ATAVID CH9: I’m Sorry

He never thought that he actually needed to be fed by Wei Xun.
Jiang Qunyu’s world completely collapsed.
Why did it have to be Wei Xun?

No, absolutely not. If that lunatic found out about this, he would probably mock him until his soul scattered.
Damn this original book’s plot!
What kind of trashy setting is this?!

If he had known this earlier, he would have treated Wei Xun a bit better.
Flashes of all the magnificent feats he had pulled on Wei Xun over the past year uncontrollably crossed Jiang Qunyu’s mind.

When Wei Xun bathed, he threw Wei Xun’s clothes onto the ceiling beam, while he himself sat to the side, looking down and provoking him.
It resulted in Wei Xun soaking in the pool for over two hours, the look in his eyes so gloomy and cold it could forge ice.
Jiang Qunyu was inherently stubborn. Seeing Wei Xun acting tough, he became even more fired up.
He stubbornly clamored that there was no part of him he hadn’t seen anyway, forcibly propping his eyelids open to stay awake, not daring to sleep a wink for fear that Wei Xun would come out naked to catch him the moment he closed his eyes.
Thus, with one unwilling to bow his head and the other unwilling to let it go, the two forcibly stayed awake the entire night.

When Wei Xun cultivated, Jiang Qunyu hypocritically said he also wanted to cultivate.
Wei Xun kicked him out, so he sat cross-legged by the door.
When Wei Xun gathered demonic energy, he took advantage of Wei Xun’s inability to spare any focus to secretly siphon off a little demonic energy each time and hide it in his own dantian.
Therefore, during this year when Wei Xun’s cultivation surged, Jiang Qunyu also silently reached the first layer of the Golden Core stage.
It was just a pity that he had no cultivation methods to practice. To this day, he only knew the simple drawing of qi into the body and didn’t know half a bit of any other spells. He had cultivation in vain, acting like a half-baked amateur.

…
Just thinking about it, Jiang Qunyu could recall countless glorious deeds.
But he originally thought that, at most, it would only earn him a sword strike from Wei Xun, sending him to respawn once more.

But it was probably because Wei Xun had previously tried many methods to eradicate his inner demon, all to no avail in the end.
Wei Xun seemed to have been provoked and even lost interest in killing him.
He was either staring outside with a gloomy face or fighting with Jiang Qunyu over who got to sleep on the bed and who on the beam.

The only undeniable thing was that Wei Xun still hated him very much.
This lunatic seemed to have reached a bizarre peaceful coexistence with him, but the gazes he occasionally directed at Jiang Qunyu were still full of malice.

Jiang Qunyu could accept Wei Xun killing him with one sword strike, but he couldn’t accept that he needed Wei Xun’s blood to survive!
Archenemies could only be archenemies.
Just hearing Wei Xun’s name made him feel unlucky enough, and now he had to drink his blood.
He, Jiang Qunyu, would rather die standing than live so humiliatingly.

This was simply too much bullying for a demon!
Damn original plot, damn setting, damn despicable man!
He should have cursed Wei Xun a few more times when he wrote that book review back then!

Jiang Qunyu collapsed on the ground in grief and indignation, his entire ball of mist spread out listlessly, cursing this trashy cultivation world over and over eight hundred times in his heart.
Unable to sleep, he kept his eyes open and endured until dawn.

*

*

Wei Xun woke up.
Although he hadn’t turned his head yet, he still felt a resentful gaze resting on his body.
He cast a sidelong glance, meeting eyes with the black ball on the ground that was a full size larger.

Actually, Jiang Qunyu rarely appeared in this form before him.
Most of the time, he always paraded that face in front of him, the corners of his brows and eyes raised in smugness. He deliberately used the appearance he hated the most, clearly intending to disgust him.
When Wei Xun first saw his face, he only felt the churning disgust in his chest almost overflowing, wishing he could instantly slit the other party’s throat.
But after looking at it for a year, facing each other day after day, he had actually been worn down to numbness.
It was just a face anyway; after looking at it for a long time, he could no longer distinguish any hatred, only a bit of accustomed annoyance.

So upon seeing the black ball, he was actually stunned for a moment.
One person and one inner demon looked at each other for a long time. Wei Xun slightly frowned, asking before Jiang Qunyu could act out: “Why did you get a size bigger?”

Jiang Qunyu, who had cursed Wei Xun eighty or a hundred times in his heart, suddenly froze. He abruptly felt a bit guilty, his voice carrying an annoyance that was fierce in appearance but weak inside: “Are you blind? You’re the one who got a size bigger! I didn’t!”
He couldn’t possibly say he grew bigger from drinking Wei Xun’s blood.

His reaction was truly too extreme, like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, bristling all over without any rhyme or reason.
Wei Xun slightly narrowed his eyes, his thick and dense long eyelashes casting a small shadow under his morbidly pale eyes.
He suddenly gave a light chuckle, “Jiang Qunyu, you didn’t realize that getting on my body was actually your own doing, did you?”

Jiang Qunyu was best at putting on airs to deceive people.
This was the most fitting label netizens gave him during his years playing esports.
Even if he only had a sliver of health left in the game, backed into a desperate situation, he could still type on the public screen without blushing or skipping a heartbeat, telling the other side he could take three more kills. He relied purely on his momentum to bluff the opponents into not daring to make a rash move.
This ability of his was used with ever more masterful perfection the closer he was to being exposed.
Like right now.

Jiang Qunyu completely calmed down. In his heart, he cursed over and over asking if Wei Xun, this psychopath, was some kind of animal; otherwise, where did he get such beast-like intuition?
Yet verbally he said: “First, getting on your body is very unlucky. Second, I am your inner demon to begin with; even if I possessed you, so what?”
He paused, deliberately lifting his eyes to glance sideways at Wei Xun’s pale face, every word stabbing at the other’s sore spots.
“Besides, what do you count as now? Nothing but a piece of trash who can’t even gather demonic energy. Every time you cultivate, when have you ever been able to draw all that demonic energy into your body? You’re just making a wedding dress for me (doing the work for my benefit).”

In the original book’s plot, the genius who was originally a prodigy of the immortal sect now had a cultivation speed even slower than him, an inner demon.
After such a long time, he was only barely at the first layer of the Golden Core stage.

Jiang Qunyu didn’t deny that the Lingxiao Sect was part of the reason; after all, no matter what, they were still inside the Lingxiao Sect right now.
A holy land of the immortal sects, taking subduing demons and eliminating devils as its duty, regarding the ghost path and demonic mental cultivation methods as scourges and ferocious beasts.
The sect was covered with layers of restrictions, suppressing demonic energy everywhere. The two of them hiding here was already like walking on thin ice.
Over the past year, being able to have this little bit of advancement in cultivation was already not easy.

After Jiang Qunyu finished speaking with full malice, he waited for Wei Xun to get angry, or rather, he suddenly became a bit anxious.
It was truly too slow.
Wei Xun wouldn’t actively kill him now. He didn’t know when he would be able to regain his own body.

Even though he somewhat regretted it right after saying it.
Did he speak too harshly?
Why did Wei Xun lower his eyes? He wasn’t truly feeling sad, was he?
He didn’t want to say that, but Wei Xun was truly too sharp. Why could he always guess it so quickly?
Making it so he could only say such hurtful things like this.

The surroundings quieted down. Only the wind coming in from the window, rolling with the chill of the morning dew, gently brushed against the window lattice, making fine rustling sounds.
The youth before him had a pale face. He sat on the bed, his beautiful eyes lowered, concealing the emotions in his eyes.
Jiang Qunyu pursed his lips, wanting to turn sideways and stop looking at Wei Xun.

So annoying.
He was Wei Xun’s inner demon to begin with; since he was already a demon, could he be anything good?
He merely said a few harsh words, so what?
He should have spoken even more ruthlessly.
Tell Wei Xun that he really was a piece of trash, that his younger brother Wei Miao married the wife who should have been his, that his biological father discarded him like worn-out shoes, and that from start to finish, he was never truly acknowledged by the Lingxiao Sect.
They only treated Wei Xun as a chess piece that could be discarded at any time.
When he was useful, they held him high up, hailing him as a prodigy.
Once he lost all his cultivation, they didn’t hesitate to trample him into the mud, destroying him completely.

He had already died once.
Now he had become a half-demon, half-ghost monster. The world was so big, but where could he go?

The more Jiang Qunyu thought about it, the more annoyed he got.
He didn’t want to come out looking like Wei Xun for the entire day today.
“I…” Jiang Qunyu just opened his mouth when suddenly, his entire ball was picked up.
I’m going up.
This sentence was just stuck in Jiang Qunyu’s throat like this.

What picked him up was a pair of hands with distinct knuckles, pale and cool.
The blue veins visibly spread upwards from the back of the hand, hiding into the cuffs of the plain white inner garment at the wrist.

“You really did get a size fatter.” Wei Xun’s fingertips pulled at the black ball. His tone was flat, yet it carried a bit of certainty.
Jiang Qunyu: “…”

The brocade curtains by the bed half-drooped. Wei Xun threw off the light blanket beside him and sat up.
Ink-black hair hung loosely over his shoulders, and half of his robe slipped down to the crook of his elbow, revealing a section of his pale forearm.
He stepped barefoot directly onto the slightly cool floor and just held Jiang Qunyu like that, lowering his eyes and looking for quite a while.

If it were any ordinary day, this inner demon would have long since bristled and jumped up, firing back with a mouthful of tough words.
Today, however, he uncharacteristically ceased fire, leaving only a ball of black mist drooping listlessly, without the slightest movement.
Wei Xun’s pitch-black eyes shifted slightly, a trace of an imperceptible smile flashing through the bottom of his eyes.
It was truly funny. Even though he wasn’t angry in the slightest, this inner demon actually got mad at himself first, silently sulking.

Wei Xun didn’t bother with him anymore. He casually tossed the black ball aside and went into the inner room to wash up himself.
Halfway there, he thought of something and turned back.

Jiang Qunyu’s mood truly couldn’t be considered very good. He wanted to find some trouble for Wei Xun like usual, but the moment he saw Wei Xun, he couldn’t speak, only able to sulk by himself.
Seeing Wei Xun return, he didn’t want to pay attention to him either.

He didn’t expect Wei Xun to walk straight up to him. The black hair hanging by his waist was thick and black as ink, swaying gently with his movements.
Jiang Qunyu lay by the bed, suddenly inexplicably thinking that if he clung to Wei Xun’s hair and lay on top of his head, others definitely wouldn’t be able to see him at all.

“You are very dirty.”
Wei Xun frowned. As if disgusted, he picked him up once again and turned to walk towards the inner room.
His tone was cold and hard, “Don’t touch my bed, otherwise, I will kill you.”

Jiang Qunyu instantly bristled, the black mist trembling with anger: “Despicable man! Your things are my things! What do you mean ‘your’ bed, this bed is mine to begin with!”
In just a moment, he returned to his usual appearance, stiffening his neck and locking horns with Wei Xun.

Wei Xun expressionlessly pressed him into the water, rinsing him from top to bottom.
He mocked coldly, his gaze heavy, “You can try and see.”

Jiang Qunyu scrambled and floundered out of the water, shaking his chubby body.
Fine water droplets still hung on the black mist. He was just about to transform into his original shape and fight Wei Xun, but from the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the copper basin—
That ball of black mist was round and chubby, a full size larger than usual, like a cooked tangyuan.

He really… got fatter.
Jiang Qunyu froze in place, the entire ball of mist exuding thick disbelief.

“Heh,” Wei Xun was very disgusted. “You didn’t eat some dirty stuff outside last night, did you?”
Jiang Qunyu clamored: “You’re the one who ate dirty stuff…”
In the moment his words stalled, his heart suddenly stirred.
The black mist ball swayed, pulling an awful smile, “But you actually got it right, I did eat dirty stuff.”
Who told Wei Xun to keep asking and asking? Anyway, he wasn’t wrong. He drank Wei Xun’s blood, which to him was dirty stuff to begin with.

Hearing this, Wei Xun’s already pale face lost all trace of color, his lips pursed into a cold, hard line.
He silently took half a step back, deliberately widening the distance between him and Jiang Qunyu.

“I was too hungry last night,” Jiang Qunyu smiled even happier, the whole black ball trembling.
Before Wei Xun had time to throw a soundproofing spell at him, he spoke rapidly: “So I went out and caught two mice. Those mice were pathetic, squeaking the moment I touched them. I snapped their tails and stuffed them into my mouth bit by bit. That blood was sticky and gooey, sticking to the base of my tongue so cloyingly…”
Before he even finished speaking, Wei Xun suddenly bent over, unable to resist dry heaving.

“Hahaha.” Jiang Qunyu laughed loudly.
He was just casually tricking Wei Xun and didn’t expect this person’s reaction to be so huge. He originally thought he would at most give him a few sinister glares.

“Jiang Qunyu!” Wei Xun straightened up, his face displeased. “You dared to wear my face to eat that filthy stuff!”
A pale hand reached out from the swirling steam of the copper basin, knuckles turning white, carrying a freezing hostility, like an evil spirit crawling out of the water.

Jiang Qunyu didn’t have time to dodge and was pressed into the water by Wei Xun again.
This person’s mysophobia flared up. He grabbed him and washed him for a full two hours, until the water had completely turned cold, before he finally brought himself to let him go.
Jiang Qunyu was glad he didn’t have a physical body, otherwise a layer of his skin would definitely have been scrubbed off!

Unfortunately, after washing for so long, Jiang Qunyu was still a chubby, large ball.
Wei Xun was gloomy all over. He stared coldly at Jiang Qunyu’s lower abdomen, his face unpleasantly pale.
Jiang Qunyu felt a chill on the back of his neck from his gaze. He had no doubt that Wei Xun, this dumbass, was currently considering the feasibility of slicing his belly open.

“What are you looking at your daddy for! I’ve already digested it! Even if you keep looking, those mice are gone.” Thinking of something, Jiang Qunyu grinned, “Of course, I will still get on your body in the future.”
“Soul-Devouring!”
Wei Xun shouted coldly, and a glowing white long sword appeared out of thin air in his hand. A faint cold glint flowed over the blade, its hostility menacing.

Jiang Qunyu fell silent for a moment, then went up to sit on the ceiling beam. He had clearly agreed not to transform into a soul body, but felt that talking as just a ball lacked momentum. Thus, the youth sat on the beam, his legs dangling in the air, and said faintly:
“I’ll give Soul-Devouring face and not fight you.”

Wei Xun looked up, lifting his thin eyelids.
He saw Jiang Qunyu’s face, which was exactly identical to his own, now had a small, very faint red marking between the brows.
Inlaid between the brows, adding a bit of demonic allure.
He took a glance and withdrew his gaze.
He threw Soul-Devouring aside, closed his eyes, sat cross-legged, and began to concentrate on his cultivation.

On the beam, Jiang Qunyu pulled his legs back, turned sideways, leaned against the wooden pillar of the beam, laid one leg flat and bent the other at the knee, without saying a word either.
After a long time, Jiang Qunyu suddenly said in a muffled voice, “I’m sorry.”
He couldn’t be bothered to wait for Wei Xun’s response. After speaking, he turned back into a black ball, curled up in a corner of the beam, and lay motionless.

The air returned to silence once again.
Creak—
A gust of wind blew past, opening the window halfway.
It was almost autumn. The maple forest outside was no longer uniformly green; it had become layers upon layers of red, looking from afar like burning clouds.

Wei Xun slowly opened his eyes.
The youth on the beam had long vanished without a trace, gone off to who knows where again.
He lowered his eyes. For some reason, Wei Xun felt a slight, faint stinging pain on the side of his neck.

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