Three shichen later.
Using the shattered phantom stone, Yue Jingming barely managed to set up a concealed illusion. Both his spiritual qi and Xiao Chunhe’s demonic qi were nearly exhausted.
Not far away, an enormous red fox was digging at the earth furiously with both forepaws. In the end, only its large fluffy tail remained outside the burrow, and even the white fur at the tip was covered in dust.
“Chunhe, that’s enough.” Yue Jingming walked over to remind him. “There are only two of us. There’s no need to dig such a large burrow.”
The large tail swished. The fox turned itself around inside the hole and poked its furry head out to look at him. “We’re both badly injured. If someone finds us, a larger burrow gives us more ways to escape.”
Yue Jingming raised a hand and brushed the dirt from its cheek. “Rest before you keep digging.”
The fox’s ears twitched and it moved away from his hand, then asked seriously, “How are Little Leaf and the others?”
“Jingyi sent word just now. They saw they couldn’t win, found a chance to escape, and said we should meet in Lintu.” Yue Jingming withdrew his hand. “Turn back into human form. Staying like this consumes too much demonic power.”
The large fox before him shifted and transformed back into a human.
Both of them had suffered backlash from the illusion and were badly wounded. For now, they could only hide inside the fox burrow and conceal their auras. To avoid being discovered, they even refrained from meditating to regulate their breathing.
Yue Jingming sat on one side of the burrow while Xiao Chunhe sat opposite him. The space between them could have fit another large fox. After a moment of silence, Yue Jingming stood, dusted off his sleeves, and walked directly over to Xiao Chunhe.
Xiao Chunhe: “…What are you doing?”
“Cold.” Yue Jingming sat down right beside him.
Xiao Chunhe gave him an awkward look. He wanted to get up and move away, but doing so felt too deliberate. The familiar faint scent of green pine drifted into his nose. He stared at the claw marks he had left on the ground for a long while, then quietly shifted a little to the side.
Yue Jingming turned to look at him.
Xiao Chunhe turned his head away and pretended not to notice. After a while he could not help peeking from the corner of his eye. Yue Jingming was leaning against the wall of the burrow with his eyes closed. His face was pale and bluish, his Daoist robes torn and ragged, and the wounds beneath them were faintly visible.
Xiao Chunhe looked down at himself. He was not in much better shape than Yue Jingming. His clothes were covered in blood, and he could no longer even tell where it hurt.
The two of them looked truly miserable.
As Yue Jingming’s consciousness gradually blurred, warmth suddenly appeared in his palm. He opened his eyes with difficulty and saw a small medicine bottle.
“Apply some.” Xiao Chunhe’s tone was stiff. “At least it won’t hurt as much.”
Yue Jingming smiled. “Thank you.”
But he did not move.
Xiao Chunhe waited for a while before finally turning toward him. “Well? Put it on.”
“I have no strength left.” Yue Jingming’s voice was hoarse. “Sorry.”
“Tsk.” Xiao Chunhe raised a brow. “What are you apologizing for?”
“I forcibly formed a Dao-companion bond with you,” Yue Jingming said. “But I do not regret it. Even if… I had to do it again, I would make the same choice.”
Xiao Chunhe stared at him in disbelief. “How did I never realize before that you were this shameless?”
Leaning against the burrow wall, Yue Jingming tiredly closed his eyes and gave a soft laugh.
When Xiao Chunhe saw him go still again, he lightly bumped Yue Jingming’s leg with his knee. “Hey. Don’t fall asleep.”
Yue Jingming wearily opened his eyes again. “I dragged you into this.”
“If you hadn’t been trying to take me away from Zixu Mountain, they wouldn’t have targeted you either.” Xiao Chunhe frowned. “But why did you have to break through at exactly that moment?”
Yue Jingming turned to look at him. “I don’t know.”
His stare made Xiao Chunhe a little uncomfortable. He snatched the medicine from Yue Jingming’s hand and got up. The movement pulled at his wounds and made him bare his teeth in pain. Half kneeling beside Yue Jingming, he gently lifted the Daoist robe sleeve and exposed the arm beneath, covered in injuries.
He carefully spread ointment over the wounds that were deep enough to expose bone. His brows remained tightly knotted. After a long time he finally said, “Those things I said to you on Zixu Mountain before… they were all angry words. You don’t need to take them to heart.”
Yue Jingming pressed his lips together. “You even swore a poisonous oath.”
Xiao Chunhe guiltily looked away.
Yue Jingming silently drew his arm back out of his grasp.
Xiao Chunhe quickly caught his hand. “Don’t move. I’m not finished. You’ll hurt yourself.”
Yue Jingming stared directly at him, his voice hoarse. “You said every word came from your true heart, otherwise you would be struck by five thunderbolts and never enter reincarnation.”
“I—” Xiao Chunhe choked on the words, then forced himself to continue. “At the time I was planning to refine all the foxes on Zixu Mountain. If I committed sins like that and then broke through, heavenly lightning would definitely strike me. If it killed me, my soul would scatter and I would never reincarnate. If I somehow survived, I’d become an undying great demon and wouldn’t enter reincarnation anyway. I didn’t care.”
Yue Jingming stared at him, his eyes faintly reddening. “And now?”
Xiao Chunhe looked completely at a loss. He grabbed his sleeve and tried to wipe Yue Jingming’s eyes. “D-don’t cry. Now… now you forcibly tied me into a Dao-companion bond. If five thunderbolts really strike, you’ll have to block two of them for me.”
Yue Jingming looked at him expressionlessly. “I’m not crying. That’s blood.”
Xiao Chunhe’s heart ached. “That’s even worse than crying.”
Yue Jingming suppressed the bitterness in his throat. “You said everything you did toward me before was an act.”
Xiao Chunhe had never imagined that this Daoist had simply been storing all of this away. He had assumed Yue Jingming had already let everything pass. Apparently the timing had merely not been right. Now that Yue Jingming had bound them with a Dao-companion bond and was certain Xiao could no longer run, he had decided to settle every account one by one.
“If I hadn’t said that, how would you ever have agreed to leave?” Xiao Chunhe saw Yue Jingming about to speak again and hurried on. “I really didn’t want to marry anyone or take concubines. Those were angry words too. Before I met you, I barely had any seven emotions or six desires to begin with.”
Yue Jingming said lightly, “You were already wearing wedding robes. You even sent her ten live chickens.”
Xiao Chunhe rubbed his nose. “The chickens on Zixu Mountain taste terrible. I wouldn’t want them even if someone gave them to me. They aren’t a tenth as good as the wild chickens you hunt. As for the wedding clothes… they were fake. I removed all the double-happiness characters. At most it was a red outfit, not wedding robes.”
Yue Jingming: “…”
Xiao Chunhe lifted his eyes and gave him a dry glance, then fell silent again and bent his head to keep applying the medicine.
After finishing one arm and preparing to switch to the other, Xiao Chunhe was suddenly pulled around the waist and into an embrace.
Xiao Chunhe froze for a moment, then lightly patted Yue Jingming’s back and said quietly, “But aside from those, there were plenty of true things too. I’ve done many bad things, and I really am… especially bad.”
Yue Jingming leaned his whole body against him and said hoarsely, “Xiao Chunhe, I’m not as good as you think either. At that time, I truly wanted to kill you.”
Xiao Chunhe blinked. “Which time?”
“When you told me to leave through the window so I wouldn’t ruin your reputation,” Yue Jingming said heavily. “I wanted to kill every fox on Zixu Mountain and leave none alive.”
Xiao Chunhe shoved him away in shock. “Then when you came back that night—”
“I saw the formation you had Hu Xiaohu set up and understood what you intended to do.” Yue Jingming lowered his eyes. “If you had truly married someone else, whether sincerely or as an act, I… could not have accepted it.”
Xiao Chunhe swallowed with lingering fear. “How can you be like this?”
“The No-Thought One-Mind Art contains as many evil thoughts as good ones.” Yue Jingming looked at him calmly. “What matters is which thought I choose in that instant.”
Xiao Chunhe blinked his fox eyes. “You really have the makings of a demon lord.”
Yue Jingming voluntarily held out his other hand. “This arm hurts too.”
Xiao Chunhe raised a brow and carefully applied medicine to the wounds, muttering, “Serves you right. You just formed a Golden Core and still dared give all your spiritual qi to a half-demon, then forcibly formed a Dao-companion bond on top of it. You really were afraid you wouldn’t die fast enough. If your master knew, he’d kick you from the mountaintop all the way to the foot of the mountain.”
“Master is not that kind of person.” Yue Jingming answered with complete seriousness. “He would only punish me by making me kneel before incense.”
Xiao Chunhe could not help laughing. “You’ve been punished before?”
“Mm.” Yue Jingming kept a straight face. “When I was ten, I altered the formation covering the entire mountain into one that absorbed true qi. The disciples on the mountain nearly had all their true qi drained. Fortunately, Master discovered it in time.”
Xiao Chunhe hesitated. “If all their true qi had been drained, wouldn’t they have turned into human jerky?”
“My reasoning was wrong at the time. I should have controlled the degree of absorption.” Yue Jingming pondered seriously. “If I did it now—”
“If you did it now, the sect would already have purged you.” Xiao Chunhe looked at him darkly. “Are you truly sure you don’t want to become a demon lord?”
Yue Jingming said reservedly, “Better not.”
Xiao Chunhe met his gaze, and the two of them burst out laughing at the same time.
“Hiss.” Xiao Chunhe clutched his abdomen and sat back beside him. “Yue Jingming.”
“Mm?” Yue Jingming opened his eyes again.
“Don’t sleep,” Xiao Chunhe said. “If you fall asleep now, you’re finished.”
Yue Jingming asked, “How do you know so much about forming a Golden Core?”
Xiao Chunhe had been the first to recognize what was happening before as well.
“I happened to read about it—” Xiao Chunhe instinctively tried to brush the question aside, then sighed, leaned against the burrow wall, and groped for Yue Jingming’s ice-cold hand. “Back then, Xiao Wen told me my mother died while forming her Golden Core. She gave me all her demonic power and had no choice but to take risks and cultivate quickly through other methods… At the time I thought, if only I’d been able to protect her while she formed her core. So I searched through a lot of old texts.”
Xiao Chunhe sighed again. “Unfortunately, back then there were many characters I couldn’t read, so I secretly taught myself. When I grew older, I realized Xiao Wen had simply lied to me. Forming a Golden Core isn’t that easy. In my mother’s condition at the time, it would have been impossible for her to form another Golden Core.”
Yue Jingming squeezed his fingers. “Xiao Wen is the bad fox.”
Xiao Chunhe laughed, then suddenly felt a weight on his shoulder. He turned and saw Yue Jingming leaning against him, face pale, eyes half closed, only his lashes trembling faintly.
“Jingming, good Jingming, don’t sleep.” He lifted Yue Jingming’s chin in one hand. “Even if all those books couldn’t save my mother, they can save you. That makes it worth it. I hate reading more than anything.”
Yue Jingming opened his eyes with difficulty and lightly rubbed his cheek against Xiao Chunhe’s palm. “Thank you.”
Xiao Chunhe turned his head and kissed him, transferring demonic qi into his mouth bit by bit. “Once you make it through tonight, you’ll be fine. After tonight, your meridians will be able to absorb spiritual qi on their own.”
Yue Jingming looked at him sleepily and raised a hand to touch his cheek. “Chunhe.”
“Mm?” Xiao Chunhe lightly licked the corner of his lips.
“Chunhe.” Yue Jingming’s tired gaze was wholly focused on him. “Chunhe.”
His voice was hoarse yet lingering. Xiao Chunhe’s ears grew hot from being called that way. He cupped Yue Jingming’s face and kissed him gently. “I’m here. Don’t be afraid. I’ll never leave you again.”
Yue Jingming lowered his gaze to Xiao Chunhe’s reddened lips. “But if we uncover the truth about what happened back then and discover there really is a blood feud between us, what should we do?”
Xiao Chunhe pinched the back of his icy neck and let him lean against his chest for warmth. “Then we die together.”
The surging drowsiness vanished instantly. Yue Jingming woke completely. “What?”
Xiao Chunhe kissed his cheek, then bent to kiss his ear. “Or I eat you and keep you in my stomach.”
Yue Jingming lowered his eyes thoughtfully. “I could also refine you into a spirit pet.”
“…” Xiao Chunhe covered his mouth. “All right. You are not allowed to think about these things anymore.”
Perhaps Xiao Chunhe only said outrageous things with his mouth and could invent lies at will, but this Daoist could be disturbingly unorthodox at times. If Yue Jingming said something aloud, there was a real chance he had actually considered doing it, and everything he did on impulse broke every conventional rule.
Yue Jingming asked, “Where is your tail?”
Xiao Chunhe looked wary. “What for?”
“Cold,” Yue Jingming said lightly.
Xiao Chunhe raised a brow. “I’ll bring it out, but you may only use it as a blanket. No touching.”
Yue Jingming gave no answer.
Probably because they now shared a Golden Core, the tail Xiao Chunhe manifested in human form was much larger than before. It was soft and fluffy, with a faint golden sheen. The tail swished and carefully curled around Yue Jingming. Its white tip rested perfectly on his shoulder for him to use as a pillow.
Yue Jingming was silent for a moment, then reached out to touch it.
The tailtip nimbly dodged.
Yue Jingming looked up at Xiao Chunhe.
Xiao Chunhe flicked his tail. “If you can stay awake for a quarter of an hour, I’ll let you touch it once.”
With that, the fluffy tail deliberately waved in front of his face, its white tip brushing his cheek in provocation.
“All right.” Through his blurred consciousness, Yue Jingming decided this was a very reasonable exchange.
Xiao Chunhe leaned over and kissed him. “If you don’t make it, I’ll kiss you awake.”
Yue Jingming watched the pointed ears twitching atop his head and gave a soft laugh. “Mm.”