ATAVID CH82

“So, it is also your first time seeing His Supremacy?”

In the back garden of the Nether Abyss palace, Jiang Qunyu squatted on the stone steps, huddling and chatting with several low-and-submissive ghost attendants beside him.

One of the ghost attendants, who possessed the liveliest personality, immediately opened his mouth with a face full of flattery: “Replying to the Honorable Empress, most of the time His Supremacy is not in the Nether Abyss. We are merely minor ghosts with low cultivation; if not for basking in the blessing of the Honorable Empress, this servant would likely never have the qualification to look upon His Supremacy’s true visage in this lifetime.”

Jiang Qunyu shuddered all over again, the tips of his ears burning slightly as he spoke through gritted teeth: “Have I not said it already? You are forbidden from calling me that!”

Empress? Empress his granddad’s ass!

Yet that ghost attendant replied: “You are the one who has bowed to Heaven and Earth and performed the great wedding ritual with His Supremacy. A day has passed now, yet you can still stroll around freely inside the Nether Abyss palace without the slightest restriction. Presumably, His Supremacy cares for you excessively. This servant would never dare call you blindly and break the rules.”

“……” Looking at their stubbornly uniform expressions, Jiang Qunyu knew that no matter how he corrected them, it would be useless. He simply waved his hand and let them be.

With an expressionless face, he asked: “Then what about those people who entered the Nether Abyss before?”

The ghost attendant thought for a moment and said: “This servant was only promoted to serve in the palace during the ninety-ninth year of Changning. Over these past twenty-odd years, including you, Honorable Empress, a total of four people have been brought into the Nether Abyss. But as for the other three, His Supremacy never cast so much as a single glance at them, let alone kept them by his side. Within a few years, they all lost their lives, and in the end, could only be thrown onto the banks of the River of Forgetfulness to feed those flowers.”

Hearing this, the other several ghost attendants also chimed in one after another, chattering away.

“This servant also entered the palace in the ninety-ninth year of Changning.”

“Hearing it from the elders in the palace, back in the ninety-eighth year of Changning, a major event occurred in the Nether Abyss. The maids and ghost attendants inside and outside the palace were completely purged and replaced; most of the current ones were promoted back then,” one of the ghost attendants who knew some inside information said.

The ninety-eighth year of Changning?

Jiang Qunyu froze abruptly, his brows knitting tight: “So, is it also because of this that His Supremacy insisted on finding a demon born on the fifteenth day of the seventh month in the ninety-eighth year of Changning to counter the curse?”

Hearing this, the ghost attendant shook his head: “This servant is unclear about that. However, in the past, His Supremacy would never specifically pick a date like the fifteenth day of the seventh month. On this day, the yin spirits fluctuate violently and it is most perilous. His Supremacy’s soul is already unstable to begin with; if he truly wanted to counter a curse, why would he choose such an ominous day?”

The corner of Jiang Qunyu’s mouth twitched.

An unstable soul? He hadn’t seen a single trace of it. He only felt that Wei Xun looked fierce all over, acting as if everyone owed him millions.

The further he questioned them, the more Jiang Qunyu felt that this Nether Abyss was revealing strangeness everywhere. Wei Xun was even more bizarre. He could be practically certain that Wei Xun had already recognized who he was. But how did Wei Xun recognize him? And from what point in time did he start recognizing him?

Thinking until his head ached without coming up with any answers, Jiang Qunyu simply grew too lazy to think further. What vexed him even more at present was the baffling relationship between him and Wei Xun.

Thus, Jiang Qunyu stood up and bid farewell to those few ghost attendants. He casually found a large tree that looked pleasing to his eye, intending to climb up and lie there to enjoy a moment of peace.

Consequently, when he stood beneath the tree, a head suddenly popped out from between the densely clustered leaves. Xie Chuan blinked his eyes.

Jiang Qunyu: “……”

He could even run into him here?! True, he had forgotten; in the past, he always loved to lie on trees and space out, and Xie Chuan would always copy him, also finding a tree to curl up on.

Xie Chuan spoke first, his tone dry, putting on a front of strictly guarding his tongue: “I will not tell you about Master’s matters.”

“Oh.” Jiang Qunyu gnashed his teeth. In front of Xie Chuan, he instinctively assumed the stance of an elder, entirely forgetting that his current body was only twenty-seven years old. Scolding Xie Chuan up and down in his heart—what a waste of all those times he used to take him out to eat delicious food. Crossing his arms, he let out a cold snort: “Speak or don’t, see if I care.”

Xie Chuan leaped down from the tree. He stared at Jiang Qunyu’s face for a long time before silently tilting his head away.

An incredibly strange feeling; he felt that Jiang Qunyu closely resembled his Master… though it was clearly not the same face. His heart wavered for an instant, but remembering Wei Xun’s threat, he still left behind a sentence: “I will tell you next time.”

Having finished speaking, he carried his sword on his back, flashed, and vanished into the woods.

Watching him run off, Jiang Qunyu ignored it. He climbed up the tree by himself and lay on a thick branch for the entire afternoon, counting leaves out of sheer boredom.

Not until the round moon hung high in the sky and the cool, clear moonlight scattered through the gaps of the overlapping leaves, casting mottled fragments of shadows upon him, did the night wind gradually turn chilly.

He truly couldn’t drag it out any longer. He genuinely couldn’t afford to provoke Wei Xun right now. Jiang Qunyu let out a sigh, leaped down from the tree, patted the dust off his robe, and resignedly walked toward the palace.

Wretched man, wretched man, wretched man! He only knows how to threaten me!

Walking to the side of the sleeping palace doors, Jiang Qunyu’s steps paused. Thinking of that kiss from the morning, he wrestled with it for a long while but ultimately chickened out. Turning around to make a detour, he planned to climb in through the window, striving to slip back onto the bed undetected and play dead.

Creak—

The moment the window was pushed open to reveal a sliver of a gap, his eyes locked straight onto Wei Xun, who was sitting on the couch by the window. Those beautiful eyes were dark and heavy, gazing at him without blinking for an instant.

Jiang Qunyu instinctively wanted to push the window back shut, yet he saw a long, jade-like hand stretch over, bracing against the window frame. He tugged at it twice, but it remained completely motionless.

He could only squeeze out a dry smile, attempting to act cute to get away with it: “Hahaha, what a coincidence.”

The corners of Wei Xun’s lips curved into a smile, yet the mirth did not reach his eyes: “No coincidence. I was just preparing to go out and catch you.”

Jiang Qunyu immediately straightened his spine out of a guilty conscience: “Have I not returned on my own accord?!”

“Mm,” Wei Xun responded flatly. “When you were loitering outside, it indeed had not passed the midnight hour. But you lingered back and forth at the door for fifteen minutes. Now, it has passed.”

Jiang Qunyu was choked up, using twisted logic to argue: “But you didn’t say it wasn’t allowed.”

The fingertips hanging at Wei Xun’s side curled slightly. The moment he laid eyes on him, the anxiety that had been bottled up all afternoon finally dissipated a little. He merely parted his lips flatly: “Come in.”

Knowing when to quit, Jiang Qunyu immediately clambered through the window, kicked off his shoes, climbed onto the couch, and grumbled under his breath: “Dog temper.”

Today, Wei Xun wore a moon-white, wide-sleeved long robe, his dark hair unbound and draped casually behind him. When his long eyelashes drooped, they concealed the customary malicious coldness within his eyes, making his entire person resemble a pure and elegant immortal.

Jiang Qunyu was accustomed to the aura of ‘stay away’ that surrounded him when he wore dark robes. Seeing this long-forgotten cold and detached appearance of his, he actually found it a bit rare and couldn’t resist stealing a few more glances.

Wei Xun allowed him to scan him, his gaze falling upon several popular storybooks piled on the low table. Casually drawing one out, his tone remained unruffled: “Which one do you wish to hear?”

“Have you not already taken it?” Jiang Qunyu glanced at the book in his hand, giving a flat roll of his eyes. “Do I even have a choice?”

Without even lifting his eyelids, Wei Xun said flatly: “No.”

As soon as the words fell, his long knuckles casually flipped open the pages.

Following closely, a voice as clear as jade stones striking together echoed within the quiet sleeping palace, narrating a cliché story of a Daoist companion abandoning a cultivator. The timbre of his voice was utterly incompatible with this melodramatic plot.

The more Jiang Qunyu listened, the more restless and uncomfortable he became. Especially when hearing Wei Xun’s unfluctuating tone read out how that cultivator “waited for one year, two years, three years…”, an awkwardness permeated his entire body.

Inexplicably, the image of those one hundred and thirty-eight strands of long hair that Wei Xun had made him cut surfaced in his mind.

One hundred and thirty-eight years. From the eighty-seventh year of Xiping to the one hundred and twenty-fifth year of Changning, it was exactly one hundred and thirty-eight years.

Jiang Qunyu reacted instantly, his heartbeat falling into disarray as his guilty conscience worsened. But in the next second, he stiffened up again. What was he guilty about? When they parted back then, there was absolutely no such relationship between him and Wei Xun. Rather, it was now that Wei Xun was always cryptically dropping hints, making it look as though they truly possessed a past love as deep as the sea.

Besides, was Wei Xun so certain that what he felt for him was love? Could it also just be that having been entangled and keeping each other company for so many years, he had unconsciously mistaken dependence for affection?

“In the end, the cultivator imprisoned his Daoist companion, and they would be together forever.” Wei Xun paused, closed the book, and lifted his eyelids to look toward Jiang Qunyu, asking him: “What do you think of this ending?”

Terrified that this madman Wei Xun would truly lock him up, Jiang Qunyu blurted out without even thinking: “Not much of an ending.”

Wei Xun smiled tenderly: “I, however, think it is quite good.”

“His Daoist companion might very well hate that cultivator because of it,” Jiang Qunyu advised earnestly. “After all, an imprisonment kind of dark-room play doesn’t feel very friendly to one’s physical and mental health.”

Hearing this, Wei Xun fell silent for a moment, the corner of his lips hooking into a mocking arc: “How do you know that the cultivator does not hate his Daoist companion as well?”

Jiang Qunyu tilted his head away, no longer looking at him: “Since there is hate, why must they still be together?”

“If there is no love, then even with hate, they can still be entangled together forever,” Wei Xun countered flatly. “Is that not good?”

Jiang Qunyu: “……Where do you get so many twisted arguments?”

Wei Xun spoke no further.

The room fell into a sudden quiet. Outside the window, the wind blew through the leaves with a rustling sound. It was already early summer, and the night inside the palace was not as freezing cold as other places in the Nine Underworlds.

Just now when he was bickering back and forth with Wei Xun, Jiang Qunyu hadn’t felt anything. Now that they had fallen silent, he could not help but uncontrollably recall that kiss that had landed on the corner of Wei Xun’s lips this morning. Jiang Qunyu felt a bit hot, an awkwardness permeating his entire person. His gaze landed on the teacup on the table one moment, and on the flower vase in the corner the next; he just didn’t dare let it land on Wei Xun.

His heart beat rapidly, like a pounding drum, a sensation both unfamiliar and familiar. Jiang Qunyu was even beginning to suspect whether something had gone wrong with this body. Back when he was still a soul form, he had never felt this kind of flustered, chaotic sensation toward Wei Xun. Why was it that now, having obtained a physical form, all sorts of strange things were happening instead?

“……I am going to sleep.” Leaving behind a sentence, Jiang Qunyu leapt off the couch as if escaping. Without looking at Wei Xun again, he walked straight toward the bed.

He was actually not sleepy at all. Having lain on the tree all afternoon, his spirit was exceptionally energized at the moment. Therefore, he merely turned his back to Wei Xun, closing his eyes to feign sleep while attempting to calm that thunderous heartbeat.

After an unknown period of time, Wei Xun seemed to also step off the couch, but he did not come over. Jiang Qunyu quietly cracked open a sliver of his eyes, only to see him standing beside the incense burner, seemingly lighting incense. Under the illumination of the dim yellow candlelight, the outline of his profile appeared exceptionally deep.

He couldn’t help but wonder, is Wei Xun’s insomnia very severe? Why does he always light that incense? Moreover, that incense was said to calm the mind and nurture the spirit, yet in reality, he hadn’t slept well at all last night.

Hearing the movement of Wei Xun turning around and walking toward the bed, Jiang Qunyu instantly shut his eyes tight, continuing to pretend to be asleep.

The bed beside him sank slightly as Wei Xun lay down next to him. Promptly, he reached out his hand, naturally drawing him into his arms and holding him tight. Jiang Qunyu maintained an even breathing pattern, forcefully ignoring the warm tactile sensation on his body and the distinct heartbeat as he began to count sheep…

After a long, long time, without knowing which number of sheep he had reached, sleepiness finally surged up slowly, his consciousness beginning to blur.

Suddenly, a touch of slightly cool softness descended upon his lips.

Jiang Qunyu’s entire body stiffened, his sleepiness vanishing instantly as his mind went completely blank.

Wei Xun, however, seemed entirely oblivious to the fact that he was awake. His lips pressed gently against Jiang Qunyu’s, pausing for a moment before parting his mouth to enclose his lip. His warm, wet tongue tentatively probed inward, hooking against his.

Jiang Qunyu was already utterly dazed by now; he was kissed until his head spun, his entire body going soft along with it, unable to process anything at all. Although Wei Xun had also kissed him during the day, he had absolutely not been as unbridled as he was right now. Jiang Qunyu’s heart beat so fast it felt about to explode. Stiffening his body, he even forgot to raise his hand to push him away, completely at a loss for what to do.

Should he continue to pretend to be asleep? Or should he deliver a kick to Wei Xun to make him stop kissing him! He felt so strange right now; his entire body was so soft, yet it also felt somewhat comfortable, making him feel a bit like crying.

Fortunately, Wei Xun finally stopped. He didn’t kiss further, letting out a low chuckle: “Stupid to death. Jiang Qunyu, who told you that incense was for calming the mind and nurturing the spirit?”

The instant he heard this sentence, the tightly coiled string inside Jiang Qunyu’s brain snapped with a pop.

His very first thought was: Wei Xun, that bastard, truly knew who he was all along!

His second thought was: What does that mean? If that burning incense of Wei Xun’s isn’t for calming the mind and nurturing the spirit, then what is it used for?

…Surely it couldn’t be used to drug him into a stupor, right? Was this psychopath out of his mind?! He even resorted to using knockout incense? Had he lit it tonight as well? But he didn’t possess that heavy, inescapable drowsiness from last night. Could it be that he had actually developed a tolerance to this stuff?

Forget it, he should just continue to pretend to be asleep.

Just as he thought this, Wei Xun’s kisses descended once more. This time it wasn’t the lips; Jiang Qunyu’s eyes, the bridge of his nose, his neck… not a single spot was spared. He bit lightly, lapping at them, dense and meticulous, letting nothing go.

Gradually, Jiang Qunyu came to regret it. He should have delivered a fierce kick to Wei Xun the very first time he pressed his lips against his. All that talk about settling past grievances and never associating with each other until old age was fake. This psychopath holding him while kissing and licking him all over was the real truth.

After a long while, right when Jiang Qunyu had finally reached the absolute limit of his patience and wanted to kick Wei Xun, the man stopped kissing. He merely held Jiang Qunyu in his arms, embracing him extremely tightly.

“Jiang Qunyu,” in the darkness, Wei Xun’s voice was low and raspy, carrying what sounded like a sigh and like hatred, “Try daring to abandon me one more time and see.”