Chapter 128#

The Disciple’s Rebirth and Revenge#

Late night, heavy rain.

Elder Cheng of the Yunxiao Sect was startled from his meditation. He opened his eyes and abruptly turned his head toward the door.

Amidst the thunder and lightning, a rapid knocking sounded outside the courtyard.

If cultivators weren’t naturally keen-eared, the sound would likely have been drowned out by the heavy rain. While wondering who would come to see him so late, Elder Cheng grabbed an oil-paper umbrella from the corner, hurried to the door, and shouted, “Coming!”

Opening the door, Elder Cheng’s mouth hung open slightly as he saw the visitor.

It was actually Xiao Nian.

“Immortal Venerable Xiao has come to…” His gaze fell upon the young man wrapped in a thin blanket in the white-clad man’s arms. Just as he was about to ask, he heard Xiao Nian say hoarsely, “Excuse me,” and before Elder Cheng could respond, he strode past him into the room.

“Hey, wait a minute!”

Elder Cheng stood frozen for a few seconds before reacting, turning to follow: “Is this that blind disciple of yours? What happened to him?”

He recalled the brief, startling glimpse of bright red at the corner of the young man’s lips just now. Seeing Xiao Nian’s face as cold as frost, he thought to himself: Could it be that this ruthless man named Xiao has laid hands on his disciple again?

Without a word, Xiao Nian placed the semi-conscious Lin Xiaodong onto Elder Cheng’s bed. The soaked thin blanket dampened the bedding, but no one present cared about such details.

Seeing that he refused to answer, Elder Cheng could only let out a heavy sigh, rolled up his sleeves, and prepared to examine the situation himself.

First, he took Lin Xiaodong’s pulse, but before long, his expression became strange. Elder Cheng shot a quick glance at Xiao Nian, then reached out to lift the young man’s eyelids, checking his heartbeat and breathing. His expression gradually turned extremely solemn.

Because the young man was in a coma and there was no supply of demonic energy, Elder Cheng easily broke through the layer of facial disguise, revealing the familiar face beneath the demonic aura.

“…You knew all along?”

He stared fixedly at Lin Xiaodong’s features, his lips trembling as he asked a vague question.

Xiao Nian gave a low “En.”

Elder Cheng gasped. His gaze toward the pale young man on the bed instantly changed, and even his voice carried a hint of trembling: “I knew it… I knew it! It’s been less than a hundred years; how could two Heavenly Demon Bodies suddenly appear!”

As one of those who had opposed the sacrifice back then, Elder Cheng had always been troubled by it. After confirming the identity with Xiao Nian, he immediately made a decision in his heart—no matter how Lin Xiaodong had awakened or why he had returned to the Yunxiao Sect, he would definitely heal him!

This was what they owed this child.

“Move aside.” He straightened up and coldly pushed away Xiao Nian, who was standing behind him. He then hurried to the next room to bring over all his medical tools and herbal medicine boxes, and woke up several disciples who were still snoring, telling them to get lost and start refining pills.

During their conversation, as if feeling cold, the young man subconsciously curled his body as soon as he was put down. His whole person trembled uncontrollably, as if he were in a world of ice and snow.

But they were currently at the Nanyang Peak within the Yunxiao Sect, where the temperature was highest and it was like spring all year round.

“Normally, when such symptoms appear, it’s usually due to a backlash from a malevolent ghost,” Elder Cheng finally had a moment to say a few words to Xiao Nian after finishing these tasks. “But on Yunxiao Sect, where would a malevolent ghost come from? Not to mention this child now…” is essentially a malevolent ghost himself.

He knitted his brows, pondered for a moment, and then looked at Xiao Nian: “Speak, was he stimulated by something today? What did you do to him?”

Between Lin Xiaodong and Xiao Nian, Elder Cheng was unconditionally biased toward the former.

Xiao Nian’s Adam’s apple bobbed, but he couldn’t say anything.

Today, he had not only used an illusion to make Lin Xiaodong relive the scene of their wedding but had even exposed the android’s body before him. Originally, Xiao Nian only hoped that Lin Xiaodong could recover his memory or seize this opportunity to fulfill his desire for revenge, but he hadn’t expected the impact of those memories to be so great on the young man.

It seemed he had… hurt him again.

“Forget it,” Elder Cheng glared at him coldly. “In short, Xiaodong will stay with me for recuperation for the time being. I don’t guarantee I can heal him, because the herbs in the garden are for living people, but I will do my best.”

“As for you, until he wakes up—no, until I figure out the cause of the backlash—please, Immortal Venerable, stay away from my Nanyang Peak. Do not appear before the patient, to prevent him from being stimulated again. Understand?”

The Immortal Venerable Xiao Nian, who shook the immortal world, lowered his eyes and nodded.

Facing Elder Cheng’s aggressive attitude, he didn’t even express any dissatisfaction. He only took one last deep look at the person lying on the bed before turning to leave.

Only after sensing the man’s cold aura disappear from Nanyang Peak did Elder Cheng relax his body.

He gave a “tsk,” wiped the sweat from his forehead, and silently gave himself a thumbs-up for daring to snap at this cold-faced god of death. Then he left the room to see how the disciples’ pill refining was progressing.

Ordinary medicinal soup would certainly be useless for a body that had lost its vitality, but Elder Cheng was no ordinary person. His cultivation wasn’t high—even inferior to some of the senior disciples under other elders—but he was famous in the immortal world for his peerless medical skills.

Otherwise, Xiao Nian certainly wouldn’t have thought of him at this time.

“What a mess,” he sighed. “I also have to think about how to explain this to the Sect Leader when the time comes.”

Elder Cheng thought for a moment, quickly folded a paper crane for communication, and went to the window to release it. Watching the paper crane fly shakily through the pouring rain toward the Yunxiao Sect’s main hall, he soon retracted his focus and concentrated on the patient before him.

A small paper crane could only convey no more than ten seconds of speech, so Elder Cheng chose the briefest way, saying directly: “Xiaodong is back, he’s with me.” This caused the Sect Leader, who was on his deathbed, to sit up in shock and rush to Nanyang Peak without even dressing properly.

And seeing the pale, weak young man lying on the bed with his eyes tightly closed, the Sect Leader almost lost his breath.

“What on earth is going on!?” he roared. “Where is Xiao Nian?”

“What are you shouting for!”

Elder Cheng’s eyes widened, showing no respect to the Sect Leader in his professional field. He scolded: “The patient is still here! Xiao Nian has already gotten lost!”

The disciple nearby: “…”

Master, your voice isn’t any quieter than the Sect Leader’s.

As if awakened by the external noise, the unconscious young man’s eyelids flickered, and he struggled to open a slit.

However, he couldn’t see, and his divine sense was unusable due to his extreme physical weakness. He could only judging the identity of the person in the room based on the voice:

“…Sect Leader?”

“It’s me. You’re awake?” The Sect Leader choked up, walking somewhat awkwardly to Lin Xiaodong’s bedside.

He wanted to ask how the other had come here, but as one of the accomplices back then, he felt that asking directly would be too cruel for this child. So, pretending not to know the young man’s identity had been exposed, he just cleared his throat and asked with dignity: “How do you feel? What happened?”

Lin Xiaodong nodded slowly, struggling to sit up: “Thank you for your concern, Sect Leader. My Master, he…”

“Don’t worry, your Master won’t die!” Elder Cheng said crossly. “Your own body hasn’t recovered, yet you’re worried about others? Lie down and be quiet.”

But the young man seemed somewhat unwilling. He turned his head toward where the Sect Leader’s voice came from and asked hoarsely: “Sect Leader, my Master… recently, has there been something wrong with his health?”

The Sect Leader said in surprise: “Where did this come from?”

Lin Xiaodong naturally couldn’t say he had heard Xiao Nian’s coughing. He could only answer vaguely, meaning he didn’t know why he had become like this, so he was very worried about Xiao Nian and so on. Elder Cheng and the Sect Leader both had complicated expressions.

What a good child!

Under Elder Cheng’s heartbroken gaze, the Sect Leader also felt his conscience aching. To be honest, when he first got the news, his first reaction was “What about the formation, what about the three realms,” but when he arrived at Nanyang Peak and saw the young man, who once smilingly called him “Sect Leader,” appear before his eyes again, and in such a dying and gasping state…

The Sect Leader, who had once raised Lin Xiaodong as half a son, felt his eyes sting, and even his voice carried a hint of imperceptible trembling.

The blind Lin Xiaodong on the bed couldn’t see, but Elder Cheng wasn’t blind. He was right next to the Sect Leader and saw all the changes on the other’s face clearly. The sarcastic smile at the corner of his lips also unconsciously flattened.

The Heavenly Demon Body and the masses of living beings—it was indeed an unsolvable dilemma.

In his position, the Sect Leader made such a decision… perhaps the torment and pain in his heart only exceeded that of bystanders like them a hundredfold.

Thinking this, Elder Cheng took the initiative to say: “You’ve been backlashed by a malevolent ghost; perhaps you touched something you shouldn’t have. Your Master’s cultivation exceeds yours too much; he’ll be fine. He’s already entrusted you to me, so stay here and recover well these years.”

Lin Xiaodong was silent for a moment and then said softly: “Okay.”

When they left the room, the night rain outside was still falling, even showing signs of intensifying.

“Old Cheng, tell me the truth,” the Sect Leader closed the door, set up a soundproofing array, and asked Elder Cheng seriously. “What exactly is his current condition? Can a body like this really recover?”

Elder Cheng avoided his piercing gaze, staring at a dragonfly taking shelter from the rain on the corridor windowsill, and said in a calm and cold voice:

“I will do my best to let him stand up again.”

“But Sect Leader, no matter what, that child is already dead.”

“I once heard a legend that only under one condition will a soul be trapped in its former body, unable to dissipate and unable to reincarnate, yet not turning into a malevolent ghost.” Elder Cheng took a deep breath, looking directly into the Sect Leader’s eyes, which seemed calm but suppressed intense emotions. After a second’s pause, he continued.

“That is… he is unwilling to take revenge and holds no resentment toward his own death.”

“But he still lingers in the mortal world, unwilling to leave.”