Chapter 139: Truly Novel

Chapter 139: That's a First

Pei Jie patted his back, letting Shang Yunduo bury his face in his shoulder and cry for a good while.

Seeing that Shang Yunduo showed no signs of stopping.

He had to say, "Let's deal with the important matters first."

"Mm..." Shang Yunduo sobbed, his voice cracking as he spoke, "I thought you were dead..."

Pei Jie: "..."

He sighed, "We have a contract—if I died, you would suffer backlash. How could you not know if I was dead or not?"

Shang Yunduo froze for a moment, then remembered they did have a contract. "I forgot..."

Pei Jie: "..."

Shang Yunduo: "But no matter how I called you, you wouldn't answer me..."

As he spoke, he started crying again, looking at Pei Jie with a pitiful, wronged look, making Pei Jie feel strangely in the wrong.

He thought Shang Yunduo must have known, but he hadn't expected him to be so panicked that he forgot the contract entirely.

One moment smart, the next a fool, it left him both speechless and amused. Seeing Shang Yunduo looking so miserable and pitiful, Pei Jie felt a twinge of pity. "I should have let you know."

Shang Yunduo shook his head, "You were probably too hurt to even think about telling me."

Pei Jie: "..."

Once he confirmed Pei Jie was safe, Shang Yunduo's emotions stabilized, and his wits returned. He started muttering to himself, "Besides, back then there was that Transformation Stage Demon King who was trying to kill you. If he found out we were talking telepathically, it would have been trouble. Mm, you were right to hide and not contact me. I was just too panicked. Now I understand. If something like that happens again, you should still focus on hiding yourself and not worry about me."

Pei Jie: "..."

Shang Yunduo pulled out all his elixirs and asked, "How are you now? Are you seriously injured? Does it hurt? Do you need to rest?"

Pei Jie stared at him for a moment, took a couple of elixirs, and said, "Go burn all those clones—don't leave a single one."

"Huh? Oh!"

Pei Jie sat on the chair Shang Yunduo had specifically taken out, watching him limp off to clean things up.

King Lingxi's self-detonation caught Pei Jie off guard. On the verge of death, he couldn't even keep his beast form intact. In a hurry, he only had time to use a fast escape skill to dive deep—so deep that even a Transformation Stage cultivator couldn't detect him. Naturally, he hadn't had time to contact Shang Yunduo.

At the time, the Flying Owl was nearby. He couldn't let out even a shred of spiritual energy. If the Flying Owl sensed him, Shang Yunduo might get dragged into it and killed.

But was it really so dangerous he couldn't spare a moment to let Shang Yunduo know he was alive?

Pei Jie wasn't sure himself.

Deep underground, his spiritual power was nearly exhausted. He couldn't tell if the Flying Owl was still there or what Shang Yunduo was doing. All he knew was that since he hadn't suffered backlash, Shang Yunduo was still alive.

A long while after the blast, Shang Yunduo was still alive.

That was enough.

As long as Shang Yunduo was alive—even if he was exposed or captured—Pei Jie could always find a way to save him, since he'd left a mark on Shang Yunduo and could track him anywhere.

But he hadn't expected Shang Yunduo to return.

While Pei Jie was unconscious, Shang Yunduo had kept himself safe and even come back to save him.

Woken by the blast, sensing Shang Yunduo's aura, he'd thought it was a dream.

Pei Jie watched Shang Yunduo running here and there, flipping over rocks and digging through earth, and couldn't help but zone out. First time for everything... someone had actually come to save him.

Shang Yunduo carefully inspected the surroundings again and again.

Not a single one left.

Even the clones that had sneaked under rocks or crawled off in the distance were all dug up and burned.

Aside from a few half-dead grass roots and tree roots buried under the rubble, only he and Pei Jie remained alive.

"Ah! I almost forgot!" Shang Yunduo ran to where Elder Juhu had been sitting earlier, crouched down, and dug, pulling out a spirit beast pouch and a storage pouch he had secretly buried nearly two meters deep.

Then, limping, his legs shaking, he walked beside Pei Jie, grabbed the chair's armrest and plopped onto the ground. "Here."

"What is it?"

Shang Yunduo said, "I stashed them!"

Pei Jie opened it and found over a dozen spirit rhinos, all alive.

The storage pouch contained odds and ends and a corpse. "Jade Mountain Clan?"

Shang Yunduo replied, "Mm! The spirit beast pouch was found on that Chaos Clan member who was faking death. He had secretly hidden several spirit rhinos, and a few more were exchanged from the Black Abyss Clan elder who was at the Core Formation stage, using dead ones."

But he hadn't dared to swap all of them; he left two injured ones in that pouch, uncertain if they could survive. The pouch had been snatched once by King Xuanying and eventually given to the Tiger King.

Unfortunately, in his haste, he hadn't had time to remove scales from the dead spirit rhinos.

As for the corpse, everything had been chaotic, and Shang Yunduo was numb. He himself was puzzled why the elder of the Black Abyss Clan would carry someone else's corpse, but since Elder Juhu had also put a Blood Qilin Clan corpse in his storage pouch and told him to give it to the Tiger King, he instinctively thought it might come in handy. With nowhere to hide it, he took advantage of Elder Juhu blocking the view, dug a hole, and buried the items.

But in the chaos, he forgot to separate them and buried the storage pouch and spirit beast pouch together!

"Originally, I was going to give the storage pouch to the Tiger King too, but when he arrived, I remembered it was buried with the spirit beast pouch. If I dug it up, the spirit beast pouch would be discovered, so I didn't give it to him."

Shang Yunduo looked inside the storage pouch and muttered, leaning against Pei Jie in confusion, "But why would they hide corpses? The Blood Qilin Clan one at least made sense—they betrayed these demon clans, and it could be used as evidence to demand compensation. But why take the corpse of a Jade Mountain Clan member? Isn't that messed up?"

Pei Jie couldn't help but laugh.

Shang Yunduo asked, "Should I burn it?"

He had already burned so much today; he was a master at that.

Pei Jie replied, "No need. You wouldn't be able to burn it anyway."

Shang Yunduo said, "Oh..."

After all, a Core Formation cultivator is naturally harder to burn than a demon beast.

"Wait?! A demon core?!"

It suddenly dawned on him.

His brain was fuzzy from exhaustion, he'd forgotten demon cultivators also have demon cores. Now he understood.

Pei Jie said, "Not just that."

Shang Yunduo: "Huh?"

Pei Jie: "The Blood Qilin Clan and the Jade Mountain Clan both have ancient demon bloodlines."

"Oh!" Similar to the Spirit Rhinoceros Clan, huh.

Pei Jie was silent for a moment, then also pulled out a storage pouch and showed it to Shang Yunduo.

Shang Yunduo was confused, but when he opened it, he saw another corpse.

The Blood Qilin Clan's Sha Feng.

Shang Yunduo: "..."

His numbed mind was dazed.

How could Sha Feng's corpse be in Pei Jie's hands?

A lot of information was crashing into his mind, and Shang Yunduo's tired, barely working brain didn't know which to grasp.

"You also need his corpse?"

"Yeah."

"Oh... ah!" He suddenly understood. "So it's because you snatched his corpse that Elder Juhu and that elder from the Black Abyss Clan were chasing you?"

"Yeah."

Shang Yunduo's gaze toward Sha Feng's corpse immediately changed. What a great guy!

If Pei Jie hadn't snatched the corpse and been chased out, maybe the three of them would still have been inside Spirit Rhinoceros Valley when King Lingxi self-destructed. If Pei Jie hadn't been close to him and warned him to run, he would likely have been caught by King Hundun before King Lingxi's self-destruction.

"Senior, let's find a scenic spot later and give him a proper burial."

"Huh?" Pei Jie was taken aback by his reaction, then laughed. "Alright."

"Mm-hmm." Shang Yunduo leaned against Pei Jie, staring blankly at the storage pouch. Best put it away for now; he'd cremate Sha Feng later... Oh, right, he couldn't cremate him, so burial it would have to be.

Just as he was about to drift off to sleep, he suddenly realized something—Wait a minute! Since he couldn't even burn a Core Formation cultivator to ashes, how did he manage to burn King Hundun's true body to ash?

He quickly sat up straight and asked, "What exactly did I burn—that guy's clone or his true body? Isn't he at the Transformation stage? He didn't escape again, did he? If he's dead, shouldn't there be a storage pouch or a demon core or something?"

"Ha," Pei Jie couldn't help laughing. "If he'd still had those, how could he have escaped the Tiger King and Feixiao hunting him down twice?"

"Mm... true." Shang Yunduo still wasn't reassured and couldn't help scanning the area again. Only after confirming there were truly no clones left did he sigh, "These Chaos guys are really tough to kill..."

And all for nothing—he got no benefits.

But compared to others, just making it out alive was already pretty lucky.

Shang Yunduo looked again at the Spirit Rhinoceros Valley, like a meteor crater, and couldn't help remembering how it looked when he first arrived.

The valley was gone, the competition stone pillars were gone, the cave they had stayed in was gone. Of the six who had traveled together, only he had narrowly survived.

Thinking of this, Shang Yunduo couldn't help feeling sad. The elders, Hua Guan, and Cui Peng had always taken good care of him.

Elder Yanhu and Elder Juhu, who always pushed him to go on stage, didn't treat him as a pawn to wear down opponents; they only let him fight when he had a real chance of winning. The taciturn Elder Shenlin had also looked after him. When King Lingxi appeared, the three elders' first instinct was to protect the younger ones... They had known each other, and now they were parted by death without even a chance to say good-bye.

He didn't even know where Hua Guan, Cui Peng, and the two elders died, or where their remains ended up. As far as the eye could see, there was only a void of sand, as if all of yesterday were just a dream.

"Let's go."

When he got back on the flying ship and saw the green stretches of forest, Shang Yunduo finally felt a little as if he had come back to life from some barren planet far away, from a realm of illusion, back in the real world.

But he still didn't dare relax.

This area was still deep within the demon clan's territory. Flying around so openly wasn't an option. They had to find a hidden spot to rest and recover together before making other plans.

This time, not just he, but even Pei Jie was badly hurt. They found a temporary cave to rest. After three days, his eyes still hadn't gone back to normal. Normal vision and the state from using the Illusion Art were overlapping, making the world both concrete and abstract.

Pei Jie tilted his head side to side, examining his face. "Maybe you overdid it with your talent."

Shang Yunduo wasn't too bothered; he was getting used to it anyway—the world was just a bit more surreal. What worried him now was Pei Jie's injury.

They'd tried every healing pill they had, even the raw spirit herbs. The scars on Pei Jie's back and chest still burned and did nothing at all.

Now in his sight, Pei Jie's uneven scars looked like volcanic rock still glowing with leftover heat, shocking to see.

Back when he was catching up on common cultivation world knowledge, he had clearly read records that cultivators' wounds healed without any scars, unless they kept the scars intentionally or the wounds had never healed. He had never considered that regarding Pei Jie—never imagined that the scars on Pei Jie's body were because the wounds had never healed!

Shang Yunduo had run out of ideas: "Senior, why don't we go to Carefree City and find that shady doctor?"

Pei Jie was completely unconcerned: "No."

Shang Yunduo: "But staying injured like this isn't a solution."

Pei Jie shook his head: "Don't worry. A month or two of rest and it'll heal."

Shang Yunduo: "..."

He didn't believe that at all.

If it could really heal, how had Pei Jie kept those scars for so long?

From the Qi Refining stage rising to the Foundation Establishment stage, reshaping his meridians and refining his physique, his scars hadn't changed at all.

Seeing him mopey and quiet, Pei Jie pinched his cheek, puffing out his cheeks, released it, then puffed them again.

Shang Yunduo: "..."

Pei Jie smiled and let go: "That master and disciple pair—trustworthy but not entirely. The more serious the injury, the less you can trust them, understand?"

Shang Yunduo was stunned, suddenly unsure whether to nod or shake his head. Somewhat bewildered, he asked, "But..."

Weren't they friends?

Even if they weren't friends...

"Would they... take the chance to harm you?"

They had clearly treated others well—the children in Carefree City, and the other cultivators who showed up...

Pei Jie: "Who knows?"

He's got too many secrets.

Zhang Daozhu was a good doctor, but too obsessed with being a good doctor. He had long been interested in Pei Jie's injuries and origins. Others weren't so clueless—even when the hint was staring him in the face, he didn't notice.

Well, that's a good thing.

Pei Jie pinched Shang Yunduo’s worried face again. “Even if they don’t plan to do anything to me, it’s not certain that I could meet them safely while severely injured.”

Shang Yunduo: “I’ll take you there!”

Pei Jie: “You’re still hurt too.”

Shang Yunduo: “...My injury isn’t serious. I... well... my cultivation is too low.”

He instantly deflated.

Pei Jie: “Remember, in Wuyou City and the whole cultivation world—human or demon—nobody treats the badly hurt well. If you're badly hurt, it’s best not to go back to your sect or clan at all. Find a safe spot to hide and heal until you can take care of yourself, then come out. That's the right way to do it. If you ever travel alone, don't trust anyone or any place.”

Shang Yunduo nodded vaguely, frustrated, and said, “Mm, but I'm not going to travel alone. What should we do now? Just wait...”

He suddenly froze, then asked Pei Jie, shocked and scared, “Senior... are you... are you badly hurt? Are you going to die?”

Pei Jie: “...?”

Seeing that he was about to cry from fear, Pei Jie asked, puzzled, “Where did you get the idea that I’m dying?”

Shang Yunduo: “Then why would I travel alone?!”

Pei Jie took a deep breath: “I said ‘if’—just supposing!”

Shang Yunduo: “You just sounded like you were giving your last words!”

Pei Jie: “...”

Shang Yunduo: “Are you sure you're okay?”

Pei Jie: “Mm.”

Shang Yunduo: “Then swear it.”

Pei Jie: “...”

Shang Yunduo: “Swear it.”

Pei Jie took another deep breath, without a word, picked up the leftover grass juice he’d used earlier for drawing totems, and tossed it at Shang Yunduo. “What, you sound like you want me to die soon?”

Shang Yunduo: “Is that what I meant?”

Pei Jie: “Is that what I meant?”

Shang Yunduo: “I... huh?”

His vision suddenly went black. He thought it was that dizzy feeling you get from squatting too long and standing up too fast. Instinctively, he reached out, but Pei Jie grabbed his hand and steadied him.

“It’s nothing, just a blackout.” He was a cultivator now—how could he still have this problem? Was it low blood sugar from not eating enough lately?

But after a while, he still couldn’t see.

Another moment went by, and he still couldn't see. Shang Yunduo blinked, blinked again, and couldn’t help swallowing. “Senior...”

Pei Jie grabbed him again. “Can’t see?”

“Mm...” Shang Yunduo gripped his hand in return but couldn’t see where he was. Trembling, he said, “I—I think I’ve gone blind...”

Author's note:

Today's little unlucky guy.

Yunduo: Could it be karma from always calling the Black Abyss Clan blind? No, I never even said anything bad about them!