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

There was a vast Yulian Mountain Range between the hinterland of the northwest Wasteland and the Snow Mountains in the southwest of the Central Plains. At the junction of Yulian Mountain and the southwest corner of the Central Plains, there was a summit called Yuqiong Peak.

There were two ways to get to Yuqiong Peak from the Devil Sect. The first one was to climb the Yulian Mountain from the northern slope and walk straight into the plateau. The other was to bypass the Yulian Mountain, head through the hinterland of the Central Plains and then climb the peak along the ancient southeast road.

Tengyun Pavilion was located in the southern part of the Central Plains, directly east of Yuqiong Peak.

From the Wasteland to Tengyun Pavilion, one could choose to either pass through Qianzhou and head straight to the southeast, or choose to go south along Yulian Mountain, pass through Liaozhou and then head east. But the latter route was a longer detour, which would take about a day more compared to going in the direction of Qianzhou.

Now that Gu Feidi had some misgivings about Wujiangmen, he obviously didn’t want to pass through their territory in Qianzhou. The two discussed changing the route to Liaozhou. Even if it was farther, it was fine.

They departed early the next morning. Galloping quickly along the highway, the three of them arrived at the next town by dusk.

The town wasn’t small and there were many street shops. Su Yang chose an inn that he liked and brought Gu Feidi and Mei Shisan in. Mei Shisan followed the inn worker to settle the horses and Su Yang and Gu Feidi went upstairs to the guest room.

When they passed through a corridor, all of a sudden, the door of the next room swung open from the inside. A fifteen or sixteen year old boy rushed out without looking where he was going and stumbled towards Su Yang.

Su Yang was a martial arts practitioner after all, so he subconsciously stretched out his hand to block the child’s forward momentum and stabilized him.

When he moved, the veil of his hat wafted upwards. The young man suddenly raised his head to look at Su Yang. A string of panic instantly erupted from his eyes and his whole body froze; as if he had spied something from the gap.

“Liu Lang!”

A loud shout came from behind the door and a man in his twenties hurried out. Seeing the scene before him, he immediately stepped forward to apologise: “Begging your pardon, young man… my younger brother is ill and often has fits of insanity. If he has offended you, please forgive him!” He stretched out his hand and pulled the boy.

Unexpectedly, when the young man was touched by someone, he threw himself on the floor with a start and knelt down with a plop before Su Yang.

Su Yang: …

Gu Feidi stepped forward to block Su Yang behind him, “If your brother is unwell, you should take good care of him.”

The man immediately nodded and said yes. He leaned over and hauled the shivering youth up from the ground, half-dragging and half-hugging him back into the room.

Su Yang also followed Gu Feidi into the room, his mind completely befuddled.

He took off his hat veil, placed it on the couch and frowned, “Earlier, those two were very strange… do you think that boy was abducted and was asking us for help?”

Gu Feidi laughed: “The man’s concern for the young man wasn’t fake, they should really be brothers. The young man may have hysteria and he would therefore behave differently than others.”

Su Yang thought about it and agreed. Then he turned away and left the matter behind.

Today, both of them went to the hall to eat as usual and make discreet enquiries, but they learned nothing new.

Back in the room, Su Yang carried a half bowl of water he had readied and prepared to wash his hair.

When it came to the ancient times, the aspect he was most incapable of adapting to was personal hygiene. It had now been over two years, but he still couldn’t endure not washing his hair and not bathing for too long. He had no choice when he was outdoors, so as long as he got to a convenient place, he made it a point to wash his hair and clean his body.

Just as he was bending over to wet his hair, the door of the room was suddenly pushed open and Gu Feidi came in with a copper kettle.

“I sensed that you would want to freshen up.” He smiled. “I asked the kitchen for warm water. The weather now is cold. Don’t use cold water to wash your hair.”

Su Yang obediently stepped aside and let Gu Feidi add water to the basin.

After testing the water temperature, he said “Thank you”, then he soaked the tips of the hair in the water and scooped some up to wet the roots.

Gu Feidi put down the copper pot. He took off his wristbands, rolled up his cuffs and went to help Su Yang wash his hair.

Su Yang instinctively wanted to dodge: “I can do it myself, you can attend to your own things!”

Gu Feidi’s fingers gathered Su Yang’s hair and he smiled: “There is nothing I need to do. Support yourself on the basin, I’ll help you, save you the effort.”

These actions were really ambiguous and Su Yang’s heart was thumping madly.

He subconsciously felt that this wasn’t okay, but his body honestly retracted his hands. He propped them on the edge of the basin and let Gu Feidi gently rub the roots of his hair.

Rubbing the bath beans until his hands were full of lather, Gu Feidi used his fingers to help Su Yang clean his hair and asked: “When you were in Lesser Jade House, you hated long hair. Now, you’ve cut it even shorter. Any shorter and I’m afraid you won’t be able to tie it up. Next year is your crown ceremony, how are you going to wear the crown?”

Su Yang hadn’t thought about the crown ceremony which was so far ahead.

If he were to follow the pace of the original storyline, the Devil Sect’s Young Saint might not have the opportunity to be crowned before he was beheaded by Gu Feidi with a single stroke of his sword. At the moment, he didn’t want to follow the script. After going to Snow Mountain and eliminating Gu poison, he also didn’t want to return to the Devil Sect. Instead, he planned to go directly to Lesser Jade House and request to enter again.

Therefore, he reckons that he would skip the matter of the crown ceremony.

Seeing Su Yang not answering, Gu Feidi smiled, “Don’t cut your hair anymore, just keep it. You look attractive with long hair.”

Su Yang was sullen and unhappy: “I don’t look attractive with short hair?”

Gu Feidi said: “Not attractive…”

Su Yang raised his hand and wanted to smack him.

Gu Feidi hastily held Su Yang’s neck down: “Aai, aai, water! Lower your head!” In the end, he smiled, “You look very handsome with short hair. I like it too.”

The phrase “I like it too” made Su Yang’s ears heat up.

He grumbled: “How can this be counted as short hair? It can still be braided. You haven’t seen me when my hair is even shorter…”

Gu Feidi didn’t mind either. He used the clean, warm water from the copper kettle to help Su Yang wash away the foam from the bath bean and took a towel to soak up the water. He put the hair in his palm, combing and drying it with his internal strength.

Then he took off his headband and looked at Su Yang, “Help me too?”

Su Yang had just been waited upon by him, so he couldn’t refuse. He rolled his sleeves to his elbows and helped Gu Feidi wash his hair.

Gu Feidi’s hair was supple and it felt wonderful when it was held in his hand. Su Yang combed his fingers all the way from the roots to the tips of his hair, feeling as if he had truly recklessly wasted nature’s gift by cutting his hair too short.

“Alright, I promise you.” Su Yang rubbed Gu Feidi’s hair and smiled, “In the future, I won’t cut my hair, I’ll keep it.”

Gu Feidi tilted his head slightly, glanced at Su Yang and smiled: “I know you think it’s a hassle to wash your hair… It’s alright, I’ll help you wash it in the future.”

Su Yang pretended to curl his lips in disgust: “Tsk, picking and saying the words that sound pleasant…”

After washing his hair, Gu Feidi took the basin out and poured away the contents before asking a worker for some more water and bringing it back to the room for them to clean their bodies.

Su Yang took the water basin and walked behind the folding screen. He took off his jacket and inner shirt to hang it on top of the screen. He was about to undo the knot of his underpants when he heard a door sound. He craned his neck out and saw that Gu Feidi had closed the door after going out.

After mulling over it for a moment, Su Yang suddenly understood: Apparently, this lil’ Gu Feidi was still shy? It was clearly him who was about to get naked, so why was Gu Feidi evading? As expected, he was still too young and thin-skinned.

——He didn’t want to think about that day when they were drinking and admiring the moon. After their kiss, who was the one who’d first hid his face and escaped?

After washing up, the non-waterproof makeup on Su Yang’s face had also been cleaned off. But seeing that it was getting late, he guessed that he would not be going out to see anyone again today, so he didn’t reapply his makeup anymore. He sat on the couch with his hair loose and activated his inner strength to meditate.

Pretty soon, Gu Feidi pushed open the door and entered. Seeing that Su Yang was already neatly dressed, he quietly breathed a sigh of relief.

As usual, Mei Shisan was standing guard outside the room and Gu Feidi and Su Yang sat cross-legged on the couch and meditated. Neither spoke that night.

Su Yang woke up early in the morning, sat in front of the bed, took out the pigment and pollen from his luggage and was about to put on makeup. All of a sudden, there was a knock on the door.

Mei Shisan brought in a pot of tea and two small baskets of steamed dim sum, saying that it was the breakfast and tea prepared by the inn for guests in the rooms. It had just been delivered by the inn’s worker.

Su Yang sighed that it was indeed a high-end inn that even provided breakfast for two. He put down his makeup tools and pulled Gu Feidi over to sit down at the table.

Unexpectedly, as soon as the tea entered his mouth, Su Yang couldn’t help frowning—the tea’s colour looked weak, so how could it taste so bitter?

The Cold Pond Ice Spirit in his body reacted before his brain had yet to realise the problem. Extreme cold instantly spread all over his body, rushing straight to his throat and abdomen, almost freezing the tea in his mouth.

Su Yang gave a low groan “Eh“.

Gu Feidi put down the tea cup he’d just lifted to his lips and asked in concern: “What’s going on?”

Su Yang stretched out his hand to snatch Gu Feidi’s teacup, slumped heavily on the table and frowned, “It might be poisoned…”

Gu Feidi was shocked: “Poisoned? Are you alright?!”

Su Yang said: “I won’t be poisoned, Half Withered Red can resolve it——Shisan! Go arrest people!”

Mei Shisan had already opened the door and entered when he heard Gu Feidi shout. Hearing Su Yang’s order, he immediately nodded and turned to leave.

Gu Feidi clutched Su Yang’s wrist with a worried expression on his face.

Su Yang patted the back of his hand comfortingly, “It’s nothing, don’t worry, I’ll be alright after maneuvering my inner strength.”

Just after transmigrating over, Su Yang ingested poison when he was in the Devil Sect. The suicide attempt failed and the elders told him that the Six Underworlds Inter Flower technique he practiced had the power to impede poison. As long as it was dealt with promptly, he would never die of poisoning.

Now that he also had the Half Withered Red methodology which was the ‘bane of a hundred poisons’, Su Yang was not afraid of being poisoned. He activated Half Withered Red and within a moment, he had resolved all the poison in the tea.

At this moment, Mei Shisan pushed the door open and entered. He threw the innkeeper and worker, whom he had gagged and tied up, onto the ground and closed the door with his back hand.

Seeing the situation, the two trembled with fright. They immediately turned over, knelt and bowed to beg for mercy.

Gu Feidi removed the gag from the innkeeper’s mouth. The innkeeper opened his mouth and was about to yell out when Mei Shisan held a sword to his neck.

“If you dare to cry out, I’ll kill you!”

The innkeeper shuddered and obediently shut up.

Gu Feidi wasn’t in a hurry to question them either. He stepped forward to untie the innkeeper’s hands and sat back at the table. He leisurely reached for the teacup on the table and handed it to him, “Drink some tea to calm your nerves.”

The innkeeper sneered twice: “Big, big hero… if you have something to say, you can speak bluntly…”

Gu Feidi gave a light laugh: “Have some tea first.”

The innkeeper tremblingly took the teacup, glanced at everyone and awkwardly lifted it to drink.

Gu Feidi snatched the cup of tea and passed it to the worker next to him. Su Yang untied the worker’s hands. The worker held the teacup and looked at the three of them with a bewildered expression.

“Drink it.” Gu Feidi calmly ordered.

The worker was shaking with fear and he didn’t understand, so he obediently moved the teacup to his mouth.

Gu Feidi snatched the teacup again, put it on the table and sighed: “They’re not aware.”

Su Yang asked Mei Shisan: “Was this the one who delivered the food to you this morning?”

Mei Shisan: “It’s him, this subordinate will not remember incorrectly.”

Gu Feidi asked the innkeeper: “Is it customary for the inn to prepare breakfast for guests in the rooms?”

The innkeeper nodded.

Gu Feidi asked the worker: “Did you come across anyone when you delivered our breakfast this morning?”

The worker thought for a while, then suddenly, his eyes lit up: “Seeing the few of you get up to wash up, this lowly one went to the kitchen to serve breakfast. It just happened that a guest said that he was not used to the flavour here and asked this lowly one for pepper… so this lowly one placed your food on the kitchen stove for a while and went to get him some pepper…”

Gu Feidi’s eyes narrowed: “Which guest?”

The worker thought for a moment and said: “He was also one of the guests in the rooms, it seemed like… he was accompanied by a half-witted younger brother, saying that he was going to Yuqiong Peak to seek medical treatment…”

Su Yang abruptly raised his head and exchanged a look with Gu Feidi.

Gu Feidi got up and quickly rushed out of the room. He kicked open the door of the room where the man and boy had been staying yesterday—but there was no one there.

Su Yang didn’t have time to put on his makeup. He carelessly fastened his veil hat and ran out. Seeing Gu Feidi’s expression wasn’t good, he asked, “What’s the situation?”

Gu Feidi gritted his teeth and said, “Prepare to leave. It’s inadvisable to remain here too long!”