CH 26

When Su Yang awoke, he was already in the room at Zhichun Garden.

His consciousness remained at the time before he had fainted. When he woke up and saw the familiar furnishings around him, he was unable to react for a while, almost believing that he had transmigrated again.

Di Ling had stayed guard by his bedside. When she heard him wake, she immediately went to probe Su Yang’s meridians.

After a moment, she breathed a sigh of relief, “You’ve tamed The Cold Pond Ice Spirit. From now on, when you practice cold mental cultivation methods, you will get twice the results with half the effort. It is also considered a blessing in disguise. Just remember, after breaking through the Nine Cold Surging Shoots technique, you must not cultivate any more cold techniques, otherwise the ice spirit will take root deeper and possibly cripple your life.”

Su Yang propped up his body, not bothering with the new Ice Spirit and its aspects, he asked anxiously: “Where’s Gu Feidi?”

Di Ling smiled and said, “Shizun retained him in the Veiled Pearl Pavilion to personally teach him. Although at present, the matter is dangerous, you all seemed to have your own destinies. We’re happy for you.”

Su Yang was stunned for a moment when he heard the name of the familiar place.

After a while he asked bewilderedly: “……Veiled Pearl Pavilion?”

Di Ling said, “There is a deep valley behind the Lesser Jade House mountain. The Veiled Pearl Pavilion situated in the valley is where Shizun resides during her year-round seclusion. You two disappeared from the bottom of Jade Mirror Pond. We assumed that you had followed the whirlpool and mistakenly strayed into the valley of the Veiled Pearl Pavilion where you were discovered by Shizun.”

Su Yang suddenly slapped himself.

——Veiled Pearl Pavilion!

Why didn’t he realise that with the characteristics of Gu Feidi’s protagonist’s halo, they would find another way to survive from beneath the pond? Why wouldn’t Gu Feidi have a surprise discovery?

It turns out that this story arc was the key plot where Gu Feidi had entered the Veiled Pearl Pavilion by mistake and received the guidance of a reclusive master!

Su Yang didn’t dare feel annoyed: He could only blame himself for being lazy in the beginning. Not only did he not read the original work, but he didn’t even bother to read the parts of the script where he did not have any scenes in. He’d only heard a few isolated words from the crew and was aware that there was such a thing as ‘Veiled Pearl Pavilion’; that was all.

However, there was no part of the storyline where he’d accompanied Gu Feidi and mistakenly entered Veiled Pearl Pavilion. Evidently, it should have been Xu Yunzhan, the protagonist’s best friend.

Therefore, he’d actually robbed Xu Yunzhan of his part.

In the script, after Gu Feidi and Xu Yunzhan had strayed into the Veiled Pearl Pavilion together, the two had a fateful friendship. No matter how the Devil Sect’s Young Saint sowed discord, their trust in each other did not waver.

So, if he’d snatched Xu Yunzhan’s part, was it possible that he should have developed some kind of affinity-type sentiment with Gu Feidi?

Su Yang held his pounding head and gave a moan.

——If he had known that the beginning of the Veiled Pearl Pavilion story arc was in Jade Mirror Pond, even if he died jumping from Lesser Jade House, he wouldn’t join ol’ pain-in-the-neck Fan Xi’s ice games!

“Don’t be depressed.” Di Ling persuaded softly, “You have acquired the Cold Pond Ice Spirit from Jade Mirror Pond. Your future cultivation will only advance by leaps and bounds. Shizun had just developed a new Zhengyang school cultivation method which is not suitable for you but is for Gu Feidi, so she elected to retain him. Shizun does not favour one or the other, do you understand?”

Su Yang raised his head and groaned helplessly: “I’m not begrudging Gu Feidi, I’m…”

He stared at Di Ling’s vacant black eyes and couldn’t finish what he was going to say, only vaguely mumbling: “…I’m angry at myself.”

Di Ling said: “The day before, you first saved Xu Yunzhan from Jade Mirror Pond, but you didn’t hesitate returning to the pond to save Gu Feidi. You did your best. Presumably, they will understand your actions, you need not be upset.”

Yes, this was also an inconvenience.

Su Yang was not comforted, but had more of a headache instead.

He has been extremely restrained in the past six months, deliberately treating Gu Feidi coldly, just because he didn’t want to gain a favourable impression from the protagonist’s group. He did not wish to affect the storyline of their encirclement and suppression of the Devil Sect in the future.

But what happened in Jade Mirror Pond was indeed thrilling. He’s instinctively saved people and it was really due to the way he had been educated since he was a child. In addition, he didn’t want to see the protagonist group lose numbers due to an accident and he’d followed his heart without thinking too much. Pondering about it now, he might have to stoke animosity with the protagonist group’s after this incident in order to clear this life-saving deed from his record.

Gu Feidi had entered the Veiled Pearl Pavilion and it was estimated that he wouldn’t be back until he completed his discipleship.

Therefore, if he wanted to gain the protagonist group’s animosity, he might have to start with Xu Yunzhan and Pu Lingyun.

Su Yang asked Di Ling about the conditions of Xu Yunzhan and the others. He learned that Xu Yunzhan’s muscles and bones had been injured and needed recuperation. Fan Xi and Pu Lingyun had not recovered from their typhoid fever and would not be leaving Li shijie’s courtyard before the New Year. Chi Tong had just regained consciousness and named Luo Yin as the one to look after him and had driven everyone else out of the residence.

Taking into consideration the severity of injuries and illnesses of those people, Su Yang decided to wait until Chinese New Year had passed before starting his plan to instigate animosity.

Before New Year arrived, he would continue to seclude himself and cultivate the Nine Cold Surging Shoots technique.

So another half month passed and New Year’s Eve arrived.

Su Yang finally met Xu Yunzhan and Pu Lingyun again at the New Year’s Eve dinner table where the disciples of Lesser Jade House had gathered.

After that incident, Pu Lingyun looked more composed than before; even knowing to suppress her temper. She came forward to express her thanks to Su Yang.

There was no loathing in her expression and she didn’t seem reluctant when cupping her fist. “Although it is a few days late, I still want to thank you. Thank you for saving biao ge and xiao shixiong. Although, ‘thank you’ cannot express my appreciation for what you’ve done—”

“Who said that ‘words can’t express’ your appreciation?”

Su Yang raised his chin, deliberately curled his mouth and said angrily: “The one I saved wasn’t you; it was Xu Yunzhan and Gu Feidi. Gu Feidi can’t thank me now, but Xu Yunzhan, how are you going to express your thanks to me: your life-saver?”

As soon as he said this, the whole dining hall fell silent.

Pu Lingyun froze in place, clenched her fists tightly but resisted the urge to curse out loud.

Xu Yunzhan gave a light cough, got up with his arm still in a wooden splint and came to stand before Su Yang.

His shoulder blade had been injured by the falling ice of the waterfall and the surface of the bone had suffered a deep fracture. Old Qi had restricted the movement of his arm. At that moment, it had only been half a month and naturally, the injury had not yet healed. He patted Pu Lingyun’s shoulder with his uninjured hand and motioned her to go back to her seat.

“Yunzhan thanks Young Hero Su for saving my life.” Xu Yunzhan couldn’t cup his fists, but bowed slightly and said, “If you need my services, Young Hero Su can speak frankly.”

Su Yang darted a look at Xu Yunzhan’s injured arm, gave a dramatic snort and spoke in a cold tone, “Since you can still move your right hand, sit beside me and help scoop from the dishes and serve me.”

Xu Yunzhan hadn’t yet said anything, but Mo Yun, who was sitting opposite the table, frowned first.

“Su Yang.” Mo shixiong said solemnly, “In a crisis situation, as classmates, you should be looking out for each other. Why do you speak of life saving favours? Yunzhan thanked you because he is grateful for you, but you keep harping on his goodwill and humiliating him. It’s really disconcerting.”

Su Yang said to himself: I am intentionally provoking others to be disappointed with me.

However, he didn’t really want Xu Yunzhan to serve him dishes. Seeing that he had achieved his purpose of fanning the animosity, he maintained his persona, slowly rolled his eyes and said: “Since Mo shixiong has interceded for you, then can you go back to your seat.”

After such a mockery, a strange muted atmosphere had spread all over Lesser Jade House’s New Year’s Eve’s dinner table.

The back of Chi Tong’s neck hadn’t yet healed, so Old Qi forbade alcohol consumption. Since he didn’t get to enjoy much, he wolfed down a few mouthfuls of food, took Luo Yin back to the residence to stay up late and ring in the New Year. Xu Yunzhan wanted to do the same with his biao mei, Pu Lingyun, so the two of them went to Li shijie’s courtyard. Fan Xi liked bustling environments and wanted to take Su Yang to Li shijie’s courtyard together, saying that Ling shijie and Mo shixiong would also join in the gathering.

But Su Yang firmly declined this group activity—and made up his mind that in the future, he would never participate in any group activity in Lesser Jade House anymore!

One ‘Jade Mirror Pond ice games’ incident had advanced him into the Veiled Pearl Pavilion. If there was another New Year’s Eve ringing-in-the-New-Year-something event that caused him to go off-plot again, he estimated that he would not be able to return to the real world for the rest of his life!

Su Yang grabbed a jar of wine from the dining hall, left without saying a word and headed back to Zhichun Garden. He jumped onto the roof, lay on the grey-black tiles and looked up at the night sky resplendent with shining stars.

It was the month end, so there was no moon in the sky and the stars appeared unusually bright. Su Yang drank the wine from the jar he was holding feeling bored to death. In that instance, he recalled the Spring Festival Gala that he used to criticise and felt that he missed it a little.

When he was very young and couldn’t remember, his parents had been in an accident and he had been living with his grandmother who spoiled him very much. Fortunately, there was still a family estate, enough for the two of them to live on and they had never been short on cash.

But ever since his grandmother had passed away, he had no relatives left in the world. There was no one to watch TV programs with him on New Year’s Eve again.

Material indulgence couldn’t fill the void in his soul. He disliked going out to interact with people, so he started uploading dance videos onto a video platform and that gained him his first group of fans.

Later…

Later, he was recommended by the platform to participate in a talent show and became famous overnight. Then he was spotted by the ‘Arch-Rivals’ team and had taken his first steps into the entertainment industry.

Unexpectedly, after a drunken episode, he had arrived into this world alone.

If one were to say he was concerned, there was nothing that he should be concerned about in the real world. It was just that Su Yang couldn’t help feeling wronged.

——Why did it have to be him? To transmigrate into a realm far from anyone or anything remotely familiar, having to rely on himself to advance the storyline and maintain the character. But apparently EVERYONE was against him. From changing the script lines to wrecking their character setups, even to being bullied by the stone forest formation and causing the storyline to run off the rails!

The more Su Yang thought about it, the more furious became. He picked up the wine jar and downed it all in one gulp, then he pushed the empty jar off the roof. The wine jar fell to the ground with a crack, smashing into pieces.

“PEACE ALL YEAR ROUND—!” Su Yang shouted at the sky.

He touched the leather protective belt around his waist, pulled out the soft sword sheathed in the belt, raised to launch into his Prized Flower Steps and landed in a clearing in the middle of the small courtyard. There was a circle of red plum trees planted around the clearing and all were in full bloom, the branches were extremely sprightly. Unfortunately, it hadn’t snowed recently and the surrounding area was pitch black; not the most beautiful environment to bring out the plum trees’ appeal.

Su Yang curled his lips, unsheathed his blade and began to practice the Blooming Lotus Sword technique.

As he trained, the jar of wine that he had consumed earlier began to rapidly circulate his blood. In his drunkenness, Su Yang slowly changed his moves and unexpectedly sprung into his favourite dance from back then: Drunken Whip.

Yin Tan Divine Sect’s sword technique Blooming Lotus Sword resembled a dance. The sword moved along a gentle route. It wasn’t aggressive, but its aim was to kill people discreetly. The ‘Drunken Whip’ was a dance with strong tension and offensiveness. The whip was powerful with a charming but murderous energy. Su Yang used the sword instead of the whip at the moment and his moves were altogether fitting.

He even subconsciously transferred in his internal power. Wherever the sword edge passed, large swaths of plum blossoms fell, like blood splashing onto the ground. But there was no scent of blood; only the fragrance of plum blossoms.

Su Yang danced this routine over and over again for a long time. Finally, the intoxication went to his head and he dazedly supported himself on a red plum tree next to him, that he had earlier chopped in half. His legs gave way and he knelt beneath the tree.

He casually flung away the soft sword and hugged the plum blossom tree trunk. Then, he rested his forehead on it and suddenly started to cry inexplicably.

He was so muddleheaded that he didn’t even know that he was crying. So he clung to the tree, leaned on it and fell asleep crying.

Outside the Zhichun Garden gate, Xu Yunzhan retracted his gaze and said in a low voice: “…It seems that I cannot thank him today.”

Di Ling beside him let out a sigh: “What he said earlier at the dinner table may not have come from his heart.”

Xu Yunzhan chuckled: “If he really wanted to harp on my goodwill to take revenge on me or to deliberately humiliate me, he could have made more excessive demands.”

After speaking, he eyed Su Yang who was sleeping with the plum tree in his arms: “Feidi was right, he is actually… very pure.”