BW Extra 9

Ning Xingyuan × Yan Lanpei

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Ning Xingyuan had secrets he was unwilling to share with him.

One morning, the awakening Green Vine looked at his and Ning Xingyuan’s severed sea of consciousness and was shocked to his core.

Their seas of consciousness had been connected since birth. Green Vine had never imagined that there would come a day when he could no longer sense Ning Xingyuan’s emotions and all the big and small matters in his life.

Had he found some other companion creature, perhaps… a vine more beautiful and robust than himself?

Or was it because of that new sword grandfather had given to Ning Xingyuan?

Or perhaps Ning Xingyuan found him too noisy?

……

The shocked Green Vine pondered for a long while and finally reached a conclusion—Ning Xingyuan no longer wanted him.

How could he do this!?

The furious Green Vine jumped onto the bed and yanked away Ning Xingyuan’s blanket in one motion, slapping the still-slumbering Young Master Xingyuan twice across the face with a “slap slap,” angrily shouting, “Ning Xingyuan!”

Ning Xingyuan, suddenly awakened by the slaps, sat up somewhat dazedly, staring blankly at the vine burning with fierce anger before him, his voice still carrying the drowsiness of sudden awakening,

“……Mm?”

Green Vine’s angry voice carried grievance and shock, “How could you do this!? Why are you treating me like this!”

Young Master Xingyuan, sporting cheeks slightly reddened from being slapped by the vine leaves, still didn’t understand, “What are you talking about?”

“You’ve separated our sea of consciousness! You don’t want me anymore!” Green Vine was both anxious and angry. Unlike humans who could cry, he could only shed delicate little leaves, and soon Ning Xingyuan was buried in soft leaves.

Ning Xingyuan, finally fully awake, examined his sea of consciousness and, holding the angry and aggrieved Green Vine, reached a conclusion, “The consciousness separation is because you’re about to grow roots.”

Green Vine, who had been angrily stepping on his face with leaves, froze, “Grow roots?”

“Mm.” Ning Xingyuan nodded with a smile, pinching his barely-hanging little leaves, “I looked through ancient texts before but couldn’t find anyone whose companion spirit was a vine. However, many companion spirits disconnect from their masters’ consciousness when they reach adulthood, since they are two independent entities after all……”

Green Vine said dazedly, “I’ve come of age? But I’m only sixteen years old.”

“Perhaps vines are different from humans,” Ning Xingyuan explained.

“I don’t want to!” The vine petulantly wrapped around his neck and perched on his head, saying, “I don’t want to grow roots, I want things to be like before!”

The vine wrapped rather tightly, and Ning Xingyuan’s pale neck turned slightly red. He had no choice but to reach up and pull the vine down, coaxing, “But once you grow roots, you can cultivate and quickly take human form. Haven’t you always wanted to transform?”

The vine wrapped around his wrist somewhat conflictedly, “But, I want our consciousness to be connected. I don’t want to be separated from you.”

“We’re not separating, we just need to work hard individually.” Ning Xingyuan patiently and gently comforted him, “We’ll still be together.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

****

However, facts proved that even Young Master Xingyuan could deceive people—no, deceive vines.

Green Vine’s main body was planted at the peak of Chenyue Mountain. Ning Xingyuan watered him well, set up sturdy defensive arrays, instructed him on many things to pay attention to, and sat beside him to keep him company while moonbathing.

“Ning Xingyuan! I’m cultivating! I can feel it!” Green Vine excitedly shook his leaves, wanting to climb on him like before, but his root system was buried in soil and his leaves couldn’t even reach Ning Xingyuan’s sleeves. Just as he was about to struggle, the soil beside him was pressed down by a hand.

“Little Green, you can’t. You’ll die if you leave the soil now,” Ning Xingyuan said.

The originally upright Green Vine instantly drooped dejectedly. Who knew this drooping would land him right on Ning Xingyuan’s shoulder. Green Vine poked Ning Xingyuan’s ear with a leaf, “Ning Xingyuan, scoot over this way.”

Ning Xingyuan good-naturedly moved closer to him.

“A little more this way, come closer… no, a bit farther, too far!”

After much fussing, Ning Xingyuan finally sat in a position that satisfied the vine. The slender Green Vine drooped down contentedly and wrapped around his neck, sighing comfortably as he felt the familiar body warmth and leisurely enjoyed the moonlight.

The young man whose neck he had wrapped around sat quietly there, his gentle profile bathed in a layer of pale moonlight.

“Ning Xingyuan, like this I should be able to strangle you quite easily.”

“Don’t say such eerie things late at night.”

“But we share one life—if you die, I die too. But the question is, do you die first or do we die together?”

“……Focus on cultivating, stop thinking nonsense.”

“Ning Xingyuan, do you think our consciousness can be connected again? Is there some other way?”

“There should be.”

Ning Xingyuan kept him company all night, but had to return to the Ning residence the next morning.

Green Vine was both aggrieved and furious, not wanting to let him go, “You lied! Ning Xingyuan, you’re a dog! You said we would still be together, but now you’re abandoning me!”

Ning Xingyuan knelt on one knee, pressing down his struggling roots, not caring that he got slapped in the face with mud and leaves, “I’ll come keep you company as soon as I finish my business! Your roots are about to break! Stop moving!”

“I won’t! I won’t! I want to follow you!”

“No! Don’t move! You need to transform properly!”

Humans and vines couldn’t always coexist peacefully. They had quarreled a few times since childhood, but this was the first time they fought so fiercely.

That night, Green Vine huffily moonbathed while talking to himself. “I’m going to transform immediately, become taller and more capable than Ning Xingyuan, beat him up thoroughly, so he’ll never dare leave me again! So infuriating! Ning Xingyuan is a stinking dog who doesn’t keep his word!”

Someone poked his leaves.

Green Vine impatiently brushed it away, “Don’t bother me, I’m going to wrap up Ning Xingyuan—”

Green Vine suddenly turned his “head” and saw Ning Xingyuan, who had quarreled with him that morning, crouching behind him, even bringing his favorite little pillow.

“Little Green, stop being angry, okay?” Ning Xingyuan patted the little pillow.

Of course Green Vine was still angry, but his favorite little pillow was simply too tempting, or perhaps after not seeing him for a day, he really couldn’t hold out—since birth, this was the first time he and Ning Xingyuan had been separated for so long.

“Fine.” Green Vine seriously considered, rolled over his little pillow and placed it to one side, then dragged Ning Xingyuan over and nestled on his shoulder.

Compared to the little pillow, he still preferred the person who brought him the little pillow.

At first, Green Vine thought being separated for an entire day was long enough, but later, Ning Xingyuan had to return to Wanxuan Academy to continue his studies, had to travel everywhere for social obligations, and their separation times grew longer and longer, yet there was nothing they could do.

Ning Xingyuan had to participate in Wanxuan Academy’s disciple competition, gone for three months; Ning Xingyuan had to travel the mortal realm with friends like Chu Linyuan, gone for half a year; Ning Xingyuan had to help grandfather manage family affairs, had to establish the Chongzheng Alliance, had to go……

Ning Xingyuan always had many, many things to do.

“I want to study the Path of All Living Beings,” one night, Ning Xingyuan lay on his now very lush and intricately rooted vines, seriously telling him, “I want to save the Seventeen States, save everyone.”

Green Vine had been desperately cultivating these past few years. He knew Ning Xingyuan had many things he hadn’t shared with him, but he also had his own little secrets he was unwilling to share with Ning Xingyuan, so he was magnanimous and didn’t throw a tantrum.

Without realizing it, both human and vine had quietly grown up.

Yet they remained the closest companions.

“Good.” Green Vine shook his leaves and gathered Ning Xingyuan into his foliage, “I’ll accompany you.”

Later, he finally succeeded in his cultivation. His lush, massive main body remained on Chenyue Mountain, while he could once again manifest as a vine and return to Ning Xingyuan’s side.

Having not been together daily for many years, both human and vine were somewhat unaccustomed.

Especially after accidentally experiencing certain embarrassing scenes one morning, Ning Xingyuan refused to sleep with him no matter what.

But a vine’s thinking was very different from humans. After spending some time figuring out the reason, he learned from Ning Xingyuan’s previous coaxing tone and said earnestly, “Ah Yuan, don’t be angry, you’ve just grown up.”

“I grew up long ago!” The now thirty-something Young Master Xingyuan flew into a rage and tied the vine in a knot, hanging him from the roof beam.

Green Vine was baffled and extremely aggrieved, but as a mature aristocratic vine, he had learned to solve problems himself. He crawled to the Ning family’s library and soaked there for two days, not only learning why Ning Xingyuan was angry but gaining additional insights.

“Dao contract! With a dao contract, our consciousness can be connected!” Green Vine wrapped around Ning Xingyuan’s neck, then excitedly burrowed into his robes, poking his head out from the sleeves, “Ning Xingyuan, we can form a dao contract!”

Ning Xingyuan’s face turned red from the excited vine’s grip, “Nonsense!”

“The book says when two people are of one mind—we’ve been of one mind since childhood, willing to live and die together—we were already bound in life and death, trusting each other without reservation—that’s definitely true,” Green Vine said proudly, “then they can form a dao contract, connect their consciousness, and sense everything about each other at all times!”

Ning Xingyuan’s gaze was somewhat inscrutable, “Dao contracts can only be formed between dao companions.”

“Dao companions?” Green Vine thought about it, “Fine, then let’s become dao companions. How convenient.”

Clearly, this vine hadn’t yet understood, thinking that becoming dao companions would let them be as intimate as they were in childhood.

But things were different now.

“Wait until you understand,” Ning Xingyuan grasped the vine trying to burrow into his robes, his expression more serious and solemn than ever before, “If you still insist then, we’ll form the dao contract.”

At that time, Young Master Xingyuan thought he still had plenty of time to wait for his companion vine to understand, or to slowly teach him to understand.

However, time passed swiftly. He and Sang Yun worked together to calculate his death tribulation, and through the family’s Suan creature, went to five hundred years in the future and learned of his fate.

He didn’t want to accept destiny, yet he knew very clearly what he needed to do to not accept it.

He could certainly use methods to keep himself alive, but he wanted more to save the countless lives of the Seventeen States.

“Ning Xingyuan!” Green Vine poked out from his sleeve, angrily shouting, “Chengfeng pulled my leaves again!”

The young man sitting across unceremoniously pinched him and pulled him out. Ning Xingyuan calmly rescued the vine, “Why bother with him? He’s just hungry.”

“I’m not just hungry! I just want to taste the Nine-Leaf Lotus!” Green Vine protested.

Only Ning Xingyuan could understand what he was saying. The young man across knew nothing and snorted coldly. “He only covets my things. He’s jealous.”

He maliciously plucked one of his leaves and snatched back his Nine-Leaf Lotus.

Green Vine was furious and climbed up Ning Xingyuan’s arm to his shoulder, biting hard on his shoulder blade, “Ning Xingyuan, avenge me! Or I’ll bite you to death!”

“Your Green Vine should be transforming soon, right?”

“After the New Year, he can transform in early spring next year.” Ning Xingyuan’s voice carried a hint of laughter.

So the vine became happy again, extending small tendrils to obediently wrap around his slender fingers.

That little brat Ning Chengfeng took the opportunity to badmouth him again, openly and covertly saying he was corrupting Ning Xingyuan’s purity.

Bah, what did that little brat understand.

Green Vine secretly wrapped around Ning Xingyuan’s neck hidden under his collar, affectionately nuzzling him.

They were going to become dao companions. Once he transformed in spring, he would immediately form a dao contract with Ning Xingyuan.

He would be the first to see him.

Then tell the not-so-bright Young Master Xingyuan: I’ve long known what a dao contract means!

I know you like me.

Because I like you too.

“Ning Xingyuan, spring is coming soon!”

“Mm.”

“I wish time would pass faster, turning to the spring equinox in the blink of an eye!”

The other remained silent for a long time, gently stroking his leaves, his voice carrying indescribable regret and sadness:

“Let it… pass more slowly instead.”

Outside the corridor, fine snow was falling. The pale green leaves of the Nine-Leaf Lotus were bent down by the accumulated snow, and snow chunks slid off the leaves and hit the dark brown earth with dull thuds.

In the distance, Chenyue Mountain became a faint pale green silhouette in the misty vapors under the snow.