When he reached the entrance of the Hall of Miraculous Prescriptions, Shen Fu's steps slowed.
The hall's stone doors were heavy and imposing, devoid of any superfluous ornamentation—some corners had even grown moss from being left untended for so long.
In his previous life, after the massacre of Xuanji Mountain, Shen Fu had been afraid to set foot through the Hall of Miraculous Prescriptions' doors for a long time.
Just looking at those rows of dark memorial tablets was enough to press down on Shen Fu's chest until he could barely breathe. Back then, he had been single-minded in his desire for revenge, yet in the end, he never managed to slay his enemy with his own hands. Now, reborn into a new life, standing here, Shen Fu's heart remained just as heavy.
He raised his hand to press against the stone door but hesitated to push it open.
Until the person inside sensed something and took the initiative to send a voice transmission out.
"Has my worthy brother arrived? Why not come in? Is the door too heavy to push?"
Xie Jiuzhang's voice drifted out from within the hall. Shen Fu's hand, braced against the stone door, slipped—that single sentence forcibly yanking him out of his melancholy.
Shen Fu exhaled a breath of turbid qi. Just as he was about to push the door open, he saw a hand appear from behind him, helping him shove it.
"Almost forgot that when Uncle Master is having one of his episodes, he can't push doors open. Let me do it."
"…" Shen Fu stood rooted to the spot, watching helplessly as Jiang Lin opened the door for him, the corner of his mouth twitching uncontrollably.
Ji Yanzhi quickly caught up as well. Hearing this, he also raised a hand to push open the other stone door, then obediently stepped aside. "Master, please."
Shen Fu rubbed the tip of his nose, dodging around Ji Yanzhi as he stepped inside.
Xie Jiuzhang sat at the center of the hall. Seeing Shen Fu enter, he rose and walked over to greet him.
"Worthy brother."
The moment Shen Fu saw Xie Jiuzhang's face, his nose began to sting with unshed tears. He opened his mouth, and only after a long moment did he manage to call out in a hoarse voice, "Senior brother."
"Worthy brother~"
"Senior brother!"
"Worthy brother"
"Senior brother!!!" The two grew increasingly agitated with each exchange, their footsteps unconsciously quickening. Just as Shen Fu was about to throw himself into Xie Jiuzhang's arms for a warm embrace, two figures inserted themselves between them at the same time.
"Master." Jiang Lin and Ji Yanzhi spoke almost simultaneously.
With juniors present, Xie Jiuzhang and Shen Fu reined in their divine abilities, clearing their throats and straightening up to pretend they were being proper.
"So, um, your uncle master and I have things to discuss. You may take your leave now." Xie Jiuzhang smoothed his sleeves, putting on the airs of a sect master.
Jiang Lin seemed already accustomed to this and didn't say much—he gave a slight bow and turned to leave. But Ji Yanzhi remained standing in place, his expression grave as he cast a look at Shen Fu.
Shen Fu's skin crawled under that gaze. Unable to help himself, he shuffled a few steps closer to Xie Jiuzhang.
"Come on, didn't you hear the sect master?" Jiang Lin turned back, saw Ji Yanzhi standing there motionless, and simply grabbed him by the arm and dragged him away.
Only after the two had left did Shen Fu finally let out a breath of relief. He turned to look at Xie Jiuzhang beside him.
"Senior brother Xie." Shen Fu's voice carried a hint of a choked sob as he called out with utmost sincerity.
"Why are you thanking me?" Xie Jiuzhang was baffled.
"…"
"By the way, how's that kid working out? It's truly strange that someone in this world could have an aura so similar to yours. What a marvel."
Shen Fu knew he was talking about the furnace cauldron matter. In fact, coming to see Xie Jiuzhang today was precisely about that.
"Senior brother, how did you happen to come out of seclusion and run into Ji Yanzhi?" Shen Fu distinctly remembered that in his previous life, Xie Jiuzhang had no part in this affair. On the night he went to rescue Ji Yanzhi, Xie Jiuzhang should still have been in seclusion. How could he have suddenly appeared in that place and brought Ji Yanzhi back?
Moreover, the original story contained no scenes of interaction between Xie Jiuzhang and Ji Yanzhi whatsoever. So why on earth did the two of them meet?
Was it Ji Yanzhi who had approached him proactively, or was there some other reason?
Seeing the gravity of Shen Fu's expression, Xie Jiuzhang knew this matter was probably very important to him. He set aside his usual languid air and grew serious as well.
"It's because of this." As he spoke, Xie Jiuzhang pulled out from his sleeve a palm-sized sword-shaped iron carving, pitch black all over.
Shen Fu reached out to take the small ornament, momentarily puzzled. "What is this thing?"
"You don't recognize it?" Xie Jiuzhang was even more confused than Shen Fu. "But it said it's your sword spirit. It sensed that your life was in peril and came to find me to save you."
"What? My sword spirit?" As he spoke, Shen Fu looked down at the object in his palm. "You're the Glorious Radiant Invincible Overlord Ball!"
The moment he finished reciting that less-than-elegant name, the small ornament in his hand suddenly seemed to sense something—it began to grow larger and longer, its entire body radiating dazzling golden light, until it reached the length of an ordinary immortal sword and stopped.
Then, a lump of shimmering golden light flew out from the sword body and slammed fiercely into Shen Fu's chest.
Shen Fu reached out and easily caught the small golden lump, immediately sensing something wrong. "How… how did you become so light?"
The Glorious Radiant Invincible Overlord Ball said nothing—or rather, it didn't yet have the ability to speak. So it could only hop around frantically in Shen Fu's palm for a long while.
Shen Fu didn't understand what it was doing. He simply assumed the golden ball was, just like in his previous life, refusing to talk to him.
Meanwhile, Xie Jiuzhang, who was standing nearby, noticed something was off. He waved his hand and channeled some mana into the golden orb of light.
"You idiot, go ahead and try reciting the sword technique wrong again! How can you mess up such a simple sword technique! Now I have to clean up your mess, and you dare to pretend you don't know me? You heartless bastard, just wait and die—I shouldn't have saved you!"
The golden orb cursed its fill before finally calming down with heavy breaths. But just as it landed on Shen Fu's palm, it felt a chill run down its back.
It stiffly turned around and found Shen Fu and Xie Jiuzhang staring at it with bewildered expressions.
"So this is your sword spirit? Terrible temper," Xie Jiuzhang remarked.
Shen Fu gave an awkward smile, a bit embarrassed. "I suppose so. He's always been like this."
Hearing this, the golden orb completely lost it. The entire ball crackled and burst into a blinding white light, forcing both Shen Fu and Xie Jiuzhang to shut their eyes. It then turned around and dove back into the sword, refusing to come out no matter how much Shen Fu called.
Shen Fu held the sword and coaxed it for a long time, nearly wearing out his lips, but the golden orb remained unmoved.
In the end, Shen Fu had no choice but to place it respectfully on the table and let it cool off on its own.
"So you're saying that while you were meditating, it suddenly fell into your arms and told you to come save me?" Shen Fu asked.
Xie Jiuzhang thought back seriously to the scene and nodded. "At first I didn't believe it, but then it told me you carried the Blood Trace, that you had no innate talent whatsoever—someone utterly incapable of cultivation, a once-in-a-century case. It also said you were good for nothing except being handsome, a pretty waste…"
"Alright, that's enough," Shen Fu interrupted with a dark expression.
"In any case, this fellow spoke with utmost urgency, and I feared something might have happened to you, so I went with him to find you. But who would've thought that by the time we got there, you were already gone."
"And then?" Shen Fu asked.
Actually, what he was more concerned about now was whether Ji Yanzhi had sought out Xie Jiuzhang on his own initiative, or whether Xie Jiuzhang had been the one to find Ji Yanzhi.
Xie Jiuzhang pondered for a moment before answering, "Since I couldn't find you, I naturally couldn't just leave. So I cast a person-seeking spell to track you down."
But the person-seeking spell didn't help him find Shen Fu—instead, it led him straight to Ji Yanzhi.
By then, dawn had fully broken. Ji Yanzhi had just crawled out of the pile of bones when he was trapped in place by Xie Jiuzhang's person-seeking spell.
"I didn't expect the person to be someone other than you. Ji Yanzhi was startled too, thinking I had come to capture him, so he assumed a desperate, fight-to-the-death stance and clashed with me."
Xie Jiuzhang thought for a moment, then added, "That kid's innate talent is truly impressive. Even trapped by my spell and covered in wounds, he could still trade blows with me evenly. It was during our exchange that I noticed his aura was remarkably similar to yours, so I thought I'd capture him and bring him back to serve as your furnace cauldron."
Hearing this, Shen Fu's doubts were somewhat alleviated—at least Ji Yanzhi hadn't come looking for him on his own.
"Is that kid giving you trouble?" Xie Jiuzhang asked, seeing Shen Fu's troubled expression and assuming Ji Yanzhi had done something to displease him.
"When I told him he'd serve as your furnace cauldron, he saw he couldn't beat me and nearly bit off his tongue to kill himself. I had to talk him into coming back with me. But then that kid took one look at you and stopped making a fuss, even willingly swallowing the Bond-Forming Pill. I suppose his temperament is still a bit unruly. Use him for now, and once I find a better one, I'll swap him out for you."
Shen Fu felt a warmth spread through his heart upon hearing this. In this second life, Xie Jiuzhang was still so good to him.
He remembered when he had first transmigrated into this world alone, unfamiliar with everything around him. With no tricks up his sleeve, Shen Fu was no different from a tiny ant by the roadside in this cultivation world where strength reigned supreme.
To keep himself from dying easily, Shen Fu had relied on his knowledge of the plot to fabricate an impressive identity and a tragic backstory of being poisoned by enemies.
He had thought such a clumsy lie would be hard to sell to anyone, but heaven never seals off all exits. The first person he managed to deceive was Xie Jiuzhang, who had been down the mountain to vanquish demons but accidentally fell into qi deviation and nearly died in the snow.
Relying on that small favor of saving his life, Shen Fu successfully infiltrated Xuanji Mountain and even became sworn brothers with Xie Jiuzhang. Neither of them cared much about formalities, so they casually called each other "senior brother" and "junior brother."
To solidify his tragic tale of being poisoned, Shen Fu spent nearly every day lounging around when he first arrived at Xuanji Mountain—doing absolutely nothing but maintaining an excellent appetite.
Xie Jiuzhang didn't mind at all, even having Jiang Lin cook him a variety of dishes every day.
But before the good days could last long, the Blood Trace came knocking.
At first, Shen Fu thought it was karma for telling too many lies. But later, after hearing some things about Ji Yanzhi from Jiang Lin, he discovered that the Blood Trace seemed extremely sensitive to the name Ji Yanzhi.
After several tests, Shen Fu gradually came to understand that the Blood Trace was there to assign him tasks.
Because of the appearance of the Blood Trace, Shen Fu's image of being severely poisoned became even more unshakable. Xie Jiuzhang searched far and wide for renowned physicians but still couldn't determine what the Blood Trace actually was.
Later, he found some ancient text from who knows where, which said that as long as a suitable furnace cauldron was found, all the toxins in the body could be transferred onto the cauldron. From then on, Xie Jiuzhang went down the path of finding a furnace cauldron for Shen Fu and never looked back.
In his previous life, right up until his death, Xie Jiuzhang was still consumed by guilt over not being able to help Shen Fu detoxify.
Thinking of all this, Shen Fu didn't have the heart to say anything bad about this furnace cauldron. He looked at Xie Jiuzhang, his gaze flickering a few times, and finally let out a soft sigh. "It's nothing. He's fine. You know my constitution well enough—being able to find a furnace cauldron at all is already a gift from heaven. How could I dare trouble you further, Senior Brother?"
"Ah, what are you saying? You saved me from danger. Even if I had to repay you with my life, I'd be willing." Xie Jiuzhang waved his hand, as if to say it was no big deal.
Shen Fu was stunned for a moment, silent for a good ten-plus seconds before breaking into a wry smile. "Don't talk nonsense."
Xie Jiuzhang laughed twice, but then, as if thinking of something, his expression suddenly darkened.
"Almost forgot to ask you," Xie Jiuzhang said seriously. "Why did you go to Li Family Village that night?"
Li Family Village was the place where the Dongxu Sect had set up a barrier to hunt down Ji Yanzhi.
"I…" Shen Fu opened his mouth, seemingly at a loss for how to explain.
Seeing his hesitation, Xie Jiuzhang didn't press further and simply changed the subject. "It's fine. Tell me when you're ready. I just wanted to ask—when you left, were there any other survivors in Li Family Village besides you?"
Shen Fu was about to say that the Dongxu Sect people were still there, but on closer thought, aside from Cao Zhenhui whom he had dealt with personally, he indeed hadn't seen any of the other disciples after they fled from the temple. Moreover, the barrier that had been cast over Li Family Village had been lifted by the time he left.
Shen Fu vaguely felt that something was off, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. Just as he was deep in thought, a sudden loud boom came from outside the Hall of Miraculous Prescriptions.
"By order of the Immortal Alliance, Xuanji Mountain is to be sealed off immediately."
The tremor from the thousand-mile transmission still echoed within the Hall of Miraculous Prescriptions. Shen Fu and Xie Jiuzhang turned around at the same time, both reading the same four words in each other's eyes: trouble is coming.