Ji Yunlang pushed the wine in front of him.
Jiang Zhou took his seat, seamlessly taking hold of Ji Yunlang’s hand as he said, “Eat with me.”
Ji Yunlang’s brow furrowed slightly. He pulled his hand away, sat down across from him, and replied, “Sure.” He then called out to Lin Xiao, who was standing at the door, “Come and eat.”
Lin Xiao was now breaking out in a cold sweat all over his body, and his expression was extremely uncomfortable, to the point where the words “a guilty conscience” were practically written all over his face.
He sat down next to Jiang Zhou, glanced at Ji Yunlang out of the corner of his eye, let out a soft sigh, and said, “Big… Eldest Brother Hu, care to eat a bit?”
Then, beneath the table, his leg frantically nudged Jiang Zhou, intending to warn him not to eat.
Everything on Ji Yunlang’s table, from the dishes to the wine, was heavily spiked with potent ingredients.
When adding them, Ji Yunlang had made no attempt to hide it. He had sent Husheng to buy them right in front of Lin Xiao, poured massive packets of them inside right in front of Lin Xiao, and finally made Lin Xiao lead the way so he could come find the senior to eat.
Lin Xiao had asked him what was added inside, and Ji Yunlang had replied that it was sugar and salt.
Lin Xiao asked, “Really?”
Ji Yunlang replied, “Would you like to have a taste?”
Lin Xiao said, “There is no need for that.”
Ji Yunlang was still Ji Yunlang. Even if he shared a tiny bit of overlap with the fairy sister from Lin Xiao’s dreams, he was still that same ruthless villain who would betray his master, rebel against authority, and brutally murder Master Yun.
While leading the way for Ji Yunlang, Lin Xiao had thought to himself that since Eldest Brother had such an acute sense of smell, he would definitely not fall for such an obvious trap.
Now, as he watched his eldest brother eating the food and drinking the wine mouthful after mouthful, his fists resting on his thighs clenched tightly.
Stop eating.
Stop eating, Eldest Brother.
The ingredients are so potent, can you really not taste them?
Ji Yunlang sat across from them and watched. Seeing that Lin Xiao was not moving his chopsticks, he urged him, “This fellow disciple, why aren’t you eating?”
Lin Xiao blurted out, “I have to eat too?”
Ji Yunlang looked puzzled. “Otherwise? Since we are all fellow disciples, do you not plan to accept my kind intentions?”
Lin Xiao winked at him frantically, silently conveying: What is going on? I saw you add the medicine with my own eyes, shouldn’t the two of us be on the same side?
Ji Yunlang remained entirely unmoved, his face turning cold. “Are you going to eat or not?”
With more and more cold sweat breaking out across his back, Lin Xiao could no longer endure it. For a moment, rage rose from his heart and desperation bred courage. He locked his eyes onto a dish, picked up his chopsticks to firmly grab a piece, placed it in his mouth to chew fiercely, and finally swallowed it down with a gulp.
If I must eat, then I will eat!
Once there was a first bite, there was a second. Ji Yunlang simply sat there like that, watching the two of them finish an entire table of heavily spiked food.
He asked, “Does it taste good?”
Jiang Zhou calmly wiped his mouth. “It tastes good.”
Ji Yunlang smiled. The palm he had resting on the table gently clenched into a fist. Jiang Zhou’s torso shuddered slightly, but he did not show any major reaction. Beside him, Lin Xiao let out a sharp yelp while clutching his stomach, flipping up like a flopping fish as he tumbled from his chair onto the floor.
“Oh dear, my apologies,” seeing the cold sweat induced by the pain rising on Jiang Zhou’s forehead, Ji Yunlang curled his lips in faux remorse, specks of dark spiritual light overflowing from his fingertips. “I added some expired sugar and salt, so it seems I’ve caused Senior to get an upset stomach. I am not very good at cooking and am quite out of practice, Senior won’t blame me, right?”
Jiang Zhou said, “I won’t.”
The little flower inside his heart blossomed once more.
Having easily exacted his revenge, Ji Yunlang could not help but feel proud, his smile deepening. “Since Senior has eaten my food, we can consider ourselves acquainted. In a few months, when my wife gives birth, I shall invite you to drink full-month wine.”
Jiang Zhou: “…”
He placed the scroll onto the table and said, “Let’s chat for a bit.”
Ji Yunlang had no interest and stood up to leave. Jiang Zhou flicked the scroll, causing it to unfurl in midair, its opposite end flying straight toward him.
Ji Yunlang instinctively raised his hand to catch it. Amidst a scroll filled with all kinds of strange, small text, a person’s name leapt into his view.
His pupils shrank slightly. He snatched the entire scroll over to examine it, only to find that everything above and below made absolutely no sense; the only part he could comprehend was that name in the middle.
No, that was wrong.
His gaze shifted to the side again. To the right of the characters for “Jiang Zhou”, right next to them, were the two characters “Feng Xun”.
If Jiang Zhou’s name had appeared entirely on its own, Ji Yunlang would still have to guess what this object was, but now that he saw this former Lord of the Eight Regions, he knew that it absolutely had to do with the Bafang Region.
He looked at the man sitting calmly across from him. Those large packets of potent ingredients had indeed taken effect; the man’s lips had turned pale from the pain, yet he still did not utter a single sound, his dark eyes quietly gazing in his direction.
Ji Yunlang rolled the scroll back up, poured a cup of the heavily spiked wine, and set it before him. “Senior wishes to chat with me about the Bafang Region?”
Jiang Zhou picked up the wine to drink and said, “Mhm.”
Lin Xiao, who was rolling around on the floor: “…”
He’s still drinking! Eldest Brother, does it not hurt?!
Only after murmuring his “Mhm” did Jiang Zhou react, asking in confusion, “How did you kn…” He fell silent, and Ji Yunlang also remained silent, waiting to hear him finish.
The two of them stared at each other without a word.
After a long while, Jiang Zhou completed it, “ow?”
Hearing this phrasing, Ji Yunlang’s brow twitched slightly.
Jiang Zhou looked cold and detached on the outside, but in secret, he had already gripped his wine cup tightly enough to produce cracks.
How embarrassing.
Ji Yunlang noticed it.
How embarrassing.
If anyone else dared to laugh at him, Jiang Zhou could make them pay the price, but if Ji Yunlang were to laugh at him, he could only curl up and suffer his distress in secret.
Fortunately, Ji Yunlang did not seize upon his awkward phrasing to mock him. Tapping the scroll, he said, “What a coincidence, I see a familiar name on here.”
Jiang Zhou walked over to his side, leaned down to unroll the scroll, and pressed his fingertip against a name.
The moment he drew close, Ji Yunlang moved away, sitting on the other side as he looked at the two characters for “Jiang Zhou” that the man was pointing at. “That’s right, a familiar name. You know him too?”
Jiang Zhou also said, “A familiar name.”
Ji Yunlang did not believe him. “He only has me as a familiar person.”
“In the Bafang Region,” Jiang Zhou said, “he has many familiar people.”
Ji Yunlang acted as though he had just heard a ridiculous joke. “Who doesn’t know that my master hails from Penglai Island, stands at the absolute peak of the five major sects, and is renowned throughout the Immortal Region? What kind of familiar people could he possibly have in the Bafang Region?”
“Many.” Except they were all dead.
Ji Yunlang asked, “Do you count as one too?”
Jiang Zhou replied, “Mhm.”
Ji Yunlang stared at the scroll, lost in thought. “Then when you saved me in the Bafang Region back then, did it also have to do with my master?”
“Mhm.”
“Did he ask you to save me, or did you save me on your own initiative?”
Jiang Zhou froze slightly. “Is there a difference?”
Ji Yunlang said, “Of course.”
He tapped the medical patch on his own neck.
“According to my kid, you already behaved in an intimate manner toward me back in the Bafang Region. Now that we have met again, you have insulted me even further through both your words and actions. You are an old friend of my parents and are well-acquainted with my master, which makes you my elder. Why are you still able to bring yourself to harass me like this?”
Jiang Zhou: “…”
Because you are carrying someone else’s handkerchief on your person!
Ji Yunlang looked at him, his eyes carrying a tiny hint of anticipation. “So Senior, were you entrusted by my master to save me, or did you save me on your own initiative because my parents were your old friends?”
Jiang Zhou could not give a straight answer, as it involved a bit of both. After pondering for a moment, he followed his heart and answered, “I like you.”
That little bit of anticipation within Ji Yunlang instantly vanished into thin air.
He poured another cup of the heavily spiked wine for Jiang Zhou. “There is already someone in my heart.”
Jiang Zhou picked up the wine to drink, that little flower inside his heart rippling with emotion.
Ji Yunlang pondered for a moment and asked again, “I am the son of your old friend, and that old friend is surnamed Jiang, while my master is also surnamed Jiang. Is there a connection between the two?”
“Yes.”
Jiang Zhou picked up the scroll and pointed toward a small alcove inside the wing room.
“You want me to go in there with you?” Ji Yunlang refused. “I’m not going.”
Jiang Zhou did not negotiate with him. He gripped his wrist, hauled him up, and with a swift movement of his form, they entered the alcove. With a loud snap, he shut the door.
Ji Yunlang did not have time to react before he was forcefully pulled inside. Seeing how narrow and dim this inner chamber was, he could not help but feel nervous. “Stay away from me.”
Jiang Zhou tossed the scroll, allowing it to float in midair and completely unfurl, causing all the names of the people to become three-dimensional.
As the names emerged one after another, the dense mass of small text was entirely gray, indicating that the people corresponding to those names were no longer in the living world.
When it reached “Jiang Zhou”, it flashed with a conspicuous golden light. Jiang Zhou pointed at this sole illuminated name and was about to say something when he noticed that the neighboring name, “Feng Xun”, had also lit up with a golden glow.
Jiang Zhou: “…”
That brat isn’t dead yet.
Ji Yunlang stared at that glowing spot and asked, “What does this mean?”
“The Moon Eclipse Day of the Bafang Region.” Jiang Zhou raised his hand, his fingers brushing over the name of “Jiang Zhou” in midair. “With this,”
He paused.
Ji Yunlang waited for him to finish speaking.
After a moment, Jiang Zhou completed his sentence, “one can control them.”
Ji Yunlang stepped closer. “Do you mean to say that the climate of the Bafang Region and the abnormalities of those people are all man-made?”
During Ji Yunlang’s first year staying in the Bafang Region, he had witnessed their Moon Eclipse Days plenty of times, and there were countless occasions where he had nearly died during them.
However, during his second year, things became much better after he moved into the Senluo Beast Bone Palace. With the Bone Dragon by his side, many people would seize the opportunity of the Moon Eclipse Day to challenge him. He had never drawn his sword even once; the Bone Dragon had done all the fighting on his behalf. Often, just as he finished teaching Husheng how to write a single page of text, the Bone Dragon’s side of things would already be fully wrapped up.
Later on, he found the passage leading from the Bafang Region to the Immortal Region. After he led the people of the Bafang Region to storm through the Immortal Region once, the Moon Eclipse Day never appeared again.
He could even bring soil and seeds from the Immortal Region into the Bafang Region, and his attempts to teach several of the regional lords how to plant vegetables and grow trees were all successful.
Bringing a few animal cubs inside to raise also worked out, and they could be kept alive. The people of the Bafang Region would frequently capture them under the assumption that they were ferocious beasts, only to realize upon getting them into their hands that they were adorable little fluffballs with zero combat capability.
Vast expanses of barren land began to display a tiny, subtle hint of vitality, as if something in the ether were explicitly trying to please them.
Ji Yunlang recalled the question Feng Xun had asked him: “Do you have someone backing you in the Immortal Region?”
His sole connection within the Immortal Region was Jiang Zhou, and behind Jiang Zhou stood.
As all the names hovered in three dimensions, five seals slowly emerged against the background color of the scroll.
Ji Yunlang was entirely familiar with these. Every single letter sent to him by the five major sects was confidently and arrogantly stamped with these five prominent sect marks. The five designs were intricately crafted to connect end-to-end, symbolizing that the five major sects of the Immortal Region shared both glory and ruin, and would never separate.
He stretched out his hand and lightly touched the name “Jiang Zhou” floating in midair. “My master hails from the five major sects of the Immortal Region. For him to appear on this list, what does that mean?”
Jiang Zhou asked, “What do you think?”
The names hovering in three dimensions could be touched, feeling soft and springy. Ji Yunlang wrapped that small golden light around his fingertips, manipulating the name of “Jiang Zhou” back and forth. “Is he a person of the Bafang Region as well?”
His fingertips were nimble, mixing his own dark spiritual light together with the golden light as he played with the name, twisting it around.
Jiang Zhou stood beside him with an unchanged expression, yet his body was quietly trembling.
“If you do this,” he finally spoke, “he will perceive it.”
Hearing this, Ji Yunlang’s interest grew even stronger. He pinched “Jiang Zhou” between two fingers, working it from head to toe, kneading it from the inside out. His finger pads meticulously rubbed across every single stroke, his mind already picturing the scene of Jiang Zhou being toyed with from afar to the point of becoming aroused.
While he was enjoying his play, the scroll suddenly snapped shut. Jiang Zhou caught his fingertips. “He is your master. Doing this is inappropriate.”
Ji Yunlang pulled his hand free and cast a sideways glance at him. “How is it inappropriate? He is pregnant with my child, and it’s already been three months. What’s wrong with me touching him a few times?”
Ji Yunlang constantly emphasized that there was someone in his heart, that his wife was pregnant, and he did not even hesitate to bring his master into the equation just to make him give up.
Jiang Zhou felt both sweet and irritated, the little flower inside his heart blooming fully against the wind, trembling as if about to fall.
He had to find an opportunity to ask Ji Yunlang properly: Do you really, truly want your Master to give birth that badly?