After a good sleep, the cold was gone.
Shen Liuxiang lay on the spacious bed, lying on his side, his long eyelashes lightly opening. A handsome face unexpectedly entered his vision—eyes closed, nose high-bridged, lips quite attractive, thin and light, with a hint of moisture.
Shen Liuxiang looked for a while, wanting to reach out and touch the face, but unfortunately was intercepted halfway.
Zhou Xuanlan was resting with his eyes closed, aware that Shen Liuxiang was awake, deliberately watching to see what he would do. Unexpectedly, the other person tirelessly stared at him.
Even with his eyes closed, he could feel that gaze sweeping over his face inch by inch, sometimes intense, sometimes light, like a feather occasionally stirring, making his heart itch.
Zhou Xuanlan had never experienced such a feeling—just being looked at could generate so many sensations. He endured without interrupting, estimating how long the person beside him would look. Who knew the other would become more presumptuous?
Zhou Xuanlan narrowed his eyes slightly: “Not satisfied with just looking, you want to touch too?”
Shen Liuxiang: “You’re so handsome, I can’t help it.”
“No need for you to say that,” Zhou Xuanlan’s thin lips curved slightly, rarely not a cold or mocking smile, releasing him. “Since you’re awake, get down.”
“I can sleep some more,” Shen Liuxiang made a move to burrow into the blanket but was pressed down, while a slender, powerful hand rested on his waist, spiritual power gathering, about to throw him out.
Shen Liuxiang hurriedly used bot
h hands and feet, clinging to Zhou Xuanlan: “Don’t throw me out!”
His efforts made the hand at his waist pause, only for the force to become stronger. Shen Liuxiang frowned with worry, and as he pondered, his eyes suddenly brightened.
Just as Zhou Xuanlan was about to throw the person out along with the blanket, a soft, mellow crying sound of “Wuwah~” rang out in the room.
A small white-robed, gold-crowned figure descended from above, landing with a “plop” on the bedding, then stumblingly ran to Zhou Xuanlan, two small hands grabbing his collar, lying flat on his chest.
“Wuu~” “Don’t throw me out~”
Zhou Xuanlan was silent for a moment, the force in his hand dissipating as he picked up the palm-sized, soft white ball from his chest. He looked at the other’s tender little face, then at Shen Liuxiang beside him, who blinked at him.
“Is this how a Nascent Soul is used?”
“As long as it works,” Shen Liuxiang caught the Nascent Soul. “Where’s your Nascent Soul? You said before that you would nurture my primordial spirit.”
“Nonsense, this lord has never done such a thing.”
Zhou Xuanlan released a small black-robed figure, who opened his eyes and coldly smiled at Shen Liuxiang: “See clearly, this is this lord’s primordial spirit. The one who nurtured your primordial spirit wasn’t me.”
Having said that, Zhou Xuanlan wanted to take it back.
At this moment, however, the Nascent Soul didn’t move. Right under his eye, it took hold of Shen Liuxiang’s Nascent Soul’s hand, and the two small figures leaped off the bed, running away in a flash as if eloping.
Zhou Xuanlan: “…”
He had not realized that his primordial spirit had a problem.
Zhou Xuanlan’s entire body’s spiritual energy turned, and the just-disappeared Nascent Soul reappeared. He controlled the Nascent Soul, closed his eyes, then opened them again, showing an expression of shock.
This primordial spirit was his, but it had incomprehensible behaviors, once expending great effort to collect Shen Liuxiang’s scattered primordial spirit and then nurturing it daily.
Zhou Xuanlan was inwardly shocked. In his previous life, when Shen Liuxiang perished, he was completely unmoved. How could he have retrieved the person after death?
Zhou Xuanlan’s expression was unsettled. Before waking up in this world, everything had settled, and he was about to research the other half of the dragon eggshell. Could it be… he was missing a piece of memory, and the actions of his primordial spirit happened after finding the shell?
Zhou Xuanlan pondered, then got up and left.
Shen Liuxiang stayed alone in bed for a while, ate lunch when it was time, then went to the spiritual pavilion to cultivate.
During the sixteen years as a Nascent Soul staying in the soul-gathering platform, though he hadn’t cultivated, he hadn’t been idle, having researched many spells.
One of these was the Demon Refining Technique. After escaping from Qiongqi, Shen Liuxiang looked back and found that although the technique was profound, it was like a defective product, causing different degrees of harm to both the host and the demon beast locked in the mind prison.
He wanted to improve this Demon Refining Technique a bit. If successful, it might yield good results.
Before he knew it, the sky darkened. Shen Liuxiang stood up, and just as he stepped out the door, a black shadow flashed by, sweeping him up in a gust of wind.
“Evil Ghost Immortal Lord!”
Shen Liuxiang’s footsteps paused. Ao Yue withdrew his gray wings and circled around him: “Heard you caught a cold, puff, I haven’t heard that term in ages.”
Shen Liuxiang walked outside: “How’s the plan to revitalize the Heavenly Dog tribe progressing?”
Ao Yue: “Confidential. I’ll announce when there’s a major breakthrough.”
Shen Liuxiang smiled, about to go for dinner, and Ao Yue joined him. Seeing this, the palace servants added many more good wines and dishes.
Ao Yue lifted a long-missed chicken leg: “Since knowing you’re alive, chicken legs aren’t tiresome anymore, they’ve become delicious again.”
Shen Liuxiang’s eyes curved in a smile, then he said: “Are the communication talismans you gave me fake? There wasn’t a bit of response after I sent them.”
“How could that be? My communication talismans can reach everywhere,” Ao Yue took a bite of meat and a sip of wine. “Who did you send them to?”
Shen Liuxiang: “Qinglin, North Lun, and the Imperial Palace.”
Ao Yue choked violently on his wine: “Then I’m helpless. Those three places, how would they receive communication talismans from a powerful being of the demon realm?”
“No wonder they sank like stones,”
Shen Liuxiang watched him drinking with relish and poured himself a cup. His spiritual power was weak, unable to dissolve much of the alcohol’s effect, so he only planned to have a few small cups. “If that’s the case, I’ll let Zhou Xuanlan send a message.”
“There’s really no need,” Ao Yue said. “Your Senior Brother and Junior Brother both dislike him and might not even look at it. Choose someone else.”
Shen Liuxiang was surprised: “Senior Brother has always been like that, but why Xu Xingchen?”
On his way here, he had inquired about news that Xu Xingchen and Xu Xinglian were both well, residing safely on Shenqi Mountain.
Xu Xingchen had lived up to expectations. After Father Emperor left, not only had he not let the Imperial Palace decline, but it also had more deterrent power in the Three Realms than before… Although, part of the reason was that the Imperial Palace had begun to intervene in the Three Realms.
Ao Yue swirled his wine cup, sighing: “Now only you call him Xu Xingchen, only you dare to call him Xu Xingchen.”
Shen Liuxiang thought for a moment: “Emperor Xingchen?”
In the original story, after Xu Xingchen ascended to the Emperor’s position, the outside world called him thus.
Ao Yue nodded, covering his little heart: “If you ask who currently dislikes Zhou Xuanlan the most, it’s not Ling Ye anymore, it’s that brother of yours. It even affects the Imperial Palace’s attitude toward the demon realm. I reckon if the timing wasn’t wrong and they didn’t need to consider the big picture, he would have already fought Zhou Xuanlan to the death.”
Ao Yue saw Shen Liuxiang’s bewildered expression and filled his empty wine cup. “Don’t be surprised. In today’s Three Realms, who doesn’t know that the Demon Emperor and the Emperor don’t get along?”
Shen Liuxiang drank his wine: “Why?”
Ao Yue shrugged: “At that time, only Zhou Xuanlan, your corpse, and Qiongqi were present. Everyone thought it was Zhou Xuanlan who killed you and resolved the Qiongqi situation. Those people cheered for days and nights.”
“Impossible,” Shen Liuxiang said firmly. “Ordinary people might think so, but Xu Xingchen knows more and wouldn’t think that way.”
“You haven’t been around these years,” Ao Yue shook his head, looked carefully around, and said in a low voice, “Do you not know yet about the Imperial Princess’s disappearance?”
Shen Liuxiang’s face changed. What Ao Yue said was far from what he had heard. “Why would she disappear? Has she been found?”
Heng Jiuyin was already dead; who else would target Xu Xinglian?
Ao Yue’s voice lowered even further: “The Imperial Princess escaped from the palace herself, probably unable to bear the Emperor’s control. After that incident back then, the brother and sister might be almost like enemies now.”
Shen Liuxiang’s face showed an expression of horror as he stood up: “What happened? Tell me quickly!”
The news he had heard from outside was that the Imperial Palace was harmonious and flourishing. Could it be that everyone only dared to talk about it that way!
Ao Yue said: “Don’t rush, it happened long ago. Back then, the Imperial Princess fell in love with a man. When Emperor Xingchen found out, he nearly destroyed the man’s soul completely. The Imperial Princess threatened to kill herself, which is the only reason the man’s life was spared. However, afterward, she was taken back to the Imperial Palace by the Emperor and forbidden from leaving.”
Shen Liuxiang frowned deeply: “Did that man harbor evil intentions?”
“No evil intentions. He was just a pure and honest cultivator who didn’t even know your sister was the Imperial Princess. He unwittingly had a brush with death.”
Ao Yue tried to pull Shen Liuxiang back to his chair but couldn’t move him. He watched as Shen Liuxiang drained his wine in one gulp and set the cup down with a bang on the jade table. “I need to return to the Imperial Palace.”
Ao Yue: “The Emperor has gone searching for the Imperial Princess. Even if you return to the Imperial Palace, you won’t find anyone.”
Shen Liuxiang: “The people at the Imperial Palace will know his whereabouts.”
Such major news and he was only finding out now. He should have noticed earlier. The information coming from various sources actually had discrepancies, with only the Imperial Palace maintaining a unified narrative—most likely there was speech control.
“The teleportation arrays from the Demon Realm to the Imperial Palace have been mostly destroyed. Even if you want to go, there’s no way,” Ao Yue blocked him. “Why not find Zhou Xuanlan?”
Shen Liuxiang suddenly realized: “Right, he’ll have a way!”
Having said this, with swaying vision, he walked forward, but in the blink of an eye, he fell from the pavilion to the outside.
Ao Yue: “?!”
When Zhou Xuanlan arrived, Ao Yue was standing by the peach tree on the roadside, anxiously scratching his head.
Hearing footsteps, Ao Yue turned around, pretending to cough: “He drank too much, walked to this point and suddenly stopped, saying he wanted Your Majesty the Demon Emperor to come get him.”
Shen Liuxiang was lying on a wide branch. Hearing the commotion below, he poked his head out from among the leaves, his eyes slightly lowered, his appearance handsome and beautiful, his demeanor showing a touch of lazy drunkenness.
“You’re here.”
Zhou Xuanlan approached: “Come down.”
Just as the words fell, rustling sounds came from above. Shen Liuxiang, giggling, shook the branch, showering Zhou Xuanlan with peach blossoms.
Zhou Xuanlan looked up, frowning and about to rebuke him, when the young man’s smiling face entered his black eyes, more beautiful and moving than the large shower of falling peach blossoms.
“Too, too slow,”
Having tired of shaking the branch, the person in the tree stopped, looking with drunken, misty phoenix eyes, speaking indistinctly, “In the past, you always waited for me under the tree early.”
Saying this, he leaped down from the branch, his footing unsteady as he landed, and was caught by Zhou Xuanlan.
Shen Liuxiang’s fingers were slender and fair, grabbing Zhou Xuanlan’s sleeve, slightly raising his chin, breathing out alcohol-laden breath as he said: “I have something to tell you.”
Zhou Xuanlan’s gaze inadvertently fell on those rosy lips, paused slightly, then steadied the person leaning against him.
“What is it?”
“It’s…” Shen Liuxiang pondered for a while, frowning, “I forgot.”
Zhou Xuanlan: “…”
He had the palace servants brew a bowl of sobering soup. Seeing Shen Liuxiang’s robes dirty from falling, he took him to the bath pool, choosing a shallower pool for him to enter.
“No! Not possible!”
As soon as Shen Liuxiang entered the warm pool, his black hair disheveled, his head bobbing up and down on the water’s surface, he struggled, saying, “Help! Help! I can’t swim!”
The black-robed figure on the shore watched him struggling desperately, was silent for a moment, then pulled Shen Liuxiang out of the waist-deep pool, letting him grab the pool’s edge with one hand, then turned around and said: “Bathe quickly, this water won’t drown you.”
However, Shen Liuxiang shook his head vigorously, grabbing his hem in panic. “Can’t stand steady, about to fall in.”
Zhou Xuanlan looked back and saw the young man’s fair face beaded with water, his black hair wet and clinging to his body, leaning against the pool’s edge, standing very steady. He didn’t know where the conclusion about falling in came from, to be so anxious.
The person in the pool was making a fuss, refusing to bathe.
Zhou Xuanlan stared for a while, rubbed his brow, turned his back to the warm pool, and reached back with his slender hand, waving it: “Come here, hold onto this lord, and you won’t fall into the water.”
##
What a mess ><
Thank You for the new chapter ʚ♡⃛ɞ(ू•ᴗ•ू❁)