Shen Xuan tentatively said, deep in thought, “Ever since we reunited, you haven’t used your spiritual power even once.”
Lu Junheng looked up. “Huh?”
How had the conversation suddenly turned to such a dangerous topic?
Shen Xuan asked gently, “Is there some problem?”
Lu Junheng fell silent for a moment. “Don’t interrupt me. Let me think first.”
Shen Xuan smiled. “Thinking about what to make up this time?”
Lu Junheng nodded. Looking directly into Shen Xuan’s eyes, he suddenly smiled.
“Yeah. Actually, it’s because I have you in my heart. No matter what I do, I think of you, so I can’t cultivate the Path of Ruthlessness anymore. I had no choice but to disperse my cultivation. Of course I can’t use spiritual power now.”
The expression on Shen Xuan’s face disappeared.
Lu Junheng grabbed the hand he instinctively tried to pull away and smiled happily.
“Just kidding. You’re always saying that the two of us can’t stand each other. Why would I stop cultivating the Path of Ruthlessness because of you?”
Shen Xuan’s expression turned cold. “That wasn’t funny at all.”
Lu Junheng casually explained, “It’s the same reason as before. As long as I use spiritual power, or even have spiritual power inside my body, those things will detect me and come after me. I couldn’t use the identity I created in Pingjiang because I had just been reborn and didn’t understand the situation yet. For the sake of staying alive, I had no choice but to cut off the problem at its root and disperse my cultivation first.
“Don’t worry. Once I get the Thousand-Spirit Silk, I’ll be able to cultivate and use spiritual power again. If I’m lucky, I might even develop some resistance to the other elemental spiritual powers that have contaminated me.”
He tugged on Shen Xuan’s hand again, his eyes drooping lazily as he muttered, “All right, all right. Hurry up. It’s almost dark.”
Shen Xuan’s expression still didn’t improve much.
He closed his eyes for a moment, tightened his grip on Lu Junheng’s hand, and sent his spiritual power into him.
Forget it. Why should he care whether Lu Junheng had cultivation or what path he chose?
That bastard had never treated his own life like it mattered. He had never possessed the common sense of a normal person, either. If he ended up dead because something went wrong, he deserved it.
He wouldn’t even bother collecting his corpse.
The ground had already begun to tremble.
This time, Shen Xuan didn’t leave Lu Junheng behind as bait. He tightened his grip on his sword and looked toward the source of the noise.
A pool of molten metal appeared on the ground. The scorching liquid quickly twisted into several human figures.
Lu Junheng conveniently hid behind Shen Xuan and called out in an exaggerated, nauseatingly sweet voice, “How scary! Thank you for protecting me, Junior Brother Shen.”
Without turning around, Shen Xuan stepped on his foot.
Lu Junheng’s voice immediately became serious. “The second one from the left. That’s the one you wanted to see.”
Shen Xuan looked over.
It was an ordinary-looking young man. In his previous life, he had been one of their subordinates in the Divine Temple. Shen Xuan remembered him as hardworking and honest, and not much of a talker.
More importantly…
He was much younger than the two of them. He had been born sixty years later.
A phantom that should not exist at this point in time.
What exactly could produce an image like this while completely disregarding time?
Shen Xuan’s gaze sharpened.
The group had already attacked them.
Shen Xuan hesitated. He couldn’t bring himself to draw his sword against the appearance of an old comrade, so he used the sheath to force the attackers back.
If the way the other elemental attackers were generated had only given him a strange sense of déjà vu, the way these metal-element attackers were created inevitably led him to an unpleasant conclusion.
He and Lu Junheng had fought things with similar methods of creation on the battlefield for hundreds of years.
Those things were called demons.
Shen Xuan no longer had any interest in observing more details. He pulled Lu Junheng out of the encirclement and onto his spiritual sword.
The two waited for a while, watching the attackers gradually disappear after losing their target.
Shen Xuan’s expression was solemn as he quietly said two words:
“Divine Pillars. Demons. Right?”
Those were the two keywords that Lu Junheng had been unable to say because of the rules.
Lu Junheng wasn’t surprised by his sharp deduction. He simply raised a finger to his lips.
“No matter what you’ve figured out, don’t say it aloud.”
The cultivation world of the Old Era had been destroyed by a catastrophe that swept across the entire world.
There were no records left behind about that catastrophe. However, the most widely accepted theory in the current cultivation world was that the disaster marking the transition between the Old Era and the New Era had been caused by the Boundary and the demons within it.
The Divine Pillars clearly existed to protect the cultivation world from being eroded by the Boundary. So why were they connected to the demons within the Boundary?
Shen Xuan looked at Lu Junheng with an unreadable expression and repeated what he had said earlier.
“You said that everything I want to protect is fake.”
“That was only to prepare us mentally for the worst-case scenario.” Lu Junheng placed a hand on Shen Xuan’s shoulder and looked straight into his eyes. “Whether it’s real or fake… at least while we can still feel ourselves being alive, everything we can see is still worth protecting.”
Shen Xuan was silent for a moment before quietly responding, “Mm.”
Then he asked Lu Junheng, “What are you thinking?”
“It’s simple. I need to find out what really happened during the catastrophe that marked the transition between the Old and New Eras. Or, at the very least, finding something related to the Old Era would be useful.
“Our goals should be the same in this regard. Whether we want to uncover the secrets of the ‘gods’ or prevent the Divine Pillars from collapsing, starting from the source is never wrong.”
“But that’s also the problem. Almost all traces of the old world disappeared in that catastrophe. At least, there’s nothing about it in the records kept by the Academy or the First Divine Temple. We still don’t have a direction.”
Shen Xuan reminded him, “There is one place with an even greater collection of books than the Academy and the First Divine Temple.”
Lu Junheng rubbed his chin. “You mean the Langhuan Realm? I’ve thought about it too. But the Third Divine Temple is pretty closed off, so sneaking in won’t be easy. I’ll have to wait until I get the Thousand-Spirit Silk and recover some of my cultivation before considering it.”
The Langhuan Realm was the Third Divine Temple’s library. Because of the nature of the Third Divine Pillar, legend said that those favored by the Divine Pillar could find secret treasures within it that had already been lost to the passage of time.
Putting aside how mysterious that legend sounded, the Langhuan Realm truly could be called the largest collection of ancient texts in the cultivation world.
Shen Xuan looked at him with an indescribable expression.
“Have you never considered… using legal and proper channels?”
Lu Junheng looked back at him in confusion.
Shen Xuan took a deep breath and continued giving him information.
“The prizes for the top three places in the Academy Grand Tournament are provided by the Five Divine Temples. This year, the Third Divine Temple is offering access to the Langhuan Realm as its prize.”
Lu Junheng looked even more confused.
“The prize for the Academy Grand Tournament is the Langhuan Realm? But I remember you chose the Fourth Divine Temple.”
The Taiyi Academy Grand Tournament was held once every three years. In the tournament they participated in, Shen Xuan had placed first.
Shen Xuan forced himself to smile patiently.
“That’s because I chose the prize offered by the Fourth Divine Temple. The other two didn’t choose the Third Divine Temple’s prize either. You don’t even know about the Academy Grand Tournament. What were you doing all this time?”
Lu Junheng vaguely recalled his schedule from his previous life.
“Probably in Tianxing City? Or maybe Heyuan…”
Back then, he didn’t have any particular goal. He had simply wandered aimlessly around the cultivation world.
In other words, he hadn’t been doing anything useful.
Sure enough, this bastard really was better off dead.
Shen Xuan gave up trying to explain how widely known the Academy Grand Tournament was and asked, “So, given your current condition, can you still take the Academy entrance examination? If you can, we’ll continue with our previous plan. If you can’t, we’ll think of another way. Or you can just die.”
Lu Junheng thought about it.
“If I only need to pass, it’ll be easy.”
He was especially good at barely scraping by.
Lu Junheng was serious for no more than two sentences before immediately relaxing again. Wearing the face of his sixteen-year-old self, he began acting pitiful and childish without the slightest shame.
“I’m so tired, and my wounds hurt so much. I’m only sixteen this year. I’m still at an age when I need to be protected. The truth of the world and saving the world are both too much for me to deal with at my age, aren’t they?”
Even with the memories and experience of their previous lives, neither of them was currently strong enough to confront these things directly.
Shen Xuan understood what he meant, but that didn’t stop him from reaching out and pinching Lu Junheng’s cheek in disgust.
Lu Junheng refused to lose and pinched Shen Xuan’s cheek in return.
After pinching him for a while, Shen Xuan suddenly stared at Lu Junheng’s face and remembered something else.
“The Second Divine Temple has already withdrawn the bounty on you. Though I suppose you don’t need me to tell you that.”
There was no surprise on Lu Junheng’s face. He seemed to have expected this outcome.
He rubbed his reddened cheek and explained, “You could say it’s one of the unexpected gains from my previous life. I have some guesses about the contents of the divine oracle. I’ve confirmed half of them. I’ll have to enter the Azure Jade Secret Realm to confirm the rest.”
While listening to him, Shen Xuan was multitasking. He gathered a little spiritual power at his fingertips and tried to dispel the illusion covering Lu Junheng’s face.
…As expected, this bastard had done it himself.
Maybe this guy really didn’t need anyone else’s help to survive just fine.
Lu Junheng grabbed his hand.
“All right, all right. This face isn’t created with spiritual power. I used a different material.”
Shen Xuan blinked and bluntly ordered him, “Take it off. I want to see.”
Lu Junheng refused.
“No. The material is expensive, and I’m not getting anything in return.”
Shen Xuan pulled his dagger from his waist and looked up at Lu Junheng threateningly.
“But if you don’t take it off, there will be consequences.”
Lu Junheng’s gaze fell on the dagger, and his fingers twitched.
He finally snatched the dagger from Shen Xuan’s hand. For once, his tone carried a hint of seriousness.
“I’ve told you so many times. Stop playing with this piece of metal.”
Shen Xuan seriously explained in return, “First, a dagger is a very convenient tool, and I’m used to using one to finish off enemies in close combat. I probably won’t be able to change that habit.
“Second, I know what you’re thinking, but I didn’t develop any psychological trauma from it. You need to get over it.”
Lu Junheng took a deep breath, put the dagger away, and cursed him.
“You’re an idiot.”
Shen Xuan thought he was provoking him and immediately retaliated.
“Then are you a moron?”
Lu Junheng: “…”
Arguing with Shen Xuan over this probably did make him a moron.
He surrendered.
Without saying another word, he took out a bottle of potion, removed the disguise on his face, and revealed his true youthful and handsome appearance.
“All right, all right. If you want to see it, then look.”
Shen Xuan fell silent for a moment.
Then he reached out and gently touched Lu Junheng’s face. His gaze grew somewhat deep, as though he had recalled something that lay somewhere between pleasant and unpleasant memories.
Sixteen years old.
Compared with the face Shen Xuan was familiar with, this one was much more youthful. His cheeks still carried a little of the softness of someone who had yet to fully grow into adulthood.
It really was a face that suited his taste.
During the more than seven hundred years they had spent together in his previous life, Shen Xuan had tolerated Lu Junheng casually appearing in front of him without any sense of personal space. He had even managed not to kill him after all those years.
At least eighty percent of the credit went to this face.
Lu Junheng touched his own cheek and asked suspiciously, “Don’t tell me you really only like me because of this face?”
Shen Xuan looked genuinely confused.
“Other than your face, is there anything else about you worth liking?”
Lu Junheng began counting on his fingers.
“For example, my charming personality, noble character, brilliant soul, and so on?”
The more he counted, the more amused he became. He finally covered his mouth with his fist and couldn’t hold back his laughter.
Shen Xuan: “…”
He closed his eyes and weakly suggested to Lu Junheng,
“Can you go back to how you were before?”
Lu Junheng looked confused.
“What?”
When had he changed?
Shen Xuan explained, “That awkward, hesitant, unwilling-to-speak state you were in. It was annoying that you wouldn’t tell me the truth, but at least you were quiet. You didn’t say things that made people want to die just from hearing them.”
Lu Junheng’s eyes widened in shock.
“Oh my god. You just got your partner back and already think he talks too much. Don’t you think that’s a little immoral?”
Shen Xuan took a deep breath.
Then he smiled and ended the conversation.
“When are you going to die?”