His heartbeat.
After drinking the calming wine and eating a few pastries, Shi Li was finally willing to go to sleep.
“Just now, when I immobilized you, you could have used a light-transformation technique to break free instantly,” Jun Yanye said, wiping the corner of Shi Li’s mouth with a handkerchief.
“Teach me!” The eager learner Shi Li grabbed Jun Yanye’s arm, full of enthusiasm.
Jun Yanye taught him the hand incantation and the spell, and Shi Li said, “Let me try.”
Jun Yanye used the immobilization spell once more, saying, “Freeze.”
Before Shi Li had time to form the hand incantation, he was frozen in place with his mouth slightly open.
“Our gap in cultivation is too large, and your spells cannot bridge that gap,” Jun Yanye said as he released him.
“Understood. In front of you, whatever I learn gets suppressed, and my spiritual roots are also countered by you.”
Shi Li lay back down on the bed, suddenly thought of a good idea, and sat back up, saying, “Right, the Immortality-Fading Soup! The Immortality-Fading Soup can lower a person’s cultivation level, so suppress yours to the Nascent Soul stage and play with me!”
“The Immortality-Fading Soup is useless on me. I am a demon, and I am immune to all poisons.”
Shi Li rubbed his forehead.
“Sleep,” Jun Yanye said, extinguishing the candle flames.
Shi Li lay in the dark with his eyes wide open, thinking about the nightmare he had just experienced.
In the dream, Jun Yanye suffered a miserable death to protect him, his spiritual veins completely severed, his inner core shattered, and he died with eternal regret…
Shi Li tried desperately to save him, but he simply could not.
Shi Li steadied his mind, channeled his spiritual power, and cast a divination. A pale silver hexagram flashed across the air.
It was the Wandering Soul hexagram, Ze Feng Da Guo.
The moving line was at the top six, and the hexagram indicated a catastrophe of overwhelming disaster, the danger of crossing over.
Shi Li closed his eyes. This divination was truly perilous, and he immediately calculated a way to break the predicament, causing the hexagrams to rotate frequently in the air.
Jun Yanye perceived the fluctuation of spiritual power and asked Shi Li, “Can’t sleep?”
“It is nothing.”
“I heard that the descendants of the Changming Sect’s Shi family are well-versed in heavenly secrets and can deduce destiny without a single error,” Jun Yanye said, voicing the question he had always had. “However, everything in the world is ever-changing, so how can one achieve perfection without errors or omissions?”
“Well, the development of things always has variables. When I divine a hexagram, my prediction and the action I take based on knowing it add another variable. If I tell you the result of the divination and it influences your choices and actions, the variables increase once again.”
Shi Li looked at Jun Yanye and said, “The so-called lack of errors or omissions refers to the exact moment the divination result is produced, rather than the result remaining unchanged forever. The Shi family possesses a special bloodline. As for why they never make mistakes, perhaps no one knows yet, as it is an unshared secret.”
“I see.”
“However, the Shi family has always been short-lived and not prone to having children, so descendants are rare. When I was fourteen years old, my adoptive father hoped to arrange a marriage for me to continue the lineage, but he worried that marrying too early would affect my spiritual enlightenment, so the matter was put aside.”
Jun Yanye nodded and said, “So that is why you knew the ritual for binding a Dao companion contract.”
Shi Li burrowed into Jun Yanye’s arms, resting his head against his chest, and felt the heartbeat of Jun Yanye.
The blood of demons is cold, and their heartbeats are somewhat slower.
Jun Yanye’s heartbeat quickened uncontrollably. He thought Shi Li was going to tease him again, but unexpectedly, Shi Li said nothing at all.
The next day, Shi Li hid behind a completely deserted rockery and pulled a talisman flashing with golden light from his chest pocket.
This was the one he had looted from his senior apprentice brother that day, which had all along been kept by Jun Yanye. Shi Li had stolen it back from Jun Yanye’s clothes while they were practicing dual cultivation.
Shi Li formed the hand incantation, closed his eyes, and recited the spell, making the talisman flutter and vibrate between his fingers.
In an instant, Shi Li arrived outside the main hall gate of the Changming Sect.
Before coming, he had already changed into a set of white robes, wearing a snow-jade silver crown, which was precisely the attire Shi Chen usually wore. Changing his expression to be indifferent and cold as well, no one would be able to tell him apart at all.
“Young Master?” A female disciple was holding a box of books and manuals, bowing to Shi Li as she said, “Didn’t the Young Master go with the Sect Master to see the Saint of Law and Obedience today.”
There was a slight hesitation in the young girl’s tone, as she did not understand why the Young Master, who had just left in the morning, had returned alone.
Shi Li lazily looked back, glanced at her, and said, “I forgot something, so I came back to fetch it.”
“So that’s how it is!” The young girl had no doubts.
Shi Li walked in the direction of the Treasure Pavilion, and many disciples he met along the way respectfully bowed to him.
Actually, Shi Li was not very familiar with the environment of the main peak of the Changming Sect either. He had been trapped on the solitary peak year-round and rarely came out.
Although those Changming Sect disciples were his fellow apprentices, he had never studied or joked around with them together. He felt a curiosity toward them, just as they felt toward him.
As for this Young Master Shi Chen, ever since entering the Changming Sect, he had never grown close or socialized with anyone, keeping a great distance from the disciples.
As Shi Li walked along, he suddenly heard voices discussing and arguing behind a side hall.
“Do you think there’s some kind of curse on our Young Master position? Things were never good when Shi Li was here, and in the end, he got driven out. Now that Shi Chen has come, he lost his soul and just recently managed to get his primordial spirit back… No matter how you think about it, it’s very bizarre,” a disciple whispered secretly.
“It is said that the previous Sect Masters were all descendants of the Shi family, but Sect Master Yan is an exception. He is not a member of the Shi family, and his background is improper, which is why heaven has sent down punishment.”
“What are you talking about!” an indignant disciple retorted. “What improper background? Back then, it was Sect Master Yan who saved the Changming Sect from the jaws of fire and water! It is completely justified and proper for him to be the Sect Master. The one with the improper background was that impostor who occupied the magpie’s nest. He was the one who brought bad luck, and what does that have to do with the Sect Master.”
Fluttering in white robes, Shi Li walked out from the side of the side hall and stood firmly against the base of the wall.
“Y-Young Master!” The disciples who had just been talking nonsense immediately dropped to their knees on the ground, not even daring to raise their heads.
“What were you talking about just now? What bad luck?” Shi Li asked with an expression full of curiosity.
The legs of several disciples were trembling. One disciple buried his head even deeper and immediately slapped himself hard across the face twice, saying, “May the Young Master forgive us! Just now, this disciple was babbling nonsense.”
“Oh my, why are you hitting yourself so hard?” Shi Li blinked his eyes, helped him up, and saw that the disciple’s face was as white as paper with his lips trembling. The more the Young Master acted like this, the more terrified he became.
Another disciple crawled over and said, “Young Master, it was all because he broke the ban first. The Sect Master issued a ban forbidding anyone from mentioning Shi Li, but he insisted on talking about it.”
“Very good, well spoken,” Shi Li said with a light smile. “Full of courage! A ban is meant to be broken and rebuilt, and what is more, what you said is indeed reasonable. Shi Li occupied the magpie’s nest, Sect Master Yan has an improper background, and I, Shi Chen, am just a sickly weakling who looks utterly incapable of heavy responsibilities, hahaha”
The three disciples did not even dare to draw a loud breath, as they had already been scared out of their wits.
They could not understand why the Young Master was cursing himself so harshly.
“The more I think about it, the more I feel that your words are thought-provoking. I must reward you properly,” Shi Li said, his expression extremely serious.
“Y-Young Master, We truly know we were wrong.” one disciple wailed, tears and snot streaming down his face.
“Someone come! Someone come!” Shi Li shouted.
A few steward disciples immediately arrived and asked, “What are your orders, Young Master?”
“These three disciples show commendable courage. Immediately promote their ranks and assign all of them to my side to serve me,” Shi Li said.
The steward disciples looked at the three individuals collapsed on the ground, a dazed expression appearing on their faces, though they still replied verbally, “Yes.”
“From now on, the three of you must curse me one hundred times every day,” Shi Li sneered, saying, “Only in this way can I stay alert. If you curse too few times, or if the curses are not harsh enough, I will break your legs!”