In this short span of time, the building fell completely silent, and the majority of the townspeople had successfully evacuated.
Before stepping out of the tavern, Bei Si patted his clothes for any non-existent dust, making sure everything looked neat and proper. In case his little cat saw him looking messy, it would inevitably throw another fit of annoyance.
With this thought in mind, he caught the corners of his lips curling upward he was smiling again, and with increasing frequency ever since he got together with Chi Xinyan.
Stepping out the door, however, he didn’t find his little cat throwing itself into his arms as expected, a tiny trace of grievance welling up in his chest.
Even as he approached closely, Chi Xinyan didn’t react. His fingertips were white from exerting force as he stared fixedly at the jade pendant in deep contemplation, as if wrestling with some world-shattering puzzle.
“What’s wrong with this jade pendant? Is there a crack somewhere? Do you not like it…” Bei Si felt a rare flicker of panic—afraid that Chi Xinyan might dislike it. Ever since he could remember, he had resolved to gift this jade pendant to the most important person in his life, and that person was clearly the one right before him.
Chi Xinyan finally snapped out of the surging emotions crashing over him. Subconsciously checking Bei Si over, he noted that his hair was neat and his robes were pristine—evidently uninjured—which immediately set his mind at ease.
Otherwise, he would have made those ants pay a heavy price.
“Where did this jade pendant come from?” Chi Xinyan asked.
“It’s…” Bei Si’s words trailed off unfinished.
The group of yellow-robed disciples exited the building. Instead of leaving, they marched straight toward them.
The leader’s face was beaten to a pulp, looking bruised and swollen all over. As he stopped and cupped his fists in a salute, that comical visage paired with a formal gesture carried a distinct sense of absurdity.
He inquired, “This disciple of the He clan, He Run, expresses his utmost gratitude to Your Excellency for saving the common folk from peril just now. To express our heartfelt appreciation, would Your Excellency be willing to spare a moment and honor our clan with a short visit?”
His tone sounded utterly sincere.
The next second, he straightened his back, his eyes widening in utter disbelief. This person had actually rejected him point-blank?
“Saving people wasn’t for your benefit.” Dropping these words, Bei Si prepared to leave with his lover.
Right at that moment, the sound of clapping echoed out. A man stepped out from the shadows while the yellow-robed disciples nearby hastily bowed and cupped their fists in unison, shouting, “Greetings, Third Elder.”
“Such formidable courage from the young friend,” the Third Elder praised. “Judging by your appearance, you two are travelers from out of town. Why not do us the honor and let the He clan extend some local hospitality?”
Though his words sounded polite, his eyes signaled his disciples, who subtly fanned out to form a surrounding encirclement.
Given how massive this city was, they had managed to identify them as outsiders at a glance, and were brazenly attempting to corner and threaten them in broad daylight.
Chi Xinyan lightly scratched the palm of Bei Si’s hand with his fingertips to remind him.
Showing not a shred of displeasure at being threatened, Bei Si felt that tiny gesture from his lover and chuckled instead, his entire face softening.
Seeing him smile, the Third Elder assumed he was about to agree—only for the other party to deliver another flat, absolute rejection.
“No need to trouble yourselves. My partner and I will be leaving today.”
The Third Elder’s expression stalled. His hand, which had been stroking his beard, paused mid-motion before he switched to a smiling yet chilling demeanor. “This is refusing to give face, then…”
“You’re overthinking it.” Bei Si wore a blank expression, clearly refusing to play along.
The Third Elder’s beard twitched in fury, and he raised his hand, gesturing to forcefully “invite” Bei Si over as a guest.
“There’s a constant stream of people coming and going in this tavern. Doing this here probably isn’t wise,” Chi Xinyan remarked, sweeping his gaze across the passing pedestrians around them.
Once a conflict broke out, no one would come out looking good.
The Third Elder’s expression remained unchanged, his gaze shifting between the two men with shifting, unfathomable intent, before finally letting out a cold snort and leading his large group away in a swagger.
Chi Xinyan had defused a potential conflict with a single sentence.
“Xixi was so formidable just now.” Bei Si lowered his head, pressing closer to the person who was still poking and prodding at his hand, and murmured, “It tickles…”
Chi Xinyan stopped his movements on the spot. Seeing the undisguised amusement shining in the other’s eyes, he instantly forgot the question he had wanted to ask earlier, feeling a mixture of shyness and annoyance.
He grabbed the other’s hand, gave it a light bite with his teeth, and put on a fierce, menacing front as he declared with a faux-vicious snarl: “Curing your itch!”
Bei Si let out a muffled chuckle, pointing pathetically at the faint, barely visible indentation of teeth and mimicking an injured tone: “It hurts.”
Seeing this, Chi Xinyan pointed right back at his own teeth and retorted with biting sarcasm, “My teeth…” hurt.
Suddenly, his expression froze.
His words trailed off, his mouth remaining slightly agape, as the cool, thin lips of the other pressed directly against his. The scorching breath intertwined with his own, ruthlessly cutting off whatever else he was about to say.
The contact lasted only a split second.
“It doesn’t hurt anymore.”
The tips of Chi Xinyan’s ears turned a blushing pink. Clearly, they had done much more intimate things than this, yet he still found himself blushing shyly.
“You…”
Bei Si pointed at his own lips, mimicking the gesture Chi Xinyan had just made, and asked with an innocent air, “Isn’t this meant to be a kiss?”
Chi Xinyan blinked. Instead of backing down, he raised his chin, pecked the other right back on the lips, and proclaimed triumphantly, “This means you want a kiss, too.”
He turned away, refusing to look at the other as he walked on ahead.
An eye for an eye.
Bei Si finally understood. A muffled laugh escaped him.
If Bei Si’s martial brothers and sisters were here to witness this scene, they would undoubtedly drop their jaws in sheer stupefaction for no other reason than the fact that their senior brother’s smile was looking entirely too worthless.
Bei Si hurried after him, flagrantly catching hold of his hand and murmuring, “Xixi…”
Chi Xinyan slowed his pace, though his fingers didn’t struggle away. The warmth of Bei Si’s skin pressed against his felt like an addictive aphrodisiac, wrapping around him in a spell. How could someone exist who was so utterly, perfectly lovable in every single way?
As the tassel of the jade pendant swung against his back, he remembered what he had meant to ask earlier. Pausing slightly, he asked, “That jade pendant?”
“It has stayed with me ever since I could remember,” Bei Si answered truthfully.
Chi Xinyan couldn’t bluntly point out how extraordinary the pendant was, so he asked ambiguously instead, “Why do I feel like this jade pendant is terribly powerful?”
“That’s because…” Bei Si almost blurted out that it was his own, but quickly corrected himself: “The sword intent within this jade pendant belongs to the Chief of the Immortal Sect.”
His core sword intent was simply too recognizable. Given that his current disguised identity possessed ordinary cultivation levels, the evil entity hadn’t surfaced yet, and his own divine powers hadn’t fully recovered, it wasn’t the right time to use his original identity or reveal himself prematurely.
For a man who had never cared about his own reputation, this was the first time Bei Si had secretly sung praises for his true identity. The Chief is exceptionally powerful; we happened to run into him by chance, and he infused it for us.
The moment the words left his mouth, he felt a sudden surge of self-consciousness, feeling rather like an old peddler praising his own melons. But what did saving face matter compared to his lover? What if he revealed his true identity to Chi Xinyan in the future, only for the other to despise him, loathe him, and refuse to accept who he truly was?
He covertly observed the other’s expression. The previously relaxed expression seemed to turn frosty.
Chi Xinyan felt a wave of irritation, though he knew deep down his anger was completely unreasonable. Everyone in the righteous path held the Chief in high esteem; indeed, the only reason he and Bei Si could fall in love in the first place was largely thanks to the aftermath of that very battle.
This jade pendant was a personal item that Bei Si kept close to his heart—he cherished it dearly. Yet the sword intent residing inside it belonged to the very person he detested most in the world. Throwing it away was out of the question, yet keeping it was an eyesore.
With a cold face, Chi Xinyan shoved the jade pendant straight down into the collar of his inner robes, out of sight and out of mind.
Unable to hold it in any longer, he demanded, “Do you like him?”
“No,” Bei Si replied without a fraction of hesitation, before adding a private agenda to his words: “He has great strength, and he’s definitely good at protecting people.”
“Oh,” Chi Xinyan responded flatly, devoid of emotion.
Praising that Chief again. The strength of his true identity was formidable too, and protecting someone was a total breeze.
Seeing Chi Xinyan’s unhappy expression, Bei Si added, “However, my strength alone is more than enough to protect you.”
The corners of Chi Xinyan’s eyes finally curved into a smile, though he replied casually, “It’s getting late. Let’s head back to the inn.”
With the night growing dark, the two returned to the inn.
Mortals rest as the sun sets, and Chi Xinyan followed the habits of a mortal by resting every night. As a rogue cultivator, however, a cultivator could theoretically go without sleep for days on end.
Initially, Chi Xinyan had felt a mild regret that he shouldn’t have pretended to be a mortal, because closing his eyes meant shortening the time he could spend awake with Bei Si. Like a parasite clinging to bone, he greedily soaked up the warmth of his lover.
Surprisingly, though, Bei Si willingly matched his sleep schedule.
That night, after a simple wash-up, Chi Xinyan curled up beneath the covers.
Reclining beside him, Bei Si gently pulled him into his embrace. Feeling the chill radiating from Chi Xinyan’s body, he channeled a stream of internal energy to pass warmth across, saying, “Once we find the Aiyou grass, your whole body won’t feel so freezing anymore.”
Chi Xinyan turned over, burrowing deeper into the other’s embrace. He had been born with an exceptionally icy constitution and had grown accustomed to it long ago.
The first time their fingertips touched, the other had been startled by his chill, prompting him to instantly pull his hand away in a panic. Unexpectedly, the other had caught his hand instead, lowering his gaze to cup their intertwined hands earnestly, trying to rub warmth back into them. Chi Xinyan had been completely dumbfounded, feeling his heart hammer like a drum in that exact moment.
Leaning against that broad chest, their hands remained tightly intertwined, his hand thoroughly warmed through.
This trip was precisely for the purpose of seeking the Aiyou grass. This herb was rare in the world; it could resist all cold objects and was capable of cleansing one’s spiritual roots and reshaping flesh and blood drawing countless people like ducks to water.
Naturally, the harder it was to find, the greater the risks involved. Chi Xinyan had already made up his mind to secretly lend Bei Si a helping hand from the shadows.
“We’re a step too late. The Aiyou grass was auctioned off last night, but it was intercepted and stolen by a thief,” Bei Si said. “This herb is born from ice; even when stored inside a container, it will still emit an aura of deep chill.”
The Aiyou grass was so precious that its value could easily hollow out this prosperous city. No doubt the people in the black market right now were gnashing their teeth in hatred toward the thief, intensifying their manpower to hunt them down. Moreover, the aura emitted by the Aiyou grass made its location exceptionally easy to expose, meaning ten to one, the thief was still hiding somewhere within the city walls.
“Are you planning to go search for it?” Chi Xinyan asked, gazing up into the exceptionally bright eyes of the other shining through the dark night.
“Mn,” Bei Si replied softly. “I’ll go investigate thoroughly tomorrow. It’s getting late; if you don’t sleep soon, your body won’t feel well.”
“You are not allowed to act alone.” Chi Xinyan instructed, knowing full well that based on Bei Si’s temperament, he was entirely capable of doing precisely that.
Bei Si pressed a kiss to his forehead and promised, “Understood.”
Wrapped securely within Bei Si’s arms, Chi Xinyan drifted into his warm embrace—a warmth he had never experienced before, granting him an unusual sense of profound peace. Before he knew it, he drifted off to sleep amid a hazy, drowsy blur.
In the dead of night.
A subtle, rustling movement sounded from the bed. As his arm was lightly grasped and lifted away, Chi Xinyan snapped instantly awake.
Sensing the other pressing a few acupoints on his body, he didn’t need to guess to know this was meant to make someone fall soundlessly into a deep sleep for an hour plenty of time to open one’s eyes by daybreak.
The other slipped out of bed, tucked the blankets neatly around him, laid down a defensive barrier to protect this space, and slipped out of the room in absolute silence.
Chi Xinyan sat straight up. This little trick had zero effect on him.
Frowning slightly, he channeled his spiritual energy to break the barrier, only to find that this barrier was surprisingly sturdier than he expected; he couldn’t break through it immediately.
By the time the other had already walked several miles away, he finally managed to shatter it.
Strange. Given his strength, how could he possibly struggle with a barrier? It had to be because his battle against that hypocritical Chief of the Immortal Sect had left his strength severely depleted and unrecovered.
Glancing casually down, a shallow scar on the back of his hand caught his eye, and the burning, stinging memory of the sword gash rushed back vividly.
In that battle, neither of them had come out unscathed; their bodies were riddled with terrifying, bleeding chasms, the other’s natal sword array had shattered into pieces, and his own Dragon-Bone Whip had been reduced to slag.
His body had felt as though it were being peeled away layer by layer, the pain sinking straight into the bone marrow, his soul frantically tearing apart and reforming. The moment he tumbled into the Pond of Passionate Threads, for the very first time, this natural-born entity of absolute apathy and cold-bloodedness had tasted genuine terror and killing intent welling up inside him.
Chi Xinyan steadied his emotions. Ever since falling in love with Bei Si, he had resolved never to reappear in the world again; living out a peaceful, ordinary life with one person was more than enough.
Still, he thought to himself with casual indifference, if he ever ran into that bastard again, he would definitely skin him alive and grind his bones to ash.
Pushing open the window, he flashed out of the room, quietly trailing behind his lover.