Huai Wang stood right beside the bed, his straight figure silhouetted against the window behind him. Jian Zhu propped himself up halfway, their eyes meeting as they simultaneously withdrew their blades.
That figure that had suddenly broken in turned into a wisp of blue smoke and vanished without a trace, proving to be nothing more than a wisp of divine consciousness.
Huai Wang lowered his gaze to look at him. “You weren’t asleep?”
Jian Zhu rolled over and sat up. “I was sleepwalking.”
“…”
“Weren’t you not sleeping either?”
“I never sleep,” Huai Wang said.
Jian Zhu let out a pair of ambiguous, humming laughs. “Perhaps.”
After a couple of idle remarks, it was time to get back to business. Jian Zhu’s collar had been slit open by the sword wind, so he casually pulled on an outer robe and got up to close the window. With a flick of Huai Wang’s finger, a cluster of candle flames leaped up on the candlestick, illuminating the interior.
Jian Zhu probed the lingering traces of that wisp of divine consciousness with his spiritual sense, faintly locking onto a direction. “The Sea of Jiaoren.”
The candle flame flickered, casting light across half of Huai Wang’s profile. “The intruder carries the bloodline of the merman race.”
With a realm apart in cultivation, the amount of information they could glean naturally differed. But thinking about it, flashing a merman scale right out in the open within Jiaozhou City was bound to attract attention and covetous eyes.
Tonight’s uninvited guest had definitely come for the merman scale.
That scale was originally a souvenir Huai Wang had brought back for him after attending a certain banquet once, and he never expected it would come in handy years later today.
Jian Zhu sat down by the table. “I remember the merman race doesn’t have many left in their inventory, yet one could be lured out so casually today. Could this be your handiwork?”
There were plenty of points to pick at in those words, and for a moment Huai Wang didn’t know where to start his retort. He finally reeled the conversation back to the main topic. “The merman race is proud and aloof; they rarely leave their own waters.”
Jian Zhu suddenly smiled. “I wonder what kind of fish we’ve managed to hook this time…”
With the discussion drawing to a close and the night growing quiet save for the crackling of the candle, Jian Zhu asked Huai Wang, “What are your plans for later?”
“Cultivate.”
“…” Jian Zhu wore an expression that clearly said as expected. “Who knows what might happen in the second half of the night? We’d better stay together.”
“Very well.” Huai Wang agreed. Seeing Jian Zhu lounging lazily by the table as if he hadn’t fully woken up, he couldn’t help frowning. “How can cultivators be so lazy? Don’t go to sleep either; join me in cultivation for the rest of the night.”
Jian Zhu instantly felt a disaster fall from the skies. He tried to resist. “Immortal… Elder Brother doesn’t care about my personal affairs?”
“I am supervising your coursework.”
Resistance failed. Jian Zhu sighed and sat back down on the edge of the bed, even making space by clearing out half of it. He patted the bedding. “Come on, shoulder to shoulder, let’s fly straight up to the heavens.”
Huai Wang didn’t refuse. The two sat cross-legged side by side on the bed, entering meditation to cultivate.
With the night deep and quiet, in a foreign land within a small seaside town, two lone men shared a single room and even the exact same bed—and were actually sitting shoulder to shoulder, cultivating.
With his eyes closed, Jian Zhu thought this world was truly magical.
Right in the middle of his wandering thoughts, Huai Wang’s voice dropped beside his ear. “Don’t let your mind wander.”
Jian Zhu: “…” Fine, whatever.
As time ticked away, the room gradually was left with only two steady, subtle sounds of breathing.
After Jian Zhu sat meditating for well over an hour, drowsiness crept up on him. The sea breeze blew in wisps through the gaps in the window, and as he breathed in the salty sea air, his whole being began to feel rather salty and mellowed out.
Before long, his head tilted with a soft thud as he collapsed against Huai Wang’s shoulder and drifted off to sleep.
…
When a mighty cultivator enters deep cultivation, their consciousness sinks away and blocks off the five senses. Huai Wang had left a wisp of divine consciousness lingering outside just in case of emergencies, and unless his physical safety was threatened, he generally wouldn’t forcefully awaken himself.
By the next morning, when the daylight shone brightly and Huai Wang opened his eyes after cultivating all night, he felt a heavy weight resting on his shoulder.
He turned his head to look and saw Jian Zhu nestled right into the hollow of his shoulder, his hair brushing against the side of his neck, with a few strands even sliding down into his collar, bringing a faint, ticklish, cool sensation.
Jian Zhu wasn’t awake yet; with his eyes closed in sleep, his expression was peaceful and calm. His facial features were indeed possessed of a rare, spirited handsomeness, his lips parted slightly, soft and moist.
Huai Wang paused for a moment, then reached out to push him away. The moment the latter pulled back, he discovered that there seemed to be a damp patch on his shoulder. “…”
He took a deep breath and woke the person up. “Get up.”
Jian Zhu opened his eyes and still looked somewhat dazed upon meeting Huai Wang’s face, dreams and reality, past and present weaving together in his mind. Gathering his wits, he remembered that the two of them were in an inn in Jiaozhou.
Seeing him wake up, Huai Wang narrowed his brows. “How is that you cultivate?”
Jian Zhu paused for a fraction of a second. “In a dream, I had a fight with a merman.”
Huai Wang sneered. “You ate one, more like.”
Jian Zhu: ……
What the hell, how could this guy still read minds even with amnesia?
Huai Wang stood up, straightened his robes, and pushed open the carved window to let the indoor light brighten. Turning back, he finally noticed the slit across the collar of Jian Zhu’s outfit.
“Change into a different inner tunic.”
Jian Zhu almost forgot about that matter. Lowering his head to tug at his collar, he smiled. “Wasn’t that slit open by Elder Brother?”
The upward-curving ending note was like a little hook, lightly scraping across Huai Wang’s heart. He said, “Stop talking nonsense.”
“What nonsense did I say?”
Huai Wang couldn’t find an answer, so he turned and pushed the door open to walk out. “I’ll wait for you downstairs.”
The door slammed shut with a loud clack!
When Jian Zhu changed his clothes and headed downstairs, he found Huai Wang standing by the stair landing while an inn runner approached him with a menu. “Does the honored guest care to order something to eat?”
Huai Wang was evidently unaccustomed to strangers getting close and frowned in refusal. “No need.”
Jian Zhu hurried down the stairs, walked over, and pulled him to sit at an empty table, rattling off a string of several dishes to the runner. The runner beamed with joy, acknowledged the order, and immediately headed toward the back kitchen.
Huai Wang sat beside him. “Why are you so indulgent of your appetite?”
Jian Zhu replied, “I spent a very long time in the mortal world, so I picked up mortal habits along the way.”
Before long, several dishes were served on the table. Huai Wang didn’t eat, leaving them all arrayed in front of Jian Zhu. The latter ate with great enjoyment, and amid his satisfaction, he remembered Huai Wang and asked with magnanimous mercy, “Care to have a bite?”
Huai Wang’s expression remained unmoved. “Mortal food has not had its impurities filtered out; it’s of no benefit whatsoever to a cultivator.”
“Back in Jianshan, spiritual flora grew everywhere, and the food prepared from them was of great benefit to cultivation. After he left, I also left Jianshan and never ate spiritual plants again.” Jian Zhu smiled slightly. “Yet this habit of being a glutton could never be changed.”
Huai Wang felt a heavy ache in his chest. He didn’t know if it was because they had spent so much time together, but whereas he used to understand nothing of romance and affection, now, watching someone’s every frown and smile, he could actually feel a fraction of empathy.
He pressed his lips together. “Cangshan has them.”
Jian Zhu stopped midway through biting into his stuffed bun, taking a few seconds to react and comprehend what Huai Wang was talking about. His gaze drifted from Huai Wang’s brows down to his straight bridge of a nose, the root of which rose upright like the shadow of a jade mountain.
A moment later, he smiled. “Then we’ll eat them when we get back.”
After finishing breakfast, they stepped out of the inn.
Without needing to ask each other’s intentions, Jian Zhu and Huai Wang tacitly headed straight toward the Sea of Jiaoren.
Passing through the better part of Jiaozhou City, a vast and boundless expanse of the ocean opened up before their eyes. The winding coastline meandered into the distance, ocean waves crashing against the shallow shore, where a few large reefs nearby were washed smooth and gleaming by the surf.
There were quite a few fishermen on the shallow beach, and two or three small boats sailed out toward the open sea.
The sea breeze whipped their garments fluttering, and Jian Zhu brushed a lock of hair behind his ear, gazing out at the deep, distant Sea of Jiaoren. “Should we go down?”
Huai Wang nodded. “We already alerted the other party last night, so there’s no harm in taking the initiative to probe now.”
Exchanging a glance, the two avoided the fishermen, cast water-repellent spells, and dove into the sea with their auras concealed.
The cool seawater wrapped around their bodies, and their robes and hair floated outward. Huai Wang led the way in front, while Jian Zhu followed closely behind as they descended.
Huai Wang’s silver hair floated behind him, with a few strands brushing across Jian Zhu’s face, prompting him to reach out and push them aside. Before long, the hair strands brushed against him again, and Jian Zhu pushed them away once more.
After a few repetitions, his patience gradually ran out. Taking advantage of the moment Huai Wang wasn’t paying attention, he gathered the longest strands together and bunched them up.
Sensing something, Huai Wang turned his head back. “What are you doing?”
Jian Zhu withdrew his hand with an air of studied innocence. “Your hair tips are a bit split.”
“…Utter nonsense.”
All things within the three realms possess a soul, and living beings of various races also survive in the depths of the ocean. The legendary merman race lived in the deep sea, and the merman gauze they wove remained dry even when submerged in water—a mysterious, powerful, and beautiful race.
The two circled around through the depths without finding any traces of merman habitation, and seeing Huai Wang still lingering in this patch of waters, Jian Zhu surmised that the latter must have tracked something to this vicinity.
Searching without a clue was just a waste of time. After thinking it over, Jian Zhu called out to Huai Wang, “I’ll take the merman scale out again and see if we can bait someone into taking the hook.”
“No.” Huai Wang flatly refused.
“Why?”
“The ocean is their domain. If there really are mermen and we run into ones with formidable strength, we’ll be suppressed.”
“You’re at the Mahayana stage, and the gap across realms is as wide as heaven and earth,” Jian Zhu encouraged him. “Never mind being in the water, even if you were buried in the soil you’d still be number one in the world!”
Huai Wang: “…”
Huai Wang looked at him. “And what about you?”
Jian Zhu was startled for a moment, only then realizing that Huai Wang was worried he wouldn’t be able to escape. He originally wanted to say he would be fine, but changing his mind, he instead asked, “Isn’t there you?”
Water ripples permeated with shimmering halos reflected deep within his eyes, layer upon layer. Jian Zhu asked, “If I were to encounter danger, would you abandon me and leave me behind?”
Huai Wang’s gaze fell upon that spark of bright, glittering water-reflection in his eyes. “Naturally not.”
“There you have it.” As Jian Zhu spoke, he made to retrieve the merman scale from his cosmos pouch to go fishing. This time, Huai Wang didn’t stop him, apparently agreeing with his approach.
Before he could even take out the crystal-embedded merman scale, Jian Zhu’s arm was suddenly grabbed by Huai Wang.
Looking up, he saw Huai Wang’s brows knit together tightly, as if he had sensed some movement. In the next instant, a surge of great force came from his arm, and Huai Wang yanked him into hiding among a cluster of reefs not far away.
Deep within the crevices of the massive reefs lay a stone cave.
Pulled by the arm, Jian Zhu found his back pressed against the inner wall of the cave. He leaned against the inner side while Huai Wang stayed on the outside. The latter had likely focused all his attention outward, paying zero attention to their half-embraced posture.
Jian Zhu didn’t remind him either, instead turning his gaze toward the outside.
There seemed to be water ripples shifting in the outer expanse, and then a massive fish tail swept past right above their heads—human torso and fish tail, taking the shape of the legendary mermen.
That figure swam around the vicinity once more, failed to detect the presence of Jian Zhu and the other two, and quickly turned away.
After watching the figure vanish completely, Jian Zhu poked Huai Wang. “You’re crushing my free soul.”
Huai Wang turned around, only then discovering that the two of them were pressed very closely together face-to-face, with one of his hands still gripping the other’s arm, as if he was holding the person in his arms and pinning them against this narrow stone wall.
He quickly released his grip. “Let’s head to the surface.”
Huai Wang withdrew his body to step out, but just as they parted by less than half an arm’s length, Jian Zhu felt a sharp tug at his scalp. He let out a muffled hiss and grabbed Huai Wang. “Wait—don’t move.”
Huai Wang stopped and looked back, only to find that their hair had somehow become tangled together underwater. Furthermore, while his own hair was clearly smooth, the section that had gotten caught had been bunched up into several locks, tightly winding and twisting around Jian Zhu’s hair.
Both fell silent at the same time. “…”
Feeling somewhat guilty, Jian Zhu stepped forward a bit closer to close the distance, taking the initiative to pick up the tangled section of hair to unravel it piece by piece. His fair knuckles wove between the silver and ink-black strands, but his rounded fingernails failed to untangle the hair for ages, even accidentally giving Huai Wang a couple of painful tugs.
Huai Wang’s brows furrowed slightly. Seeing the tangled hair multiplying by the second, he promptly put a stop to this counterproductive endeavor.
“I’ll do it.”
Jian Zhu let go of his hands, and Huai Wang hooked the knotted hair between his fingers. With half of his distinct-jointed fingers wrapped in his own hair and the other half wrapped in Jian Zhu’s, at this moment as they immersed themselves face-to-face at the bottom of the sea, a subtle, delicate feeling welled up in their hearts.
Huai Wang spent ages trying to untangle it to no avail, and with Jian Zhu feeling his temples throb from the pulls, he advised, “Why don’t we just forget it? When it’s inextricably tied, a single slash cuts it in two halves.”
“…” Huai Wang compromised.
The cut-off hair, a mix of silver and ink, intertwined and drifted apart underwater, resting quietly in Jian Zhu’s palm. He held the lock of hair and shook it gently. “What should we do with this?”
Huai Wang replied, “Keep it.”
A cultivator’s physical body, hair, and skin all carry their own aura and imprint. Leaving them behind out in the open makes them very easy to track or utilize, let alone for a mighty powerhouse like Huai Wang, where every single strand of hair carried divine consciousness.
Jian Zhu asked, “Do you need me to pull my few strands out?”
Huai Wang raised his eyes. “Can you pull them out?”
“…It’s a matter of time.” Jian Zhu steadied his expression. “I shall spend my lifetime unraveling it.”
Huai Wang reached out and took that lock of hair straight from his hands.
The silver and ink-black strands were tightly intertwined, looking just like bound hair. With a flick of Huai Wang’s wide sleeve, he stowed the hair away inside his own robes.