The next morning, when the sky was already bright, a streak of sword light flew across the Lan River and arrived outside Qingxi City.
Shen Xuan carried Lu Junheng on his spirit sword as they searched for a suitable place to land.
Behind him, Lu Junheng kept grumbling and being annoying. One moment he complained that they were flying too fast, the next that they were too slow. Then he complained that the wind was too strong and the weather was too cold. At one point, he even reached over and tugged at Shen Xuan’s hair.
In short, it seemed that whenever he was with Shen Xuan, he had to be annoying somehow. Otherwise, he simply couldn’t feel comfortable.
When Lu Junheng complained for the third time about the light blue outer robe Shen Xuan was wearing that day, Shen Xuan’s patience finally ran out.
In a remarkably gentle tone, he said, “You’re right.”
Lu Junheng’s eyes widened slightly. He froze for a moment.
“Huh?”
He wasn’t right at all. Shen Xuan looked extremely good in that outfit. He was simply looking for something to complain about.
The next moment, his voice abruptly stopped.
Shen Xuan reached back, grabbed him by the wrist, and calmly threw him off the spirit sword.
A moment later, a delayed cry came from the air.
“Help!”
Shen Xuan dusted off his hands, and his mood finally became as bright as the weather.
Indeed, carrying this oversized piece of trash on his spirit sword was simply too much of a challenge to one’s limits.
This was hardly unusual whenever Lu Junheng rode Shen Xuan’s spirit sword. He casually shouted “help” a couple of times before freely letting himself fall toward the ground.
Just before he hit the ground, a hand reached out and caught him.
Shen Xuan grabbed him by the collar in midair, and the two of them landed safely on the ground together.
Lu Junheng straightened his wrinkled clothes and complained loudly, “That was terrifying! I almost really died! Is this how you treat your helpless deputy? What an incompetent leader!”
Judging by how lively he looked, he clearly hadn’t been frightened in the slightest.
Shen Xuan had no interest in playing along with his act. He grabbed Lu Junheng and started walking forward.
“You dispersed your cultivation yourself. Why are you blaming me?”
He then explained their next step.
“Spirit swords aren’t allowed inside Qingxi City, so we’ll walk. This year’s registration for Taiyi Academy’s new students is at the Tianbao Tower. You participated in it in your previous life, so you should know.”
The moment the subject came up, Lu Junheng’s expression immediately fell.
He muttered under his breath, “Do I really have to register? You know how much I hate examinations. The examination itself is troublesome, and even passing it is troublesome. Then, after passing, I still have to spend years studying there until I graduate… Oh, God. Having to go through something this boring and tedious all over again is going to destroy me.”
Shen Xuan cheerfully replied, “If that really destroys you, then that would be wonderful.”
Lu Junheng: “…”
He was quiet for a while, apparently thinking about something. Then he suddenly called out, “Shen Xuan.”
Shen Xuan glanced at him.
“What?”
“Since we’re about to return to the academy, shouldn’t you…” Lu Junheng thought carefully about how to phrase it. He reminded himself that his partner apparently had no awareness whatsoever of his own image. “Tone it down a little? Don’t be so mean. If other people see you acting like this, they’ll easily think you’ve been possessed.”
Lu Junheng didn’t really care. Almost no one at the academy knew him at this point in time.
Shen Xuan was different.
He had grown up at the academy, and there were plenty of people who knew him. A drastic change in personality would easily be noticed.
Shen Xuan clearly hadn’t expected Lu Junheng to have the nerve to criticize anyone for being mean.
He looked at him in disbelief.
“Am I really that mean? I thought I’ve already been patient enough with you.”
Lu Junheng looked equally incredulous.
“Have you been acting like this at the academy ever since you were reborn? Didn’t anyone notice something was wrong? You weren’t like this when you were sixteen.”
Sixteen-year-old Shen Xuan had obviously been much easier to bully.
Of course, Lu Junheng wasn’t foolish enough to say that out loud.
Shen Xuan was already thinking about how to kill him again.
“Just shut up. We weren’t even close when we were sixteen. How would you know what I was like at sixteen?”
Lu Junheng replied matter-of-factly, “We weren’t close, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t know each other.”
Shen Xuan asked, “Then tell me. What was I like when I was sixteen?”
Lu Junheng put on an innocent and gentle expression that perfectly matched his youthful appearance. His voice was soft, with a hint of teenage awkwardness.
“Do you need any help?”
His natural voice was rather deep, so his imitation of Shen Xuan’s voice wasn’t particularly convincing. By the end of the sentence, he couldn’t hold it anymore and a laugh slipped through.
Shen Xuan: “…”
Seeing that he wasn’t reacting, Lu Junheng shook his shoulder.
“What? What? Was my imitation not good enough? Shen~ Junior~ Brother~”
Shen Xuan’s expression slowly twisted.
“That’s disgusting. Stay away from me.”
Lu Junheng was disgusting.
And apparently, when he was sixteen, he had been… equally unbearable.
Lu Junheng pushed his luck and deliberately raised his voice again.
“…You don’t look very well.”
Shen Xuan fell completely silent.
Seeing that Shen Xuan wasn’t saying anything, Lu Junheng unilaterally declared himself the winner. He was just about to give a little victory speech when Shen Xuan calmly said,
“Your sword is too dull. At this rate, you won’t even be able to kill a chicken. Have you ever considered changing your path of cultivation?”
Lu Junheng: “…”
That was the conversation they had when they were truly sixteen years old—the first time they ever spoke to each other.
It happened during the first group activity for a new batch of students at Taiyi Academy.
Lu Junheng had long forgotten whether the official purpose was a welcome event or an explanation of the academy’s rules.
In any case, the academy was worried that newly admitted students might rely on their talents and ignore the rules, so they gathered everyone under the pretext of an orientation and carefully explained the regulations they were required to follow.
Shen Xuan had entered the academy a year before Lu Junheng. He had always been groomed for a future position in the academy’s administration, so it was only natural that he was present as one of the organizers.
Halfway through the event, Shen Xuan went through the attendance list and discovered a mysterious student who had signed in and then vanished like a ghost.
He eventually found Lu Junheng lying in a tree near the event.
Politely and elegantly, he asked the universal question:
“Do you need any help? You don’t look very well.”
Lu Junheng was half-asleep when the voice woke him. He lazily opened his eyes and replied out of courtesy,
“Huh? No, I’m fine. I’ve already taken care of it.”
At the time, he had just returned from outside. He had been scratched twice by a demonic beast. It wasn’t a serious injury, but naturally, he was somewhat exhausted, so he had found a random place to lie down.
He turned his head and met Shen Xuan’s eyes.
The person who always wore a graceful smile in front of everyone actually had a pair of very pale, cold eyes.
If it were the current Lu Junheng, hearing Shen Xuan voluntarily offer to help without asking for anything in return—whether he was sincere or not—he would probably have taken advantage of the offer and ordered Shen Xuan around for the entire day.
But back then, he still possessed the teenage habit of pretending to be mature. And after being hunted for so long, he had developed a slight aversion to dealing with people.
It wasn’t obvious from his appearance, but mentally, he was much darker than he was now.
And so he said something to Shen Xuan that was rather unfriendly, completely out of the blue, and far too personal for two strangers:
“Your sword is too dull. At this rate, you won’t even be able to kill a chicken. Have you ever considered changing your path of cultivation?”
In truth, Lu Junheng was someone who cared a lot about social boundaries. Even during his mentally unstable teenage years, this hadn’t changed.
But when the young Lu Junheng looked at Shen Xuan’s incongruously gentle facade, words that, according to his own logic, shouldn’t have been said to a stranger somehow slipped out.
During the first sixteen years of Shen Xuan’s smooth cultivation journey, only two people had ever questioned his path of sword cultivation.
Lu Junheng was the first.
So at the time, Shen Xuan genuinely thought the boy was provoking him.
Nevertheless, he remained polite and composed as he thanked Lu Junheng.
“Thank you for your advice.”
He turned and left.
Lu Junheng continued sleeping in the tree.
Afterward, Lu Junheng’s name was added to the list of students who had been absent from the activity, and he was punished by being made to copy the student handbook three times.
Remembering that gloomy little brat lying in the tree made Lu Junheng’s stomach ache.
It was always difficult for people to sympathize with their younger, less mature selves.
The two exchanged a glance and tacitly stopped their mental attacks on each other.
This was the downside of knowing someone too well.
Whenever they brought up old grudges, it was very easy for both sides to get hurt.
Lu Junheng tugged at Shen Xuan’s sleeve and casually changed the subject.
“I’m hungry. I want some steamed buns.”
Shen Xuan didn’t want to deal with him and dragged him into the city.
“Endure it.”
Because Taiyi Academy was recruiting new students, there were many more people in the city than usual. A long line of applicants had already formed near Tianbao Tower.
Lu Junheng followed Shen Xuan quietly for a while before dragging out his voice pitifully.
“But I haven’t eaten anything for a long time. I don’t have any cultivation now. I’m just a weak mortal. If I stay hungry for too long, something really might happen to me.”
Shen Xuan shoved a piece of dry rations into his hands.
Lu Junheng lowered his head and painfully chewed two bites. He covered his mouth after nearly breaking a tooth and protested,
“…How long has this thing been sitting around? You’re actually feeding me this?”
Shen Xuan: “…”
Fine. Let this idiot starve to death.
Completely fed up, he pointed toward the line of applicants in the distance.
“Go wait in line first.”
After sending Lu Junheng to the line, Shen Xuan went in another direction and walked toward a nearby steamed-bun stall.
He paid for the buns and took them from the vendor.
When he turned around, he saw Lu Junheng standing behind him like a ghost, even though he was supposed to be waiting in line.
Shen Xuan rubbed his aching temple.
He put on a smile filled with murderous intent and tried to speak to Lu Junheng as calmly as possible.
“Why are you back again?”
Lu Junheng replied calmly, with just enough sarcasm in his tone.
“Well, your senior brother is over there. It feels inappropriate for me to go alone. Why don’t you come over and greet him with me?”
Shen Xuan didn’t understand at first.
“Isn’t my senior brother you?”
Normally, the two of them called each other by their full names. They only addressed each other as “senior brother” or “junior brother” when deliberately annoying one another.
But their master had indeed only taken two disciples.
Lu Junheng: “…”
“I mean the one your father took as his disciple.”