“I really want to engage in dual cultivation.”
Jun Yanye settled Shi Li on the bed and placed some delicious food and drinks on the table, positioning them just within arm’s reach.
“Did my inner demon scare you?” Shi Li asked, his head resting on Jun Yanye’s thigh.
“It was quite terrifying,” Jun Yanye pondered. “A bunch of little Foundation Establishment versions of you running all over the place, and some were even in the Qi Refining stage. If I so much as lightly grazed one, he died.”
“Uh.” Hearing Jun Yanye tease him, Shi Li turned his face away. “I put all my energy into studying divination and deduction! How could I compare to you people who focus solely on raising your cultivation base?”
Hearing this made Jun Yanye feel a twinge of pity. Shi Li had dedicated himself entirely to practicing divination, yet he had learned next to nothing over two centuries, and his cultivation fell far behind others. Bearing the title of Young Master on top of that, one could easily guess how much cold shoulder and ridicule he had endured over the years.
“You have had an epiphany now. Things are different from the past, so no one will look down on you,” Jun Yanye said.
Shi Li did not reply, merely staring blankly at the headboard of the bed in a daze.
“I will help you find a way to heal your spiritual root,” Jun Yanye said.
Shi Li pinched Jun Yanye’s belt with his fingers, playing with the jade buckle on it. “I really want to engage in dual cultivation.”
Jun Yanye often felt that he could not keep up with Shi Li’s train of thought. A random sentence popping out of this person’s mouth would leave someone thinking for a long time.
Furthermore, this ancestor truly forgot the pain once the wound healed.
“Last time we did it, you cried and made a fuss. It has only been a few days, and you want it again?” Jun Yanye said. “Before your spiritual root is completely healed, do not practice it.”
“You are so cruel, making me live like a monk until I die,” Shi Li said, aggrieved.
“Uh.” It was not that Jun Yanye did not want to dual cultivate, but he was concerned that Shi Li’s body was weak and still recovering, making it unwise to toss him around further.
Seeing the slight softening in Jun Yanye’s expression, Shi Li smiled with affection in his eyes. “Three days from now, at Yuanlan Lake, I will wait for you.”
Jun Yanye felt that he might have a bit of a problem himself.
Every time Shi Li baited him, he hooked onto it. This was a significant problem.
“Have you heard? The sky is changing! After the fake young master Shi Li jumped off the cliff, he actually survived and even hooked up with that demon! This is truly a marvel of the world.”
“I heard about it too. Shi Li was critically ill, so the demon captured a hundred top medical cultivators from all over to treat him. If they could not cure him, he would slaughter every single one of them!”
“Brother Dongchun, did you see clearly? Was that demon carrying Shi Li to the lakeside in his arms? Not on his back, not over his shoulder?”
“Yes, I saw it with my own eyes! The two of them held each other so… tsk tsk, so intimately. My father and mother do not even hold each other like that!”
“Oh heavens.”
“I never knew before that the demon was actually quite good-looking. As for Shi Li, needless to say, he is a universally acknowledged useless beauty. To be honest, I was a bit dazed watching them at the time!”
“Wow.”
The topic developed in an entirely bizarre direction.
Jun Yanye placed the silk thread of that dark bead strand in his palm, quietly listening to the sounds transmitting from his hand.
The dark beads he had given to those ten medical and alchemy cultivators yesterday were no ordinary items, but small spiritual treasures capable of transmitting sound and images. Whoever carried the bead, Jun Yanye could hear and see the scenery around them, as well as listen to their conversations.
Seven out of the ten people had discarded the dark beads. After all, these were artifacts of the Demon Realm, and they did not dare keep them on their bodies. However, three people still kept them.
If these dark beads were sold on the black market, they could fetch a few thousand spiritual stones, which was a considerable income.
Jun Yanye had gifted these beads precisely because he wanted to gather more intelligence about the Sacred Domain and learn more things related to Shi Li.
Today, it seemed he had only heard some inconsequential gossip.
“What are you doing?” Shi Li asked, holding a handful of small spiritual fruits, tossing them into his mouth one by one as he walked toward Jun Yanye.
“Listening to some news from the Sacred Domain.” Jun Yanye placed the silk thread into Shi Li’s palm.
Various miscellaneous voices instantly came through: “Why do you think that great demon would be interested in a useless person? Does even a demon care that much about looks?”
“Come off it. Who could stand Shi Li’s arrogant and spoiled personality? The demon keeps him around naturally because he is useful! Perhaps his destiny is highly unusual and can assist the demon in his cultivation.”
“None of you are right. I still firmly believe that Shi Li is the demon’s illegitimate son. That is entirely a father doting on his son.”
Shi Li’s face stiffened with laughter as he listened. “Hahaha, an illegitimate son. Come to think of it, the ages actually match up perfectly! You are five thousand years old, and I am two hundred years old. You really had a child late in life.”
Jun Yanye had originally intended for Shi Li to listen to it for amusement, but he did not expect Shi Li to make fun of him instead, so he took the silk thread back.
“Don’t do that, let me listen some more!” Shi Li laughed as he tried to snatch it back. “Good daddy, let me listen a bit more.”
Following “Brother Ye” and “Good Husband,” Jun Yanye gladly acquired a new title: Good Daddy.
“Go take your medicine.” Jun Yanye glanced at the medicine pot, which was filled with various tonics he had forced those alchemy cultivators to refine.
“You are becoming more and more like a father.”
Shi Li took the medicine pot and, just like he had eaten the spiritual fruits earlier, tossed a pill upward. He originally intended to catch it in his mouth, but he missed, and the pill dropped down.
Jun Yanye reached out to catch it. He pinched Shi Li’s chin with one hand and poked the pill inside with the other.
“Thank you, Daddy.”
“Stop calling me that!”
Jun Yanye had a breakdown.
If he kept calling him that, it would truly be impossible to engage in dual cultivation with him.
“Come into my sea of consciousness tonight to recuperate,” Shi Li extended an invitation to Jun Yanye.
“Is it safe?”
“With the efficacy of the Pills of Concentrated Spirit, it will be much more stable. Enter after I take the medicine, and come out within an hour.” Shi Li said with a smile, “I guarantee nothing will go wrong.”
The two went into the same cave as last time, with Xuanhuang still standing guard nearby.
Jun Yanye entered Shi Li’s sea of consciousness.
This time, the sea of consciousness was indeed much more tranquil than before, and it was no longer a vast expanse of darkness, but filled with drifting, snow-white mist.
Within the mist, Jun Yanye could still see many illusions of Shi Li. This time they were very quiet, because all of them were lying on the ground asleep, without any injuries or bloodstains on their bodies.
On the high-hanging jade platform, Shi Li’s primordial spirit was sitting cross-legged with eyes closed in meditation.
It appeared that after Shi Li used the Pills of Concentrated Spirit, the state of the entire sea of consciousness became completely different from usual.
Jun Yanye did not call out to him, but instead walked through the patches of mist to search for that fracture on his own.
The mist grew thicker and thicker, making it difficult for Jun Yanye to see clearly. His foot accidentally brushed against an illusion by his feet!
This illusion was a little Shi Li of fourteen or fifteen years old, wearing a water-blue embroidered shirt, sitting on the ground hugging his legs and dozing off. After being touched by Jun Yanye, he slowly opened his eyes.
“Who are you?” Little Shi Li blinked, his eyes showing confusion.
“Shh.” Jun Yanye placed a finger to his lips while covering little Shi Li’s mouth. “Keep it quiet.”
“Save me,” little Shi Li spoke the exact same words as last time.
Jun Yanye nodded. “Alright.”
The moment the words left his mouth, the scenery in front of Jun Yanye shifted abruptly!
Jun Yanye realized that he might have been pulled into little Shi Li’s memory.
Jun Yanye and little Shi Li were inside a prison cell. The cell was sealed on all four sides, and an oil lamp sat on the ground, but the lamp had long since burned out, its wick cold for a long time.
Since Jun Yanye’s cultivation was high enough, he could still see the situation inside the room. He saw little Shi Li holding an Eight Trigrams compass, murmuring under his breath.
“One-one, one-two, one-three, one-four…” Little Shi Li groped the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches carved on the compass with his fingers, muttering different numbers.
His voice sounded exhausted, as if he had not eaten food or drunk water for several days.
In a place like this, he certainly had not slept well either.
“What are you doing?” Jun Yanye asked him.
“There is a mechanism in this room. I have to find it to get out.” Little Shi Li lowered his head. “I cannot find it, no matter how I look, I cannot find it.”
Jun Yanye looked around the surroundings. He could indeed see that behind each wall sat numerous mechanism buttons, dense and intricately complex, making it completely impossible to judge the location of the correct mechanism.
The only object in this room was the Eight Trigrams compass. Little Shi Li had to use deduction to find the correct orientation and sequence of the mechanism in order to get out.
Let alone a teenager, even a five-thousand-year-old demon like Jun Yanye found this fraught with difficulties.
Shi Li picked up the compass to calculate once more, then stumbled to his feet, pressing his fingers against the wall to activate a mechanism.
Incorrect. There was no reaction whatsoever.
In this dark space, little Shi Li had watched the oil lamp burn out, failing time and time again, which had long since shattered his spirit.
Under the continuous torture of hunger, fatigue, and frustration, little Shi Li could bear it no longer.
“I am sorry… I am a waste.” Shi Li closed his eyes in humiliation. “Adoptive Father, I admit defeat, I cannot calculate it.”
No one responded.
“Shi Li?” Jun Yanye felt little Shi Li’s expression growing worse and worse.
Shi Li picked up the compass, but this time it was not for calculation; he smashed it hard toward his own head, though unfortunately, he had long since lost his strength.
Jun Yanye intervened just in time. “Shi Li! I have a way.”
Shi Li looked toward him with soulless eyes.
“Let me try,” Jun Yanye said.
He urged his demonic qi, intending to directly destroy this prison cell. The noise was loud, but it had no effect at all, and the walls remained completely undamaged.
Seeing this situation, Shi Li did not feel frustrated, but his eyes lit up instead. “It is wonderful that you have so much magic power. I beg you, kill me.”
Shi Li began to plead with him again. “Kill me, and I will be free.”
Jun Yanye felt as if a knife were piercing his heart.