Looking back, they realized that although they had faced a few dangers, their lives had never truly been at risk. At the time they had congratulated themselves on their luck. Now it seemed the entire treasure map might have been a trap laid specifically for them.
“What do we do now?” the wicked Jiang Ying asked with a frown. He did not like Xu Zirong, but he knew when he was outmatched and was not foolish enough to insist on opposing him.
“What do you think of his offer?” Instead of answering, the refined Jiang Ying suddenly asked what his counterpart thought about Xu Zirong’s proposal to recruit them.
“What else can I think? I hate the man, but he’s too strong. And he reeks of blood. I don’t mean a smell you can detect with your nose. I mean… the information I got back when I tried using the Soul-Luring Art on him. We can’t beat him.” The wicked Jiang Ying sounded thoroughly dejected, but facts were facts.
“I actually think following him might not be a bad choice,” the refined Jiang Ying analyzed rationally.
“Why?”
“He has an orthodox cultivator’s identity. Following him would make it much easier to conceal our Demon-Attracting Dao Body. The Flowing Light Sect is fairly tolerant, too. As long as we don’t commit some unforgivable atrocity and he’s willing to shelter us, his master will become our protection rather than a threat. If we truly serve him, anyone thinking of harming us will have to consider the consequences. The dignity of a Nascent Soul cultivator isn’t something people can casually trample.”
“Mm… you’ve got a point.” The wicked Jiang Ying agreed.
“There’s one more thing, and it’s the most important.”
“What?”
“We can’t beat him.” The refined Jiang Ying spread his hands.
“Damn it!” The wicked Jiang Ying made a contemptuous gesture.
“So… are we agreed?”
The wicked Jiang Ying kept up his derisive gesture. “You just said we can’t beat him. If we can’t, we have to accept defeat. But we need to make the terms clear. We can’t follow him indefinitely, can we? There should be a fixed term of service. Even the Soul-Luring Art has a price. I’ll leave the bargaining to you!” With that, the wicked Jiang Ying withdrew.
The previous night, except for the beginning when the refined Jiang Ying had taken charge out of fear of hurting Fang Tianrui, his wicked counterpart had been responsible for the rest of their strenuous night together. Usually the two souls took turns without much trouble. After an entire night of physical exertion, while also having to expend some energy suppressing the other’s resistance, he was utterly exhausted.
After the wicked Jiang Ying withdrew to rest, the refined Jiang Ying rubbed his forehead in distress. Bargaining with someone like Xu Zirong would be difficult enough if he held decent cards; his own hand was weak, and it contained one enormous vulnerability. With neither leverage nor strength, what choice did he have except to concede?
Ask their father for help? Jiang Ying had never even considered it. Since being confined to that tiny room, he had grown accustomed to handling everything himself. Besides, he did not want to drag his father into trouble. A Nascent Soul Dao Lord was not someone one could afford to offend, under any circumstances.
After leaving Jiang Ying, Xu Zirong returned to his bedroom. A servant told him that Xu Ziyan had gone out with Jiang Tianxing. Although his brother had mentioned that possibility, Xu Zirong still felt thoroughly annoyed.
If he’d known, he wouldn’t have gone to see Jiang Ying. Then he could have accompanied his brother! This was all Jiang Ying’s fault!
With magnificent disregard for reason, Xu Zirong blamed Jiang Ying for the entire affair and added another mark against him in the little ledger he kept in his heart.
Poor Jiang Ying had no idea that, despite having done absolutely nothing, he had already offended Xu Zirong again…
(Friendly reminder: Following a lunatic is risky. Choose your boss with care!)
When Jiang Tianxing and Xu Ziyan returned, both wore calm expressions that betrayed nothing amiss. Xu Zirong knew better than to read too much into that. Anyone capable of restoring the nearly ruined Jiang family to its present state was hardly the sort of person who wore his every thought on his face.
“What did Patriarch Jiang say?” Xu Zirong asked as he led Xu Ziyan into the room and considerately helped him out of his outer robe.
“Hard to say. Fifty-fifty, I suppose.” Xu Ziyan answered casually. Spotting a crease in the corner of Zirong’s robe, he reached over and smoothed it out.
“He doesn’t believe you?”
“It’s not that he doesn’t believe me. It involves his own younger brother, after all. I think it’s more that he can’t bear to accept it.” Xu Ziyan could sympathize. Such a thing truly was difficult to believe.
If someone accused Zirong of killing innocent people indiscriminately one day, Xu Ziyan suspected that even with every piece of evidence laid out in front of him, he would still be unwilling to believe it.
Mind you, it was a matter of not wanting to believe it, not of not believing it.
Xu Ziyan did not consider himself some great hero. He was certain he could never bring himself to sacrifice his own kin for the sake of righteousness. He glanced unconsciously at Xu Zirong. Though that face had grown exquisitely handsome, traces of its former childishness remained.
This was the little brother he had raised with his own hands. Even if Zirong were to turn against the entire world, Xu Ziyan could never bring himself to kill his own family. At most…
He smiled bitterly at himself. Perhaps seeing Jiang Tianxing’s grief when he learned that his younger brother might have colluded with demon cultivators had affected him. Why else would he be imagining how he would react if Zirong became a great demon?
What nonsense. He might find Zirong’s values a little skewed these days, but the boy was still a long way from those cruel, bloodthirsty demonic cultivators. Why was he wasting his time imagining such things?
Even as he scolded himself, his thoughts refused to stop. After turning the matter over repeatedly, he came to one conclusion: if Zirong truly fell into depravity and committed acts beyond what Xu Ziyan could tolerate, perhaps he would die together with him.
After all, if Zirong really became that twisted, it could only mean Xu Ziyan had failed to educate him properly as an elder brother!
“Brother, what’s wrong?” Xu Zirong looked at him with concern, though privately he was startled. Just now his brother had suddenly given him a searching, piercing look unlike anything he had ever seen.
“Hm? Nothing. Something just occurred to me, and I suddenly felt rather sorry for Patriarch Jiang.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Being betrayed by your own younger brother must feel terrible.”
Something stirred in Xu Zirong’s heart. He suddenly seized both Xu Ziyan’s hands and said with absolute seriousness, “Brother, I will never betray you.”
Xu Ziyan was taken aback, then laughed and patted his head. “Don’t worry. I believe you. I practically raised you myself… well, I suppose I neglected my duties a little during those five years, but I still know what kind of person you are.”
He drew Xu Zirong down beside him, smiling warmly. “Zirong might throw little tantrums now and then, but I know he’s still a good boy.”
Xu Zirong silently lowered his head, his long eyelashes concealing the irritation in his eyes.
A child! A child! I’m not a child anymore!
Brother, when are you finally going to recognize that I’m a man? Do I really have to do something before you’ll understand how I feel?
He slowly raised his head. His dark eyes were as deep as a pool of still water, seemingly capable of drawing a person in.
“Brother, I’ve grown up.” Xu Zirong spoke with such solemnity that it sounded like a declaration of enormous importance.
Caught by those fathomless eyes, Xu Ziyan stared in silence for quite a while before finally looking away in a fluster. “Ahaha, of course I know you’ve grown up. You’ll be eighteen in a few months. Practically an adult already.”
“Eighteen?” Xu Zirong repeated, a smile slowly unfolding on his face. “So eighteen means you’re an adult?”
“Uh… yes. At eighteen you’re an adult. There are plenty of things you can do then that you couldn’t do before.” Unsettled by his younger brother’s gaze, Xu Ziyan began stumbling over his words.
Xu Zirong’s smile widened. He suddenly leaned toward Xu Ziyan, closing the distance so sharply that Xu Ziyan could feel the warmth of his breath.
“Brother… I’ll be an adult very soon.”
Xu Ziyan’s heartbeat shot past two hundred. Four words flashed through his mind: Something is terribly wrong. Somehow, that remark about adulthood felt as though it had flipped a particularly ominous switch. With Xu Zirong so close, however, his mind went blank, and he could not think at all.
“Brother, why are you blushing? Are you hot?”
Just as Xu Ziyan was hazily beginning to draw back, Xu Zirong moved away again, looking at him with innocent puzzlement.
Xu Ziyan touched his own cheek without thinking. Strange… he hadn’t done anything. Why was his face so warm?
“Brother?” Xu Zirong looked concerned and reached out to touch his cheek. “Your face is really hot.”
“Huh? Is it? Uh… maybe it’s the weather. It’s too hot. I-I’ll go for a walk.” Stammering, Xu Ziyan fled in such haste that he did not even use the door. He jumped straight out the window.
Watching him disappear, Xu Zirong’s concern vanished, replaced by a faintly mischievous smile.
These little tricks he had once scorned were surprisingly effective on his brother. Still, he had to make sure no one else ever got a chance to use such tactics on him in the future!
Having fled the room in a panic, Xu Ziyan found a secluded corner where he could hide in embarrassment.
Once he was somewhere quiet, away from Xu Zirong’s teasing, he finally escaped that mortifying state of mind.
He scratched at the wall and cursed himself. What the hell was that? What were you blushing for?
He replayed the scene once more, but this time he felt none of that embarrassment.
Put simply, hadn’t Zirong merely stepped a little closer? The brothers had stood that near each other plenty of times before. So what had made him blush just now?
Like an ostrich burying its head in the sand, Xu Ziyan ruled out the possibility that Zirong had deliberately created an intimate atmosphere. In his mind, Zirong was his younger brother. Who had ever heard of a younger brother flirting with his elder brother?