Chapter 72

Translated by boilpoil Edited by boilpoil

While Bai Lianhua is working hard to convince Li Wenge, he’s also rather anxious himself.

Honestly, even if he does successfully stop Li Wenge from getting involved with killing and avoid that end he’s picturing, but as Li Wenge recovers and his cultivation amount increases, that problem with the antagonist and the fortune of the realm is a fundamental problem still.

Since his reunion with Li Wenge, Bai Lianhua has been trying to workshop a solution in his mind but he feels like it’s one or the other no matter what… If he’s not a soul right now, he’ll probably have already gone bald.

Li Wenge is no traditional cultivator who can abandon their path. He doesn’t need cultivational base nor veins. Once he’s been led onto it, his ‘life’ is forever bound to cultivation and he could never exit. The more powerful and ‘lively’ he is, the more cultivation amount he has, and vice versa——Unless there’s a powerful cultivator who follows the Bai family ancestor to seal Li Wenge up again. Though, while this could limit his growth, it will again limit his freedom.

Then wouldn’t it just be exactly the same as ever for Li Wenge?

Bai Lianhua understands that if he does make the request, Li Wenge might acquiesce himself. No matter what though, he should be the last person doing this… Nor does he want to do this.

Li Wenge has already done too much for him. He couldn’t just ask Li Wenge to concede endlessly, could he?

… Ah, never mind. Let’s hope it works out in the end. He can’t do this for now, so he can only focus on the present.

——Bai Lianhua tries to cheer himself up thinking that.

While Li Wenge who’s being persuaded by Bai Lianhua diligently decides to chuckle.

He calms his agitated expression and then lowers his head, saying, “alright. I promise. I won’t get into dangerous situations. I won’t burden myself with murder… I won’t go take their lives myself; I will only let them suffer the punishment they deserve.”

“Is that ok?”

He’s also aware of what Bai Lianhua is worried about himself as well.

When the Bai family was scolding him along, what’s special about himself was among the things he heard. Bai Lianhua has been avoiding this topic since the beginning, and instead, he wants him to smile more, to be happier, but Li Wenge can still definitely see the sorrow in Bai Lianhua.

He might have thought he hid it well, but the guy really had no control and practically shows everything on his face. For him, an old ghost who’s seen a lot, he’s easy to read.

Even if he’s already accepted his identity as a ghost, but in his subconscious, he’s still on the humans’ side. He hoped for the best for both cultivators and mortals.

Like a few days ago when two newbie cultivators accidentally wandered in and the ghosts were quite excited. It’s Bai Lianhua who went along and guided the two clumsy dunderheads out of here… It’s also Bai Lianhua who thanked him after the incident saying that thanks to the aura he had from him he could manage to keep the situation under control and enjoy bluffing for a bit.

Different from those ghosts that were born from extreme hate or obsession, Bai Lianhua would never be able to detach himself from his former identity as a human cultivator.

Which would likely have made him conflicted since they met each other again.

It would explain why he’s afraid of blood on his hands… A ghost would consume humans’ lives, and especially cultivators’ lives if it didn’t fear reprisal and only wanted to strengthen itself the most efficient way possible.

Now, Li Wenge has calmed down. His agitation and concern have disappeared.

Though Bai Lianhua is still having trouble dealing with this Li Wenge.

He talks to himself in his mind, “weird. Li Wenge is as gentle as ever since I came back, and he’s easily persuaded too. He’s willing to listen to me, but why do I still feel so ominous?”

“Not fear, but just some kind of worry I can’t explicate.”

System “…” Uh, is the host’s extremely delayed sixth sense finally acting up?

It’s easy for the outsider, the system, to see what’s going on… The antagonist is going to pull something off again. The host’s worries won’t go answered, hehe.

As Bai Lianhua doesn’t speak, Li Wenge soothes him, “I was getting extreme. You’re the most important to me so I shouldn’t have ignored things related to you and deal with them first no matter what.”

If his previous plan was to just kill them as is, then now he feels like recovering more first so that even if he’s kilometres away from the Bai family he could still easily influence them.

Like he could have all those contracted ghosts the Bai family’s cultivators worked hard to acquire all betray their masters and escape… For the Bai family whose business relies on this, there’s probably nothing else that could cripple them more.

He looks at Bai Lianhua with a serious expression, “do you know how important you are to me? There is nothing else above you.”

Bai Lianhua nods in a daze… It’s been so long since he returned, and while he could feel it from their interactions, but this is the first time Li Wenge finally said something that’s homosexually suggestive.

Compared to the other antagonist, Li Wenge is someone who’s quiet and doesn’t self-analyse as a hobby.

Li Wenge smiles, “good.”

He closes in some more, as if trying to embrace him, but stops midway again.

And Bai Lianhua pauses for a bit before taking Li Wenge’s hand himself, “it’s alright. Really. I won’t disappear that easily, so you don’t have to be that careful… Look, your suppressive effect on me is not as obvious anymore too. I’m doing my best to adapt myself.”

Li Wenge quietly ‘mm’s. They’re both supposed to be ghosts, but weirdly, it always feels as if Bai Lianhua’s hand is warmer than his.

Like his personality too… He’s not a prideful sun that burns everything that approaches, but rather like the first light of day at dawn. It’s comforting both in temperature and luminosity.

He did always blame himself somewhat. Bai Lianhua has brought him kindness, that he can’t help but immediately soften his appearance when the words ‘Bai Lianhua’ are on his mind. Yet, all that he has brought upon Bai Lianhua is just disaster.

He doesn’t want to see Bai Lianhua clumsily doing his best to adapt to an identity he doesn’t want to, nor see the little guy forever having to deal with living alongside ghosts he’s scared of.

So Li Wenge suddenly thinks of something… A way to fulfil everyone’s desires.

…

Six months later.

Bai Lianhua, still maintaining a human sleep cycle despite being a ghost now, is woken up by the system from dreamland. When he opens his eyes in a daze and tries to float up as usual, he is shocked to find he is immobilised.

The only person able to do so without waking him up would be Li Wenge.

So Bai Lianhua who’s awakened tries to swivel his eyeballs as the system gives him a hint and he sees Li Wenge who was only 50% recovered when he went to sleep is now floating high up in the air with a terrifying aura.

Bai Lianhua is stupefied. He takes a deep breath before asking the system, “what… is the antagonist doing?”

He was all good earlier! Why has the apocalypse suddenly befallen them when he reopens his eyes?

The system dryly responds, “it’s as you can see, host.” Antagonists are all ‘capable’ individuals, you know.

It is visible that Li Wenge is utilising his specialness to absorb a great amount of polluted qi in a short period of time and quickly pushing himself back up to the peak of the power he once held. He doesn’t stop there, however, and is still continuing the pace of picking up polluted qi, looking completely undeterrable.

Of course, this course of action is in complete contravention of the world’s Rules. He’s about to hit the limit of what the Heavenly Principles would tolerate, and Li Wenge can feel the realm starting to press onto him. Though he’s using this to further drive him to absorb polluted qi, making his cultivation amount higher. Now that evil is overwhelming righteousness, the most visible effect is that cultivable qi of the land has been completely zapped away.

It’s seriously cultivators’ apocalypse.

And this vacuum of cultivable qi is even expanding right now… Yet, at this critical threshold, after Li Wenge has demonstrated his ‘great potential’ to be a calamity to the entire cultivation realm, he stops. He turns and looks at Bai Lianhua gently. Then, with the Heavenly Principles as his witness, he swears on his ethereal existence that he is influenced by Bai Lianhua before he could cause greater harm and is willing to disappear of his own initiative.

A silver line suddenly appears out of thin air, linking up Li Wenge and Bai Lianhua, looping around them, and then extending towards the sky. After a sudden glimmer, the silver line disappears. When Li Wenge’s cultivation amount starts declining, a golden ray of light shines brilliantly onto Bai Lianhua.

When he sees this, Li Wenge finally sighs in relief.

Now, he lands nearby Bai Lianhua, and speaks gently to Bai Lianhua who appears completely confused, “I’ve used myself to deliver you a great amount of merit.”

It’s both eliminated this future risk of him, and also cleaned up the polluted qi he’s absorbed… In terms of merit, now Bai Lianhua is essentially a chosen existence protected by the Heavens themselves.

Speaking of which, he did want to have Bai Lianhua purify him himself, which would have made the effects even more pronounced, but he gave up on that because with Bai Lianhua’s personality, he would never ever do that, and he can’t force him to either… This is the best he can do for him.

It can both stabilise Bai Lianhua’s projection and help rid him of his identity as a wild ghost——With enough merit, even ghosts can turn to divine cultivation, which is not hindered by talent at all.

While they’re both paths of cultivation that are abstract as always, but compared to ethereal cultivation, souls that practise divine cultivation is essentially walking along the shortest path to heaven.

Even at the highest achievement ethereal cultivation could reach, ascension is still impossible, which is not the case for divine cultivation. Rather, as the Heavenly Principle is biased towards divine cultivators even more than normal righteous cultivators, the Trial by Thunder they have to experience in ascension would be halved by the merit they obtain.

This is also a path that’s very rarely walked as it has such a strict requirement on merit. This first step towards it couldn’t be taken by anything less than saving the world from a realm-wide disaster.

And now, thanks to him, Bai Lianhua is qualified.

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