Chapter 255 Mountains and Rivers Intertwined (Part 9)

After dealing with those troublesome half-immortals, Wei Feng finally thought he could be with Jiang Gu all the time, but he received a terrible message.

"What is Jiang Xiangyun doing here?!" Wei Feng's eyes instantly turned fierce. "Isn't it better for him to stay in Pingze and be the head of the Jiang family? Why is he causing trouble here?!"

He equally rejected anyone or anything that might distract Jiang Gu. Wen Hanjiu was so intimidated by him that she didn't step out of her room for two days and two nights. Feng Wuyou and Chanlin were even more obedient and wouldn't approach Jiang Gu at all. But even so, Wei Feng managed to have a spiritual conversation with Jiang Gu only once, and Jiang Gu spent the rest of the time cultivating and healing.

Jiang Xiangyun is intelligent. Every time he gets together with Jiang Gu, they chat for a long time. The two have an unspoken understanding and are very compatible. Wei Feng can only occasionally keep up with Jiang Gu's train of thought, but Jiang Xiangyun only needs one look from Jiang Gu to know what he is going to do. Every time, Wei Feng is so jealous that he goes crazy. But Jiang Gu values ​​this older brother very much.

“I need his help with something,” Jiang Gu said.

“I can help you.” Wei Feng looked at him fiercely. “I’m smart too.”

Jiang Gu raised an eyebrow.

“Sometimes,” Wei Feng gritted his teeth, “He was almost at Tengyao City, when did you call him?”

“One year ago.” Jiang Gu said without changing his expression.

Wei Feng felt even more bitter and said with dissatisfaction, "You called him for a year before he came, which means he didn't care about your affairs at all. It's a waste that you called him 'Big Brother'."

It makes no mention of how many formations and passages one has to pass through to get from Pingze to Chenyao.

Jiang Gu didn't take his low-level attempts to sow discord to heart and said, "I'll wait for him here for a few days. You and Feng Wuyou and the others go down to the secret realm for training first."

"Master, I'll wait with you." Seeing that he wouldn't budge, Wei Feng decisively changed tactics, trying to coax him into giving in.

"The Vine Demon Realm is only open for a few days; we can't delay." Jiang Gu remained unyielding. "I wouldn't mind throwing you in there myself."

Wei Feng stared at him with a sorrowful look, and said aggrievedly, "Others who marry a Daoist partner are afraid that their partner will stumble or get hurt, and they can't bear to see their partner suffer even the slightest bit of hardship. They even have to support them when they walk. But you want to throw me into such a cruel secret realm for training. Husband, how can you be so heartless?"

Jiang Gu remained silent for a long while before managing to restrain himself from kicking the person out. "...Did you peek at the storybook again?"

Wei Feng immediately shook his head: "No, I have been cultivating."

Jiang Gu narrowed his eyes. Wei Feng turned to run, but was bound to the spot by the Fire Rope. The Crimson Snow Sword mercilessly struck his back. Wei Feng cried out in pain, and the storage bag he was carrying fell to the ground.

Under his guilty gaze, Jiang Gu opened each storage bag one by one:

A bag full of luminous pearls.

Hidden inside the luminous pearl was a thick stack of storybooks, containing stories of various characters, including a sect's daughter and a poor boy with five spiritual roots, a widowed sister-in-law who lost her Daoist partner and her genius brother-in-law, an ignorant and naive disciple and his domineering and ruthless master, a ghost cultivator who had lived three lives and his spiritual sword... even fathers and sons and brothers. The language used in the stories was so lewd and obscene that Jiang Gu's expression went blank for a moment.

Wei Feng touched his nose guiltily and whispered, "Master, I bought these without thinking before, I've never even looked at them."

Jiang Gu, his face grim, opened another storage bag containing various picture books. He tossed aside the dirty ones, accidentally knocking over the luminous pearls. Instantly, two figures appeared inside, vividly demonstrating the contents of the books…

Very good, now he knows where Wei Feng learned all those messy things.

The contents of the other storage bags were even more... appalling.

"So you're not cultivating, so you're just looking at these things?" Jiang Gu looked at Wei Feng.

Wei Feng stammered, "Well, not entirely. There are many illusions too—of course, in them it's just you and me."

He might as well not explain at all.

Jiang Gu's forehead veins throbbed as he heard the fellow argue confidently, "Master, I cultivate the Six Desires Path, so I need some means... You never agreed to communicate with me spiritually before, so I really had no other way. But Master, your words earlier have awakened me. I should face up to the path I cultivate and my desires. Master, I've been studying the dual cultivation method recently, just as you suggested. I've found it to be much more useful than going to the secret realm for training. Why don't we try them one by one?"

He stared intently at Jiang Gu, his eyes filled with anticipation and longing.

Then Jiang Guyi pulled him out of Vine Demon City and threw him into the Vine Demon Secret Realm deep in the mountains.

Feng Wuyou and Chanlin, who had been waiting at the entrance of the secret realm, followed closely behind without saying a word, completely cutting off Wei Feng's escape route.

Jiang Gu sneered at the pile of filth in the room. Such ostentatious things were of no use except for indulging desires and disturbing one's Dao heart. Wei Feng, that bastard, was good at making excuses. With a wave of his long sleeves, Wei Feng's treasures were all reduced to dust.

——

After confirming that Wei Feng had left, Wen Hanjiu cautiously stepped out of the room and knocked on Jiang Gu's door.

"What is it?" Jiang Gu raised his hand, and the luminous pearls scattered on the ground returned to his storage bag.

Wen Hanjiu bowed to him and said in a gentle voice, "Fellow Daoist Jiang, the vine umbrella has now been refined by Wei Feng. Although I have cultivated into a spirit by borrowing the vine umbrella's body, I have long since severed all ties with that umbrella. Fellow Daoist Jiang, would you please let me leave?"

Jiang Gu looked up at him: "You are the city lord of Vine Demon City, why do you want to leave this place?"

"Now that the Half-Immortal Clan is no longer holding me back, I have ordered my clansmen in the city to disperse and flee into the deep mountains. There is no point in me guarding the empty city alone anymore," Wen Hanjiu said with a wry smile. "Besides, I also have my own mission."

The word "mission" made Jiang Gu sense something unusual. He re-examined Wen Hanjiu and asked, "Where are you going?"

"I wonder if Fellow Daoist Jiang has ever heard of the Changning Divine Palace?" Wen Hanjiu asked.

"I've heard a little about it." Jiang Gu glanced at the door.

Wen Hanjiu said, "The Changning Temple and the Yaoyan Temple are very close to each other, but the half-immortals of the Changning Temple are not as powerful as those of the Yaoyan Temple. Their views are also different. I have an old friend who is a divine servant in the Changning Temple, and I want to go and find him."

"Different viewpoints?"

"The half-immortals of the Changning Temple always believed that they could ascend again."

The doors opened and closed, and Wen Hanjiu disappeared from the city lord's mansion, leaving the entire Vine Demon City completely deserted.

Footsteps came from outside the door again, and a familiar voice rang out: "Seventh Brother, it's been a long time."

Jiang Xiangyun looked travel-worn and slightly tired, but his voice was full of energy.

Jiang Gu nodded slightly.

"It's only been a few years, but we've really grown apart. You won't even call me 'Big Brother' anymore," Jiang Xiangyun said with a smile, showing no regard for others. Before Jiang Gu could stop him, he sat down, picked up his teacup, and downed it in one gulp. He then spat it out, his face contorted in pain, and exclaimed, "What is this awful thing?!"

“Spirit Tea.” Jiang Gu paused. “It can heal injuries. Wei Feng developed it.”

Jiang Xiangyun used his spiritual power to get rid of the bitterness in his mouth, and said with a heavy heart, "I thought you were going to poison me."

Jiang Gu put away the spirit tea on the table and asked, "Where's the stuff?"

“It’s all here.” Jiang Xiangyun took out a sandalwood box from his sleeve and pushed it in front of Jiang Gu. “All of Pingze and Wangyue’s things and traces about Wei Feng are recorded in this box. If the Jiang family hadn’t been peaceful recently, I really wouldn’t have had the time to collect these odds and ends for you.”

"Thank you." Jiang Gu raised his hand to open the box, but Jiang Xiangyun stopped him.

"Tell me why you're collecting these things," Jiang Xiangyun said meaningfully. "You can't possibly be deeply in love with Wei Feng and desperately want to know everything about him, can you?"

Jiang Gu glanced at him indifferently: "That's right."

"You're kidding me," Jiang Xiangyun laughed. "I almost got struck dead by those strange lightning bolts several times while collecting these things, and now I've brought them all the way to you. I should know something about them."

"Isn't the method to revive Lu Liyu enough?" Jiang Gu asked rhetorically.

Jiang Xiangyun's smile slowly faded, and he paused before saying, "Not enough. This dead beggar isn't worth me risking my life for."

Jiang Gu said, "Choose one of the two."

Jiang Xiangyun's smile vanished completely, and after a moment she gritted her teeth: "You win."

"Thank you for your trouble, brother." Jiang Gu said without any hesitation.

Jiang Xiangyun knew she wouldn't get anything out of Jiang Gu, so she simply watched from the side. Jiang Gu didn't mind and opened the sandalwood box.

This contains all the records about Wei Feng and those suspected to be Wei Feng from the past few thousand years, the traces Wei Feng left in Wangyue a thousand years ago, the magical artifacts and formations made by Wei Feng in the Life and Death Tower, as well as Wei Feng's jade tablets, life lamps and bloodline records in Pingze Yanghua Sect and Queyuan Sect, and in Mermaid Bay...

“Some things are easy to find, while others are extremely difficult to find. The earliest recorded instance was about 1,600 years ago, when a cultivator encountered a cloud of ghostly mist at sea in the far south and was almost swallowed up. I went to the location mentioned in the record and found half of a skeleton that had sunk to the ground. When I dug it up, I was almost struck dead by lightning. But guess what I found?” Jiang Xiangyun said with interest.

Jiang Gu picked up the shrunken skeleton and felt that it looked somewhat familiar.

"You've noticed it too, haven't you? This skeleton looks a lot like the Chi Xue you raised before. Even if they're not from the same source, they're close relatives," Jiang Xiangyun said. "Moreover, this skeleton is covered in scorch marks from being struck by lightning. It probably died under the lightning tribulation, and the Heavenly Dao wouldn't give it any chance of survival. I had a cultivator who studies corpses use a divine artifact to determine that this thing was at least 1,400 or 1,500 years old when it died."

Jiang Gu frowned. According to Wei Feng's memories, he failed to ascend in the Chenyao Continent two thousand years ago. Assuming that he arrived in the far south of the Pingze Continent several hundred years later, he was struck dead by heavenly lightning. Meanwhile, the red-clothed boy in the Fuquan Ancient Temple was born a thousand years ago... So Wei Feng has been in the lower realm for at least three thousand years.

If Wei Feng descended to the mortal realm to undergo tribulation three thousand years ago, failed to ascend in Chenyao two thousand years ago, died in Pingze sixteen hundred years ago, was reborn as a red-clad youth a thousand years ago and died in Wangyue, until he was reborn again in Yanghua Sect, then this is now Wei Feng's third incarnation.

Whether in the upper or lower realms, the omnipresent tribulation lightning seemed to forbid his survival in the world, but initially, Wei Feng was just a vile being...

“These things are too scattered and there is no pattern to them. When I went to the Tower of Life and Death to look for these things, I ended up at the bottom of the sea. The Tower of Life and Death in Wangyue was sunk into the silt. Even so, those magical artifacts made with Wei Feng’s ghost patterns were charred black by the attacks… Hiss, now I really doubt the origin of your disciple.” Jiang Xiangyun said, “The turbid energy on his body is so heavy. Could he be the reincarnation of some great demon? Wouldn’t that mean he would be attacked wherever he goes until he is completely annihilated and cannot be reborn?”

A flash of inspiration crossed Jiang Gu's mind, but it was too fast to grasp.

Meanwhile, in the Vine Demon Realm.

Wei Feng kicked the completely unconscious Feng Wuyou and Chanlin, threw them into the spirit pet bag, and headed deeper into the secret realm.