Chapter 31
Yu Tai stopped walking, her expression turning complicated.
Sensing the change in her mood, Xia Mo tilted its head and chirped softly. “Chirp?”
The wind on the deck grew stronger. Its chill against her body brought Yu Tai back to her senses.
He had not been reborn…
But had Shu Li acted like this in the original novel?
No. Absolutely not.
As a dedicated anti-fan of the original male lead, Yu Tai was certain the man before her was not the same useless, brainless saint she had criticized for so long.
Because Shu Li’s identity was sensitive, Yu Tai shared a room with him despite the ship having plenty of empty rooms.
At night, he slept while Yu Tai meditated.
Tonight, however, her thoughts kept disturbing her, and she could not calm herself enough to cultivate.
On the bed, Shu Li was gently patting Xia Mo to coax the panda to sleep. Seemingly sensing that something was wrong with Yu Tai’s mood, he asked quietly, “Can you feel it?”
Yu Tai opened her eyes. The room was completely dark, but a cultivator’s vision was far superior to that of an ordinary person.
She could clearly see half of Shu Li’s serene face as he lay on his side against the soft pillow.
Although *serene* was not a word normally used for a man, for some reason, Yu Tai thought it suited Shu Li perfectly at this moment.
Feel it?
Feel what? Had he noticed that she suspected something was wrong with him?
Yu Tai did not answer, but her eyes remained fixed on Shu Li.
As an ordinary person whose Dao foundation had been destroyed, he naturally could not see her expression. He seemed unaware that Yu Tai was watching and rubbed his cheek against the pillow. His collar, normally fastened with impeccable precision, hung open now, revealing an enticing expanse of chest.
Tempting enough to be lethal…
Yu Tai thought that if he were a male courtesan, countless women would happily die in his bed.
Receiving no answer, Shu Li continued, “We’re almost at the boundary.”
Oh. So that was what he meant.
“Mm. The air is restless,” Yu Tai replied sagely, as though she had truly sensed it.
“We should be able to leave tomorrow.” He seemed to chuckle, though the sound was so faint that she might have imagined it.
“Senior Brother appears to be looking forward to it,” Yu Tai said.
“I am-if Junior Sister hasn’t forgotten what you promised me…”
Yu Tai frowned instinctively. [Did I promise him something?]
The System reminded her, [When you were breaking the illusion beast’s illusion, you promised to help him retrieve something after leaving Bishui Secret Realm.]
At the System’s words, Yu Tai remembered.
That did seem to have happened.
“Of course I remember.” Not a trace of guilt entered her voice.
Shu Li did not answer again.
Listening to his slow and even breathing, Yu Tai rose from her meditation cushion and walked to the bed, looking down at the sleeping Shu Li.
She reached out and fully opened his disordered inner robe. With a complicated expression, she said to the System, [He’s already this useless. All he does every day is eat and sleep, so how is his body still in such good shape? Why are his abdominal muscles still so defined?]
The System: […Host, instead of worrying about that, why don’t you send your spiritual sense into his body and see if anything is wrong?]
That was precisely what Yu Tai intended.
Taking Shu Li by the wrist, she guided her spiritual sense into his body.
She did not notice Shu Li’s eyes snap open, glowing bloodred. A wisp of black qi entered the space between Yu Tai’s brows before he closed his eyes once more.
The room remained silent, as though nothing had happened.
Yu Tai’s spiritual sense traveled through Shu Li’s body, sensing the flesh from which the Dao foundation had been torn and the emptiness within his dantian.
His memories were remarkably simple. Most showed the ugly faces of the Qingshan Sword Sect disciples Yu Tai killed shortly after transmigrating, followed by his memories of finding Xia Mo.
They matched the original novel perfectly. Every time and place aligned.
Aside from pain and Xia Mo, surprisingly, Shu Li still possessed beautiful memories even from such a dreadful environment.
Each day, he borrowed a basket from the elderly neighbor who never left her house and whose face he could never see, then went up the mountain to gather wild vegetables that did not taste particularly good.
There were tiny flowers growing between rocks, and a mother bird in a certain tree had just laid eggs.
There was the barren patch of earth in the backyard where nothing would grow, and the water jar in his room that someone had smashed again today, and many other things…
Finally, Yu Tai saw herself inside his mind.
She saw herself with reddened eyes, urging him to hurry, and herself kicking him to the ground before forcing a kiss on him.
She also saw herself underwater, her lashes trembling continuously as they kissed with their backs to the sea of stars floating nearby…
In short, whenever Yu Tai appeared in Shu Li’s mind, she was either doing that sort of thing or on her way to do it.
There was not a single respectable scene. It was as stimulating as watching an adults-only film.
Yu Tai withdrew her spiritual sense with a complicated expression, reluctant though she was to admit the truth.
This man’s inner resilience was truly extraordinary.
Honestly, if Yu Tai had been falsely accused, lost all her cultivation, been expelled from her sect, and suffered humiliation at the hands of people she knew, could she have maintained the same calm state of mind as Shu Li?
She could not.
At the mere thought, the word *revenge* was already being carved into her mind in blood.
“Strange…” she murmured.
Not one of Shu Li’s memories depicted his glorious days as the Qingshan Sword Sect’s unrivaled genius.
…
“Look! What is that?”
Early the next morning, Yu Tai heard an uproar on the deck the moment she stepped outside.
Under her control, the ship had continued advancing toward the boundary. Now they were almost there.
At the sight of the tear in the distant sky, Yu Tai fell into a momentary daze.
The gloomy sky hung over everyone’s heads. A vicious scar had torn open a gaping wound where heaven and earth joined, inspiring dread at a glance.
“That is the exit.” Yu Tai’s calm voice sounded from behind them.
Zhang Xiaoxiao turned. Her eyes lit up when she saw Yu Tai. “Benefactor!”
Yu Tai approached, and the people gathered along the side of the ship opened a path before her like the Red Sea parting before Moses. When she reached the center, she swept her gaze over everyone. “I assume you’ve all discovered that crushing the jade tokens will not take you out.”
Everyone nodded.
When they lacked the spiritual power to maintain their barrier during the devastating storm, their eldest Senior Brother had told them to crush their jade tokens.
But it had done nothing… Otherwise, their eldest Senior Brother would not have…
At the sorrowful memory, the atmosphere immediately sank.
Yu Tai continued, “The secret realm is about to collapse. Remaining here means certain death. If you want to escape, your only option is to pass through that fissure.”
Everyone followed her gaze to the terrifying crack. Wind and lightning raged around it, suffused with faint purple qi and an oppressive force.
It would not be easy for so many people to pass through.
“Benefactor… You don’t need to worry about us. As long as you can leave, we’ll find our own way. You already saved our lives, and we can never repay you. We don’t want to hold you back,” Zhang Xiaoxiao said, biting her lip.