Shen Xiuyun took a white porcelain bottle from his universe pouch, pressed it into Zhu Xingyao’s hand, and coaxed gently:
“A-Yao, didn’t you say just now that you’d hurt yourself somewhere? Go back to your room and treat your injuries first. Don’t make your master worry, alright?”
“Alright, your disciple will listen to Master.”
Zhu Xingyao puckered his lips, looking like a wronged little wife, and reluctantly withdrew.
After the door closed, Yun Siqing set up a powerful barrier in the room, completely isolating the interior from the outside. Not a single trace of their conversation would leak out.
Shen Xiuyun’s mouth twitched.
Senior brother, was this really necessary?
Inside the room, silence spread soundlessly.
Yun Siqing knitted his brows and gazed at Shen Xiuyun for a long time, complex emotions flickering through his deep eyes.
It gave Shen Xiuyun the illusion of being summoned to the office by his class teacher for a “tea talk” back in his school days.
The sense of oppression was truly overwhelming, and his heart had already begun to tense up.
Finally, Yun Siqing broke the stiff atmosphere first. “Junior brother, I am waiting for your explanation.”
Shen Xiuyun recounted truthfully, “It was really nothing. When I was sparring with A-Yao just now, I didn’t quite control my strength well. He couldn’t match me and nearly got hurt by me. In my urgency, I reached out to grab him, a little accident happened, and then the scene you saw occurred.”
“That’s all?”
Was he certain it wasn’t Zhu Xingyao doing it deliberately?
Shen Xiuyun sighed. “What else? Senior brother, what exactly are you misunderstanding?”
This angry, interrogating tone… why was it identical to someone whose cabbage had been rooted up by a pig?
Pah, pah, pah… why was he using such a strange metaphor?
Yun Siqing suddenly said, “Junior brother, I feel that you’ve changed.”
Shen Xiuyun’s heart lurched, his facial expression stiffening slightly, and the words that came out became somewhat hesitant. “Have… have I?”
Fuck, was his cover about to be blown?
“Senior brother, what do you mean by that?”
Yun Siqing didn’t answer, but instead directly seized Shen Xiuyun’s wrist meridian, and then a stream of pure spiritual energy probed into his meridians.
Shen Xiuyun never expected that being suspected of being body-snatched could happen to him too.
Thinking back to how he had previously suspected Zhu Xingyao, now the tables had turned, and the person pinned by the wrist, unable to move, was himself.
But at any rate, he was a transmigrator with a System. There was no reason he’d be so inept that someone would discover him, right?
“Senior brother, do you suspect I’ve been body-snatched by someone?”
“I was just checking whether your spiritual energy had improved.” Yun Siqing withdrew his hand. “When I say you’ve changed, it’s because you treat Zhu Xingyao very differently… you’re practically a different person from your usual self.”
He didn’t actually suspect that Shen Xiuyun had been body-snatched, because Shen Xiuyun’s life plaque had shown no anomalies.
What he actually suspected was that Shen Xiuyun had fallen victim to Zhu Xingyao’s scheme without realizing it.
Otherwise, how could he explain why his junior brother was exceptionally special to Zhu Xingyao alone?
During this examination, he faintly detected traces of a demon charm technique lingering in his junior brother’s soul, but it was so faint that even his junior brother himself probably hadn’t noticed it.
But this also proved exactly that Zhu Xingyao was not as well-behaved as he appeared on ordinary days.
In addition, Yun Siqing discovered a special soul mark at the center of Shen Xiuyun’s chest.
That thing carried a tinge of demonic energy, yet seemed harmless to Shen Xiuyun’s body. It was entangled with Shen Xiuyun’s soul, almost as one with it.
He would have to go back and search through ancient texts to find out exactly what this was.
Only when he had solid evidence could he make his junior brother see the truth.
“Cough… Every Master would treat the disciple in their heart the same way I do. There’s nothing special about it.” Shen Xiuyun explained.
To prevent the topic from straying too far, Shen Xiuyun promptly brought up the real matter at hand.
Last time, leaving Zhu Xingyao hanging for too long had caused his turn villain value to increase. This time, he absolutely couldn’t knowingly make the same mistake.
“Senior brother, you came today… wasn’t it to discuss an important matter?”
“Indeed. The matter you mentioned to me a while back, about Zhu Xingyao still not participating in the demon realm trial this year… I overruled it.”
Shen Xiuyun was slightly stunned. “Why?”
His deliberate plan to avoid the plot had just fallen through just like that?
In the previous life… that is, the original text… Zhu Xingyao had encountered a demonic beast with a penchant for men in the demon realm.
That indecent demonic beast couldn’t beat Zhu Xingyao, so it used a charm poison and trapped him in a kind of illusion.
That illusion would manifest the person the trapped individual desired most in their entire life.
Without a doubt, for Zhu Xingyao, that person was Master.
That was the first time Zhu Xingyao realized how desperately he wanted his Master… so desperately that he committed an outrageous act against his Master in the secret realm.
And it was this very occasion that threw open the doors to a whole new world for him.
Afterward, what happened in that illusion even became the antidote Zhu Xingyao used to suppress his yearning each time, before he finally turned villain and put his plans into action.
Just thinking about it made one’s scalp tingle, alright?
Yun Siqing said with a mix of helplessness and irritation, “And you still ask me why? Are you planning to raise him into a good-for-nothing?”
Shen Xiuyun shot back, “How has he become a good-for-nothing?”
Wasn’t he doing perfectly fine? He couldn’t see any sign of ruin at all.
His senior brother shouldn’t always hold everyone to the standards of an overachiever. How exhausting. Wasn’t lying flat and doing nothing better?
Yun Siqing was on the verge of pointing at Shen Xiuyun’s head and scolding him:
“He’s been a disciple for five years and is still at late Foundation Establishment. Every day, his mind isn’t on practicing swordsmanship properly and improving his cultivation, but on how to serve you well.
The books I gave you before… did you not read a single one of them?”
Otherwise, if taught according to the steps, how could things have ended up like this?