Chapter 12 Homosexuality He watched as Li Chen pulled out a book about homosexuality...
This sudden remark left Li Chen, who was about to refill his water, utterly astonished. "Huh? What?"
When Shen Zhengyuan heard her voice, he seemed to suddenly come back to his senses. Realizing what he had just asked, he felt a sudden burning sensation in his heart, as if a drop of boiling water had fallen on his chest, making his cheeks flush slightly.
He hurriedly turned his face away, avoiding Li Chenjin's gaze, and said, "...It's nothing. You've been following me the whole time, don't you have anything to do?"
Li Chen put the teapot he had just picked up back down, as if he was angered by his words, and therefore refused to refill his water. "I say, Cultivator Shen, why are you now trying to urge me to leave instead of running away yourself? I am a patient, after all. It's not very kind of you to do this."
"That's not what I meant, I..." Shen Zhengyuan looked at the person in front of him, unsure of what to say or explain. After a pause, he changed the subject, "I was just wondering, don't you have anything you want to do?"
"Things I want to do..." Li Chenjin's eyes were slightly vacant, as if he was recalling something, but he quickly came back to his senses, smiled and said, "When I was younger, there were quite a few, but now that I'm getting older, I don't want to do any of them."
"Is it because people in the meditation community like to teach people to let go?" Shen Zhengyuan smiled enigmatically. "If one could truly let go of everything, wouldn't one be free from suffering?"
Li Chenjin did not answer his question directly, but smiled and said, "Actually, people are prone to have the illusion that they have many days left to live, and that they will only face death when they are too old to go on. But in reality, if one night passes and one cannot open their eyes the next morning, then one's life is over. What does it have to do with age, status, or experience?"
"The phrase 'there's plenty of time left' is very misleading. It makes people feel like they have many days to live, so they want more and more and can't let go of more and more. But in reality, people can die at any time, so I don't think about what else I have to do, nor do I want to talk about letting go or not letting go. I just want to live in the present, to be comfortable and at ease, and let bygones be bygones."
Shen Zhengyuan stared at her blankly, seemingly unable to understand the meaning behind her words for a moment, and finally only asked, "So what do you want to do now?"
Li Chen thought about it carefully and said, "It should be... reading a storybook. I think the storybook I'm reading now is quite interesting. It's about a female protagonist who goes to a grave but gets haunted by a male ghost in a lonely grave by the roadside. I'm currently on the part where the male ghost imprisons the female protagonist and is preparing to force himself on her. Do you want to take a look?"
Shen Zhengyuan: "..."
He couldn't help but show a hint of disgust on his face, silently pushing the storybook handed to him back. He realized that his earlier impression of Li Chenjin's reassuring demeanor was a misconception, but...
How could she possibly enjoy reading such nonsensical stories?
No wonder she tried to sever his tendons when they first met, and afterwards she could spout things like forced sex, fleeting romance, and love that grows over time—it turns out she was just reading romance novels…
Although Li Chenjin had said they needed to rest, it was more important to continue their journey. Therefore, they only stayed there for another four or five days before setting off again, following the route they had noted down when looking at the map.
This time, the journey was longer than before, and it took about half a month to reach the next town.
Before they even entered the city, just by looking at the direction of the city gate from a short distance away, they all sensed that something was wrong with the city.
Several people dressed in the attire of the cultivation world were standing at the city gate, temporarily acting as guards.
Li Chen knew nothing about the cultivation world, so even if they were dressed in cultivation attire, she couldn't tell which sect or faction they belonged to unless they took out weapons.
However, that's not the most important thing. Just by looking at them chatting, you can tell that life in the city is quite comfortable. And the people coming and going don't seem to find them strange, so they must be used to it. Therefore, there must be quite a few cultivators in the city. As long as they don't cause trouble, they can easily sneak into the city.
Fortunately, they were standing there as if guarding against something else, so they didn't check passersby, and it was very easy for the two of them to enter the city.
After entering the city, Li Chen looked around. The people here didn't seem to pay much attention to them, which meant that the people who came before were smart enough not to spread the word about them.
However, after standing in the market for only a short while, they discovered that there were quite a few cultivators in the city, and half of the people who brushed past them were from the cultivation world.
In order not to reveal their identities, they naturally could not take out or use anything from the cultivation world, so they found an inn to stay temporarily.
As the waiter led them upstairs, she asked, seemingly casually, "We've been searching for a safe place all the way, and we haven't seen many cultivators along the way. How come there are so many cultivators in this city?"
As he spoke, he stretched out his hand, and in his palm lay a piece of broken silver.
When the waiter saw the silver coins, his eyes lit up. "Sir, you must not have heard from your long journey that many places in the cultivation world are now uninhabitable! Not only have the houses collapsed, but many mountains have been blasted apart. The cultivators have nowhere to live, so they have all come out! Fortunately, most of the houses here haven't collapsed, so they are easy to live in. As word spread, those cultivators who had nowhere to go all came here!"
As he spoke, he took the loose silver from Li Chenjin's hand, put it in his pocket, and continued, "Sir, there's something else you probably don't know. The closest place to us is the Danxiu Realm, and that place is truly terrifying right now!"
"About ten years ago, cultivators from the Alchemy Realm went down the mountain to rescue people, which blocked the path of that so-called demon. That demon used some unknown method and actually flattened the entire Alchemy Realm! Let me tell you, all the mountains, houses, and people in the Alchemy Realm were all mixed up! Oh my goodness! You have no idea how terrifying that scene was!!"
Although the waiter had never seen it with his own eyes, he described it vividly, as if he were telling a story. Li Chen found it interesting and listened for a while longer.
When the waiter felt it was about time to go back to work, she reluctantly went back inside and took out the storybook from her storage bag.
This place is almost entirely populated by people from the cultivation world. Just in case, they only booked one room. Fortunately, it was an upper-class room, with a daybed in addition to the bed. Although it was a bit hard, at least they didn't have to squeeze into another bed.
When Shen Zhengyuan saw her take out the storybook, his brow twitched.
Li Chen reads all sorts of things and isn't picky. She can take a look at any kind of storybook. If she's interested in something, she'll read it every day. If she's not interested in something, she'll just read it slowly. She had already finished the one she was interested in before, and now she's switched to a new one.
The good news is that this storybook is finally not about a love story between a human and a ghost or a forced sexual encounter.
The bad news was that the storybook was about homosexuality, so much so that he didn't dare to read much of it and didn't even know what it was about. He just felt that Li Chenjin's preference in this area was really terrible.
He was about to walk away to avoid having his eyes bothered by the illustrations in the storybook when he suddenly heard Li Chenjin say, "Alright, now that the room is booked, let's go outside and take a look around. Let's see what we can buy and find out some information about this place."
They made purchasing trips every time they went to a new place, something Shen Zhengyuan was already used to, but inquiring about information...
"You want to find out if there's any news about us?" Shen Zhengyuan asked. "But if we go and ask directly, wouldn't that be like protesting too much?"
“Of course we can’t ask directly,” Li Chen said. “Since there are so many people in this city, they must find something to do for entertainment. We just need to take a stroll around those places that are suitable for entertainment, and we’ll know whether there is any news about us in the city.”
What they needed to buy were naturally things like oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar, and various kinds of dry food that were easy to store. In order not to let people know that they were using magical implements from the Dharma cultivation world, they would carry the things to a secluded place before putting them into the bags on their waists.
But this place for relaxation...
Shen Zhengyuan had expected it to be some kind of brothel, but it turned out to be a teahouse.
He looked at the person opposite him, who was slowly sipping tea and flipping through the book about homosexuality that he had carried all the way, and then silently closed his eyes.
He couldn't accept it, but Li Chenjin was watching with great interest. Just as she was getting to the most exciting part, she suddenly heard someone at a nearby table say, "Hey! Have you heard? There's only one survivor left in the world of magic cultivators!"
"Who doesn't know this? I heard that the only son is the closed-door disciple of the old man who is the head of the main altar of the cultivation world. The name sounds impressive, but it seems that he only studied with that old man for a few years. His cultivation level is probably not that impressive. But how come that old man is dead and that kid is still alive?"
Li Chen glanced at the table in that direction, then slowly turned the page of the storybook in his hand.
"You guys don't know this, do you?" one of them chuckled and explained, "It's not that the kid is so powerful, it's that the people in the cultivation world entrusted everything to him, which saved his life! But in my opinion, that kid must be some kind of once-in-a-millennium genius, otherwise, why would they choose him out of so many geniuses in the cultivation world?"
As soon as the man said this, everyone around him nodded in agreement.
After chatting for a while, another person said, "Hey! You say the people of the Dharma Cultivation Realm left that kid all the magical artifacts, secret techniques, and gold and silver treasures accumulated over millions of years? How much stuff is that? Can that kid handle it all by himself?"
A note from the author:
Xiao Li: It's so beautiful! There are even illustrations! It's so cool!
Xiao Shen, a somewhat morally upright but desperate straight man: First, there was a love story between a human and a ghost, then imprisonment and forced sex, and then homosexuality. How could she possibly enjoy watching such things? (Closes eyes.jpg)
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