CH 34

Chapter 34: The Way of the Heartless



Song Qingshi held a writing brush and thought for a long time how he was going to write this letter. 



He was a pure man of science. If this were a scientific paper, experimental data or an academic debate, even tens of thousands of words was no problem. But personal letters that need him to express his feelings came out dull and dry, similar to work emails or official reports.



The letters he usually wrote to An Long were mainly research reports and experimental results…



Now, he racked his brains and finally wrote ‘An Long, my old friend’ at the beginning of the letter. Afterwards, below that, he concealed the incident regarding Yue Wuhuan receiving a Heavenly Tribulation and instead said that he had encountered a mishap and suffered serious injuries during a Lightning Tribulation. Yue Wuhuan was left with no choice but to hide the matter. He wrote about how Yue Wuhuan had rushed about to save his life in a simple and straightforward manner. He wrote the sentence ‘I owe him my life’ in big bold letters, lest someone pretend to be blind and not see it. Finally, he thanked him for his concern regarding his well-being and to please stop tearing down his poison array and to properly go through the front door instead.



After Song Qingshi finished writing, he checked it over several times. He then asked Yue Wuhuan to help him see if there was anything that needed to be added. After confirming that there were no mistakes, he placed it in an envelope. He still got chest pains thinking about the piles of spiritual stones that had been demolished.  Knowing that An Long wouldn’t understand, he drew an Alaskan Malamute head next to An Long’s name on the envelope to vent his anger. 



Yue Wuhuan looked at the dog’s head and said with a smile, “Master and An Xianzun have a very good relationship.”



He has long discovered that Song Qingshi and An Long’s interactions were different from that of other people’s. Although they would quarrel and fight, their bond was much deeper than he imagined.



Once An Long noticed that something must have happened to Song Qingshi, he launched crazed attacks against the Medicine King’s Valley. Yue Wuhuan used the formations and the terrain to set up traps, barely managing to withstand his charge. Song Qingshi himself didn’t realize that even through their most terrible fights, all he did was fight with An Long and then give him a nickname. Through everything, they had never had a falling out.



This was truly an unpleasant discovery…



Yue Wuhuan smiled and said, “Are you very good friends?”



“I don’t know either.” Song Qingshi’s and the original body’s memories have been completely fused together and returned to where it belonged. He gave it some serious thought, but couldn’t find anything that could be used as reference in this regard. Seeing that Yue Wuhuan seemed very curious about this matter, he explained in detail. “I was born with two kinds of spiritual fires and before I reached Foundation Building I would lose control from time to time. Especially the Underworld Ghost Fire, which can easily hurt people…”



When he was young, he was adopted by a kind old pharmacist. The two lived deep in the mountains, far away from any sign of other humans, to grow medicinal herbs. Later, when the old pharmacist died, he read by himself and cultivated by himself. After he successfully reached Foundation Building, he learned to control the spiritual fires in his body and he had also already finished reading all the books at home.



He plucked up his courage and went down the mountain to make his way in the world, wanting to see what the world described in his books looked like. 



At that time, he wasn’t good-looking. He looked emaciated and a little like he was wasting away. There was no meat on his face but his eyes were very big. His hair was messy like withered grass. His words failed to convey his intentions and his whole person looked strange. And so no one wanted to get close to him.



He received a lot of disgusted looks. He had then grown used to not actively talking to others lest he make a nuisance of himself…



Later, he got the Medicine King’s inheritance and he cultivated to Core Formation. He grew his body and his appearance no longer looked that ugly. With his first-rate medical skills, gradually, some people were willing to brave the awkwardness to strike up conversation with him. However, he had no idea what other people said about beautiful people, scenery or things. Others also couldn’t understand the things about pharmacology, toxicology and medicine that he spouted…



There was no point in people who follow different ways to take counsel together. There was also no need to force others to accommodate him. 

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

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Yue Wuhuan looked very interested and listened very attentively.



Song Qingshi thought of what happened back then and found it particularly funny. “I hadn’t been in contact with people for a long time and my impediment was quite severe. I could get by when discussing poisons and pharmacology but when talking about other things, I could never convey my ideas. I could hardly communicate with people normally… But An Long’s very smart and he’s always understood what I’m thinking. Later, after the two of us got better acquainted, he began to change his tricks to annoy me. He would pretend to act dumb when doing something to force me to speak and scold him… My highest record for scolding him is a full hour nonstop. Now I’m a lot better at talking and I don’t speak so incoherently anymore. I kind of suspect that he did it on purpose but he won’t admit it. Maybe I’m just thinking too much…” 



Yue Wuhuan said, full of interest, “An Xianzun is truly a clever person.”



“En. He often finds rare medicinal ingredients and news from various places. He would then take me to collect them. He’s also thought me a lot of skills to distinguish malice and ways to scare the enemy away.” Song Qingshi said up to here. Afraid that Yue Wuhuan would misunderstand and think that he’s unilaterally taking advantage of An Long, he explained, “I’ve also found a lot of strange Gu’s and materials suitable for raising Gu to give to him. I taught him a lot about medicine and refined all kinds of medicine for him. I’ve also helped him out when he ran into difficulties.”



Yue Wuhuan smiled said, “En, Master is the best.” So much so that it made people want to swallow you whole.



“I didn’t have any other friend before and I didn’t quite understand how other people got along with their friends.” Song Qingshi blushed at his praise and concluded, “Everyone says that An Long and I are a pair of eccentrics. I guess that counts are being good friends, right?” 



So, no matter how angry he made him, the thought of burning this Alaskan Malamute to death never crossed him mind. He would even heal him if he struck too hard.



Yue Wuhuan caught the important point. “Before?”



Song Qingshi said happily, “Now, I also have Wuhuan.”



He likes Yue Wuhuan the most. He’s beautiful and smart, gentle and considerate, kind and well-behaved. He understands everything he says. He doesn’t get angry with him for no reason and  doesn’t provoke him into anger either. Everything about him is great. 



The curvature of Wuhuan’s mouth became even more charming. “Are we good friends?”



Song Qingshi suddenly realized that he had made a one-sided decision and that he hadn’t asked the other party for his opinion. This was no good. He asked cautiously, “Is that alright?”



“Of course, it is.” Yue Wuhuan’s vine wrapped around his foot once again and pulled gently. The eyes under the mask looked intently at the person in front of him. There was an indescribable ambiguity in his voice, “My feelings for you are the same as his…”



The way Yue Wuhuan looked at him made his heart run two beats too fast. He felt that there was something a bit wrong with his Nascent Soul so he hurriedly quietly recited his pathology lessons a few times. He controlled his emotions and suppressed his heart’s abnormal movements. 



When he woke up this time, he found that the problem with his Nascent Soul was a bit serious. His original cultivation base had been nearing Great Perfection but now it had taken quite a tumble. Now only was he unable to improve but it also felt like his cultivation was gradually weakening. After he had ruled out all other explanations, it seemed that something had gone wrong with the heart of his Dao?



His body in this world has no heart and so he chose the Way of the Heartless — to be unmoved by desire, to be unperturbed by emotions.



Ever since he cultivated the Way of the Heartless, he wouldn’t panic even if he failed a hundred eighty times in his research.



He also wondered if he was being moved by Yue Wuhuan. But a man’s love and desire went hand in hand. He was quite sure that he did not desire Yue Wuhuan in that way. He didn’t dare have those kind of thoughts for fear of creating a psychological shadow for the other . 



The result of his rational analysis was that perhaps the great joys and sorrows he had experienced after knowing Yue Wuhuan, had made him emotionally unstable, which affected his Dao Heart?



Song Qingshi thought for a while and used the Cold Jade Technique and separated part of his spiritual power from the Underworld Ghost Fire to protect the Nascent Soul and control its deterioration. As long as he didn’t use too much of spiritual power in the future, leading to an exhaustion of his Dantian, for the time being, his cultivation base will not collapse due to his emotional fluctuations and other matters. He can solve this problem slowly. Nascent Soul cultivators have long life spans. He had many days ahead of him and when it came to patience, he was one of the best in the immortal realm.



Yue Wuhuan saw that he had suddenly fallen silent and he asked anxiously, “Master, do you feel any discomfort?”



Song Qingshi smiled and shook his head. He raised his hand and summoned a messenger bird to send the letter to An Long. 



The messenger bird flapped its wings and flew to the sky.



Song Qingshi looked at the bird and suddenly remembered that he hadn’t made arrangements for the group of children he had saved from Xie Que…



Yue Wuhuan heard him mention the matter and smiled. “They were so scared by the matter of cultivation furnaces and they also learned that it’s difficult for mortals to walk the path of cultivation. Most of them chose to go home. So long as they no longer act so foolish, relying on the immortal pills and the few magic skills they have, they can have a good life in the mortal world. All that remain are six who are either homeless or unwilling to go back. I decided to have them stay. In addition to some carefully selected valley servants who are a bit smart or talented, around 30 or so people, they are studying medicine and pharmacology in the valley. Among them there are quite a few good seedlings who can become Master’s lab assistants.”



Song Qingshi was overjoyed. He wasn’t good at teaching people. Most of the things in the laboratory had to be done by himself, which wasted a lot of time. Later, he had Yue Wuhuan to help him and he realized the importance of assistants. He had long wanted to open a school and train a few clever assistants but he hadn’t gotten to it yet when he fell into a coma. 



Yue Wuhuan had very good judgement. If he said they were very good seedlings, then they were certainly better than ones he would have picked.



Song Qingshi enthusiastically forgot all about An Long’s matter and wanted to go visit the school.



Yue Wuhuan took out a custom-made robe according to Song Qingshi’s original style and then draped a beautiful white fox fur robe on his shoulders. “Master, it’s spring now. It’s cold outside.”



Song Qingshi squeezed the coat’s soft fur. He examined the fire resistance array on the fox fur robe and liked it very much. Although he wasn’t afraid of the cold, he liked to be near warm things. He didn’t know how the little angel discovered this secret. 



The alchemical fire appeared in mid-air and formed into a red lotus.



Song Qingshi stepped on the red lotus. Accompanied by Yue Wuhuan, they slowly flew out of the sleeping quarters.



Before his eyes appeared a scene that he had never seen before. The original yard with its carelessly planted sparse trees was replaced by a colorful flower garden. Wisteria hung down, the peonies were enchanting; the tree peonies were poised and graceful. There were peach blossoms, pear blossoms, apricot blossoms…



Almost all the most beautiful flowers of spring were gathered together. The colors were spread out in picturesque disorder, forming a perfect picture. 



The pond which previously housed only a few koi, now had white cranes and mandarin ducks, nuzzling together on the shore, singing and chirping…



Song Qingshi turned his head in shock and looked at the plaque at the summit of Fuling Palace, confirming that it was indeed his sleeping quarters.



Yue Wuhuan explained, “Because many parts of the Medicine King’s Valley needed repairs and the increase in personnel also required new courtyards, I made my own proposal and redesigned the scenery. If the Lord doesn’t like it…we can also restore it to the original…”



“I like it,” Song Qingshi replied quickly, complimenting him heartily, “It’s so beautiful!” 



The Medicine King’s Valley was originally stationed in a demonic sect. Song Qingshi found out that these evil cultivators used virgin men and women to refine medicine. With a simple move of his hand, he exterminated this disgusting sect. Then he found that the terrain here was particularly good, suitable for growing medicinal herbs.  It had pill furnaces and everything else that he needed. And so he settled here and slowly rebuilt it into its current appearance.



Most of the houses and buildings were left behind by the evil sect. Later, the additional infrastructures were built with only convenience in mind. Names were allocated by casually flipping through a book and aesthetics were never taken into consideration.



He was a science major and he simply didn’t understand art and design. But that didn’t mean he doesn’t like beautiful things…



He liked to wear white in order to make him appear not quite as frail. In fact, he preferred bright colors full of vitality… 



The yard in front of him was so flamboyantly gorgeous. Everything about it was to his liking.



Yue Wuhuan looked at his admiring gaze with satisfaction and licked his lips that were a little dry from desire. His heart was very satisfied.



That’s it…this pair of clean eyes will be dyed with his flavor bit by bit.



Until it becomes a habit, becomes a part of his life. 



They won’t be separated any more.



The author has something to say:



Key point: Wuhuan has confessed~ (Although it was a confession that didn’t want to make itself known to the other party)



Scholar Tyrant Song: I never ever thought I could be a ‘shou’. 



Yue Wuhuan: I suspect that Master’s desires have all been directed to a white mouse spirit.