Unfortunately, he got glared at again.
To avoid Ye Yang’s reaching hand, Xuan Lu even leaped a big step outward, soaring into the air with an unnatural jumping ability—clearing the tall table and landing right next to Zhuang Li.
“So impressive!” Shen Xiuyun blurted out, eyebrows shooting up high. His gaze toward Xuan Lu suddenly became much more serious.
Despite looking like he was still at the nursing age and size, his strength, agility, and leaping ability were all remarkably strong.
Qin Zhi’s smile nearly reached the sky. “Xuan Lu’s talents go far beyond that. I’ve already tested him—he has great aptitude. I’m going to teach him how to take human form, help him cultivate, and even teach him swordsmanship!”
Ye Yang’s eyes flickered, uncertain. Was he seeing things? He could have sworn he saw a flicker of disdain in Xuan Lu’s eyes when he heard the word “swordsmanship.” But could a dog even understand that? The thought came and went, and he didn’t dwell on it.
Qin Zhi suddenly looked up. “Ye Ye, you’re familiar with shape-shifting. Could you help me when the time comes?”
Ye Yang had no reason to refuse. “Of course, just find me whenever—” Before he could finish, another glare silenced him completely.
Zhuang Li, who had been looking indifferent, sensed the approach of a heat source and finally examined the little dog more closely.
The dog had a coat of mixed black and gray fur, slightly oversized ears standing straight up on its head. From the front, it looked more like a wolf than a dog, with a distinctly wild expression. Beneath its smooth coat was a set of firm, well-defined muscles—clearly well taken care of by its owner.
Its overall aura was that of an ordinary dog, but Zhuang Li’s one-eighth nine-tailed fox heritage kept sending him warning signals, hinting at a strong sense of dissonance about this puppy.
Zhuang Li rubbed his teacup and suddenly asked, “What breed is Xuan Lu, anyway?”
Qin Zhi scratched his head. “Well, I don’t know actually. I looked it up when I found him, but no luck. Probably a mutt.”
Zhuang Li said nothing more, but a glint of intrigue appeared in his eyes. This dog was no ordinary one—he had a feeling things would get interesting later.
Ye Yang, on the other hand, had no such complicated thoughts.
He saw that Xuan Lu was not only strong and powerful but also highly intelligent. Not only could he understand every command Qin Zhi gave him, but sometimes he could even draw inferences. Ye Yang just thought the dog was exceptionally impressive, and that Qin Zhi was incredibly lucky to have found him.
He just didn’t understand why the older and younger brothers didn’t seem to like the dog very much and refused to play with him.
But that was fine—he really liked this dog, and he was going to play with him!
How could anyone dislike such a cool little dog?
Watching the naive and oblivious century-old demon Ye Yang get completely outmaneuvered by a few-months-old puppy, even getting glared at multiple times, yet still happily continuing to play, Shen Xiuyun finally couldn’t bear to watch anymore and averted his analytical gaze.
He even started doubting himself and sought affirmation. “Is this game really that fun?”
A simple hide-and-seek game, played in this tiny little thatched cottage—and Ye Yang kept losing, not winning a single round. Where was the fun in that?
Zhuang Li rubbed his chin, sounding uncertain. “Maybe… it’s animal instinct?” Little Ye Ye was an animal too, right? Maybe little critters just liked this sort of thing. How would he know? He was a half-demon with mostly human blood.
Little did they know that Ye Yang had never played any games before, so he found anything fun, no matter what it was.
They played for most of the day, with a full meal of mountain delicacies in between—homemade by Qin Zhi.
Most of the ingredients, however… didn’t actually come from the mountain. They were bought online.
The fact was, on such a small mountain, aside from a few wild vegetables and some unidentifiable mushrooms of questionable edibility, there weren’t many true delicacies to be found.
Still, Qin Zhi was a pretty good cook. The four of them and the dog all ate their fill, completely satisfied.
Even Shen Xiuyun had to admit that he might have had some biased preconceptions about sword cultivators—it turned out that not every sword cultivator was a terrible cook.
Before leaving, Shen Xiuyun hesitated for a moment, then decided to offer Qin Zhi a piece of advice.
“That dog you picked up—you should be more careful around him. Don’t just teach him everything. It’d be best if you looked into his background.”
Unfortunately, Qin Zhi was too dense to grasp Shen Xiuyun’s meaning and immediately jumped to his dog’s defense. “Why? If he can learn it, I’m happy to teach him anything. A talent like this shouldn’t go to waste! Besides, look how well-behaved Xuan Lu is.”
Shen Xiuyun gave Qin Zhi an incredulous once-over. Was he blind? The killing intent in that dog’s eyes was practically tangible.
He rolled his eyes and thought, If I so much as speak to this brain-dead sword cultivator again, I’m a dog myself!
·
Before they knew it, December had arrived.
Dongzhou City, with its four distinct seasons, had finally officially entered winter.
With no classes on Monday morning, Ye Yang followed Zhuang Li’s advice and put on a down jacket. He set out from the apartment just as dawn was breaking.
The moment he opened the door, his expression froze. His gaze was caught off guard by a massive round object.
Looking closer, he realized it wasn’t a ball, but a person—Shen Ming, who was supposed to be going to school with him.
Shen Ming was wrapped up tightly from head to toe. It was impossible to tell how many layers he had on underneath, but the outermost layer consisted of an ultra-thick down jacket and down pants, plus a large scarf and a wool hat, leaving only his eyes exposed. From a distance, he looked like a—
Ye Yang struggled to speak. “…Teacher Shen? Are you okay?” Was he sick? Why was he wearing so much?
Shen Ming’s voice came out muffled from beneath the layers of his scarf. “I’m fine. Let’s go.”
Ye Yang looked up but couldn’t find Shen Ming’s face. He felt a brief daze—so even when only his eyes were showing, a handsome person was still breathtakingly handsome, huh.
…
The walk from the apartment to the school was quite short, about fifteen minutes. But today, for some reason, Ye Yang felt that the road was a bit long, a bit hard to endure.
It wasn’t until they entered the school and went their separate ways that Ye Yang realized—Shen Ming had been unusually silent today.
Shen Ming had always been a man of few words, but he actually had a rich inner world. After getting to know him, Ye Yang often heard him talk about interesting things. For example, on the way to school and the research institute, Shen Ming would often share with Ye Yang the process of how he had proposed a new theory back in the day and then proven it step by step himself.
There were too many details in these stories that couldn’t be known by ordinary people or shared with his old friends at the YCG. Shen Ming had kept them bottled up inside for so many years, and it wasn’t until Ye Yang appeared that he finally had a chance to talk about them.
Not only was Shen Ming silent, but the Spirit Serpent hadn’t said a word the entire way either.
“What’s going on?”
Ye Yang was in class, which was rare for him to be distracted. The more he thought about it, the more uneasy he felt.
Every time they met, the Spirit Serpent would always greet him and crack a couple of jokes. But today, at the apartment door, he hadn’t shown up at all.
Moreover, although he couldn’t see Shen Ming’s face and his aura didn’t seem wrong—just flowing a little slower than usual—Ye Yang couldn’t shake the feeling that Shen Ming hadn’t been looking too well today.
But could a god, the only true god left on this land, actually get sick like an ordinary person?
Could it be an old injury from the past?
“Ye Ye? Ye Ye!”
Ye Yang snapped back to attention. “…Huh?”
Li Chanyi swung her backpack over her shoulder and stood up. “What are you thinking about? I’ve been calling you forever. Did you forget what class is next? If we don’t leave now, we won’t get seats in the big lecture hall!”
·
Back at the dormitory at noon, Ye Yang had wanted to discuss things with the senior brothers, but as luck would have it, all three were out.
Shen Xiuyun was off doing who knows what, Qin Zhi was still training, and Zhuang Li had been away for several days, competing in another city.
On second thought, Ye Yang suddenly laughed at himself. “Teacher Shen is the Black Tortoise. He made it through the Shang Tang catastrophe safely. What could possibly happen to him?” Who was he, a little demon, to be worrying about someone like that? He was overthinking it.
Two more days passed, and Wednesday arrived—the day for Teacher Shen’s class.
Shen Ming had taken leave.
When the substitute teacher announced that Shen Ming had once again taken leave, the students, who only got to see Shen Ming once a week, didn’t bother to hide their collective sigh.
The substitute teacher was professional and delivered the lesson earnestly at the podium, but the students below started to drift off.
Li Chanyi poked Ye Yang’s elbow and whispered, “Hey, do you know what’s going on?”
Ye Yang shook his head. Li Chanyi clicked her tongue in disapproval. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Ye Ye, but we’re all neighbors—door-to-door neighbors at that—you should at least show some concern. Especially since Teacher Shen pays so much attention to you and treats you so well.”
“Teacher Shen pays a lot of attention to me?” Ye Yang’s eyes widened slightly.
It wasn’t that he didn’t think Shen Ming paid attention to him—he just didn’t know how Li Chanyi knew.
“Others might not know, but I do,” Li Chanyi said, raising an eyebrow and giving a mysterious smile. “Never mind that you two come and go together every weekend. I’m fully aware that Teacher Shen took you to Dean Cui’s research institute, didn’t he?”
Ye Yang’s eyes widened even more. He glanced around and lowered his voice as if he were up to no good. “How do you know that?”
Li Chanyi pretended to flip a page in her book. “Don’t worry about it. The point is, I know Teacher Shen is very good to you, so you should care about the old guy a bit more to return the favor. Teacher Shen has always been frail, and with this cold weather, he might have gotten sick again.”
There were so many questionable points in that short sentence that Ye Yang didn’t even know what to say at first… “Old guy,” “frail,” “sick”—it was hard to imagine these words being associated with Shen Ming’s name.
Oh wait, “old guy” wasn’t actually wrong.
After a long pause, Ye Yang couldn’t help but rebut, “Teacher Shen is in good health. He won’t get sick.”
Li Chanyi’s eyes widened, and her voice rose a little. “You don’t believe me? I may not be sure about other things, but when it comes to reading people’s physiques, I’m never wrong. Teacher Ming clearly has a chronically weak constitution with excessive dampness. The only thing I can’t figure out is how he manages to appear outwardly as healthy as an ordinary person. I really don’t know how he does it.”
The substitute teacher had finally had enough and shot Li Chanyi a fierce glare. Ye Yang quickly tugged at her.
Li Chanyi fell silent immediately, but Ye Yang couldn’t stop thinking about what she had said. It was only then that he realized—Shen Ming hadn’t texted him in three days.
Leave a Reply