CH 55

Candlelight flickered in the cave.

Gu Feidi put one hand over Su Yang’s shoulder and propped his head on the stone pillar. He covered his mouth with his other hand and coughed a few times. Bloods seeped out between his fingers, gathered slowly along the back of his hand and dripped onto Su Yang’s chest.

He slowly lifted the hem of his clothes and wiped his hands, then wiped away the blood at the side of his lips and asked in a hoarse voice: “How… are you?”

Su Yang leaned weakly against the stone pillar, the pain of his dislocated arms was still unbearable.

His face was pale, his brows furrowed and fine beads of sweat dripped down from his forehead, glinting in the fire as his breath quickened.

Hearing Gu Feidi’s question and seeing that his clothes were covered with blood, Su Yang reluctantly tugged at the corners of his mouth and replied in a low voice: “I’m okay… your injury… there is medicine in my pack and it fell over there… You go and take some.”

Gu Feidi said, “It’s not urgent, take care of your arm first.” 

As he spoke, he gently pulled up Su Yang’s shirt that had been drawn to his abdomen and smoothed out the sleeves.

“Ssss—” Su Yang instantly flinched, “Pain.”

“Bear with it a little.” Gu Feidi held Su Yang’s elbow and moved near his ear to coax him, “I’ll do my best……to be gentle.”

Before he finished speaking, Gu Feidi’s hands mistakenly pushed Su Yang’s dislocated arm back to his original position in an instant.

Su Yang yelled out, his tears immediately flowed out uncontrollably, rolling down his cheeks.

“Is this you being gentle?” He couldn’t help blurting out, “It hurts to death!”

Gu Feidi raised his hand to help him wipe away the tears. He moved forward to give him a light kiss on his forehead and whispered: “There is one more, you bear with it.”

Su Yang was trembling with pain. He couldn’t be bothered with what Gu Feidi had done with him. He only closed his eyes and casually nodded.

Clenching his teeth and enduring the pain of another joint reset, Su Yang rested his forehead against Gu Feidi’s chest and inhaled, trying his utmost to calm his breathing.

Gu Feidi stroked Su Yang’s hair, closed his eyes, gritted his teeth and coughed twice, trying to stand up.

But the Gu poison in his body didn’t seem to have subsided yet. As soon as he stood firm, he staggered and almost fell to his knees.

Su Yang supported Gu Feidi, letting him sit beneath the stone pillar and using it to support his back, “You rest, I’ll go get the medicine.”

Both their cloth bundles were scattered not far from the cave entrance. Su Yang gathered them back up, turned them out, found the medicine for internal injury and fed it to Gu Feidi.

Seeing that Gu Feidi had difficulty swallowing, Su Yang became furious: “That man’s attacks were too heavy handed!”

Gu Feidi threw a glance at Su Yang, “He has a deep inner strength and was reserved in his palm strike. If he’d used his full strength in that strike, I probably wouldn’t be alive now even if I wasn’t poisoned and had exhausted all my internal strength to resist.”

When he recalled his battle with the man in white and how at ease he appeared, Su Yang also had to admit that in his current state, he was incapable of reaching anywhere near that man’s level.

Feeling exasperated, Su Yang said gloomily: “I still thought you and I were already very strong in martial arts. In the end, there was still a big BOSS suppressing from above…”

“Mmm? What?” Gu Feidi was puzzled.

Su Yang was silent and said, “I meant… an even more powerful person.”

Gu Feidi said, “There are mountains beyond the mountain. You should’ve realised this principle when you were in Lesser Jade House.”

Su Yang said nothing.

After a moment of silence, Gu Feidi added: “What’s more, he’s… the Devil Sect Leader, after all.”

Su Yang lowered his eyelashes and sighed silently.

In fact, when the man in white mentioned Mei Shisan, he had already roughly guessed his identity.

But his guess, coupled with that person, were too far from his expectations and he was still not quite certain until now.

What had happened to that shrivelled old man?

The Devil Sect Leader was such a handsome ‘uncle’ with long hair and charming temperament?!

No, he wasn’t even an ‘uncle’. There was hardly any trace of time and hardship in that person’s appearance. If it wasn’t for the lethargic look or the tiny, fine lines beneath his eyes, Su Yang would’ve not been able to deduce his actual age.

The attractiveness index level of the martial arts circles was excessively high!

Of course, even though he was grumbling internally, Su Yang also realised that he had made a preconceived mistake.

Reflecting back on the actors in the cast, Gu Feidi’s role was played by a pretty boy and Fan Xi’s was played by an extra they had plucked from the group. The old man who played the Devil Sect Leader would not necessarily have any resemblance with the Sect Leader of this world.

In this whole world, he was the only one: this Devil Sect’s Young Saint, who looked exactly like him in reality.

It was normal that he didn’t recognize the Devil Sect’s Leader.

But at the same time, he didn’t recognize the leader of the Devil Sect and it was too strange for a person of this world.

Therefore, Su Yang didn’t know how to explain to Gu Feidi.

Moreover, during the fight earlier, the Devil Sect Leader had also asked something about soul-swapping and rebirth. Su Yang didn’t know if Gu Feidi had heard those words. If he had, what would Gu Feidi think of him?

Would he believe it? Would he loathe him? Would he feel… that he was being deceived all this time?

Su Yang didn’t know why he was suddenly so worried about gains and losses.

Logically, he shouldn’t care so much about what Gu Feidi thought of him—the two were in opposing camps and each other’s enemies. In the future, he was destined to be stabbed through the heart by Gu Feidi and die in his hands.

But he just couldn’t stop the anxiety in his heart. He hoped that Gu Feidi wouldn’t ask and at the same time, he was also afraid that Gu Feidi wouldn’t ask but had already decided for himself.

“You…” Gu Feidi hesitated to speak.

Su Yang’s heart and mind tensed. He only felt that his throat was tight and he had broken out in cold sweats all over.

Gu Feidi continued: “…Will you truly die if you detoxify me?”

“How’s that possible!” Su Yang breathed a sigh of relief and smiled, “Although the detoxification method is indeed to lure the Gu worm from your body into mine, but… I have a way to get rid of it completely, so you don’t have to worry about it.”

Gu Feidi stared at Su Yang’s eyes and asked seriously, “Is that absolutely true?”

Su Yang nodded: “Absolutely true!” 

After a moment of silence, Gu Feidi said, “Alright, I trust you.” 

Su Yang smiled, looked down and mumbled to himself for a while and cautiously asked: “Is there… nothing else you want to ask?”

Gu Feidi looked at Su Yang calmly: “If you don’t wish to say, I won’t ask.”

Su Yang tapped his nose and said in a low voice: “The more you act like this, the more guilty I feel……”

Gu Feidi said, “Then tell me… was it you who met me in the dense forest of Meizhu Mountain?”

Su Yang turned to look at Gu Feidi. Gu Feidi raised his eyebrows, smiled and encouraged him to speak.

In the end, Su Yang nodded: “It was me.”

“That’s enough.” Gu Feidi said, “The one who met me was you. The one I wanted to befriend was you. The one who saved me was you. My heart… The one I trust you is also you. As for your background, why should I go into it?” 

Gu Feidi’s tone was clearly calm and what he said was clearly simple. He didn’t know why, but Su Yang felt his nose start to tingle for no reason.

He quickly turned around and stretched open his eyes as wide as he could while looking at the stalactite hanging from the top of the cave.

After a long while, he said: “Anyway, remember that I won’t harm you.”

Gu Feidi chuckled lightly and said: “Ngh, I know you won’t harm me. But……”

Su Yang’s heart tightened: “But?”

Gu Feidi said, “You’re really not going to find the ‘Half Withered Red’ book? Don’t you want to detoxify me?” 

“Oh, yes.” Su Yang reacted, “We’d better go in and detoxify you as soon as possible.”

After speaking, he stood up and braced Gu Feidi on his shoulder. The two supported each other and walked over to the stone door in the cave together.

There was a dim corridor behind the stone door. Although there were lamp posts on either side, only one lamp was lit after every two or three lamp posts.

They advanced along the corridor until they reach a circular stone chamber built according to the topography of the cave.

As usual, there were lighted lamp posts around the stone chamber and between the lamp posts was a circle of black hole arches. A narrow well with a diameter of over a foot had been dug in the corner. The water surface in the well was very close to the well’s edge. Su Yang concluded that this small well was directly connected to the lake outside. In the center of the stone chamber was a couch, on it was a desk, a lamp stand and a complete set of brush, ink, paper and inkstone.

Su Yang helped Gu Feidi to sit on the couch divan, then he took the torch from the lamppost and walked through the arches one by one.

Not long after, Su Yang returned to the stone chamber, “There are two armories and the rest are rooms for storing ancient books and records.”

Seeing Su Yang come back empty-handed, Gu Feidi asked, “Couldn’t find the Half Withered Red?”

Su Yang said. “Initially I thought because it was close to the lake, it would be too damp and not conducive to the preservation of the books. However, I didn’t expect that they would actually engrave the forbidden books and ancient records onto stone. I can’t move those stone blocks, so I can only study them in the rooms. Your injury is not yet healed, I worry about leaving you here alone.”

Gu Feidi smiled and asked, “What’s there to worry about?”

Su Yang flattened his lips and said, “I’m afraid the Sect Leader would return to trouble you. “

Gu Feidi said: “If he really comes back, it doesn’t matter whether you are here or not. If he wants to kill me, no one can stop him. You go ahead and find the Half Withered Red. The earlier you can detoxify me, the earlier I can fight alongside you.”

Those words made sense. Su Yang thought for a moment and decided to look from room to room for the Half Withered Red engraving. When he located the specific whereabouts of the engraving, he would see if it was convenient to practice in the room where the engraving was stored or to copy it and practice it in the stone chamber.

Watching Su Yang disappear behind an arch, Gu Feidi clenched his fists to cover his nose and mouth, then coughed a few times before wiping away the blood.

Su Yang searched for a long time and finally found the Half Withered Red engraving in the corner of the room behind the fourth arch.

The surface of the stone block had been worn out, but fortunately, there was still a layer of black ink on it. It seemed that someone had come here to make a rubbing of this methodology, thus creating a very clear white text on a black background.

Su Yang looked up at the first few sentences of the general chapter at the top of the stone block and saw that it read: “Extreme cold’s breath, cold enters true breath of breath. Extreme Yin’s method, Yin enters no mind of the mind. Flower red half withered, entering the bounds of perpetual freezing, lacking the withering method.”

——This was a cold to Yin technique, meaning that the flower will be frozen forever before it withers.

Su Yang glanced briefly at the body of the methodology and found that this methodology had three levels and it didn’t take too long to learn. He still had the support of the Cold Pond Ice Spirit in his body and practicing this cold mental method would only be quicker. It was mentioned in the third level that when internal strength was cultivated to this point, it would be extremely cold, therefore becoming the bane of all worm fungus poisons.

He took another look at the categories of the various poison solutions in the appendix of the engraving. There were dozens of methods for blood Gu, love Gu, mantra Gu and tangled silk Gu.

Su Yang leaned forward with the torch, searching for the solution to the blood Gu from the nail-sized font of the appendix engraving.

Pretty soon, he found a caption:

“The one who’s blood Gu has entered, from the heart upwards, upmost to the tongue. Must nip the tongue to offset, tongues and blood to fuse together, no gaps in the lips, power delivers red, soft red, wither red three cycles, then Gu can be drawn into the body.”