Because Ruan Wei’s internal energy was completely shattered and his liver and gallbladder were pulverized, he needed to recuperate in the field of white ink-ball cotton flowers for a while.
However, after being forced back into his true form, Ruan Wei’s mental state had regressed to that of a child. He refused to leave the star core, which he found comfortable. Inside the core, he was surrounded by Shu Yang’s aura, and he could swim around freely. Leaving it meant facing a chaotic array of scents that Ruan Wei found deeply unpleasant. So, no matter how Qinglin tried to coax him, Ruan Wei kept his back turned, refusing to even look at him.
Ruan Wei held an inexplicable wariness toward Qinglin, a detail even Shu Yang noticed.
Shu Yang had to find an excuse to send Qinglin away, leaving him alone with the dragon. Only then did Ruan Wei turn around to face Shu Yang, pressing his face against the inner wall of the star core, watching Shu Yang intently.
Shu Yang found Ruan Wei truly fascinating, sometimes childishly amusing and other times stubbornly frustrating. He extended his finger into the core, and as expected, Ruan Wei’s claws gripped it immediately.
“Ruan Wei.” Shu Yang wiggled his finger, watching Ruan Wei sway up and down as he clung to it tightly. “Behave.”
He continued, “Come out and heal your wounds.”
Ruan Wei pretended not to hear, continuing to clutch Shu Yang’s finger and patting it with his tail, playing happily with Shu Yang’s fingertips.
Seeing Ruan Wei’s stubbornness, Shu Yang sighed helplessly. He rarely felt such helplessness toward anyone or anything, and Ruan Wei was the first to make him feel this way. Fortunately, Ruan Wei still possessed a shred of conscience. Seeing Shu Yang’s silent, resigned expression, he finally stopped playing and quietly flew out of the star core.
He pressed close to Shu Yang’s cheek, wrapped his claws around his face, and gave a gentle nudge with his dragon horns, as if offering comfort.
Shu Yang raised his eyes to look at him and, after a long silence, whispered, “Heal properly.”
Ruan Wei hesitated, staring at Shu Yang’s indifferent gaze for a moment. As if afraid that Shu Yang might truly be angry, he shrunk his head slightly, nodded, and obediently dove into the white ink-ball cotton flowers, disappearing from sight.
The white ink-ball cotton flowers possessed the power to nourish the internal organs. Ruan Wei needed to stay there for seven days to regrow his liver. Healing was not the difficult part; the process of regrowing internal organs was akin to torture, and the severity of the pain was proportional to the gravity of the injuries.
Shu Yang and Qinglin stood on the peak of the back mountain, watching Ruan Wei roll through the flower field since the previous night, his painful cries confirming that he was enduring agony.
“Is it truly that painful?” Shu Yang’s fingertips, hidden in his sleeves, tightened involuntarily, his brow furrowed. “Is there no pain-relieving medication?”
“Regrowing a liver is excruciating,” Qinglin replied. “But this process is less than one percent of the pain he endured when his horns were severed. He will make it through.”
“You know how his horns were severed?”
Shu Yang grabbed the crucial point of the conversation, turning to look at Qinglin with sharp intensity. “How do you know that?”
Qinglin’s heart skipped a beat. Realizing he had let something slip, he scrambled to recover. “I do not know. It is just something I heard.”
“You live in remote Penglai, hundreds of thousands of miles away from the Dragon Palace. You are unsociable, have few friends, and have no interest in gossip. How could you know such details?”
Shu Yang was not so easily diverted.
“I heard it when I left Penglai to practice medicine a hundred years ago,” Qinglin explained. “While I am unsociable, I am not completely cut off from the world. Furthermore, the Young Palace Master of the Dragon clan is not a commoner. His story is occasionally discussed by others.”
“Is that so?” Shu Yang remained unmoved. “So, how exactly were his horns severed?”
Qinglin dared not answer, regretting his loose tongue. When Shu Yang had severed his own emotional roots, he had signaled a complete departure from the mortal world, letting all past love and attachments drift away like mist. Why should he bring up the past and unnecessarily shake Shu Yang’s Dao heart?
But remaining silent would only pique Shu Yang’s curiosity further. Either way, he was in the wrong. After struggling for a while, Qinglin decided to deflect the question back to Shu Yang. “Shu Yang, you never used to care about others before.”
He added, “We have known each other for many years, yet I have never heard you inquire about anyone else’s affairs.”
Shu Yang seemed momentarily stunned, a blankness flashing across his face. After a long while, he bit his lip, turned his face away, and avoided Qinglin’s gaze. “Just curiosity, that is all.”
Seeing that Shu Yang did not press further, Qinglin breathed a sigh of relief. He dared not remain with Shu Yang any longer and took his leave, cautioning him before departing: if Ruan Wei were to faint from the pain, he must be awakened within half an hour, or he might never wake up again.
Qinglin’s warning proved wise. Two hours later, Ruan Wei’s body twisted uncontrollably. He smashed into the nearby mountain wall, shattering half of it, desperately attempting to knock himself unconscious to escape the suffering. This unique method of pain relief was remarkably similar to the cub’s, leaving one to wonder who had inherited it from whom.
Seeing that Ruan Wei was about to lose consciousness, Shu Yang rushed down on the wind, catching Ruan Wei in his arms. Ruan Wei seemed to have fainted completely, his body limp. Shu Yang descended, and they landed together in the sea of white ink-ball cotton flowers.
Only now did Shu Yang understand why Ruan Wei was in such agony. The flowers were not as harmless as they appeared; they were sharp and painful. Even without the process of regrowing organs, simply lying on them was akin to rolling on a bed of nails.
Shu Yang cleared a flat area on the ground for Ruan Wei to lie down. Ruan Wei remained unconscious; no matter how Shu Yang tapped his cheeks, he did not stir. He looked as if he were dead.
This will not do.
Shu Yang thought he still needed Ruan Wei to help him find the other stars. If Ruan Wei died here, who else could help him? The only option was to enter Ruan Wei’s sea of consciousness and force him awake.
Generally, cultivators did not allow others to forcibly enter their sea of consciousness, as it risked damaging their mind and potentially leaving them mentally disabled. Shu Yang felt Ruan Wei was already not far from being a fool. Between death and idiocy, Shu Yang hesitated before choosing the latter. If Ruan Wei resisted, Shu Yang would have to risk making him a fool to force his way in.
With this, Shu Yang formed a seal with his fingertips. His divine sense left his body and slowly entered Ruan Wei’s sea of consciousness. He had expected significant resistance given Ruan Wei’s hatred for him, but the process was surprisingly smooth, virtually unobstructed.
Shu Yang was filled with doubts but had no time to ponder; he hurried deeper into the sea of consciousness. It was a sea of calm water under a dark, brooding sky, though it held no substance; further in was merely an empty void. Shu Yang looked up to see transparent bubbles floating overhead, jostling against one another—these were surely Ruan Wei’s memories since birth. To wake him, he had to pull Ruan Wei’s consciousness out of this world.
Shu Yang reached up and swiped his fingertips; a transparent bubble drifted toward him, nuzzling against his finger obediently. To Shu Yang, Ruan Wei’s consciousness was an open house; whatever Shu Yang wished to know, Ruan Wei allowed him to see. He felt no guard against him.
This realization startled Shu Yang, and his divine sense entered Ruan Wei’s memories. The memory in this bubble was likely Ruan Wei’s most cherished, otherwise, his consciousness would not hide here, lingering in nostalgia. Yet, the cold and detached Shu Yang suddenly felt a strange interest in this memory.
What could be the most beautiful memory of that foolish, stubborn Ruan Wei?
With that, Shu Yang slowly opened his eyes.
What met his sight were guests coming and going, and the dazzling, festive light of red candles. The corridors were hung with red silk and red lanterns, and the courtyard was filled with gifts tied with red ribbons, clearly offerings for a wedding. Shu Yang looked around, finding guests drinking and laughing, some even staggering up to him to toast.
“Sect Leader, congratulations… congratulations!”
Congratulations on what?
Hearing the long-forgotten title of “Sect Leader,” Shu Yang was momentarily stunned. Ever since becoming an immortal, everyone called him “Immortal Lord,” and the title of Liuxian Sect Leader was rarely used.
The guest did not seem to notice Shu Yang’s confusion and continued to flatter him. “You have surpassed your master and become the strongest cultivator in the realm. With one more breakthrough, you will ascend…”
Shu Yang turned his face away in disgust. He remembered now; this man was the leader of the Qixiu Sect, which practiced the arts of entrapment and absorption. He had no prior dealings with them, so why did he see himself here in Ruan Wei’s dream, appearing to be on friendly terms with them?
Before Shu Yang could ponder this, a resonant female voice shouted from the doorway: “The bride has arrived!”
The guests fell silent, turning to watch a young girl lead a figure in a red wedding gown into the hall. Everyone stared at the bride, while Shu Yang, completely out of the loop, looked around, searching for the groom. Before he could find him, the young girl and the bride reached him, handing the other end of the red wedding ribbon to Shu Yang. “Please, Sect Leader, take the ribbon.”
Shu Yang: “?”
The groom is me.
He looked around, realizing everyone was watching him. Completely bewildered by the situation, he had no choice but to take the red ribbon and go through the wedding ceremony with the bride. Having no parents, Shu Yang bowed only to two memorial tablets.
After the ceremony, they were sent to the bridal chamber. Hearing someone outside trying to cause a scene, Shu Yang set up a barrier to block them out. Red candles flickered, casting shadows on the bride’s straight posture. Shu Yang realized that the bride seemed… rather tall. She did not have the delicate frame of a woman at all.
Is she a female cultivator?
Shu Yang picked up the jade ruyi from the table and walked toward the bride, taking a deep breath to steel himself. Since he had severed his emotional roots, he had forgotten all past love, having no memory of ever being married. Furthermore, he could not fathom why Ruan Wei would have this image in his memory—an image so clear, even the wedding chamber was visible. He concluded that Ruan Wei must have attended the wedding and perhaps peeked under the bed, which was why he remembered it so vividly.
Still, Shu Yang was curious: who was this bride? Was she someone Ruan Wei loved, whom Shu Yang had snatched away, leading to this long-standing grudge? This made the motive for Ruan Wei’s desire to kill him seem quite logical.
Curiosity piqued, Shu Yang tightened his grip on the jade ruyi. He cast aside his stray thoughts and moved to lift the veil to see the face beneath. However, a sudden gust of wind blew through the window, extinguishing the candlelight.
Total darkness swallowed the room. Shu Yang froze, taking a few seconds to regain his bearings. Just as he was about to chant a spell to reignite the candles, he felt a powerful force grab his wrist and pull him onto the bed. His waist sank as someone sat on him, nimbly undoing his belt.
Shu Yang was not about to let this happen. Enraged, he grabbed the person’s hand and flipped them onto the bed, pinning them down. He intended to seize the person’s throat to warn them, but the figure tilted their head, submissively letting Shu Yang take hold.
The moment his palm touched the delicate, smooth skin of the neck, Shu Yang’s tense nerves snapped. He felt as if struck by lightning, freezing on the bed in shock.
This bride… had an Adam’s apple!
He… he was actually a man!