Li Jingsheng almost suspected that Wang Yong’s golden lightning had fried his brain; otherwise, why would he ask such a bizarre question?
Even if someone were color-blind, wouldn’t they still be able to tell that he was wearing red?
Although he found it baffling inwardly, Li Jingsheng kept his expression neutral and simply retorted, “Were your eyes blasted blind by the golden lightning? Why don’t you look for yourself?”
Upon hearing his words, Mo Yu actually did look. That gaze fell upon Li Jingsheng with such intensity that the latter momentarily felt as though he were being stripped bare for public viewing.
No, I told you to look, and you’re actually looking?
Just as Li Jingsheng was about to throw another fit, a clear, gentle voice sounded from behind him: “Senior Brother?”
Turning around, Li Jingsheng saw Chu Wen standing at the doorway, looking like a single peach blossom amidst a thicket of withered wood.
Surprise unbidden blossomed in his eyes, Protagonist Shou, you’re finally here!
A tool character must have the self-awareness of a tool character. He covered his mouth and coughed lightly: “Since Junior Brother has arrived, I’ll take my leave first.”
With that, he turned and walked away, having zero desire to play third wheel.
Surprise flickered across Chu Wen’s eyes, but he didn’t press further. The moment Li Jingsheng left, he immediately hurried over to check on Mo Yu’s condition.
“What’s going on? I heard Eldest Senior Brother say you could have forfeited. Why did you still go up there? Isn’t that just marching to your death?”
Mo Yu’s mind was an absolute mess right now; he merely offered a couple of perfunctory words of comfort before sinking back into deep thought.
Seeing him so absent-minded and assuming he had been bullied to the extreme, Chu Wen decided not to ask any more questions and instead turned around to go brew some porridge for him.
Li Jingsheng wasn’t idle after leaving either. Since Mo Yu had someone to take care of him, he no longer needed to worry.
Next up, he had his own matters to attend to.
With a headache over his registration for the tournament, Li Jingsheng asked Xiao Yu with a look of utter despair, “Do you think it’ll actually work if I start practicing right now?”
Taking to the role smoothly, Xiao Yu replied, “It’ll work! Definitely!”
“Look at the protagonist; he didn’t know anything either, and in the end, he still won!”
“Host, you’re so strong, you’ll definitely win!”
Listening to the other’s uninspired flattery, Li Jingsheng shot back, “You know that’s the protagonist! Can a protagonist even be called a protagonist without a cheat?” He sounded somewhat aggrieved, “I’m not the protagonist! Besides, the protagonist got beaten into such a state.”
Xiao Yu continued pouring chicken soup for his soul: “That’s because his strength wasn’t enough. Host, your strength is very high, alright? We don’t need to compare ourselves to him.”
“Besides, as far as I know, Host, the person you’re matched against in your first round is very weak.”
Half-doubting, Li Jingsheng asked, “Really?”
Shaking its bird-feathered body, Xiao Yu swore to him: “I swear, really.”
Only then did Li Jingsheng relax slightly.
His thoughts inevitably drifted back to Mo Yu, and thinking about the injuries the boy had sustained during the match made his chest feel heavy with frustration.
Once the thought crossed his mind, he stopped hiding it and asked outright, “Tell me, in the next match, Mo Yu won’t get hurt this severely again, will he?”
Xiao Yu seemed thoroughly displeased by his excessive concern for Mo Yu, so its reply was extremely perfunctory: “He won’t, he won’t. Next time his spiritual roots awaken, he’ll wipe out the entire arena in a flash. Stop worrying about him and worry more about yourself instead. With the original owner’s strength, you’re supposed to last all the way to the finals.”
Hearing this, Li Jingsheng suddenly felt the surreal sensation of being urged to finish his homework back in his school days. Having his previous doubts addressed, he began throwing himself into his own training.
＊
After Li Jingsheng left, Mo Yu sat alone in contemplation for a long time, the more he thought about it, the more wrong everything felt.
In his dream, that youth in red shared an exceptionally close relationship with him, and he could clearly sense that the youth in red held immense importance for him.
More importantly, the figure of the youth in red in the dream seemed to overlap completely with Senior Brother’s silhouette.
Yet, his actual relationship with Senior Brother was nowhere near as intimate as the one in the dream.
Recalling Li Jingsheng’s attitude, the colors in Mo Yu’s eyes dimmed a fraction further.
Senior Brother didn’t seem to like him very much either.
If it were a nightmare, a nightmare would only target individuals with spiritual power, weaving illusions to feed upon their spiritual energy.
Since he possessed zero spiritual power, a nightmare certainly wouldn’t have come for him.
Besides, illusions spun by nightmares were usually adapted from existing memories.
Yet that segment he had dreamed of was entirely absent from his own memory.
Or rather, it was not a memory he should currently possess.
Although Mo Yu couldn’t figure it out, his intuition told him that things were far from simple.
＊
With a massive number of participants in the martial arts tournament, by the time it was Li Jingsheng’s turn, the preliminary rounds were already past the halfway mark.
The opponent he drew for the preliminaries appeared to be a disciple from the Yaoshi Pavilion, wearing a sachet at his waist identical to Xi Feng’s.
As the person drew near, an overpowering aroma of steeped medicinal herbs emanated from his entire body.
The combat capability of Yaoshi Pavilion disciples was generally on the lower side, considering they spent all day soaking in medicine vats and neglected physical conditioning.
Aside from refining pills, they only made talismans.
It would be a miracle if their combat power were high.
Thus, Li Jingsheng won the match with practically zero suspense.
The moment victory was secured, Li Jingsheng couldn’t help but flex in front of Xiao Yu: “See that? I was just hiding my strength all along, little master style. For a tiny match like this, I only needed to exert a tiny fraction of effort, and winning was an absolute breeze.”
Xiao Yu delivered the emotional validation right on cue: “Wow, Host, you’re so amazing! You defeated the opponent with just a single sword flourish!”
Enjoying this exaggerated, middle-schooler level of praise to the fullest, Li Jingsheng replied, “Keep it low-profile, keep it low-profile. As long as we know it ourselves.”
Having had his fill of playacting with Xiao Yu, Li Jingsheng prepared to step down from the arena. As he descended the stage, a sudden intuition made him glance toward the exit of the spectator stands.
A flash of dark robes caught his eye; like a stray drop of black ink suddenly merging into water, it vanished in an instant, yet stood out with absolute clarity.
Li Jingsheng narrowed his eyes slightly.
For some reason, that person looked a lot like Mo Yu.
Injured that heavily, he had recovered this fast?
Driven by some unnameable impulse, Li Jingsheng strolled over to the front of Mo Yu’s quarters.
Yet standing right before the door, he suddenly lost the nerve to go in.
He poked Xiao Yu and asked, “Hey, what do you think I should say if I go in?”
Utterly baffled as to why his host was so hell-bent on seeing Mo Yu, and despising the thought of the two of them getting close, Xiao Yu snapped back, “Wouldn’t it be fine not to go in? Then you wouldn’t have to say anything at all.”
Li Jingsheng had zero patience for such ungrateful behavior: “How can that do? When I got hurt before, he took such good care of me, but when he got injured, I barely came to check on him. Now that he’s almost recovered, if I still don’t go see him, wouldn’t I turn into an ungrateful wretch?”
Hearing him finish, Xiao Yu rolled its eyes internally, thinking: What do you mean you haven’t come to check on him? Who was the one sneaking over like a fairy godmother to deliver medicine the other night?
Without giving Xiao Yu a chance to retort, Li Jingsheng came to a sudden realization: “That’s right! He took care of me when I was injured, so it’s only right for me to visit him when he’s injured.”
“Isn’t that a ready-made excuse?”
Before finishing, he didn’t forget to pat himself on the back: “I’m so smart!”
Too disgusted to watch, Xiao Yu simply didn’t understand why its host had grown so solicitous toward Mo Yu lately.
Having found a flawless excuse for himself, Li Jingsheng instantly regained his backbone. He straightened his already neat robes, took a deep breath, and raised a hand to knock on the door.
Yet after keeping his hand suspended for three whole seconds, he ultimately lowered it again.
“No, no, this excuse sounds way too forced. Do you think he’d actually believe it?”
At this point, Xiao Yu had been pushed past its limit of patience by its own host: “If you ask me, we should just leave. What’s so great about the protagonist anyway?”
“Didn’t you see Eldest Senior Brother sending him tons of medicine when you delivered yours before? He’s hardly short of your little bit of concern.”
Hearing those words, Li Jingsheng actually calmed down a bit.
Right, Mo Yu was the protagonist; why would he ever lack the concern of a mere villain?
Thinking along those lines, he actually felt like turning back.
Yet on second thought, someone else’s concern wasn’t his concern.
Just as he hesitated, the door unexpectedly swung open from the inside.
Followed closely by a low voice: “Why is Senior Brother here?”
Running right into those puzzled eyes, Li Jingsheng slowly straightened his back, covered his mouth, and coughed: “Just passing by. I happened to walk this way.”
The moment that excuse left his mouth, Li Jingsheng wanted to slam his head against a wall.
Had his brain been kicked by a donkey? Of all things to say, why did he have to claim he was just passing by?
His room was at least a couple of hundred meters away from here, and the entrance to Qize Mountain wasn’t even in this direction. What kind of sane person passes by several hundred meters out of their way?
Watching the tips of the person’s ears slowly turn red as they stood there internally dying of embarrassment, Mo Yu finally couldn’t help it and chuckled softly.
Hesitating over whether he should just bolt, Li Jingsheng heard the low laughter and lifted his eyes to glare at him: “What are you laughing at?”
A smile still lingered at the corners of Mo Yu’s lips, though his tone carried a hint of entreaty: “Nothing. Would Senior Brother like to come in and sit for a bit?”
Since the other person had handed him a way out, it wouldn’t be proper for Li Jingsheng not to take it, so he dropped his hesitation: “Then I’ll stay for a moment.”
Clearly here to visit a patient, Li Jingsheng somehow managed to turn himself into the most leisurely person in the room.
Mo Yu bustled about serving tea and water, and even brought out a plate of peach blossom pastries to place before him.
While he had arrived empty-handed, he was sitting there like a grand lord waiting to be waited on.
Li Jingsheng felt his face grow a bit warm.
Just as Mo Yu was about to fetch some fruit for him, he finally spoke up to stop the boy.
“Mo Yu.”
When Mo Yu turned around to look at him, Li Jingsheng suddenly found himself at a loss for words now that he had actually called out.
Lifting his gaze to catch sight of the boy’s dark garments, he changed tack: “Why aren’t you wearing those clothes I gave you before?”
Glancing sideways at the jet-black outfit, Li Jingsheng curled his lip, thinking: Aren’t my clothes a hundred times better-looking than this?
Caught off guard by the question, Mo Yu froze for a moment, a faint red blush slowly creeping up the tips of his ears.
As if summoning a great deal of resolve, he spoke up: “The clothes would get ruined.”
Hearing this, Li Jingsheng was still wondering: How could clothes get ruined?
Then his mind flashed back to Mo Yu’s previous match.
The golden lightning back then had indeed been ferocious enough to slice garments into shreds.
Raising his eyes to look at the person before him, he saw the boy lightly biting his lower lip, a hint of sheepishness coloring his handsome face.
The sensation of child abuse surged up within him once more.
He felt like his conscience had just taken ten thousand points of critical damage.
Li Jingsheng had originally intended to say he still had more at his place, but on second thought, it wouldn’t do to always make the kid wear hand-me-downs, so after pondering deeply, he finally suggested, “How about we head down the mountain to buy some clothes?”
As soon as the words left his mouth, realizing it didn’t quite fit his persona, he dryly tacked on, “If you go around dressed looking this shabby, I’ll be the one getting lectured by Eldest Senior Brother.”
If Xiao Yu had known he was still worrying about maintaining his persona in his inner monologue, it would have rolled its eyes into the next dimension.
You still remember your persona?
It must think this is a redemption romance novel across the hall.
A momentary flash of surprise crossed Mo Yu’s face, followed swiftly by a brightening in his eyes, blooming like the rare moonlight over a vast starry sky.
“Really?”