Chapter 5

Translated by boilpoil Edited by boilpoil

Completely abandoning the thought of receiving help from the system, Bai Lianhua can only face the challenge by himself.

The most important point is not to succumb and feel guilt-ridden when he isn’t yet sure how much truth Wen Fu knows about. At least, guilt and cowardice must not be showing on the surface.

Bai Lianhua has mentally adjusted, and looks at Wen Fu with a confused expression, asking about his unfinished question, “unfortunately what? Since we’ve met each other again, you’ve always been saying stuff I don’t understand.”

He creases his brows lightly, and then steps back away from Wen Fu, confusion and helplessness on his face, “I’m not used to the way you’re speaking right now. It feels uncomfortable… Do you hate lotuses? Then if you have a pond, don’t plant any in it in the future?”

Wen Fu retracts his hand naturally, and looks down at his own palm as he says in an indifferent tone, “no, you’ve got it wrong. I like lotuses.” Especially a certain white lotus.

Bai Lianhua who’s doing his best embarrassing actor impression feels as if his heart skipped a bit. He peeks at Wen Fu, but still cannot make out the actual meaning in his words. He can only pray that it is really him who is thinking too much.

“You’ve become a, uh, demonic cultivator now?”

“Hm? Is this not good? Or are you afraid?” Wen Fu looks here with a complicated gaze.

“No. It’s just lamentable.” Bai Lianhua does not conceal his disappointment in his expression, “you’re really strong now, but I feel like…”

“You feel like, I should have been a good person on the path of righteousness?” Wen Fu completes the sentence for Bai Lianhua, who can only nod robotically.

“I’ve let you down.”

Bai Lianhua doesn’t know how to follow up on that, and bites his lips lightly, “then your grudges…”

“I can’t exactly tell people how I’m an age complementation body. I’ve already made excuses and took my revenge.” Wen Fu is already recovered from his emotional lapse before, and gestures for Bai Lianhua to sit down, pouring him a cup of cultivable qi tea almost with a grin, “I knew you’re soft at heart, and I don’t want to dirty your ears either. You only need to know that I haven’t laid my hands on those innocent people… Isn’t that what you’ve always tried to persuade me, mm?”

Wen Fu put his emphasis on the words “soft at heart” specifically.

After Bai Lianhua passed away, that was when he had again realised how profound the person has affected him. Even if he hated Bai Lianhua, and he has long since fallen into demonic cultivation, unrestrained by notions like morality, but when he wanted to just slaughter all of the Liu family and the people of the sect to vent out his anger, Bai Lianhua’s past words would haunt his ears, mess with his psyche, so he had to give up in the end.

How laughable. Even Bai Lianhua can’t act out the good he says, and came for an ulterior motive. Even if he knew this deception, but he still single-sidedly restrained himself for his fake words on the surface.

Bai Lianhua doesn’t know what Wen Fu is thinking about, but instinctively feels restless, so he could only smile gently and praises, “then that is good.” Then he lowers his head, and takes a sip of the tea brewed by a great Dacheng cultivator, and then is stunned.

Bai Lianhua thought with Wen Fu’s cultivation rank, the cultivable qi tea on him must be top-of-the-line in the cultivation realm. While it did taste good, but no matter how he thought about it, it still felt like the type of tea leaves he had planted next to his residence.

While it is a good tea that is full of cultivable qi, it cannot be said to be a high-class or luxurious tea.

Bai Lianhua is suddenly alerted. He looks about as if to escape his current thoughts, but he only finds familiar details everywhere, and hesitantly asks, “the decoration in your residence, seems to be…” very similar to how it appeared in his previous residence in the Forest of Mists.

You can’t blame him for not reacting in time. This is the first world he has experienced, and his memories have become fuzzy. He can recall his past experiences with Wen Fu with effort, but he can’t help forgetting all the other minor details.

“I thought you would have noticed right at the start.” Wen Fu looks calm.

“I’m sorry. It’s my lack of attention.” Bai Lianhua has an ashamed expression.

“I’ve always been nostalgic for those days we spent in the Forest of Mists. I thought you would have been so too, but it seems, I was alone in that sentiment.”

Bai Lianhua’s eyes widen, his voice quiet and weak, “it’s not like that…”

Separated by the years, Wen Fu is now way too proficient at this business. Bai Lianhua feels he can’t beat him in conversation at all.

Who’s the real white lotus here? This whole ‘showing the other person your weakness to make them feel guilty’ card he’s dealt so skillfully, isn’t he way too good at this?

Wen Fu does not wait until Bai Lianhua is finished, before stopping the conversation short with more indifference, “it’s fine, it doesn’t matter really… There’s no meaning pressing this further.”

Bai Lianhua is speechless “…”

You’ve said everything and then tell me it’s meaningless to press this further?

This ‘using a retreat as an advancement’ method… Even if he were a professional white lotus whose good at heart has already been stolen by the system, now that Wen Fu said it this way, even he felt extremely culpable to our antagonist.

Bai Lianhua is tempted to ask what Wen Fu experienced over the years. What made the antagonist he has spent so much time and effort saving walk on the wrong path again? But he’s worried if he asks again, Wen Fu will then question him what happened to him and how he appeared again.

He died right in front of Wen Fu back then. His cultivation amount is not enough for him to take over someone else’s body either. Even in the unscientific cultivation realm, if one’s imagination is not wild enough it is still hard to explain.

It’s already hard to stabilise Wen Fu and maintain a peace on the surface. He’d better not push it.

The room falls silent like so.

This silence makes Bai Lianhua restless, especially when Wen Fu keeps looking at him as if in thought. It’s making him super embarrassed, so he can only ask him something else, “you said you wanted to enter the Forest of Mists. If there is an alchemical stove and ingredients lying around here, I can help you produce a pill.”

——There’d better not be so that Wen Fu had to go out and collect.

Wen Fu does not respond in the manner he’d expect, however.

“There’s no alchemical stove, nor alchemical cultivational ingredients. You know, I hate alchemical cultivators.”

Bai Lianhua, a true alchemical cultivator, “…” This is a bit piercing. Those were the days when Wen Fu adapted well to his alchemical cultivator identity. What did he think now?

Though it is true that Wen Fu’s residence is arranged very similarly to his residence in the Forest of Mists, there’s just that one alchemical stove very striking to the eye when entering that’s missing. Or he would have noticed the similarity way earlier.

“I don’t want to enter the Forest of Mists now.” After a pause, Wen Fu continued, “just stay here now.”

He understands that if Wen Fu does not let him go, with his own power he can never make it out of here. After probing him carefully a few times, Bai Lianhua obediently stops trying to escape.

Whether it’s for his life or if it has become a habit of his, Bai Lianhua mentally adjusted a few times but still decides to treat Wen Fu like before, as naturally as he could.

After spending a few days with Wen Fu and adapting to his life in the cultivation realm again, and having recalled all the knowledge and skills in his mind, Bai Lianhua discovers the problem on Wen Fu.

——While he might have only been an insignificant Zhuji cultivator until he died, with the rich background the system arranged for him, he’s able to discern a lot more information than the average cultivator.

“Wen Fu, you have some internal wounds on you? Why aren’t you healing them?”

At Wen Fu’s cultivation rank, Bai Lianhua does not believe that he wouldn’t notice.

“Since it’s not important. I’ll not die for a while.” Wen Fu looks at Bai Lianhua, and suddenly approaches him, “don’t worry. This won’t affect what you want.”

Bai Lianhua has tried to restrain himself, but he can’t help in the end and asked, “what is it that I want?”

Wen Fu’s expression darkens and he goes quiet, as if he has triggered something he shouldn’t have. Wen Fu closes his eyes, and leaves the room expressionlessly, returning to normal when he comes back, and gestures for Bai Lianhua to sit up straight. He’s going to smoothen Bai Lianhua’s cultivational power.

——Wen Fu has been doing so these few days, like a most patient master, to completely redo the basic cleansing for him.

No, in fact, even the best master will not be like him. Because Wen Fu did not just use any cultivational power to help him recleanse. He decided to use his fundamental cultivational power, which is the condensed essence of a cultivator’s cultivation amount. The effect is extraordinary, but so is its drain on the cultivator.

This also makes Bai Lianhua feel complicated towards Wen Fu. Sometimes he’ll feel as if they’re back at the days in the Forest of Mists, when Wen Fu was not so hard to understand, and often also responded with goodwill to his.

Yet after Wen Fu gestured to him again this time, Bai Lianhua does not obey quietly, but rejects him. Since he’s put the fact that he’s internally wounded on the table, then he wouldn’t mind increasing the stuff he wants him to know by one.

Every time Wen Fu helped him enlarge his qi veins, Bai Lianhua could feel how the cultivational power cycles within Wen Fu. He wasn’t sure at first, but if combined with Wen Fu’s internal wounds, he is a hundred percent sure, that Wen Fu did not only become a demonic cultivator, but he walked the most unstable path among demonic cultivation.

Bai Lianhua looks dejected with clear sadness in his expression as he says, “there’s the internal wounds, and this kind of destructive way to cycle your cultivational power… Why would you use this kind of a shortcut method?”

“You’re not me. I have a bad cultivation base and it can’t be helped for me no matter what. That talent of yours, though, even if you don’t try to use methods like these, you’ll still stand atop the world to be respected.”

It is inexplicable even for revenge. The Liu cultivator, being an alchemical cultivator, is way less in terms of battle prowess compared to a cultivator of the same rank. As for Wen Fu? When he passed away, Wen Fu has already become a Yuanying cultivator using the normal cultivation method. Incidentally, Wen Fu’s battle prowess is also way ahead of his cultivation amount. Even if Wen Fu had no more patience after waiting for a century, there’s no problem even if he decided to go against his good master right there and then. He didn’t have to take this path.

Bai Lianhua swears that he really feels sad seeing Wen Fu not care about his own body like that. It’s a little crop he’d spent a century nurturing. He was alright when he left, how did he end up damaging himself so much when he came back?

Wen Fu’s expression is blanked. The person who seems to be genuinely concerned from him in front of his eyes, is becoming one and the same with the figure he remembers from his memories. And then, he feels a rage bubble inside his chest, turning from a spark into an inferno, burning through all the space in time.

He’s so angry he ends up laughing, and clamps down on Bai Lianhua’s chins, stopping him short.

“Quit messing with me with this concerned attitude. I’ve already… learnt to see through it.”

Author’s notes: The plant called lotus would like to beat someone up. Why is it that its name must be uttered everyday and then sneeze _(:з」∠)_

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