Bu Wei

In the cultivation world, those who could become furnaces were mostly due to their extremely yin constitution, making it difficult for them to progress in cultivation. However, they could help other cultivators accelerate their cultivation. They were usually born very beautiful, so there were countless cultivation methods, but they could hardly escape the miserable fate of being molested and toyed with. They were easily abducted by evil cultivators and used as tools for cultivation.

Ning Buwei had once come out of seclusion and heard someone say that he had abducted hundreds of beautiful furnaces, locked them up in a place, torturing them daily, and was very brutal. This angered him so much that he chased and tried to kill that person for three days and three nights.

His original intention was just to casually scare the two children, but he didn’t expect to be caught red-handed by Chu Jun.

For a moment, their eyes met, and Ning Buwei’s entire body froze for an instant.

Even as a joke, saying something about abducting someone to be a furnace was blatantly disrespectful, let alone the fact that Chu Jun had once been his head teacher. They had an ambiguous relationship hundreds of years ago, and now a child had suddenly appeared… These words made it seem as if he had always been disloyal and harbored ill intentions towards Chu Jun.

But Ning Buwei, having weathered many storms, had long developed a thick skin. He asked naturally, “Why did you come back so early?”

“Nothing urgent,” Chu Jun’s response was also very calm, as if he hadn’t heard the nonsense Ning Buwei had said.

Due to Chu Jun’s overly calm demeanor, Ning Buwei even felt a rare sense of guilt. Feng Zizhang and Jiang Yizheng’s terrified expressions hadn’t had time to fade when they heard the Venerable Jinghe say, “Just now—”

Ning Buwei’s expression turned serious, and he frowned, “I think Ning Xiu is crying. I’ll go check on him.”

With that, he turned and strode into the room.

Chu Jun’s expression paused slightly, and then he unhurriedly entered the room as well.

Jiang Yizheng breathed a sigh of relief and asked puzzledly, “Did I see wrong? Did the Venerable just…smiled?”

This time, Feng Zizhang nodded with certainty, “You didn’t see wrong. The Venerable was indeed smiling.”

Fortunately, Ning Xiu didn’t let his father down. He was lying on the bed with tears in his eyes. When he saw his father walk in, he whimpered and stretched out his little arms towards Ning Buwei. His voice still carried the drowsiness of having just woken up, soft and cuddly, “Ah~”

Father~

Ning Buwei reached out to pick him up and wiped his tears, “Hm? Are you scared?”

“Wuwu…” Ning Xiu opened his eyes wide and looked at him, whimpering pitifully. He patted his little tummy, looked down at himself, then looked up at Ning Buwei again. His little eyebrows furrowed as he said to him, “Ah ah~”

Father, tummy doesn’t feel good~

“What’s wrong?” Chu Jun lifted the curtain and entered. He saw the father and son looking at each other seriously, seemingly communicating.

Hearing his voice, Ning Xiu turned his head and repeated the actions he had done with Ning Buwei. His voice sounded even more pitiful as he whined to Chu Jun, “Aya~”

Mother, tummy doesn’t feel good~

“Your tummy doesn’t feel good?” Chu Jun walked over and helped rub his little tummy, covering it with a thin layer of spiritual energy.

“Hn~” Ning Xiu’s furrowed brows nodded vigorously. He looked at Ning Buwei, then at Chu Jun, still reaching to touch his little tummy, and pitifully said, “Wuwu~”

Tummy still doesn’t feel good~

“Is it because he was scared?” Ning Buwei understood his son’s meaning, but when he checked his meridians and sea of consciousness, he didn’t find any problems.

“It shouldn’t be,” Chu Jun gently massaged Ning Xiu’s little tummy. “It seems like he has some indigestion.”

Ning Xiu, being held by his father and having his tummy rubbed by his Bai Bai mother, sighed in a manner that mimicked adults.

Ning Buwei: “… Did he just sigh?”

Chu Jun looked down at Ning Xiu and indeed saw the little one’s brows tightly furrowed. He said gently, “He’s worried.”

Ning Buwei immediately laughed and poked Ning Xiu’s cheek, “What does a little thing like you have to worry about?”

With someone taking care of his eating, drinking, and other needs, not having to do anything all day, yet he still managed to worry.

“Ah~” Ning Xiu stared at both of them, struggled for a while, then finally found the familiar feeling and plunged his little spiritual consciousness into Chu Jun’s sea of consciousness.

Seeing both of their expressions freeze, Ning Buwei asked Chu Jun, “What’s wrong?”

“His spiritual consciousness entered my sea of consciousness,” Chu Jun said with a hint of confusion in his voice.

Ning Buwei was equally puzzled. They were both right next to Ning Xiu, so why did he still dive into Chu Jun’s sea of consciousness?

“He’s trying to pull me out now,” Chu Jun paused, “Hm?”

Ning Buwei stared at him, “What is it?”

“He wants to pull me into your sea of consciousness,” Chu Jun said calmly.

Ning Buwei: “……”

He looked at Ning Xiu with a forced smile, his eyes carrying a hint of threat.

Chu Jun looked at Ning Buwei, “Has the wound in your dantian healed?”

“It has,” Ning Buwei didn’t look at him, saying seriously, “Thank you for your help earlier.”

“No need for thanks,” Chu Jun replied politely, but his gaze towards Ning Buwei carried an inexplicable emotion.

He had never seen Ning Chengfeng so silent and distant. In his memory, Ning Chengfeng never knew what politeness was.

It was only when he had entered the room earlier and heard him joking that Chu Jun momentarily connected him with the young man in his memories.

Ning Xiu sighed worriedly. Since mother wouldn’t go into father’s sea of consciousness, and he didn’t like going into father’s sea of consciousness either, he had to reluctantly exert himself to enter his father’s maze-like sea of consciousness and drag out his father’s spiritual consciousness.

Half an incense stick later, both Chu Jun and Ning Buwei’s spiritual consciousnesses appeared in Ning Xiu’s sea of consciousness.

“Ah!” Ning Xiu was so tired that his spiritual consciousness was too lazy to move. He floated in the space above his own sea of consciousness, pointing around for his father and Bai Bai, then touched his little tummy.

Tummy doesn’t feel good!

Ning Buwei looked at his son’s sea of consciousness, crammed full of all sorts of strange things, and said with a wooden face, “With your sea of consciousness stuffed like this, it would be strange if you felt comfortable.”

So his son had been worrying about his own overstuffed sea of consciousness.

The size of a cultivator’s sea of consciousness was usually determined by their cultivation level. Generally speaking, the higher the cultivation, the more vast the sea of consciousness. Like Chu Jun’s sea of consciousness, which was so vast that a spiritual consciousness entering it couldn’t see its edges at a glance. While Ning Buwei’s sea of consciousness wasn’t as vast as Chu Jun’s, it could still create a maze that would take Chu Jun a whole day to get out of.

Although Ning Xiu was currently at the Golden Core stage and couldn’t actively cultivate, his Luotian Spiritual Body was inherently extraordinary. Even while sleeping, spiritual energy would flow through his meridians. Theoretically, his sea of consciousness should have been much vaster than that of ordinary Golden Core cultivators, but now it was so crammed that there was no room to step.

Ning Buwei picked up a large, oddly shaped piece of silver from the ground and asked Ning Xiu, who was floating in mid-air, “Why are you collecting these useless things?”

Chu Jun looked at the silver ingot in his hand and silently averted his gaze.

“Ah~” Ning Xiu shook the small bell on his wrist.

Mother gave it to me~

In fact, most of the things in this sea of consciousness were things Chu Jun had shown Ning Xiu when he took him out. Ning Xiu liked them, so he materialized them and put them into his sea of consciousness. Who knew it would become so crowded, and now there was no more room.

So Ning Buwei and Chu Jun had to resign themselves to cleaning up their son’s sea of consciousness.

These types of objects were essentially formed by condensed spiritual energy, so they couldn’t be thrown out all at once. Moreover, there were some things that Ning Xiu particularly liked and wouldn’t let them touch.

“Ah~” Ning Xiu’s entire little spiritual consciousness clung to a stone larger than himself, looking at Chu Jun with teary eyes.

Like it~

The Venerable Jinghe was silent for a moment, trying to reason with his son, “This object is useless.”

“He won’t understand if you say it like that,” Ning Buwei threw out a large bunch of reeds, walked over and looked down at Ning Xiu sternly, “This stone will burst your little tummy. When you’re sleeping, it will go boom—”

He even made an exaggerated explosion gesture for Ning Xiu.

“Wuwu~” Ning Xiu’s mouth turned down, and he reluctantly floated away from the big stone.

Ning Buwei raised an eyebrow triumphantly at Chu Jun.

Chu Jun gave him a faint smile.

The beauty’s smile was like ink suddenly moving in water, like flowing clouds and dispersing mist, yet light and pure, making one unable to look directly.

Ning Buwei abruptly averted his eyes, his whole body becoming uncomfortable. He almost threw out his son’s treasured torn little duck shirt.

“Ah!” Ning Xiu clung to his little shirt with all his might, voicing his protest.

Can’t throw away ducky!

Ning Buwei picked up his son’s little spiritual consciousness and cleared his throat. “Won’t throw it away. We’ll keep this one.”

His mind was filled with Chu Jun’s smile from earlier, and a hint of annoyance appeared in his eyes: It was bad enough for a male cultivator to be this beautiful, but he dared to smile at him like that?

Earlier, when Chu Jun heard him say he wanted to abduct him to be a furnace, he didn’t even get angry. He even obediently followed him in to check on their son, and now he smiled at him like this… Ning Buwei’s expression suddenly became serious.

Was he trying to seduce him?

As Ning Buwei was thinking this, a hand suddenly landed on his shoulder.

He instinctively grabbed the vital point on the other’s wrist, then realized it was Chu Jun, and his hand immediately froze.

“What are you doing?” Ning Buwei’s voice was a bit tight.

For a moment, he recalled what had happened when he entered the other’s sea of consciousness before, and suddenly felt that hand became somewhat hot. He removed Chu Jun’s hand and took a big step forward before turning to look at him.

Chu Jun was holding a small green leaf, his expression calm. “It fell on your shoulder.”

Ning Buwei stared at the small leaf, narrowing his eyes, “Let me see.”

Chu Jun took a step forward and placed the small leaf in his palm, “Is this the one Ning Xiu wears around his neck?”

“Mm, Yan Lanpei gave it to him.” Ning Buwei glanced down, but his thoughts weren’t on the leaf. Instead, he looked at the faint red scar on Chu Jun’s wrist.

Just as Chu Jun was about to ask who Yan Lanpei was, his wrist was suddenly grabbed.

Ning Buwei held his wrist, frowning as he asked, “How did you get this scar?”

It was extremely difficult for cultivators to have scars. Ordinary wounds would heal without a trace, and marks that remained were usually from fatal injuries. For a scar on Chu Jun’s wrist to still be red like this, it must have injured his soul.

Chu Jun was startled by this sudden question, then looked at the scar on his wrist.

They were currently in their spiritual consciousness state, so the concealment on their physical bodies naturally didn’t work.

Chu Jun calmly pulled his sleeve down to cover the scar, his tone even, “I accidentally injured myself during secluded cultivation.”

Ning Buwei stared at him with an unfriendly gaze, scoffing lightly, “Grandmaster Chu, do you think I’m a child?”