Lu Xiaochan said in a deliberately pitiful voice.
But unexpectedly, Shu Wuxi fell silent.
Lu Xiaochan thought for a moment and then said, “How about you let me hold onto your sleeve?”
He had held onto his sleeve once before, and Shu Wuxi hadn’t avoided it, right?
“Not possible,” Shu Wuxi’s answer was firm.
“I won’t follow your sleeve to hold your hand,” Lu Xiaochan promised, patting his chest. Shu Wuxi had already punished him earlier, after all.
Although Shu Wuxi didn’t answer, Lu Xiaochan knew he must have wavered a little bit. Otherwise, he would have coldly answered “not possible” long ago. Lu Xiaochan definitely had to keep trying!
“Brother Wuxi, this isn’t the familiar Lushu Town anymore. If you don’t let me hold on, I’m afraid you’ll abandon me.”
Having been a beggar all his life, playing pitiful was Lu Xiaochan’s specialty.
“I won’t.”
“Then give me your sleeve!”
“If you accidentally touch me, aren’t you afraid of pain?” Shu Wuxi’s voice slightly raised at the end.
“Pain? What pain?” Lu Xiaochan thought for a moment, then slapped his thigh. “Oh— I understand now! Earlier I felt like my ear was burned for a moment! It was you, wasn’t it? You did it on purpose, right? Do you despise me?”
Just say it directly if you despise something about me!
“I don’t despise you,” Shu Wuxi replied.
But Lu Xiaochan wasn’t happy. He folded his arms and kept his mouth tightly shut, not speaking.
If you think I’m too noisy, just say it directly!
If you hate even me wanting to hold your sleeve a little, you can say that too!
If you think it’s troublesome to take care of me because I’m blind, you can say that as well!
You say you don’t despise me, but you deliberately burn my ear!
Lu Xiaochan raised his hand and touched his ear and cheek. The pain that had seemed to burn through to his bones earlier had disappeared, and there didn’t seem to be any wounds on either his cheek or ear.
So! This must be Shu Wuxi using some cultivation technique to punish him!
“Why aren’t you talking?” Shu Wuxi’s voice sounded.
I’m not talking, I just won’t talk!
Lu Xiaochan folded his arms, determined.
“Xiaochan?”
Shu Wuxi stopped walking, and Lushu also lay down.
Lu Xiaochan deliberately tilted his head to the other side.
“Xiaochan.” Shu Wuxi came closer to him.
Those two syllables from his mouth were like a breath of spiritual energy, needing to be tightly held in the heart to prevent this trace of spiritual energy from dissipating.
Lu Xiaochan’s heart immediately softened. It seemed he could throw tantrums at anyone, but not this person.
“Can you tell me why I can’t touch you? Why did you burn me?”
He couldn’t figure out the answer to the first question no matter how hard he tried. He usually didn’t like to think too much about things, but this question, he had thought about countless times. Without an answer, he felt utterly unhappy.
Shu Wuxi stood there without saying a word.
Lu Xiaochan just pouted, waiting. Unexpectedly, Shu Wuxi turned around, and Lushu, who had been lying down dazed, also stood up, swaying forward with Lu Xiaochan.
“I didn’t agree to go with you! I won’t go with you!”
Lu Xiaochan twisted and struggled, trying to get down from Lushu’s back. Unexpectedly, Shu Wuxi pressed down with spiritual energy, and Lu Xiaochan couldn’t move.
Shu Wuxi flicked his wrist and curled his finger, and a golden ribbon with silver-edged incantations slowly pulled out from Lu Xiaochan’s wrist.
The feeling of something flowing out of his blood and leaving his body surprised Lu Xiaochan.
But that ribbon directly tied Lu Xiaochan up.
Lu Xiaochan found he couldn’t move and became even angrier.
He had a heart, and because he had a heart, even though Shu Wuxi hadn’t told him many things, he knew Shu Wuxi truly cared for him.
But the more he cared for him, the more he tolerated and endured him, the more Lu Xiaochan wanted to know why he couldn’t touch him.
“I don’t want to go with you! Let me down! I want to get down! Let me go!”
Lu Xiaochan kept shouting those few words over and over. He didn’t believe Shu Wuxi wouldn’t find him annoying.
“This is a desolate wilderness.”
Shu Wuxi only said this after Lu Xiaochan’s voice had gone hoarse.
Lu Xiaochan thought Shu Wuxi was trying to persuade him that if he left him alone now, he would be eaten by wolves and tigers in the mountains. But unexpectedly… Shu Wuxi wasn’t so “gentle”.
“Even if you shout until your voice breaks, it’s useless.”
Lu Xiaochan’s eyebrows knotted into a frown. He suddenly felt that Shu Wuxi wasn’t taking him to find Tailing Pavilion to treat his eyes, but had kidnapped him to be his mountain bride?
“I’ll keep shouting!”
“Then shout louder. Anyway, I like hearing your voice.”
Shu Wuxi’s footsteps didn’t stop.
No matter how Lu Xiaochan heard it, he felt that last sentence wasn’t quite right.
What did he mean by “shout louder, anyway I like it”?
In the end, Lu Xiaochan’s voice became hoarse. He sniffled and said dryly, “I want to drink water…”
Shu Wuxi finally walked to his side, untied the medicine gourd from his waist, removed the cap, and brought it to his mouth.
Lu Xiaochan lowered his head and gulped it down in big mouthfuls.
The cold “Drunken Life Dream Death” went down his throat, and Lu Xiaochan’s throat finally felt a bit better.
He exhaled and casually said, “Why do others get drunk after one jar of Drunken Life Dream Death? I can drink several jars and still feel it’s just tastier than water?”
“Because it’s missing a trace of immortal catalyst.”
“What?”
“For cultivators with over a hundred years of cultivation, ordinary wine can’t intoxicate immortals.”
“Then what immortal catalyst is needed?”
“In the Wuyi Jingtian, there’s a medicinal garden with an immortal grass called ‘Golden Wind Jade Dew’. Using this immortal grass in wine can intoxicate immortals. So… it’s called ‘Wine Striking Immortals’.”
“There’s such a magical immortal grass? But… but I’m not a cultivator or an immortal. Logically, ordinary wine should be able to make me drunk… I must just have a good alcohol tolerance. Have you ever been drunk?”
Lu Xiaochan’s attention had already shifted from why Shu Wuxi wouldn’t let him touch him to the wine that could make even immortals with over a hundred years of cultivation fall down drunk.
“Yes.”
“What does it feel like to be drunk?” Lu Xiaochan leaned forward, eager for Shu Wuxi to tell him.
Lu Xiaochan could almost imagine Shu Wuxi’s expression at this moment, his head slightly tilted back, the corners of his lips gently curving upward.
“The ultimate desire, to do whatever one wants.”
Lu Xiaochan was stunned.
“Grant me three thousand lifetimes, they’re not as good as that one drunken moment.”
Shu Wuxi’s voice carried an indescribable attachment, as well as an obsession that would crush everything in the world.
“Then… are you sober now? Or drunk?”
He knew Shu Wuxi had walked to his side and was looking up at him.
At that moment, a scorching heat burst out from his core, climbing up Lu Xiaochan’s blood vessels and bones, making the depths of his soul tremble.
“If you want me drunk, I’ll be drunk forever. If you want me sober, kill me before I wake up.”
Shu Wuxi’s voice was so cold, cold to the extreme yet like an obsessive karmic fire, ready to burn the three thousand worlds in an instant.
“What’s the point of getting drunk alone? Let’s get drunk together…” Lu Xiaochan smiled ingratiatingly.
But inwardly, he began to feel inexplicably afraid.
He had a premonition that the real Shu Wuxi wouldn’t be so gentle and patient. On the contrary, he would be absolutely intolerant of resistance or doubt, and even the slightest hesitation from him would be ruthlessly suppressed.
“You’re afraid of me,” Shu Wuxi’s voice sounded, like moonlight washing over a calm sea.
“No, I’m not afraid of you.”
But Lu Xiaochan’s heart was pounding.
These past few days, he had taken advantage of Shu Wuxi being his “old acquaintance” and promising to take him to Tailing Pavilion, becoming complacent.
Although Shu Wuxi had never told him who he was, he was certainly not an ordinary person.
“Xiaochan, when you’re afraid of me, you have this expression.”
Shu Wuxi’s voice softened.
“You… you’re joking, right? I’ve never been afraid!”
“Do you still want to hold onto my sleeve?” Shu Wuxi asked again.
In this desolate wilderness, no matter how scary Shu Wuxi might be, being left behind was scarier.
“Yes.”
Then he heard Shu Wuxi sigh.
The ribbon binding Lu Xiaochan loosened.
“If I let you hold onto my sleeve, you certainly won’t behave.”
Lu Xiaochan thought, how do you understand me so well?
Shu Wuxi pulled out that ribbon and said, “Give me your hand.”
Lu Xiaochan obediently stretched out his hand, and Shu Wuxi tied one end of the ribbon to his wrist and the other end to his own wrist.
This ribbon was very flexible, able to lengthen and shorten.
Shu Wuxi turned and walked to the front again. Lu Xiaochan lifted his hand and seemed to hear countless melodious bell sounds.
“What’s this? It’s so interesting!”
“This bell sound can only be heard by those holding the two ends of the ‘Immortal-Locking Ribbon’. If you shake or pull it and hear bell sounds, it means I’m still holding the other end. If there’s no sound, it means it’s lost.”
Although Shu Wuxi kept walking forward and Lu Xiaochan could hear the bell sounds, he still felt very bored.
He propped his chin with one hand and shook the “Immortal-Locking Ribbon” with the other.
“Brother Wuxi…”
“Mm?”
“I’m so tired sitting up here, can I get down?”
“No. The mountain path is rugged here.”
“Brother Wuxi, since Lushu is a spirit beast, why don’t you let it fly in the sky to take us?”
Lushu disdainfully snorted out a breath.
“Because you’ve just formed your golden core but have no cultivation. You can’t withstand Lushu’s thousand-mile divine speed.”
“Oh… Then I’ve dragged you down too, having to walk so slowly.”
“I don’t feel tired.”
“Brother Wuxi, why do I feel like that ‘Immortal-Locking Ribbon’ came out of my body?”
“The Immortal-Locking Ribbon could lock souls and core essences. It was a magical instrument of the Tailing Pavilion.”
“Another magical instrument of the Tailing Pavilion! Brother Wuxi, are you a member of the Tailing Pavilion?”
“I have quite a connection with the Tailing Pavilion.”
Lu Xiaochan kept calling him “Brother Wuxi” all the way until evening.
They had already entered the heartland of this mountain range and finally reached a village.
However, even though it was late at night, there wasn’t a single light in the village.
The further they went in, the more dilapidated it became.
In this village, there wasn’t a single person.
Lu Xiaochan tilted his head and sniffed. He smelled the scent of rotting wood and frowned. Then, a faint familiar fragrance wafted in the wind.
“It seems to be the scent of ‘Mo Zhu’,” Lu Xiaochan said. Fearing Shu Wuxi might not know what “Mo Zhu” was, he immediately explained, “It’s the perfume used by ladies of wealthy families! It costs several taels of silver per qian! But… but…”
But how could there be the scent of ladies’ perfume without the smell of people?
Lu Xiaochan subconsciously tugged on the “Immortal-Locking Silk” in his hand. Before he could ask “Brother Wuxi, are you there?”, the person in front of him spoke first.
“Xiaochan, what’s wrong?”
Shu Wuxi’s voice was as usual, so Lu Xiaochan leaned back in relief. He could feel that Lushu seemed to have turned a small half-circle, as if avoiding something.
In the pitch-black night, there was a carriage body without horses, lying dejectedly on the ground.
Some bottles and jars used by ladies rolled out from the curtain, and the bottle of “Mo Zhu” had just broken.
A gust of wind blew by, lifting the curtain of the carriage. Inside lay two maids with terrified expressions on their faces, eyes wide open, and large bloodstains on their chests, as if pierced by something.
They had been dead for two days. The blood on their bodies had long dried up, emitting a faint smell of decay.
Even the moonlight that fell through the gap of the lifted curtain seemed eerily cold.
“Wait…” Lu Xiaochan turned his face towards the carriage.
“What’s wrong?” Shu Wuxi asked.
“Did someone die here? I smell blood… and… the smell of decaying bodies.”
Shu Wuxi’s voice was very soft as he said, “It’s none of our business.”
Hearing him say this, Lu Xiaochan could basically confirm that someone had indeed died. It was just that in Shu Wuxi’s eyes, everything was “none of our business”.
This wasn’t just because Shu Wuxi didn’t like Lu Xiaochan meddling in other people’s affairs. It was more because in Shu Wuxi’s eyes, there wasn’t much difference between the living and the dead.
Looking at Lu Xiaochan’s expression, Shu Wuxi tightened the Immortal-Locking Ribbon and gently pulled it. “If the smell here is unpleasant, we can find another place to stay for the night.”
Lu Xiaochan immediately nodded.
He was self-aware. Away from Lushu Town, he couldn’t carry anything heavy or light. Apart from banging into walls, he couldn’t do anything, so he’d better obey Shu Wuxi’s words.
They walked out of that dilapidated village, and gradually the unpleasant smell in the air faded away.
Lu Xiaochan, who had been holding his breath, could finally take a deep breath.
“Xiaochan, there are more mountains ahead. Let’s sleep in this Earth God Temple for the night.”
“Okay! Okay!”
As long as you tell me this is an Earth God Temple, not some bizarre temple, it’s fine.
The temple door was a bit small. When Lushu squeezed in, Lu Xiaochan almost hit his head on the top of the temple door.
Then Shu Wuxi pulled the “Immortal-Locking Ribbon”, and Lu Xiaochan slid down from Lushu’s back along its tail. Shu Wuxi directly caught him with both hands and held him.
