BW Chapter 172

Wanxuan (1)

 

Half a month later, at Wanxuan Academy.

 

“……The Heaven-Piercing Blood Formation can refine souls and devour all things. Although they were protected by the Suzaku BKnife and the Chiyuan Sword, their souls were still severely injured. I don’t know when they’ll be able to wake up.” Shang Nuanwei let out a gentle sigh. “I really never expected that those two would go to such lengths for Ning Xiu. If they had come out just a few breaths later, or made even half a misstep, their souls could have been completely scattered.”

 

“After all, they’re both fathers.” Hao Zheng habitually reached to stroke his beard, but touched only empty air, and could only stroke his smooth chin instead, better than nothing.

 

Shang Nuanwei looked at his smooth chin a couple more times and couldn’t help but laugh. “Senior Brother, without your beard, you instantly look over a thousand years younger. In the past few days, several female cultivators have been asking me whether you have a dao companion now.”

 

Hao Zheng said rather angrily, “That old scoundrel Wang Bin couldn’t win in a fair fight, so he played dirty tricks and burned off my beard. Even killing him wouldn’t relieve my hatred.”

 

Shang Nuanwei propped her head up and laughed brilliantly, but suddenly her smile disappeared and she said with a bitter face, “Senior Brother, those three lunatics are here again.”

 

“Who are you calling lunatics?” A playful voice came from far to near, and in the blink of an eye, a white-haired cultivator appeared in the chair beside her, picked up some tea and took a sip. “Tsk tsk, Jun Jun is really too much. He sent all the good tea to your Wanxuan Academy and didn’t even leave a few jars for his dear senior brothers.”

 

A round-faced cultivator and another cultivator dressed in gaudy, flashy clothes entered the door together.

 

“I think Big Senior Brother is absolutely right. Jun Jun got married and didn’t even invite us to the ceremony.” Chu Yu adjusted his sleeves, making sure there wasn’t a single wrinkle before showing a satisfied smile, then looked at Hao Zheng and drawled. “Zheng Zheng——”

 

Shang Nuanwei tried to suppress her laughter until her shoulders kept shaking. Hao Zheng smiled painfully. “Second Senior Brother, what do you need?”

 

Chu Yu sat down beside Chu Yi and seriously began tasting tea with him, waving his hand. “We’re just rather curious about how two men managed to have children. The others were adopted, but the youngest little baby has both their family marks. We really can’t figure it out.”

 

Chu Qu had a very cheerful appearance, his small eyes smiling in crescents. He ignored his two senior brothers who were drinking tea and put his arm around Hao Zheng’s neck like old buddies: “Has Wanxuan Academy finally developed pregnancy pills after all these years? If so, give me a few to play with.”

 

“No, no, it’s not like that.” Hao Zheng repeatedly denied, trying to free himself from the restraint.

 

Chu Qu said regretfully, “Ah, excited for nothing.”

 

Hao Zheng looked completely numb and didn’t want to ask about his purpose for wanting pregnancy pills at all.

 

“The three senior brothers are busy with affairs. Have you decided when to depart?” Shang Nuanwei forced herself to ask.

 

“We’re not busy at all.” Chu Yi laughed heartily.

 

“Right, every day we just drink tea, play chess, take walks, and tend flowers. Very boring.” Chu Yu nodded in agreement.

 

Chu Qu clapped his hands. “Big Senior Brother, Second Senior Brother, don’t you think the outside world is actually quite interesting? Why don’t we stay and play at Wanxuan Academy for a few hundred years before going back?”

 

“Third Junior Brother makes sense.” Chu Yi picked up grapes from nearby and ate them one by one. “But we need to think of a proper excuse.”

 

Chu Yu, who was competing with him for grapes, suddenly had his eyes light up. “How about we say that after Little Junior Brother ruthlessly tried to kill us back then, he had a sudden change of heart and felt guilty about failing Master’s teachings, so he painstakingly endured countless hardships and finally managed to revive us?”

 

Chu Yi narrowed his eyes. “Not bad, but it lacks some storytelling.”

 

“Like this: Actually, Jun Jun revived us because he wanted three puppet substitutes. At first, we couldn’t resist because our souls were weak, but later we endured humiliation and finally defeated Jun Jun again, then regained control of our bodies.” Chu Qu walked around the room with his hands behind his back.

 

“Good, this is good.” Chu Yi nodded satisfactorily.

 

“Or we could add a bit more: Jun Jun’s little dao companion took pity on us three and helped us escape, then Jun Jun discovered it——”

 

“Senior Brothers, three Senior Brothers.” Hao Zheng heard them getting more and more ridiculous and finally couldn’t help but interrupt, deciding to hand these three great Buddhas over to Chu Jun to deal with. “Jun Jun—— ah no, Chu Jun should wake up today. Do you want to go visit him?”

 

“We won’t go. He turned us three into puppets, we don’t want to see him!” Chu Qu said indignantly.

 

Chu Yi and Chu Yu nodded in agreement.

 

“But we can go mock him.”

 

“Let’s go!”

 

Shang Nuanwei and Hao Zheng: “……………”

 

They had never seen such ridiculous senior brothers.

 

****

 

Every bone in his body felt as if it had been completely crushed, his internal organs had all shifted position, and even breathing carried a heavy bloody smell. Even just moving a finger felt agonizingly painful.

 

This made Ning Buwei somewhat irritated.

 

He only vaguely remembered fighting with many people, and the Suzaku Knife was gone too, but in the end it seemed like… he won?

 

He slowly opened his eyes and saw the azure sky above and the soft white clouds floating on it. Sunlight carrying warmth scattered on his face with a slight burning sensation, then slowly dissipated with the gentle breeze that brushed by. The green grass beneath him seemed even softer than the clouds in the sky, carrying the unique fluffy fragrance of sunlight.

 

Instinct told Ning Buwei that this was his own sea of consciousness, but in his not-yet-fully-returned memories, his sea of consciousness was clearly countless ruins wrapped and entangled by evil qi.

 

But he couldn’t remember what had happened for the moment, so he could only sit up somewhat bewildered, staring blankly at the endless green swaying gently in the sunlight and breeze.

 

If he couldn’t remember, then he wouldn’t think about it.

 

He yawned lazily, when footsteps suddenly came from behind him.

 

With someone else suddenly appearing in his own sea of consciousness, Ning Buwei instinctively moved to attack, but the spiritual power that left his hand instantly became gentle when it reached the other person, even circling around them rather happily and clinging to them intimately.

 

Ning Buwei looked up with an unfriendly gaze, then was stunned by the other person’s excessively handsome appearance, especially those beautiful eyes that seemed like calm pond water in the sunlight, making one want to lean closer… Hmm?

 

Ning Buwei looked down at his own hand that had very skillfully settled on the person’s waist and fell into silence.

 

Wasn’t this rather impolite?

 

The great demon hesitated for a moment, then was pulled into the other person’s embrace. A faint bitter fragrance lingered around them, and Ning Buwei’s originally tense and stiff body instantly became relaxed and comfortable, even feeling a bit joyful in his heart.

 

Warm, pleasant-smelling, good to hold, incredibly reassuring, making one unconsciously want to sink into it.

 

After struggling between letting go and holding tighter for half a breath, Ning Buwei decided to follow his instincts and held the person a bit tighter.

 

“This young friend——” Chu Jun spoke calmly.

 

“What did you call me?” Ning Buwei looked up at him displeasedly, but his claws didn’t loosen.

 

Chu Jun was silent for a moment, then opened his mouth somewhat uncertainly, “Chengfeng?”

 

Ning Buwei vaguely remembered his name and nodded with reluctant satisfaction, then saw those beautiful eyes looking at him with what seemed like hidden expectation.

 

“……” Ning Buwei was silent for a moment, then decisively let go.

 

Chu Jun’s face showed an injured expression. Seeing this, Ning Buwei couldn’t help but feel a bit soft-hearted and reached out to hold the person again, saying guiltily, “I… my soul is damaged, so I just temporarily can’t remember who you are. But I can see that we two are bound by a dao contract, so we should be a very loving and trusting pair of dao companions.”

 

Chu Jun said worriedly, “But what if we were forced into the dao contract?”

 

Ning Buwei: “?”

 

“For example, one party forced the other, or we used to be very loving but now we’re fighting to the death because of misunderstandings……” Chu Jun’s brow furrowed slightly, pausing before continuing, “What then?”

 

Ning Buwei felt that his damaged spiritual consciousness couldn’t handle such complex problems, but still couldn’t help thinking about the possibilities Chu Jun mentioned, saying quietly, “I would absolutely never force anyone to be my dao companion, unless——”

 

“Unless what?” Chu Jun asked.

 

“Unless they looked like you.” Ning Buwei suppressed his impulse to kiss him and slowly looked away. “I’m just joking, don’t take it seriously.”

 

“Don’t worry, even if we break the dao contract after recovering our memories, I won’t cling to you. We’re both grown men, we can’t have children everywhere, so there won’t be any attachments. A clean break would be easy.”

 

Chu Jun nodded in agreement.

 

So the two of them very casually began healing in the sea of consciousness, maintaining polite and courteous but occasionally somewhat boundary-crossing interactions.

 

Ning Buwei was sitting cross-legged in the sunlight to regulate his breathing when several blurry fragments suddenly flashed through his mind: in the pitch-black night, he pressed Chu Jun against a rock and kissed him roughly; Chu Jun leaning against a reclining chair unable to move while he domineeringly pressed down on him; Chu Jun being pressed against a bed post by him… pressed against a low table by him… having his clothes roughly torn off by him——

 

In short, very domineering and arrogant, with a sense of coercion, very much in the style of a demon lord.

 

Ning Buwei suddenly opened his eyes, breathing somewhat unsteadily as he gasped, then looked toward the person meditating not far away. The other wore white robes, cold and transcendent, clean as frost, snow, and clear springs, easily inspiring wicked thoughts.

 

He had indeed guessed correctly. He really was worse than a beast, having defiled and forced the person, and thinking himself deeply in love, had forcibly bound them with a dao contract.

 

Definitely a beast.

 

Although he hadn’t completely remembered everything, Ning Buwei felt this was very wrong, very bad.

 

After Chu Jun finished regulating his breathing, he slowly opened his eyes to see Ning Buwei crouched in front of him with guilt and heartache on his face, looking at him seriously and saying, “I’m sorry. I will never force you again.”

 

Chu Jun looked at him in complete confusion.

 

Ning Buwei wanted to put his hands on his shoulders, but restrained himself and pulled back just before touching him. “I remembered. Your name is Jun Jun, right?”

 

Chu Jun was suddenly choked and began coughing violently.

 

Ning Buwei quickly helped pat his back, his expression somewhat dejected. “So you find even me calling your name disgusting.”

 

Chu Jun stared at him with a wooden expression. Just as he was about to speak, distant noisy sounds suddenly came from outside the sea of consciousness.