Where is Our Agreement to be Each Other’s Arch-Rivals?

“You don’t have to be so guarded.” Su Huaizhu said, “This favour isn’t difficult for you.”

With that, he took out a letter from his sleeve and handed it to Gu Feidi.

The letter wasn’t sealed, its contents unobstructed and could be clearly seen by Gu Feidi:

“May we fulfill our previously set appointment this year?”

There was no heading, no signature, just a few strokes in the corner of the paper to illustrate a bunch of green bamboo.

Gu Feidi eyed the Devil Sect Leader suspiciously.

Su Huaizhu said, “Help me to hand this letter to Leader Gu. I will give you a token and allow you to take Su Yang to find someone who can help him.”

“My father?” Gu Feidi was surprised.

“Yes.” Su Huaizhu’s eyes were dark. “…Your father.”

Gu Feidi did not reach out to take the letter.

Seeing Gu Feidi’s distrust, Su Huaizhu said, “I’m sure you’ve heard that Leader Gu and I were the classmates in Lesser Jade House…”

——Twenty odd years ago, the current Devil Sect Leader, Su Huaizhu had entered Lesser Jade House for further studies and became friends with his schoolmate Gu Ruohai, the current Martial Alliance Leader.

There was a young man named Luo Yu who had entered Lesser Jade House at the same time as them.

Although Luo Yu’s martial arts were not strong, nevertheless he was quite talented in the medicine and toxins. Old Qi of Lesser Jade House took him in to cultivate alongside him.

Later, several of them had managed to complete their discipleships and left Lesser Jade House. It seemed that Luo Yu was said to be hiding in Yuqiong Snow Mountain on the southwest border of the Central Plains to avoid someone who was after his life. In order to make a living, Luo Yu would descend from the mountain each month to practice medicine. Because of his wondrous medical skills, he gradually became known with the moniker “Yuqiong Divine Doctor”.

“If you want to completely eliminate the blood Gu for Su Yang, you must seek him out.” Su Huaizhu said indifferently. “But the man has a strange temperament, vowing to treat only the common folk and not those from the Jianghu or imperial officials. Without a token, you will never get to see him.”

Hearing that, Gu Feidi frowned slightly and muttered, “Snow Mountain in the southwest…”

After a moment of silence, Su Huaizhu took out a flower hairpin and lightly rotated it in his hand.

“This hairpin was left behind by Su Yang’s biological mother.” He said calmly, “Su Yang’s biological mother has some relationship with Luo Yu. If you bring this hairpin along, you will surely be able to meet with Luo Yu.”

After a pause, he continued, “Naturally, I’ll let you leave my Sect’s headquarters. Whether or not you will deliver the letter for me, that I would have no way of knowing nor can I force you. But I believe that as long as you have this hairpin, you will definitely not forget about the matter of this letter.”

Gu Feidi’s eyes fell on the flower hairpin atop the letter in Su Huaizhu’s hands. For a long time, he did nothing.

“Fine,” Su Huaizhu said suddenly, “If you’re unwilling, I won’t force you.”

With that said, he flipped his hands and withdrew those two items.

Gu Feidi released the hilt of the sword, grabbed the letter and the flower hairpin. He closed his eyes and sighed, “…Alright, I promise.”

Su Huaizhu loosened his grasp, said nothing and turned to leave.

Suddenly, Gu Feidi’s voice sounded from behind him: “Elder.”

Su Huaizhu turned back to look at him.

Gu Feidi raised his face and looked over. Beneath the candlelight, his face bore an extremely solemn expression.

“Elder, that year…” he asked, “…Why did you have a falling out with my father?”

It was a long time before anyone spoke.

Su Huaizhu said softly: “That time, I was the Devil Sect’s Young Saint. He was the Young Master of Tengyun Pavilion.”

There was no further explanation and he left the stone chamber after that.

Gu Feidi was in a daze and remained motionless in the candlelight-filled room.

……

As he slowly regained consciousness, Su Yang was entranced in a dream…

He dreamt that he was bobbing up and down in the frozen sea and there was nothing he could grab onto. His body seemed to have been immersed by cold water and his soul engulfed by the chilly air.

Just as he was about to give up all hope and had the urge to just follow and sink to the sea bed, a pair of warm lips pressed against the corner of his mouth. Instantly, a scorching stream of air rushed in from between his lips into his body and roused his breathing. A warm body wrapped around him, melting his limbs and pulling him back from the edge of death.

So Su Yang greedily embraced the person in his arms, found the other’s lips and sucked on them.

His heart was filled with joy and pleasure that he had never had before, as if the happiness that he always anticipated had been finally seized by him in this instance.

Slowly opening his eyes, Gu Feidi’s face filled Su Yang’s vision. The fire cast a golden red tint on his face as well as his dark eyes, which were still bright and radiant.

Gu Feidi lay sideways next to him, with one arm resting on his waist and his palm lightly covering his back. A steady stream of scorching air emanated from the center of Gu Feidi’s palm and gently spread onto his body, making him crave the heat.

Gu Feidi asked in a low voice, “Are you still cold?”

His heart suddenly trembled for a second.

Right then, Su Yang understood what the earlier dream meant.

He truly loves Gu Feidi.

Perhaps he had already anticipated this deep in his heart from early on.

However, the script was deeply rooted in his memory at that time and this world in his subconscious was still not real. Even the Gu Feidi before him had unwittingly been regarded as an imaginary character. 

Now that he had been awakened by Gu Feidi’s kiss that spanned the real and the imaginary, he carefully recalled all the various ways those two had been together before, Su Yang had no choice but to admit that his attention and nervousness towards Gu Feidi had long surpassed the proper sentiment of his character from the novel.

Su Yang also couldn’t recognise whether he himself had same-sex tendencies and whether it was related to the Devil Sect’s Young Saint’s character of liking men. In conclusion, he is now confident that he has feelings for Gu Feidi.

But Su Yang also knew that if he really wanted to be with Gu Feidi, they would definitely encounter many troubles.

——I’m afraid that this emotional arc has already crumbled beyond the original author’s recognition!

The only son of the Martial Alliance Leader has fallen in love with the Devil Sect’s Young Saint? What kind of magical love-hate relationship drama is this?!

After not receiving an answer for a long time, Gu Feidi asked again: “Su Yang, are you still cold?”

Su Yang came to his senses and sat upright. He shook his head and replied, “I’m not cold anymore.”

Gu Feidi carefully observed Su Yang’s expression but could not discern anything, so he crossed his legs and sat silently beside him.

After muttering to himself for a moment, he handed over the flower hairpin that the Devil Sect Leader had given him.

Su Yang took it in surprise, not understanding why: “What’s this?”

Gu Feidi said: “Devil Sect Leader came while you were unconscious.”

“What?!” Su Yang was alarmed and grabbed Gu Feidi’s arm, looking him up and down anxiously, “What did he come here for? Are you alright? Did he inconvenience you?”

“No, I’m alright.” Gu Feidi said, “Not only did he not inconvenience me, instead, he promised to let me take you to the Snow Mountain to find a person who can eliminate the Gu poison.”

Hearing this, Su Yang’s expression changed and he frowned, “He knows someone on Snow Mountain that can eliminate the blood Gu?”

Gu Feidi nodded, his gaze fell on the flower hairpin in Su Yang’s hand and he said, “He gave me this hairpin to use as a token.”

After that, he told Su Yang a summary of the transaction proposed by the Devil Sect Leader. At the end, he said, “We could’ve travelled over the mountains to get to Snow Mountain from the Wasteland, but now we have to detour to the Central Plains. We need to return to Tengyun Pavilion and give this letter to my father.”

Su Yang’s attention was not focused on Gu Feidi’s words.

He looked down at the flower hairpin in his hand and thought about the matter of the Yuqiong Divine Doctor, Luo Yu. His brow unwittingly furrowed.

This flower hairpin had been left behind by the Devil Sect’s Young Saint’s biological mother. Lou Yu and she used to be on good terms. Therefore, if they wanted to see Luo Yu, they needed the Devil Sect Leader’s consent to obtain this flower hairpin as a token to proceed.

But… in the original script, Pu Lingyun and Gu Feidi had fled the Devil Sect from the clutches of the Young Saint and the Devil Sect Leader had not been involved at all. Then how could they have acquired this token and succeeded in eliminating the blood Gu in the southwest Snow Mountain?

Recalling the basic cold methodology foundation necessary for practicing Half Withered Red, Su Yang suddenly began to suspect: could the storyline he was familiar with have been distorted?

The script was adapted from the novel. Although logically speaking, the adaptation shouldn’t deviate too much from the original, but … considering all the BUGS he had identified, only this theory seemed plausible.

If the original novel wrote that the one who solved Gu Feidi’s blood Gu and then went to the southwest Snow Mountain was also the Devil Sect’s Young Saint himself……

Why would he do this?

Weren’t he and the protagonist rivals?

Was it possible that the original work also had a love-hate relationship story arc between a melodramatic Devil Sect’s Saint Young and the only son of the Martial Alliance Leader?

Before Su Yang had time to ponder deeper, a hand appeared in front of him waving and blocking his view of the flower hairpin.

The corners of Gu Feidi’s lips curled up and he asked softly, “Thinking of your mother?”

Su Yang glanced at the flower hairpin in his hand and knew that Gu Feidi had misunderstood. He smiled awkwardly and said, “I’ve actually never met her. Besides, my background… you should have guessed it too.”

He didn’t have an exact impression of the role of a ‘mother’; that included his own reality. He lived a somewhat simple life. His grandmother took good care of him and he didn’t have much of an impression of his parents.

Gu Feidi placed his hand on his wristband and slowly exhaled.

Su Yang saw this and changed the topic: “I really wasn’t thinking about my mother, don’t sigh. We have to pack up our things and return to Iris Island.”

As he spoke, he stretched out and gave Gu Feidi a pat on his shoulder, then stood up to arrange things.

In fact, their belongings had been packed long ago and the only thing left in the stone chamber was a stack of scriptures on the desk.

Gu Feidi casually picked up the scriptures and held two or three pages to ignite using the candle lamp.

As he watched his actions, Su Yang walked forward hesitantly to help him burn them.

After a long while, Su Yang said: “That leaf of lyrics… it’s quite a pity.”

Gu Feidi’s fingers paused, he didn’t turn around but he smiled, “What is it?”

Su Yang hesitated for a while and said, “The revised lyrics… are very good and your handwriting is also beautiful, I wanted to keep it…”

After burning two or three pages of scriptures he had been holding, Gu Feidi smiled and sat back at the couch desk. He picked up the brush, dipped it in the brush wash and slowly ground the ink stick on the inkstone.

Su Yang watched his movements with a premonition in his heart and understood what Gu Feidi was about to do.

Sure enough, Gu Feidi ground the ink, took a piece of white paper and earnestly rewrote the lyrics that he had revised.

Su Yang watched the inky characters on the paper, his gaze slowly moved upward, settling on Gu Feidi’s hand holding the brush and then towards his extremely serious face.

His eyelashes were lowered, veiling his eyes that seemed to be filled with constellations of stars. His expression was calm and his emotions were not discernible, but the corners of his mouth were naturally slightly curled and his lips…

Staring at Gu Feidi’s lips, Su Yang’s mind immediately replayed the kiss between the two of them in the dark room.

He didn’t pay attention at that time and thinking about it now, the soft, warm and moist touch seemed to return to Su Yang’s lips out of thin air, making him somewhat unbearably tempted.

Su Yang subconsciously flattened his mouth and moistened his lips.

“Done.” The corners of Gu Feidi’s mouth curved upwards slightly and he threw a glance at Su Yang.

Gently picking up the two corners of the paper, his lips pressed together and blew gently to dry the half-wet ink.

Su Yang quickly looked away and went to see the lyrics on the page.

When the ink was dry, Su Yang reached out and took the page. He read through it silently twice before folding it and solemnly stuffing it into his lapels.

The two burned the rest of the scriptures together and tidied up the stone chamber. Then they carried their bundles and walked towards the exit side by side.

There was no sunlight in the Forbidden Area and their perception of time was hazy. It was not until they had left the cave that the two realised it was nearing nighttime.

Mei Shisan stood at the entrance of the Forbidden Area. Seeing Su Yang and Gu Feidi coming out, he bowed down onto one knee and greeted, “Young Saint.”

Seeing Mei Shisan again, Su Yang suddenly thought of the ‘person’ this flower aide was truly loyal to and he felt a little unavoidably awkward in his heart.

He smoothed his lips, did not immediately allow him to rise as usual, but asked in a deep voice, “What is it?”

Mei Shisan bowed his head and replied: “This subordinate was ordered to welcome Young Saint back to Iris Island and to accompany Young Saint to Snow Mountain to locate the doctor.”