Chapter 34: A Couple Linked by Destiny, Hearts in Tune, and the Look of Marriage.

Chapter 34: A Couple Linked by Destiny, Hearts in Tune, and the Look of Marriage.

The attic was brightly lit.

Fu Yu noticed the Foxtail Grass Spirit had been sneakily peeking at her copper coins.

She sat cross-legged on the window seat, leaning lazily to one side, using her index finger to hook the red thread tied to the coins, deliberately swinging it back and forth in front of the spirit.

The Foxtail Grass Spirit dodged left and right, growing flustered and angry: "...Hey!"

Fu Yu smiled playfully, flicking and winding her finger, the red thread coiling around it in loops.

"Snap."

She pressed her little finger and ring finger together, trapping the coin in her palm.

Seeing her put away the "hidden weapon," the Foxtail Grass Spirit seized the chance to scoot closer, resting its slender grass-stalk arms under its chin, blinking its eyes: "Master, is this what you call the cycle of cause and effect? I remember the first time we saw Lu Xingchen, he was also crawling along with broken legs, just like what we witnessed earlier..."

Past and present, their fates eerily replayed.

Only... today, there was no foolish Xie Fuyu reaching out to save Lu Xingchen.

The Foxtail Grass Spirit believed that the moment they "abandoned" Lu Xingchen on the mountain path, the bond between the two must have drawn a clear, definitive end.

It really wanted to see Fu Yu cast another divination but was too embarrassed to ask directly, so it just blinked hard, hinting.

Fu Yu smiled: "I think there's still some lingering regret."

The Foxtail Grass Spirit jumped up anxiously: "No regret! None! I'd bet three and a half spirit stones, absolutely none!"

Fu Yu leisurely unwound the red thread from her finger: "Are you sure? Then I'll really cast it? Three and a half spirit stones, I bet it won't break today, but tomorrow."

The Foxtail Grass Spirit struggled internally, pursed its lips, its eyes flickering.

As soon as the coins left Fu Yu's hand, the spirit decisively slapped them flat onto the wooden table with a "thwack," declaring righteously: "Master, gambling is a bad habit. I'm quitting!"

Between trusting itself and trusting Fu Yu, it quickly made a choice—since its master believed there was still regret, then there must be, even if there wasn't!

It secretly rubbed its palm, subtly feeling the orientation of the three coins.

Ominous, ominous, auspicious. It really hadn't broken.

Phew...

Close call, close call. Quick reflexes saved the three and a half spirit stones.

Could this ill-fated bond really be destined to break tomorrow?

The Foxtail Grass Spirit felt dazed, unable to figure it out no matter how hard it thought.

Divination, truly mysterious!

Having dealt with this noisy-eyed Foxtail Grass Spirit, Fu Yu could finally lie down quietly, undisturbed.

Of course, she wasn't in a hurry to view the memory glow in her sea of consciousness.

The power taken from Venerable Yunshang hadn't been refined yet, so naturally, she attended to the important task first—she wasn't a love-obsessed brain like the Foxtail Grass Spirit.

Setting her mind, Fu Yu formed a hand seal with one hand and circulated her spiritual energy through her meridians.

The spiritual energy around her flowed like a gentle fire, continuously channeling into her dantian, slowly refining that chaotic, mixed aura, extracting strand after strand of the purest spiritual energy.

The cool, refreshing spiritual energy flowed into her meridians, bringing comfort and a sense of fullness.

After some time, Fu Yu opened her eyes.

"A gale does not last all morning, nor a downpour all day. In cultivation, one must most avoid haste and greed for quick success. Proceeding steadily is the way of longevity—I should rest."

She lay down leisurely, resting her head on her hands.

Since she had nothing else to do...

Fu Yu casually took out the black and white light spheres, reviewing the scenes of the mountain path, the pavilion, and the tea platform.

Then, as if it were nothing special, she picked out the scene of "lying side by side in bed."

Her fingers tingled slightly upon touching it, a bit itchy, and her breathing grew somewhat uneven.

"Just two corpses lying side by side for a night, as boring as it gets."

Fu Yu confirmed her heartbeat hadn't quickened. Calm and composed, she lifted her fingertip and gave it a light tap.

Soon, the remembered scene floated before her eyes.

She and Jun Bu Du lay side by side, with her posture even more rigid than his—in the Illusion Array, she had deliberately imitated him, turning herself into a ruler spirit.

From an observer's perspective, Jun Bu Du appeared much more relaxed.

Fu Yu was slightly taken aback.

Back then, she hadn't even glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, completely unaware that even on that night, he already carried a hint of the habitual laziness that comes with being an old married couple.

"What?" Fu Yu exclaimed in surprise. "So it wasn't me who corrupted him?"

So early.

Back in Yulong City, she and he weren't even familiar. Jun Bu Du had no reason to pick up her habits.

Fu Yu was someone extremely sensitive to anomalies.

After a brief moment of astonishment, a sudden tingling sensation shot up the back of her head—that exciting, instinctive spark of intuition.

Something was off.

Something was wrong.

Something had caused the actual situation to deviate from her expectations.

Something... had quietly slipped from her control, introducing this variable.

She stared intently at the scene before her.

Never would she have imagined that the "look of a married couple," which should have appeared many years later, had eerily manifested on this night.

She had become like him, and he had become like her.

She knew where her own change came from—she had spent too long with him in the Illusion Array, subtly influenced, becoming a ruler spirit. But what about him?

Fu Yu's breath suddenly hitched.

As he stepped into the Illusion Array, he was clearly holding a hand seal to counter her, but once inside, she detected nothing unusual.

So the irregularity wasn't with her.

Jun Bu Du possessed the highest level of combat awareness and adaptability. The moment he entered the array, he countered her.

If she wasn’t mistaken…

Fu Yu’s pupils constricted sharply, her body shivering uncontrollably, flashing hot and cold. For a moment, she couldn’t tell whether she was excited or shivering. “He… entered my memories!”

Her memories…

Her background and Jun Bu Du’s were worlds apart.

She was a child of the streets, fatherless since childhood, with a mother who was a one-eyed Old Charlatan.

The Old Charlatan could barely take care of herself. Providing Fu Yu with enough food to keep her from starving was already the utmost kindness.

Little Fu Yu grew up steeped in that world, learning all sorts of deceitful tricks just to fill her stomach.

Her “glorious achievements” were simply too numerous to recount.

Fu Yu blinked dazedly. “No way…”

That stern, aloof, unapproachable living sage, Jun Bu Du, had already seen all her dark history long ago?

“…” After a moment of stunned silence, Fu Yu chuckled wryly. “By then, the marriage contract was already settled. He couldn’t back out.”

The corners of her lips curled, but her brow was slightly tense.

She hated recalling the past.

As long as she didn’t dwell on it, she could keep telling herself that the Old Charlatan was still alive, living well—that the Old Charlatan had simply grown tired of her, this Little Burden, left her behind, married a good man, and gone off to live a better life. That was the greatest wish the Old Charlatan often voiced.

Fu Yu pressed her lips together.

She firmly believed that a slick, street-smart character like the Old Charlatan couldn’t possibly die. Yet, on a night of wind and rain, she had risked her life alone to seek “revenge.”

“A thunderous boom!”

A blinding flash of lightning pierced from memory into reality.

Fu Yu turned her head blankly, seeing lightning and thunder outside the window, so reminiscent of that night.

That night, she was like a dying evil ghost, crawling back again and again from a bloody, fiery hell… Had he witnessed with his own eyes those scenes she never allowed herself to recall?

Fu Yu’s head ached.

She narrowed her eyes slightly, gazing intently at Jun Bu Du lying beside her in the scene.

True to his nature, he showed no sign of anything being amiss, still wearing that calm, detached, desireless expression. Only… intuition told Fu Yu that he was “accompanying” her.

After a long while, Fu Yu relaxed and smiled.

“Forget it, forget it. You had it pretty rough as a kid too, just about the same as me.”

She rested her hands behind her head, smiling as she watched the two figures in the scene.

So that night, both of them had things weighing on their minds—truly kindred spirits.

Fu Yu gradually drifted into thought.

Her gaze fell on his flawless face, her mind wandering off to who-knows-where.

Suddenly.

Jun Bu Du in the scene silently opened his eyes.

Fu Yu was startled, raising her eyebrows slightly before calmly shifting her gaze away.

Ahem, ahem—she really wasn’t staring at him in a daze; she was simply lost in thought, just happened to be facing his direction.

He turned his head, glanced sideways at Fu Yu lying beside him, stiff as a ruler come to life.

Fu Yu: “???”

What? He had peeked at her that night, and she hadn’t noticed?

Careless, so careless.

Fu Yu stared in shock at her deceased husband in the scene.

He watched her quietly for a moment, his thin lips moving slightly, uttering a silent whisper: “&*”

Another clap of thunder roared outside the window.

Fu Yu felt as if that thunderbolt had struck directly into her mind.

Her pupils trembled, overwhelmed with shock.

In her dream, the Evil Spirits version of Jun Bu Du had made that sound.

As an Evil Spirit, his voice carried a metallic quality, sounding highly distorted to the ear.

She never imagined that it wasn’t actually the language of the Evil Spirits.

The thunder echoed in her ears, so much like that night.

That night, she clung to life again and again on the brink of death. She truly had no strength left, yet so many enemies remained.

Her ribs were broken, piercing her lungs, the sounds she made horrifying and hoarse.

Dying was easy; living was a thousand times harder.

Over and over, she made inhuman sounds to remind herself: Get up! Get up!

Get up—just get up, and you could strike fear into the enemy. Get up, and you could find a chance to turn the tables.

She trembled like a scrawny chicken in the wind, her legs as soft and thin as cooked spring noodles, yet she staggered to her feet again and again.

Fu Yu, get up, get up, get up!

The hoarse, indistinct sounds fell upon her ears, blurred and unclear.

“He actually learned it…”

Fu Yu was lost in a daze.

While he was alive, he never once mentioned it in front of her.

After her death, she taught the evil spirits in her dreams.

Early morning.

The Foxtail Grass Spirit rubbed its two eyes—resembling tangled clumps of grass—and kept stealing glances at Fu Yu.

How strange.

Today, it couldn’t sense its master’s mood at all.

It didn’t seem like joy, nor did it seem like sorrow.

Fu Yu strode straight out, stepping over the threshold—then suddenly remembered something. She turned, tilted her head, and asked, “What are you standing around for? Let’s go.”

The Foxtail Grass Spirit: “Oh! Oh!”

It scurried after her, unable to resist asking the question it had pondered all night yet still couldn’t solve: “Master, why will there be no lingering regrets after today?”

Fu Yu smiled but gave no answer.

The woman and the grass spirit made their way to Lu Xingchen’s residence.

After all, Qingyun Sect was a proper, orthodox cultivation sect. No matter what, they couldn’t simply abandon a disciple collapsed and paralyzed on the mountain path.

Lu Xingchen had been brought back yesterday.

Back when his legs were broken before, his constitution hadn’t actually been that poor—he was still young. Xie Fuyu had given him a seventh-grade healing pill. Though recovery was slow, she’d cared for him meticulously, helping him heal completely with no lasting effects.

But now it was different.

His meridians were utterly destroyed; his internal organs riddled with holes. After his legs broke, he’d dragged his fractured bones along the mountain path for most of the day. His injuries were beyond repair—he was now completely and irreversibly crippled.

The sect couldn’t just cast him out because he was disabled, yet neither could it spare dedicated personnel to care for him—no one was willing.

The various managers and outer sect disciples passed the buck for half a day. Fortunately, Qu Zhongzhi had a flash of inspiration and thought of the most suitable candidate: Su Yiner.

Cousins were close family—it was perfectly reasonable for her to take care of Lu Xingchen.

So Qu Zhongzhi went to the guest courtyard overnight, hauled Su Yiner—who had been searching for an opportunity to leave Qingyun Sect—over, and ordered her to care for Lu Xingchen: bring him food and water, clean up his waste.

Last night, Lu Xingchen groaned in agony all night, while Su Yiner cried all night about her miserable fate.

The woman and the grass spirit arrived outside the courtyard, hearing Su Yiner’s resentful voice from afar.

“Do you have to ruin me?! You need water every half hour! I just dozed off for a moment—and you deliberately wet the bed… How am I supposed to take care of you like this?! How?!”

*Crash!*

Lu Xingchen smashed a bowl on the floor. A moment later, his cold, calm voice emerged: “If I recall correctly, wasn’t it you who said you’d do anything for me—just to stay by my side? Well, isn’t this your chance? Come here, clean up the floor, and change the wet bedding for me.”

“Ahh—!” Su Yiner wailed to the heavens. “How can you treat me like this?! How can you bully someone like this?! What’s the point of living like this—I might as well die!”

“Then go ahead—go die, go die,” Lu Xingchen rasped with a strange laugh. “Find any tree outside, a well, or jump off a cliff. Do whatever you want to end your life. Try it—and see if anyone cares?”

Su Yiner sounded like a duck suddenly seized by the neck—her cries and shouts instantly silenced.

After a deathly silence, Lu Xingchen said coldly, “Bring the chamber pot. Hurry up—or I’ll shit the bed.”

Su Yiner gasped, sobbing, and clattered as she dragged a wooden bucket over.

Lu Xingchen commanded her, “Hold it steady.”

Outside the courtyard, Fu Yu and the Foxtail Grass Spirit默契ly took three steps back, covered their ears, and held their breath.

After the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, they saw Su Yiner struggling to carry the large wooden bucket out.

Lu Xingchen’s voice hauntingly chased after her: “We have a long life ahead of us, dear cousin. You and I will torment each other like this until we die.”

Su Yiner’s foot caught on the threshold.

*Thud!*

*Splash!* A series of suspicious and dreadful sounds.

Fu Yu and the Foxtail Grass Spirit sucked in a sharp breath and leapt back three zhang.

The Foxtail Grass Spirit thoughtfully closed the courtyard gate for the two inside—and locked it for good measure.

Su Yiner’s崩溃 wails erupted: “My fate is so bitter… Why is my fate so bitter…?”

Lu Xingchen: “You’ve made me sick with the smell. After cleaning the courtyard, come back immediately and tidy my bed.”

Su Yiner: “Ahh—what sin have I committed?!”

“…”

Outside the courtyard, the woman and the grass spirit exchanged a glance—and silently continued retreating.

The Foxtail Grass Spirit’s expression was复杂: “Master, now there truly isn’t a single shred of lingering regret left—not even the tiniest bit could possibly remain!”

Not only were there no lingering regrets—it even wanted to clasp its hands, bow respectfully to the heavens, and sincerely wish these two a long and lasting union.

Fu Yu laughed, raised her hand to hook the grass spirit’s shoulder, and swayed back with it.

“Then, shall I wish them well?”

“A harmonious union for a hundred years—enduring as the heavens and earth!”

“Master, I once had a dream.”

“Hmm… go on.”

The Foxtail Grass Spirit hung its head, its feet lightly kicking the stone mountain path one after another, its voice low and ethereal.

“I dreamed that on the day the Heart Elixir was stolen, Master truly died.

“I saw Lu Xingchen filled with regret—crying and crying, utterly heartbroken. For a long while, he was like a widower, refusing to see his cousin—as if he would live out his life alone, for me… for my master.

“Later, he successfully advanced to the Golden Core stage and became the Patriarch’s closed-door disciple.

“He said my eyes resembled Master’s—and always kept me by his side.

“I thought everything was getting better. He grew more and more powerful; the Patriarch valued him greatly—and promised to help investigate Grandpa’s injury.

“I was so happy. That day, I resolved to tell him a secret—but he was suddenly summoned away by the Patriarch’s people. He didn’t hear it—but Su Yiner did.

“I was locked in the woodshed by Su Yiner.”

"That day, the two of them were sleeping. Master, you were right. After gaining such benefits, how could there be any regret?"

"I never wanted to tell that secret again. I only hoped to see him avenge Grandpa."

"But later, Su Yiner framed me, saying I pushed her and caused her to lose her child. Right in front of him, she had me torn limb from limb."

It pressed its lips together tightly, suppressing its sobs.

Fu Yu patted its head.

"Master..."

It raised a pair of eyes shining with tears to look at her. "After I woke from the dream, I realized none of those things had happened yet. I had returned to the day the Heart Elixir was stolen."

"But Master, I'm really stupid. I didn't know what I could do. I'm just a Grass Spirit, I can't defeat anyone... I could only pray to all the gods and buddhas, anyone, please come one, come one, come one to help me..."

It stretched its lips into a wide, forced smile, laughing loudly with great effort.

"Wow! Master, and then you popped up out of nowhere, Master!" It gestured wildly. "With you here, you can fix anything! I don't have to be angry or sad. I can follow you to find out who really hurt Grandpa, and I can even get the last hit myself!"

"And these two people, they've also gotten what they deserved. Master, I... I'm really so grateful to you. To have met you, it's really..."

Its smile was radiant, but it choked up, unable to speak.

"Alright, I know what you want to say." Fu Yu patted its head. "That's right. I'm your god."

She looked at it with a smile, adding softly in her heart: You're lucky you summoned me, Xie Fuyu.

The Foxtail Grass Spirit was rendered speechless: "...Hey!"