Chapter 108: Crimson Flowers Hidden in White Bones (8)
This wait lasted several days.
News appeared on the Immortal Spirit Register that Yan Jianhang had arrived in Lumen City at the invitation of Tianqing Sect. Bai Chunsheng couldn’t help sighing with emotion. The Yan family’s patriarch was already advanced in years, yet he still had to endure such turmoil. And the one spreading rumors and stirring up trouble outside was none other than his own son.
After pondering for a long time, Bo Yan arrived at a conclusion. Even if Yan Jingqiu truly was alive, his current condition likely wasn’t very good. Judging by the way he had to scheme and manipulate inner demons just to kill a Mahayana cultivator, if Yan Jingqiu had still been at the legendary peak of the Tribulation stage, how could things have been so troublesome? If he had wanted someone dead, they would have died. At the Lumen Assembly a few days ago, those chattering cultivators probably wouldn’t even have dared to breathe too loudly.
“From the fact that Yan Jingqiu even tried to frame everything on me, it seems likely that his current strength isn’t even comparable to what mine used to be. He was probably severely injured during his heart tribulation. However, he didn’t expect that I had lost my memory, which is why he ended up alerting the enemy instead,” Bo Yan said.
Bai Chunsheng: “…”
In truth, he wasn’t wrong at all.
Bai Chunsheng had no idea how this man managed to be so absurdly gifted—by sheer wild speculation, twisting and turning through baseless guesses, he had somehow circled right back to the truth.
During the days Bo Yan spent contemplating how to deal with “Yan Jingqiu,” the situation in the cultivation world grew increasingly dire.
There were two reasons, which ultimately became intertwined.
After that night, following notice from the Taixu Sect’s senior sister, Yan Jianhang arrived in Lumen City in about half a day.
Tall and gaunt, his hair streaked with white, the old man had once been a sword cultivator renowned across the seas. From the moment he arrived, no one dared to openly criticize the Yan family anymore.
The second matter concerned a demon that had fled from the Southern Region and caused a catastrophe. It slaughtered an entire mortal city there, including countless Foundation Establishment and Qi Refinement cultivators. Tianqing Sect dispatched disciples to capture it, but they retreated in panic after being defeated. The demon’s luck was poor—it ran straight into Yan Jianhang on his way to Lumen City. In a single exchange, it was subdued.
It was said that when Yan Jianhang saw the demon clearly, he let out a long sigh. Blood splattered five feet into the air as he uttered a name: “Xu Shiqi.”
That had been the name Daoist Changping used before he entered the Dao.
The entire cultivation world was shaken. Previously, most people had believed that Daoist Changping had simply reached the end of his lifespan and perished at Mount Qiuru in the Eastern Sea. That was an entirely different matter from the reality now revealed—that his soul had been forcibly stripped away and he had been artificially catalyzed into a mindless fiend.
Back then, Yan Jingqiu had split open the Demon Realm with a single sword strike, severing the passage between it and the cultivation world, restoring two hundred years of peace to the mortal realm. That meant the one who had extracted Daoist Changping’s soul and transformed him into a demon hadn’t smuggled in from the Demon Realm. In all likelihood, it was a Tribulation-stage cultivator whose strength far surpassed Daoist Changping’s.
There were only a handful of Tribulation-stage cultivators in the entire cultivation world. Inevitably, many people began to recall the confrontation at the Lumen Assembly a few days earlier between Fairy Yue Bai of Tianqing Sect and the Lord of the Water Abyss Realm.
By now, news of the Lumen Assembly had already spread throughout the cultivation world.
Everyone was discussing it. Perhaps some had come to believe that Yan Jingqiu wasn’t dead after all. When Bai Chunsheng opened the Heaven’s Pride Board, the name ranked first was unmistakably Yan Jingqiu.
“…..” How blinding.
At the same time, this further strengthened Bo Yan’s conviction that Yan Jingqiu was still alive. Late at night, he refused to sleep. He was practicing calligraphy, claiming it would hone his sword Dao. Bai Chunsheng couldn’t see what was so special about it. Yawning, he transformed back into his little duck form and nestled against Bo Yan’s leg, preparing to sleep.
Bo Yan wasn’t pleased. He tossed aside the brush in his hand, scooped Bai Chunsheng up entirely, and began stroking the feathers along his back. Bai Chunsheng was extremely sleepy, his eyes half-lidded and drowsy. The touch felt comfortable. His ginger-colored webbed feet dangled in the air, gently swaying back and forth.
After a while, Bo Yan suddenly had the idea to squeeze the little duck’s soft-looking belly. Bai Chunsheng carried the warm scent of sun-dried feathers, and he felt incredibly soft.
“…?” Bai Chunsheng jolted awake, instantly alert.
Was this…
An insult?
He was no longer sleepy. He opened his beak and bit down on Bo Yan’s hand.
Bo Yan pinched his beak shut. “Behave.”
This position was extremely disadvantageous for Bai Chunsheng. In his original form, his beak was flat, and Bo Yan could clamp it shut with just two fingers, preventing him from opening his mouth. In a moment of inspiration—though rather foolishly—Bai Chunsheng transformed back into human form.
Now he was sitting directly on Bo Yan’s lap. Bai Chunsheng made a muffled “mmph” sound, but he still couldn’t break free from Bo Yan’s grip. He could only speak indistinctly, “Let go of me. I’m sleepy. I want to sleep.”
“If you want to deal with Yan Jingqiu, figure it out yourself,” he added.
Bo Yan still held his mouth shut and studied him for a moment. Bai Chunsheng’s cheeks were flushed red, his eyes shimmering like moonlight rippling over a spring pond. Because his face was being pinched, he was forced to look up at Bo Yan in a way that almost resembled pleading.
Bo Yan had no pure intentions. At that moment, he mischievously found Bai Chunsheng’s appearance unbearably adorable. He maintained his grip while wrapping an arm around Bai Chunsheng’s waist, tilting his head back.
Bai Chunsheng didn’t understand what he was doing.
Bo Yan chuckled softly. Then he released his grip and leaned down to kiss him. At the very instant their lips met—overlapping with that soft laugh—Bai Chunsheng heard the sharp sound of something cutting through the air.
When he blinked again, he saw a tall, gaunt figure standing vaguely outside the room.
An arrow had shot through the air. Its original target had been Bai Chunsheng, but as Bo Yan leaned down to kiss him, he seized the arrow in his hand.
The tall figure stepped closer. Its face was flat and featureless, smooth where eyes, nose, and mouth should have been. The exposed skin resembled human flesh, and it held a bow in its hand.
It was a jade figurine.
Author’s Note:
When he was in duck form, his belly was soft and warm. But when Bai Chunsheng was human, he still had faint abdominal muscles.
One Dao companion, two kinds of happiness.
Chirp chirp!
Huge shoutout to @_nyanmaru_ on Discord for commissioning this! The chapter will be posted regularly, show your support for Ciacia at Kofi.
