Chapter 83, the main text concludes; his journey home.
"This is truly bizarre! Why would that demon come to the Misty Mountain Realm?"
"Who knows? In any case, if you see him, you should avoid him as much as possible. After all, who knows if that madman will suddenly go crazy again and want to kill everyone without thinking?"
Not far ahead, two cultivators were whispering to each other, their voices filled with apprehension.
"May I ask, fellow Daoists," a clear voice suddenly interrupted, "are you referring to Xiao Bumian?"
Upon hearing this, the two people who had been talking immediately fell silent, their wary gazes turning to the speaker.
The one who asked the question was a young man with striking good looks. His beautiful eyes always seemed to hold a faint mist, both hazy and clear. Below his high, straight nose were well-shaped, thin lips. He tied his dark hair back with a simple blue ribbon, giving him a youthful air, and he looked to be no more than twenty years old.
Of course, if you ignore the fact that his clothes were practically tattered.
The two couldn't immediately figure out which sect the man belonged to, but seeing his extraordinary demeanor, they realized he didn't seem like a villain, and their desire to speak their minds rekindled.
"Tsk," one of them clicked his tongue, "These days, when it comes to demons, who else can you think of besides Xiao Bumian?"
Mingjian: "..."
He never expected it to be Xiao Bumian when he heard it.
He initially just wanted to strike up a conversation with the two of them and casually inquire about any major events that had occurred in the cultivation world over the years. However, as he listened, the more he listened, the more uneasy he felt.
Especially since they had mentioned something about the Crimson Lotus Demon Pattern not long ago, he finally connected the demon they were talking about with Xiao Bumian.
Mingjian forced a smile and made an excuse, "Perhaps I've been in seclusion for a few years and my information has become somewhat out of touch."
After hearing this, the two men finally understood and exclaimed in realization, "So that's how it is! We were wondering why you were looking at us like that..."
The monk only spoke half of the sentence, but it was clear that he had completed the rest.
They probably thought he was dressed too poorly and didn't look like a well-informed disciple of a major sect.
Mingjian paused for a moment; he didn't want things to break like that either!
He had only been alive for a short time, and the spirit stones and rare treasures he had accumulated were long gone. He was already very gratified to find that he was wearing clothes that barely covered his body when he opened his eyes.
"You two are too kind," Mingjian said, regaining his composure. "May I ask what year it is?"
It's not uncommon for cultivators who have been in seclusion for too long to emerge and find everything changed. Some have even emerged to find that their sect's leader has changed two or three times. Therefore, those two weren't surprised.
"It is now the seventeenth year of the Spirit Realm."
Seventeen years in the Spirit Realm.
Mingjian did the math in his head. When he died, it had been thirteen years in the Spirit Realm, and it had only been four years since then.
He and the system initially estimated that it would take Xiao Bumian about eight years for his favorability to slowly recover to its original level.
Mingjian breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that his return time was quite suitable.
But then he thought back to when Xiao Bumian's favorability towards him was only fifty percent, she seemed to have treated him like a cat.
Well... that's fine too.
Seeing that he had already made up his mind, he asked the two cultivators, "Do you two know where Xiao Bumian is?"
Upon hearing this, the two nodded knowingly, assuming that he wanted to know Xiao Bumian's location in advance so that he could stay far away and avoid any unnecessary trouble.
Out of goodwill, he said, "Fellow Daoist, you may not know this, but the location of this Misty Mountain Realm is constantly changing and unpredictable. It would be difficult to pinpoint the demon's whereabouts precisely. However, the use of the Spirit Mirror is not restricted in the Misty Mountain Realm. You can check the information and locations shared by other cultivators on the Spirit Mirror so that you can adjust your route in time and avoid it in advance."
Ming opened his mouth, but for a moment he didn't know how to respond.
The truth is, he doesn't even have a Spirit Mirror on him right now.
He woke up in the Misty Mountain Realm.
He only found out by asking the cultivators around him who were almost exhausted from being chased by the monsters.
The demonic beast was a thousand-eyed demonic spider that was about to become a god. Mingjian had been fleeing for his life with the cultivator ever since he opened his eyes. The two fled for several days and nights. One night, the cultivator was sleeping soundly, and Mingjian was on night watch. While he was on watch, he also fell asleep.
When the Thousand-Eyed Demon Spider's foul-smelling saliva was almost dripping onto their faces, Mingjian suddenly woke up, and instinctively raised his hand to block it.
Unexpectedly, the menacing Thousand-Eyed Demon Spider simply collapsed, lifeless and completely dead.
Mingjian was still in shock, staring blankly at his hands, not understanding what had happened.
The cultivator who had been startled awake looked utterly aggrieved, as if he had swallowed a fly. He held back for a while, but finally couldn't contain himself any longer. Pointing at Mingjian's nose, he angrily said, "You—you're at the peak of the Nascent Soul stage! Why didn't you make a move sooner?! You made us run away for so many days for nothing!"
Mingjian was even more shocked and blurted out, "Huh? I've already reached the Nascent Soul stage?"
These words infuriated the cultivator to the point of rage. He angrily dug out the Thousand-Eyed Demon Spider's magic crystal, not even bothering to look at Mingjian again, and flew away on his sword.
Later, Mingjian carefully examined his new body. His appearance was still the same, but his aptitude was completely different; he actually possessed dual spiritual roots with exceptional talent for cultivation.
He was initially cursing the main system in his heart for being so cruel and tormenting him so badly, but when he realized that he had finally gotten rid of his useless physique, he almost cried tears of joy.
It took a long time before I finally remembered that 051 seemed to have mentioned Misty Mountain to him before.
However, since it was only mentioned briefly, the details have long been blurred.
Upon waking this time, 051 was no longer within his consciousness.
Ming realized he had no choice but to figure it out himself.
Just now, those two cultivators angrily complained about Xiao Bumian a few more times.
Mingjian absentmindedly agreed while pondering his own affairs. When the other party invited him to travel together, he politely declined.
“Fellow Daoist has already reached the Great Perfection of the Nascent Soul stage. Although we two are not as advanced as you, we are still at the Nascent Soul stage. Wouldn’t it be better for the three of us to travel together and look after each other? Why are you unwilling?”
The talkative cultivator looked puzzled. Moreover, judging from Mingjian's attire, he was clearly not a disciple of a major sect, but most likely a rogue cultivator venturing alone in the Misty Mountain Realm, which was extremely risky.
"Oh," Mingjian smiled, his eyes softening, and said with a grin, "It's like this, I wanted to ask you, do you know which direction Xiao Bumian last appeared in?"
The cultivator's expression darkened when he saw that the man was determined to seek his own death, but he still pointed in a direction rather irritably, "Hmm, I heard it's in the southwest. If you don't want to come with us, don't go in that direction, that's just asking for death."
Mingjian reached into his robes and pulled out two magic crystals from Nascent Soul stage magical beasts, placing them in the hands of the two men. "Thank you for showing me the way, fellow Daoists."
The two were taken aback by Mingjian's generosity, as he directly gifted them high-grade magic crystals. Their initial displeasure vanished, and they accepted the gifts with smiles.
Once Mingjian's figure disappeared into the dense forest, one of them remarked, "This rogue cultivator, despite his shabby appearance, is quite polite and generous."
“Yeah, but why does he look so familiar to me?” the other person frowned.
You're overthinking it.
The two continued walking, discussing as they went. They hadn't gone far when they both stopped abruptly, looked at each other in shock, and exclaimed in unison, "Why is he heading in that demon's direction?!"
—
Mingjian was unaware that in the eyes of the two, he had become a fool who couldn't tell east from west and was willingly walking into the line of fire.
He walked along, feeling uneasy.
I heard from those cultivators that Xiao Bumian's temper hasn't been very good these past few years.
He suddenly went to look for him, and the person who was supposed to be dead suddenly came back to life. Xiao Bumian would definitely be shocked.
After so many years, Xiao Bumian should still remember him.
It's unlikely, since he didn't have 051 erase his memories, he only made Xiao Bumian forget his feelings for him.
Perhaps feeling a bit apprehensive about returning home, Mingjian had already begun mentally rehearsing his response.
He came up with more than a dozen versions of the opening in his mind, but he nipped them all in the bud.
He decided to just improvise when the time came.
Perhaps not wanting Mingjian to have his way, when Mingjian finally arrived at the place where Xiao Bumian was on the Lingxi Mirror, he found that Xiao Bumian and his group had already left.
Mingjian was furious.
He had no spirit stones on him, so he used magic crystals to exchange for a Spirit Mirror from a cultivator.
There is quite a bit of information on the Lingxi Mirror.
Mingjian randomly picked a few very popular posts to look at, and what he saw stunned everyone.
For example, no one knows why Xiao Bumian almost wiped out all the elders of the major sects during his fifteen years in the Spirit Realm.
However, Xiao Bumian's temperament was unpredictable.
However, fourteen years into the Spirit Realm, another major event occurred in the Demon Realm: the Demon Lord Xiao Bumian got married.
However, on his wedding day, Xiao Bumian was wearing a woman's wedding dress.
Logically, when the Lord of the Demon Realm gets married, Xiao Bumian should appear with the Demon Queen to pray for the Demon Clan, but no one has ever seen what the Demon Queen looks like.
Just when everyone thought the so-called marriage was nothing but nonsense, someone else said that Xiao Bumian and that Demon Queen even had a child.
Anyway, it was made up in a very logical and coherent way.
Mingjian glanced at the names of the elders and understood why Xiao Bumian had been so ruthless. Those people were the same old bastards who had tried to kill him and Xiao Bumian back then. He just didn't know why Xiao Bumian had later spared the lives of several elders.
But the later parts, Mingjian found them increasingly absurd the more he looked at them.
He even wondered if, after four years, he had forgotten how to read.
He didn't think that Xiao Bumian, this yandere, would like anyone else. He was just curious about where he and Xiao Bumian got their child.
Mingjian searched for Xiao Bumian for several more days but failed to catch up, so he completely gave up.
He decided not to make things difficult for himself and would go directly to the Demon Realm to find Xiao Bumian after he got out. With that in mind, he gave up on searching aimlessly in the secret realm and began to plan his route out.
Meanwhile, deep within the Misty Mountain Realm.
Xiao Bumian looked at the child clinging tightly to an ancient tree, refusing to move forward an inch, a smile playing on his lips, but his tone was chilling, "Didn't you say my soul fire was here?"
The child was none other than System 051, who now possessed a temporary body. Exhausted and panting, it had cursed the main system and Xiao Bumian countless times in its mind.
Ever since Xiao Bumian remembered it two years ago, he has been ruthlessly killing the elders of the major sects in the cultivation world, almost dragging the entire small world down with him.
The main system finally relented and agreed to let him return tomorrow.
Despite this, Xiao Bumian did not believe in the main system.
Therefore, 051 became a hostage.
What made 051 even more devastated was that Xiao Bumian actually used the bone spurs left over from making the puppet to casually sculpt a temporary body for it and stuffed it inside.
It was only then that 051 realized that Xiao Bumian had always been able to hear it talking; he just simply chose not to pay attention to it.
If that were all, it wouldn't be so bad. 051 was experiencing life for the first time, and it had secretly been excited, thinking that the body Xiao Bumian would create for it would be incredibly robust and strong. But what happened? It ended up with the body of a tiny, tiny child!
051 was so angry that it felt the data was about to become disordered. It angrily went to ask Xiao Bumian why.
Xiao Bumian's reason was that making large ones was a waste of time and tiring.
After 051 finally accepted that it was just a child, someone in the Demon Realm spread rumors that it was the child of Xiao Bumian and Mingjian, which made the system faint with anger.
They don't even need to use their brains to think about how two men can have a child!
Regardless of the public's concerns, the rumors continued to circulate widely.
Two years have passed, and 051 seems to have compromised and is now quite comfortable with his new identity.
Xiao Bumian was a demon, and this time only the two of them came to the Misty Mountain Realm. However, Xiao Bumian was still tireless, searching one place after another, not giving the system any time to rest.
After being urged to hurry for what felt like the umpteenth time, 051 finally lost its patience. It hugged the ancient tree, vowing that if Xiao Bumian forced it to continue, it would never go any further.
It glanced at Xiao Bumian's expression and knew that Xiao Bumian's patience was about to run out, but still said, "That's how it's written in the original plot. The soul fire is right here. If we search a little longer, we might find it."
Xiao Bumian's eyebrows curved, but the smile didn't reach his eyes. He said, "If you lie to me, I will kill you."
051: "..."
It's just a system! Even if Xiao Bumian really had murderous intent, what would it mean to it?
In the end, the system resigned itself to its fate and continued the search with Xiao Bumian.
Fortunately, their efforts weren't in vain this time. Not long after, 051 suddenly pointed to a crouching demonic beast at the bottom of the cliff and shouted, "Xiao Bumian, doesn't that demonic beast look a bit off?"
Xiao Bumian lowered his eyes and stared for a moment, then suddenly chuckled: "Found it."
Just as he was about to slay the monster, it seemed to sense something and opened its mouth in terror, spitting out a ball of ghostly blue flame.
051 originally came here just to watch the excitement.
I never expected this monster to be so cowardly!
051 gritted his teeth, thinking, "What a waste that this magical beast is at the Nascent Soul stage!"
Xiao Bumian descended on his sword and carefully stored away the Soul Flame.
"Should we go out now?" 051 asked.
Finally, we can go out. If we stay alone with Xiao Bumian again, 051 is afraid that Xiao Bumian might really get angry and kill it.
Xiao Bumian, however, was not in a hurry. He looked at the demonic beast that was trying to escape not far away and said, "Mingjian likes shiny things, so we still need to kill that demonic beast."
The monster that was about to escape: "..."
It has already returned the soul fire to him!
Although it had seized this person's soul fire for many years, it had treated it like a treasure all those years, feeding it magic crystals from other magical beasts every day. Sometimes, when it saw that the soul fire was about to go out, it would even feed it its own blood.
It had sensed it the moment Xiao Bumian stepped into this secret realm.
It had originally planned to reluctantly keep the soul fire for a while longer if the other party couldn't find it. But upon seeing Xiao Bumian in person, it immediately and obediently returned the soul fire.
Why do we still need to kill it?
After hearing Xiao Bumian's explanation, 051 thought to himself, "Just as I thought."
It was too tired to walk any further, so it found a place to sit down and said, "Okay, okay, I'll wait for you here."
Xiao Bumian ignored it and continued walking forward on his own.
—
“Fellow Daoist, are you truly unwilling to travel with us? My brother and I are also on this journey to hunt for magic crystals. If you are willing to join forces, we can split the spoils fifty-fifty.”
Mingjian put the magic crystal he had just received into the Qiankun bag he had exchanged, and shook his head with a smile, refusing, "But I'm going to find Xiao Bumian."
Upon hearing this, the expressions on the faces of those people froze instantly, seemingly not expecting Mingjian to say such a thing.
By the time the group realized what was happening, Mingjian's figure had already disappeared.
The towering trees blocked out the sun, making the forest dimly lit even during the day, and the air was filled with the smell of damp earth and decaying leaves.
Ming washed his face in a small pond before continuing on his way.
In the forest, ethereal blue butterflies fluttered and danced, their wings scattering shimmering light, adorning this dimly lit secret realm with a dreamlike quality.
Mingjian was still trying to figure out how to leave this secret realm.
But then they heard the roars of monsters not far away, accompanied by the loud crashes of trees breaking, clearly indicating a fierce battle was taking place.
Mingjian paused for a moment, then realized he should stay away to avoid being affected later.
Just as he was about to turn back, a gust of wind swept by, and then a huge, mountain-sized monster corpse crashed down not far in front of him with a loud thud, causing the ground to tremble.
Mingjian: "..."
If he had been even half a step slower, he would probably have been crushed into a meat patty by now!
Ming was furious. Holding his sword, he decided not to leave and waited for the person who killed the monster to come and apologize to him.
Not far away, a figure in pure white slowly walked across the ravaged woodland. A few drops of dark red blood were splattered on the hem of her clothes, like red plum blossoms in the snow, striking and eerie.
It had been a long time since I'd seen him. He seemed to have lost a lot of weight, and his jawline was more defined, but the alluring red lotus pattern on his forehead was even more vivid.
Mingjian looked at the person and remembered how hard he had worked to fatten them up, only to have them lose weight again. He felt a mix of emotions and didn't know what to say.
However, his face was still extremely handsome, so beautiful that it was almost unreal. If one did not know that Xiao Bumian looked like this, one would almost suspect that he was a spirit who had cultivated in the mountains and was a monster who specialized in bewitching people.
As Xiao Bumian drew closer, Mingjian's heart involuntarily quickened.
A light mist had somehow settled over the forest, making everything around it appear hazy and indistinct.
Xiao Bumian stopped, glanced at Mingjian, and said nothing.
Then, as if completing a routine task, he skillfully dissected the monster's head, took out a magic crystal that shimmered with an ominous light, and turned to leave.
Mingjian was dumbfounded.
He's a grown man standing right here! Didn't Xiao Bumian see him?
Surely Xiao Bumian couldn't have really forgotten him after four years apart!
He took a few steps forward, faster than Xiao Bumian, then turned around and walked backwards as he asked, "Xie Hanwei, aren't you going to hug me?"
Xiao Bumian paused, his long eyelashes drooping slightly, casting a small shadow under his eyes.
After a long time, so long that Mingjian almost thought he would not respond again, Xiao Bumian suddenly chuckled very softly.
His eyes seemed to be filled with stars. He leaned down and pulled Mingjian into a tight embrace, burying his face in Mingjian's neck and greedily inhaling her familiar scent. "You're back."
Mingjian smiled too, her eyes curving into crescents, and hugged him back, her tone light and somewhat matter-of-fact.
"I'm back! Didn't you come to pick me up?"
A gentle breeze stirred, swirling a few colorful fallen leaves silently through the woods.
The ethereal blue butterflies fluttered around the two embracing figures, scattering tiny points of fluorescent light that made the scene resemble a secluded painting.
Xiao Bumian tightened his arms around Mingjian, as if trying to completely absorb this warmth he had regained into his very bones. His voice, muffled against Mingjian's neck, carried an almost sigh of satisfaction, "Yes, I've come to pick you up."
Where the fog dissipated, and amidst the beating of each other's hearts, he found his way home.
(End of main text)
-----------------------
Author's Note: The main story ends here.
I'll start with a few chapters of slice-of-life scenes (it's not too much to say they're all bone chains and non-human, right? [doge])
I'll rewrite Xiao Bumian's original experiences in Mingjian's vision, but I need to review this first, in case I can't write it down. I'll write it down as ideas come to me.
There's also a childhood sweetheart story.
I won't be updating the extra chapters daily; I have two exams these days, I'll write them after they're over.
I'm currently accepting pre-orders for two novels: "Transmigrated as the Villain's Inner Demon" and "Seven Years After My Deceased Husband's Death." I'm torn between writing one first. If you're interested, please add this to your favorites and show your support! [dove emoji]
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