The Immortal Lord and the Demon Venerable Are Both My Vests - Chapter 27

When Xie Tingxuan arrived, Yin Lang was leisurely directing the cheap protagonist to plant flowers.

In order to win his favorable impression, Xu Rong could be said to be doing his utmost. His meager spiritual energy had to be entirely devoted to supplying the newly sprouted mortal flower seeds, lest the fragile seeds be unable to withstand the abundant spiritual energy of the immortal sect. He had no choice but to rely entirely on his physical endurance to plant an entire flower bed. Sweat mixed with mud and soil, and whatever advantage his decent appearance once provided had been thoroughly worn away to nothing.

Xu Rong supported his waist and exhaled.

Before ascending to the immortal sect, he had been a pampered and privileged prince, raised in gold and jade, clothed in brocade and fed delicacies. In his previous life, he had spent a hundred years as a lofty ‘immortal.’ Whether planting fields or building houses with his own hands—this was truly the first time in either lifetime.

He couldn’t help but suspect whether Shen Muxuan was deliberately tormenting him.

Building a house was something that could be done with a wave of a spell—why did he have to painstakingly construct it brick by brick?

“You’ve planted well.” Xie Tingxuan arrived silently.

Under Xu Rong’s dazed gaze, Sect Master Xie walked past the flower bed with his sleeves gathered, leaving behind an aura of ice and snow that clashed with the surrounding environment. “Very much in the style of Tianji back in the day.”

Xu Rong absentmindedly picked up a seed and buried it in the soil.

Ah… so Tianji Daojun’s hobby was actually farming?

“What nonsense are you spouting now?” the person reclining in the rocking chair said lazily.

He moved his folding fan aside but showed no intention of sitting up. He casually rapped on the stone table and chairs beside him. “Make yourself comfortable.”

Xu Rong came over wanting to clean a proper place for Sect Master Xie, but Xie Tingxuan had already familiarly swept his sleeve, using spiritual energy to brush away the floating dust on the stone chair. He didn’t seem to mind in the slightest that his host’s hospitality was lacking.

Shen Muxuan tilted his head toward Xu Rong. “Go back to your work. Sect Master Xie was my childhood companion—there’s no need to worry about formalities. What troublesome matter have you encountered?”

This last sentence was directed at Xie Tingxuan.

Xie Tingxuan said, “You’re as perceptive as ever.”

Shen Muxuan closed his eyes again and lay back. “Senior Martial Brother said you came just a few days ago and took Ah Lan and Xiao Chang’an with you.”

The implication being: if it weren’t urgent business, why come so frequently? It wasn’t like the carefree childhood days when neither of them had any responsibilities.

“Both yes, and no.”

Shen Muxuan didn’t respond, only waiting for him to finish speaking first.

Xie Tingxuan’s dark eyes were calm. “Martial Niece Ji has encountered Heavenly Retribution.”

Sect Master Xie’s speaking style had always been straightforward and to the point, never considering the other party’s ability to accept things. Only a friend who had known him since childhood for several hundred years could be accustomed to this manner.

Yin Lang said “Oh,” and then: “And then?”

He was even calmer than Xie Tingxuan.

“So, I came to ask your thoughts.”

Yin Lang suddenly laughed, pointing his closed folding fan at Xie Tingxuan, laughing so hard he couldn’t stop. “Tingxuan, oh Tingxuan, so even you’ve learned to deceive people?”

Xie Tingxuan faced him calmly. After Yin Lang had laughed enough, he said, “Then how do you know exactly how much I’ve figured out?”

“I don’t want to guess.”

“Xie Tingxuan, you know I hate this kind of guessing game the most.” Yin Lang restrained his laughter, impatiently tapping the table with his fan. “Speak plainly. Don’t make me throw you out. Exactly how much do you know?”

Xie Tingxuan gazed at him calmly. “Does it matter?”

“It matters. After all, it determines whether Sect Master Xie dies here today or returns to your Heavenly Sword Sect in one piece.” Yin Lang lowered his head and fiddled with his fan tassel, not looking up.

“Muxuan, we’ve known each other since we were sixteen.”

Yin Lang sighed and looked up at him. “Trying to play the friendship card?”

“No.”

“I’m just saying that I understand you better than you think. After all…” Xie Tingxuan’s icy brows curved slightly.

He said slowly:

“If Venerable Yin truly wanted to kill me, you wouldn’t waste words like this. And the Shen Muxuan that Xie Tingxuan knows would never easily show his emotions on his face.”

“Muxuan, you still consider this Xie as a friend.”

Yin Lang stared at him fixedly, then suddenly deflated. He reached up and tapped his forehead. “Only you could get away with this. Replace you with anyone else, and see if I’d let them leave Tianji Peak alive.”

He slouched in his chair, abandoning all pretense, and said carelessly, “Leave awake or leave stupid—take your pick.”

Xie Tingxuan acted as if he hadn’t heard, only calmly and unhurriedly repeating the ‘dream’ he’d heard from Ji Chang’an.

Xie Tingxuan was a clever person, and being a transmigrator himself, he could deduce the truth from these vague and distorted descriptions. Yin Lang was equally no fool, and had even read a ‘similar’ story book.

As Xie Tingxuan narrated, his brow furrowed tighter and tighter. By the time he finished, Yin Lang’s expression had become rather peculiar. “No wonder Xiao Chang’an is so afraid of me…”

As the mastermind behind the entire novel, ‘Tianji’ ostensibly appeared to be the strategist and number one lackey of the ‘male lead Xu Rong,’ helping him seize power and steal women, only striking at the last moment to knock down the ‘male lead’ just before his ascension.

But upon careful examination, one could discover that all the various disasters and obstacles the male lead encountered—whether the open obstructions from villains or the darkly hinted continuous sudden annihilations of the major immortal sects—were all connected to ‘Tianji.’

These sects that seemed to exist merely to be destroyed at ‘plot’ nodes and reasonably provide ‘golden fingers’ to the ‘protagonist’—in reality, what the ‘protagonist’ obtained were merely scraps. The most important and precious treasures were all continuously sent to the ‘villain Demon Venerable’s’ palace without ‘his’ knowledge.

Yin Lang’s expression was strange. “This… author really seems quite… fond of me.” He deliberated for a moment before settling on this positively colored description.

Not just fond—it was as if they wanted to stuff all the good things in the world into his hands.

“However, this is different from the version I saw.” Yin Lang pondered for a moment, then briefly recounted the version Qin Xun had given him.

Xie Tingxuan said, “Based on my understanding of this area, what you saw should be the original work, while what Martial Niece Ji saw was fanfiction.”

He then explained the difference between original works and fanfiction to Yin Lang.

But Yin Lang didn’t particularly care. “What of the original? What of fanfiction? What relationship did it say exists between you and me?”

He snorted with laughter. “How the future unfolds is ultimately my own choice—how could it be determined by a mere story book?”

“I’m glad you can see it that way.” Xie Tingxuan was also relieved.

Though he believed that Muxuan, raised and educated by the Taihua Immortal Sect, could never be someone who would murder his master and destroy his sect, and that his choice to step onto the demonic path had its own reasoning, he had still been somewhat worried.

“Is there anything I can help with?”

Yin Lang waved his hand, about to say that he’d just cleaned out a wave of those with divided loyalties and his domain was quite clean, when he suddenly thought of something and said to Xie Tingxuan, “Do you know about… this?”

He waved the fan tassel before Xie Tingxuan’s eyes.

On it was a conspicuous checkmark—at first glance, one might think the jade had cracked.

Xie Tingxuan glanced at him, then calmly took out a similar piece of jade and placed it on the stone table, pushing it over.

“I have no use for it. You might as well have it.”

This time it was Yin Lang’s turn to be stunned.

After a long while, he finally sighed. “In all these hundreds of years, this is the first time I’ve been shocked to this degree.”

He covered his hand with a layer of spiritual energy and pressed it on the Primordial Jade fragment Xie Tingxuan had pushed over. “You’re really giving it to me? If you were able to obtain it, you can’t be unaware of what this thing represents.”

Xie Tingxuan only said, “I am a sword cultivator.”

If one didn’t even have the courage to directly face the Heavenly Ascension Tribulation, what was the point of cultivating the sword?

“I obtained it by chance anyway. If it can resolve one of your concerns, why not give it to you?”

Yin Lang smiled. “Then I won’t be polite and will gladly accept it.”

Having received the item, he asked again, “Where did you get this? When the Primordial Jade emerged back then, you weren’t even born yet, and among the various forces competing for it, none of your ancestors were involved.”

“Naturally, I seized it.”

Saying ‘seized,’ his tone made it sound more like ‘took.’

Before Yin Lang could ask specifically, he said directly, “Three hundred years ago, Yan Guihe was being troublesome and dared to attack disciples of my sect, so I arranged a duel with him.”

This fragment was clearly the spoils of war.

Yin Lang was amazed. “Yan Guihe didn’t try to fight you to the death?”

Xie Tingxuan: “He’s no match for me. After that battle, he recuperated for quite some time.”

Yin Lang silently crossed Yan Guihe off his mental must-kill list, thinking to himself that this was indeed true. Even though Xie Tingxuan now knew such a huge secret of his, if there were any other option, he wouldn’t really be eager to fight him.

It wasn’t entirely because their relationship was too good and he couldn’t bear to kill him.

Sword cultivators were inherently the most formidable attackers among cultivators, and the number one sword cultivator of the Lantian Realm, at full power, would make even Dao Integration stage experts temporarily avoid his edge. Killing him completely would be even more difficult.

If it wasn’t necessary, Yin Lang really didn’t want to make trouble for himself.

Having learned what he wanted to know, he thought for a moment, then said to Xie Tingxuan: “Blood contract or Dao contract—pick one.”

In any case, don’t think about leaving Tianji Peak with your mouth still working.

“Seems you’ve also been thoroughly screwed over by the Heavenly Dao.” Xie Tingxuan immediately perceived the truth behind this statement.

Yin Lang’s expression didn’t look too pleased.

He irritably pointed outside, “Anyone who’s forced to take on a huge headache for no reason—how could they be happy about it?”

Xie Tingxuan looked at Xu Rong in puzzlement for a long while, then turned back to find that his companion had no intention of explaining.

He weighed the options between a blood contract and a Dao contract, choosing the former and adding some restrictive clauses.

Yin Lang had no objections whatsoever to this.

Even blood brothers needed to settle accounts clearly, let alone with such a huge secret.

He needed to ensure Xie Tingxuan couldn’t reveal this secret, and Xie Tingxuan also needed to confirm he absolutely couldn’t infringe on his side’s interests.

Good relationship or not, a relaxed conversational atmosphere couldn’t hide the exchange of interests beneath it.

Yin Lang could receive Xie Tingxuan’s assistance in demonic path matters, while his identity and influence could also bring Xie Tingxuan much convenience.

“Everything confirmed?” Yin Lang asked one final time.

“Does Fellow Daoist Gu know about your identity?” Xie Tingxuan didn’t ask about anyone else.

This kind of life-and-death secret—unless he himself asked directly, Shen Muxuan wouldn’t even tell him. And the only one with a closer relationship than theirs was Gu Fuxuan.

“Senior Martial Brother doesn’t know.” Yin Lang said flatly, “You two are not the same type of people.”

Xie Tingxuan’s words and actions were like flowers on a high peak, but inside he carried too much worldly chaos;

Gu Fuxuan’s exterior was stern and cold, but his whole heart was devoted to the Taihua Immortal Sect. He could dote on ‘Shen Muxuan,’ but would absolutely never tolerate the existence of ‘Yin Lang.’

“Sign it.”

Two drops of heart’s blood merged, and immediately a heavy shackle appeared on their souls. In the unseen realm, a force sealed something away—when trying to sense it carefully, nothing could be sensed.

This blood contract completely bound the interests of the two together.

Yin Lang breathed a huge sigh of relief.

Xie Tingxuan was just about to stand and take his leave when, from the direction of the back mountain of the Taihua Immortal Sect, an extremely powerful force suddenly erupted.

Xie Tingxuan showed slight surprise. “The Daozhu has actually emerged from seclusion at this time?”

In an instant, all color drained from Yin Lang’s face.