Chapter 18

Friendly reminder that asking for more chapters or rushing for updates results in one chapter docked from sick day backlogs. If my math is correct 47(12 sick days, 35 ko-fi) extras are left (Normal update schedule is one every 2 days). From this alone I think it’s obvious enough how easily I get sick, coincidentally I’m sick right now so I’m not in the best mood to deal with this update shit.

As for how I get the 4k numbers from the text, i dl chapters and throw them into google translate and look at the number at the bottom, and before anyone freaks out, no the chapters are not mtl-ed, google tl just has easy to see text with perks of synonyms and it fits well with my 4 window tl setup of dictionary, youtube, raws, and notepad++, so if any of the word counts don’t match up, this is why.

-Helli

The sword thrusted towards Gu Yan’s back! And passed through his chest without a single noise!

This all happened in just an instant, Gu Yan did notice it at all. He pulled himself close to Qin Yao, and with how close they stood from each other, he could faintly see the deep expression in his differently coloured eyes——He was laughing.

Turning his hands into an unbelievable angle, Gu Yan was actually able to grab hold of Qin Yao’s hand, and to Qin Yao’s surprise, threw him abruptly to the ground. And then, he landed a heavy fist onto his chest! Seeing the approach of his sword, Gu Yan raised his head and spat out a mouthful of black blood. The black blood stained the sword, causing a cry! And it started to sway and wobble.

Taking advantage of that moment, Gu Yan turned and jumped back, instantly disappearing into the darkness!

Qin Yao could only feel the pain on his chest, and as he tried to stand up, blood poured from the corners of his mouth.

He extended his hand, and the sword once again returned to his grasp. The black blood seemed to have a very strong corrosive effect on the sword as it sizzled. Qin Yao scoffed and wiped off the black blood on the sword with his hand, and the sword was once again silent. He raised his head to look at a certain direction in the darkness, and after a pause, he finally decided not to follow.

His spiritual sword was crafted with the natural ability to restrain demonic beings. For the sake of running for its life, not only did that demonic being sacrifice its own body, it even spat out its corrupted demonic blood to stop his sword. With the injuries plaguing it both internally and externally, if not dead, it would at least be heavily injured.

But it was just unexpected……That demonic beings as strong as that were now in the human world. A thousand years have passed, was the door between the two worlds going to open again?

Qin Yao tightened his grip on his sword’s hilt, and a complex emotion was roused in his eyes.

…………………………

Only until Gu Yan ascertained that the human was not following him, did he finally turned around to return to the mountain villa.

The blood kept flowing out of his chest, not only could he not heal the wound, it even gave him a burning hot sensation. How vile……As expected of a cultivator at the ascension stage, the metal attributing spiritual power of his spiritual weapon was a natural enemy to his demonic energy due to its restraining properties towards it, and the spiritual power still left within his body was constantly in battle with his own demonic energy……

After all, this human’s body was not a proper host for a demonic being, it was just a body he had temporarily acquired, and this was already the extent of the power he could exert with it.

Gu Yan dragged his heavy legs forward as he held his chest, taking step by step towards the garden behind the villa. There was a demonic spring there! He had to go there!

Finally, the gray stone well finally appeared in his eyes……

Gu Yan gritted his teeth and quickened his steps towards it, jumping head first into the well, disappearing completely inside.

The cool water of the well instantly turned to a boil, turning into the dark colour of ink as the rich magical energy enshrouded Gu Yan.

The rain tonight finally came to a rest. Everybody was still deep in sleep, not a single person knew what happened outside.

…………………………

When the sun started to rise, the crew have already gotten up from bed. Director Zhang instructed his men to pack up. He had already found another place for their shooting, and they had to hurry up to make up for the delays.

Everything went on smoothly, until suddenly……A scream appeared outside of the gates!

Director Zhang felt a tingle on his scalp. They were already preparing to leave, why are things happening again?! When he went over to look, his face had turned as white as a sheet in an instant. On the ground by the gates was actually a bloody severed arm, and the lock it had twisted off was still in its hand……Even if he was someone who had seen a lot in the world, he would still feel his breakfast coming up to a scene like this. After all, this was reality, not a movie.

The other onlookers were also reacting very badly to the scene, it was hard to say how many horrifying scenes had went through their imaginations.

During the heavy downpour in the middle of the night, a ferocious monster had broken the lock, hoping to enter the area and slaughter its inhabitants, but someone had severed its arm instead……It had to be said that their guesses were not actually that far off.

As the owner, Xu Jun hurried over, and was also extremely shocked to see the scene.

In the past, only minor incidents have popped up. Even though everyone was upset, it was still hard to say anything. But now that the bloody truth was right in front of their eyes……They could no longer cover up their fear.

“I think we should call the police.”Stammered a crew member.

“Yeah, call the police!”Hearing that, everyone came back to their senses. They can talk about what a horror movie this was at a later date, they should be calling the police when a severed arm mysteriously pops up! They were just part of the ordinary people, they knew their place!

Xu Jun knew that after today, the mountain villa would have officially reached its dead-end in his hands. He sighed.

Director Zhang looked on with a straight face as his crew was packing up, and he turned to Xu Jun:”Mr. Xu Jun, we will be going now.”

Xu Jun forced himself to smile and nodded.

“Is the driver here? Let’s go, everyone.”Director Zhang waved to his crew.

As she watched on as everyone got on the bus, Meng Ying turned left and right, and wondered:”Where’s Gu Yan? Did any of you see Gu Yan?”

Du Chen and Deng Jia Ning looked at each other. They lived right next to Gu Yan, but only now did they recall about him. They hadn’t seen Gu Yan all morning. Hearing this, Director Zhang took out his phone and gave Gu Yan a call, but he was never able to get through, and he couldn’t help the change on his face.

Everyone tried to ask each other, but not a single person had seen Gu Yan today!

Could something have happened to Gu Yan? What on earth happened last night? Suddenly, a thought sprang up in everyone’s mind……

“Look for him!”Director Zhang gritted his teeth. Nothing can happen to Gu Yan, if something did happen, he wouldn’t be able to explain it!

“Look for who?”A light but slightly hoarse voice sounded out as Gu Yan passed through the crowd. He was dressed in casual grey clothes with his hair slightly in a mess, as if he had just messed with it casually. His face was ashen.

He covered his mouth and lightly coughed a few times.

Director Zhang looked at Gu Yan, and felt firstly a sigh of relief that he was fine, and then he felt angry. If you were fine, then why did you pretend to have disappeared? Everyone was worried! But seeing Gu Yan’s weak and pallid face, he wasn’t able to blame him, and could only sigh.

Meng Ying looked worriedly at Gu Yan and asked with concern,”Are you okay? Did you get sick?”

“I suddenly came up with a fever last night, and I only managed to fall asleep sometime around early morning. I never expected that it was already this late when I woke up, sorry.”Gu Yan had on an apologetic look.

Seeing this side of Gu Yan, Meng Ying’s heart started to beat faster. Even though the icy cool Gu Yan was very alluring, the weak and gentle side of him made one want to get close to him more……So does getting sick make a person gentler as expected? Seeing that Gu Yan had started coughing again, she felt very bad, and she quickly handed her hot water over to Gu Yan,”If you’ve caught a cold then you should drink more water, then after that you should go see a doctor when we’re back to the city, you can’t be too careful when you’re sick.”

It was rare that Gu Yan did not reject Meng Ying’s show of kindness, he even gave her a gentle smile:”Thank you.”

Seeing Gu Yan’s smile, Meng Ying could feel her face getting hot.

As soon as he turned around, Gu Yan saw Xu Jun standing by the corner with a distraught look. When he went towards the bus, he walked by him on purpose, and spoke quietly by his ear:”My previous proposal is still valid.”After that, he got on the car without even waiting for Xu Jun’s reply.

After Gu Yan sat down, he closed his eyes to rest, and his eyebrows were scrunched into a frown. It took quite a lot of energy so as not to reveal any abnormalities happening with himself.

He only managed to get away from that human cultivator last night after disorienting him. And if not that he knew of the existence of that spring, he may not have taken that hit. He may only have been able to reveal his final trump card, but that also implied that his plan has failed.

With the nourishment of that demonic spring that was filled with demonic energy, the wound on his chest had already grown over, but a scar was left in its place that he was not able to remove no matter what, as if leaving the memory behind on his body. Even though it was no longer bleeding, a few strands of golden spiritual energy was still running berserk within his body, and he could not force it out no matter what, only dispersing it little by little by using his demonic energy. This brought great pains to his body, and his strength was also greatly reduced.

He had been too careless, and this was because he had been surrounded by ants……But he had nearly forgotten, forgotten that not all humans were ants.

It was very fortunate that he had changed his appearance last night. If not, he would have been on the joint pursuit of the entirety of the human race right about now. Facing the demonic beings that came from the demon world, the humans would never be soft, it would be their duty to punish him!

He had originally chose to disguise himself for the sake of lessening his troubles, but now it seems that this was the most correct decision he could have made. No matter what, his disguise must not be broken!

Before this, Gu Yan was too lazy to act in front of these ant-like humans, but for him to change his attitude today was also out of consideration of this. Otherwise, it would be bad if any extra people were to pick out any flaws from him……Now was not the right time to engage in conflict with the humans. The look in his eyes changed, it seems he may have to change his methods a little.

With this trip, everyone finally reached their destination safely whilst they were all still struck with fear and worry.

Even though nobody said anything about it, their trip to the mountain villa had clearly left a shadow of trauma behind on everyone’s hearts.

Gu Yan returned to his home, and as soon as he closed the door, he supported himself with one hand on the wall and finally could not help himself from leaking out sounds of pained groans. He took off his coat, and his wet shirt was sticking to his body from all his sweat. In those few hours, he had been bearing with an extraordinary pain in his chest the entire time. Both his eyes were bloodshot and vicious. Suddenly, he patted himself heavily on the chest! And abruptly, a mouthful of blood came out.

After a while, he finally regained his calm. Both his eyes were now dark again with the red glow dissipating.

The golden thread of spiritual energy had finally quieted down after being forcefully suppressed, and was no longer squirming around his body.

But Gu Yan knew that this was just temporary. Even though it lessened his pain, it did not reduce the presence of that shred of spiritual energy. If he wanted to get rid of all of these hidden dangers, there were no other paths he could go. And besides that, he could only control the situation within his body for a maximum of twenty hours a day, and he will have to bear the torment of that shred of spiritual energy again for the rest of the four, that was also the moment when he was his weakest.

That despicable human! Gu Yan’s eyes were icy. But that human must not be having a good time either at this moment. Human cultivators were different from demonic beings, their bodies were their biggest weaknesses. Even if he were a human cultivator at the ascension stage, he would still receive heavy injuries after taking a blow from him, and he would not be able to come looking for trouble for the time being.

The sound of knocking came from outside, it was Xu Ming:”Is that you, Gu Yan? You came back?”

Gu Yan fixed up the appearance on his face, and threw the blood-soaked towel into the bin before opening the door and going out.

Xu Ming was quite surprised to see Gu Yan’s current appearance,”You’re sick?”

Gu Yan’s voice was slightly hoarse,”Just a cold.”

“Then you should get rested, I’ll go buy you some medicine.”And Xu Ming left right after that. Soon after, he brought back a big pile of cold medicine.

Gu Yan did not actually need these, but in order not to rouse any suspicion, he still took them in front of Xu Ming. Consuming these medicine did quite frankly nothing to his body, it was no different from simply drinking water.

After taking the medicine, Gu Yan gave an excuse that he was not feeling well, and returned early to his room for rest.

The next morning, Gu Yan’s phone started to ring just as he had gotten up, it was an unknown caller. He took the call and brought the phone to his ear.

What came from the receiver was the voice of a young man.

“Is this Mr. Gu? It’s me, Xu Jun.”

something something house has to be changed in one of the chapters, I don’t remember which, I’ll get to it some day, nothing too important, but it’s related to the mountain villa