I have not visited the underground palace for many years. Not only is the room full of treasures gone, but I even encountered a demon.”
“A demon?” Pei Zizhuo’s expression hardened, and he pressed, “What kind of demon?”
“The leader of the four ancient demons, Hundun.”
When heaven and earth first formed and the gods and demons came into being, four great evils emerged, dominating the demon realm.
They were Hundun, who brought chaos to heaven and earth to plunge everything back into disorder; Qiongqi, who controlled minds and manipulated emotions; Taotie, who was insatiably greedy and driven by desire; and Taowu, who was wrathful, bloodthirsty, and rabid.
These four great evils had terrorized the divine land for thousands of years. Wherever they passed, corpses carpeted the wilderness, and blood flowed like torrents. Even the great cultivators of that era met tragic ends at their hands. For a time, the names of the four evils struck terror into the mortal realm.
The one hundred thousand heavenly soldiers and divine martial generals dispatched by the Heavenly Realm were consumed by malevolent qi upon entering the demon realm, with nearly half falling in battle.
Infuriated, the Heavenly Emperor summoned Lao Jun and the divine generals together. They fought the four evils for eighty-one days before finally capturing them all, destroying their physical bodies, extracting their primordial spirits, and suppressing them deep within the boundless purgatory of the Underworld.
Although these four evils perished, the four great malevolent qis they had refined, chaotic, somnolent, covetous, and wrathful, fed on mortal malice. They persisted within the six realms; as long as evil intentions remained in the world, the malevolent qi would never truly dissipate.
Still, the demon realm had lost its former glory, and its successors were vastly inferior to the four evils. Concurrently, the cultivation world experienced an explosion of spiritual sources, growing exponentially in power. Cultivators were sent to the Cave of Ten Thousand Demons year after year to exterminate demonic remnants and prevent the four evils from reviving, keeping the demon realm subdued and quiet for several millennia.
That was until the demon-quelling battle three years ago, when the Nightmare demon suddenly appeared, slaughtering hundreds of cultivators in a bid to revive Qiongqi through a blood sacrifice.
At the critical juncture, Pei Zizhuo severed the Nightmare’s core with a single sword strike. Though he broke the blood sacrifice, his soul became tainted with malevolent qi, bringing him dangerously close to qi deviation.
The Nightmare’s malevolent qi excelled at manipulating hearts, seizing upon the most fragile, sensitive vulnerabilities within. It magnified grievances, fury, joy, sorrow, and fear within dreams, tempting victims to sink into nightmares and surrender to their emotions.
Pei Zizhuo suffered greatly in the beginning. The malevolent qi within him was too fierce, colliding against his meridians during the day to disrupt his cultivation, and infiltrating his dreams at night to provoke his buried resentment. During that period, he was nearly driven out of his mind by the torment, leading him to enter closed-door seclusion to refine and suppress the qi.
A commoner incurred no crime, yet harboring jade brought guilt. No one knew whether Pei Zizhuo could truly subdue this ancient malevolent qi. He was like a dormant volcano on the verge of erupting, threatening to engulf the entire cultivation world in fiery lava at any moment.
As time slipped by, through blistering summers and biting winters, no one could have stayed perpetually lucid under such relentless torment, and Pei Zizhuo was no exception. On that day, his eyes turned bloodshot, and he charged out of his residence swathed in ferocious aura, shocking the cultivation realm. It was as though a string pulled taut for far too long had finally snapped.
The great figures of the cultivation realm assembled at once, only to witness Pei Zizhuo, crowned with fury, cleave off the peak of an entire mountain. Immediately afterward, his whole body relaxed, and he suppressed the malevolent qi with absolute composure.
Although the crisis was averted, it planted a seed of suspicion and dread in the hearts of the cultivators.
That seed did not wither with time; instead, it took root, sprouting like climbing vines that coiled ever tighter around everyone’s minds.
This continued until malevolent qi struck the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun, blanketing the sun in dark clouds and slaughtering a hundred cities. To make matters worse, Pei Zizhuo happened to be nearby.
Without questions and without trial, thousands of flying swords pointed straight at Pei Zizhuo. They shattered his immortal bone and cast him into the Soul-Burning Tower, completely destroying his cultivation, as though this were the only way they could find peace of mind.
The cultivation world rejoiced over the elimination of a major threat, celebrating endlessly, while no one bothered to remember why Pei Zizhuo had contracted the malevolent qi in the first place.
As time went on, Pei Zizhuo himself nearly forgot. Yet that other malevolent qi from the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun repeatedly invaded his dreams, disturbing his peace.
The illusions in his dreams felt too real, practically forcing his head down to make him admit that he was the monster who had butchered the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun.
Pei Zizhuo had never cared for the opinions of others, but he despised having filth dumped on his head. If he had done it, he would own it; if he had not, he would never accept it.
He would naturally never spare those who had broken his immortal bone, let alone this groundless malevolent qi.
Noticing Pei Zizhuo’s grim expression, Shen Shu consoled him. “The qi of Hundun was likely weakened beforehand and could not muster much strength, so it fled for its life. I left behind three parts of true fire to pursue it, so there is no need to worry excessively.”
“Can you sense where it fled?” Pei Zizhuo asked.
Hundun had fled too far. Shen Shu focused his energy for a moment, vaguely discerning a general direction. He replied honestly, “I can only track an approximate path.”
Pei Zizhuo did not utter a word. He stepped into the room to regulate his breathing, and the malevolent qi dormant inside his body was drawn by the familiar aura, stirring as if ready to break free from its cocoon.
It appeared Danxiao was not lying. That malevolent qi was finally showing itself.
The air in the underground palace was piercingly cold, yet Pei Zizhuo’s face was even colder. He walked straight toward the Sky-Ascending Qi-Gathering Cauldron with eyes sharp as lightning, reaching out to drag a cluster of black smoke from the vessel.
Shen Shu was stunned. He had thought he had thoroughly searched the underground palace, so how could another wisp of malevolent qi appear out of nowhere?
The malevolent qi huddled into a tight ball within Pei Zizhuo’s palm, cowering and not daring to stir. Pei Zizhuo gave it only a passing glance before asking offhandedly, “Do you have anything that can hold this?”
Snapping back to his senses, Shen Shu hurriedly presented the Qiankun pouch at his waist. He was inwardly astonished; no wonder Pei Zizhuo was the chosen one of destiny, for his perceptual abilities alone were unmatched.
The underground palace was frigid. Shen Shu was protected by his true fire and felt nothing, but Pei Zizhuo was suffering.
He tossed the Qiankun pouch to Shen Shu as his limbs gradually turned numb. The malevolent qi inside his body was aroused by the subterranean chill, rampaging wildly within his dantian and continuously jarring his immortal bone.
Pei Zizhuo’s face turned pale, and he looked on the verge of collapsing.
Reacting quickly, Shen Shu supported his waist with one hand and caught his wrist with the other, pulling most of the man’s weight against himself. He felt the biting chill across Pei Zizhuo’s entire body, even his breath turned frigid. It seemed the cold poison within him had flared up once more.
“Did you take the Origin Yin Pill?” Shen Shu realized something was amiss as soon as the words left his mouth. He had entered the underground palace less than an hour ago. The sun outside should still be shining brightly, so it was nowhere near the midnight hour. The trigger for the cold poison was not the Origin Yin Pill.
Seeing Pei Zizhuo shivering from the cold, Shen Shu suppressed his questions for the moment and supported him toward the exit. After only a few steps, Pei Zizhuo’s limbs grew rigid, and his pace slowed down further.
The chill in the underground palace was intense, and lingering any longer might lead to disaster. After a moment of hesitation, Shen Shu bent down and scooped Pei Zizhuo into a bridal carry.
“You,” Pei Zizhuo gasped, regaining a brief moment of clarity as his feet left the ground, his face heating with embarrassment as he tried to struggle free.
Shen Shu was having a hard time as well. Pei Zizhuo was a head taller than him, and carrying those long limbs while the man squirmed made things precarious. Shen Shu hoisted him slightly, saying in a pained and pleading tone, “Do not move, please. I will carry you out right now.”
The voice sounded so aggrieved, as though he were the one being wronged.
Strangely enough, had it been anyone else carrying him like this, Pei Zizhuo would have fought to the death, particularly since the person holding him was Danxiao.
Yet that plea not to move felt like a warm stream trickling into his heart, causing him to drop his defenses and allow the man to carry him.
When sunlight bathed his face once again, Pei Zizhuo cracked his eyes open. Looking at Shen Shu’s fair side profile, he wondered whether he had been fed some sort of bewitching potion.
Upon entering the small pavilion, Shen Shu quickly shed his outer layers and slipped onto the bed.
As the saying went, strangers at first, familiar by the second time. Being two men, there should have been no awkwardness between them. Yet when Shen Shu pressed his bare chest against the space beneath Pei Zizhuo’s collarbone, wrapping his arms around his waist and resting his face against those chest muscles, a sense of embarrassment inevitably crept in.
Shen Shu was a sword cultivator, and a slender one at that. His frame was naturally light, leaving him unable to build a burly build. His senior brothers had consoled him by saying he excelled in nimbleness, rapid sword strikes, and agile footwork.
Shen Shu had grown used to such comforting words, but deep down, he still yearned for a true warrior’s physique like Pei Zizhuo’s, complete with broad shoulders, long legs, and a solid, sculpted build.
Heaven only knew how Pei Zizhuo had trained. Every muscle on his body was sculpted just right, not a single bit too much or too little, leaving Shen Shu filled with quiet envy.
He lifted his head slightly, pulling away from that overly perfect body, as if doing so could suppress the envy simmering in his chest.
Before he could retreat even an inch, the man above him grew displeased. Pei Zizhuo reached out, pressed Shen Shu firmly back into his embrace, and muttered irritably:
“Do not move.”