Chapter 68 Lifetimes (Bug Fix) We will live like this, life after life…
"Alright, it's getting late, I'll head out now. You and the sweet rice balls stay in your room."
Having said that, without waiting for Han Shannan's reply, she turned and left the room.
Han Shannan watched her retreating figure and called out, "Wait a minute, you haven't told me where you're going! Which floor is he on? Hey!"
Li Chenjin naturally ignored her, flicked the letter in his hand, and left without looking back, which made Han Shannan even angrier.
She even said she didn't treat him like a three-year-old, but her current behavior clearly shows that she treats him like a child who hasn't grown up!
If you don't want to bring him along, you can just say so. Why use sweet fermented rice balls as a pretext to fool him? Do you think he's as useless as the sweet fermented rice balls?
No, he can't just stay here like this. If he just stays here and waits for her to come back, what's the difference between him and a sweet rice ball?
She doesn't want to involve him in the things she's investigating, but that doesn't mean he can't investigate other things on his own. In any case, he'll definitely be of use!
Han Shannan squatted down, looked at the sweet fermented rice balls, patted its head, and whispered, "Sweet fermented rice balls, wait for me in the room. I'll be right back. You absolutely mustn't tell her I went out! We're best friends now, you can't betray me!"
The sweet fermented rice balls tilted their heads and looked at him, letting out a few "woof woof" sounds, it was unclear whether they were trying to talk to Han Shannan.
Han Shannan naturally couldn't understand what it was saying, but at this moment he just assumed that the fermented rice balls had agreed. After patting the fermented rice balls' head, he went out and slowly closed the door under the gaze of the fermented rice balls.
………………
After Li Chen left his room, he opened the letter, which listed the floor where Shen Zhengyuan lived.
Shen Zhengyuan's room was quite interesting; it was located on the top floor of the Qilu Pavilion.
She continued to climb the stairs. The statue that had been sunk to the ground had somehow returned to the surface, facing the house where Shen Zhengyuan lived, as if it were there to suppress him.
When Li Chenjin walked to Shen Zhengyuan's door, she happened to meet the eyes of the statue. It was clearly just a stone statue, but it made her scalp tingle. Moreover, just as Han Shannan had said before, the face of this statue was almost exactly the same as hers.
This is really troublesome, Li Chen thought to himself.
Why use her face of this deity? It's not like she could have used anyone else's. Now she has to be startled by her own face late at night.
Li Chen sighed, scratched his cheek, and turned to push open Shen Zhengyuan's door.
The door wasn't locked, as if it had been waiting for her. She simply pushed it gently, and the door slowly opened.
The room where Shen Zhengyuan was staying must have been the best room here, a hundred times more luxurious than the rooms where ordinary guests stayed. As soon as Li Chen entered, he could feel an aura of money hitting him.
Looking around, you can see that not only are the tables and chairs made of the finest Hainan rosewood, but even the lighting fixtures on the walls are made of large pieces of precious stones.
Besides the priceless paintings by famous artists, the surrounding shelves are also filled with various rare treasures for appreciation.
Li Chen gazed at the various treasures before him and murmured, "This Weeping Dew Pavilion is truly wealthy; they can even use gold bars to prop up table legs..."
She glanced around and found no one in the outer room. After closing the door, she lifted the beaded curtain and walked into the inner room. As soon as she stepped in, she saw Shen Zhengyuan sitting cross-legged on the couch, resting with his eyes closed.
The disciples from the cultivation world who came with Shen Zhengyuan were nowhere to be found; now only she and Shen Zhengyuan were in the room.
The seat on the other side of the couch was clearly reserved for her.
Li Chen strolled over leisurely, lifted his robe, and sat down with an air of nonchalance. His gaze fell on the two full glasses of water on the table. He picked up one of them, drank it all in one gulp, and sighed, "Oh dear... Sect Leader Shen, you have no idea how long this staircase is."
"I climbed all the way from the second floor to your top floor, and it exhausted me."
Shen Zhengyuan didn't respond to her words, and Li Chen clicked her tongue in dissatisfaction. Just as she was about to say something more, Shen Zhengyuan suddenly said, "I thought you would ask me some questions first, such as..."
"What did I do to you?"
“Of course I have to ask that. I just thought that Sect Leader Shen would like to catch up with me first, and then we could talk about those things when we are both in a better mood,” Li Chen said. “But since Sect Leader Shen has no intention of catching up, then I will get straight to the point. Shen Zhengyuan, what exactly do you want to do?”
Shen Zhengyuan slowly opened his eyes and looked at Li Chenjin as if he were looking into a bottomless abyss. "I said that until you fulfill your promise, you can only stay by my side. So in the Pure Realm, I used the name of dual cultivation to bind our primordial spirits together."
Li Chen took a deep breath and nodded. "It's not hard to guess. So what were those things I saw earlier? Could it be that you intentionally tried to scare me to death, hoping to turn me into some kind of artifact spirit?"
Shen Zhengyuan said calmly, "The method of binding the primordial spirits must be done step by step. The Pure Realm is just the beginning. If we want to succeed, our primordial spirits will need to have more contact."
Li Chen chuckled lightly and asked, "This elaborate binding method can't just be for giving me nightmares. I suspect its true purpose is to make me a pet with no freedom or privacy, living only according to Sect Leader Shen's wishes, right?"
“I never intended for you to live the way I want you to,” Shen Zhengyuan said, gazing at her. “I just wanted to be with you, to know where you go, who you meet, and what you talk about. I just hoped that our souls could be connected, and that we would not be separated even after death.”
"Li Chenjin, wouldn't it be better for us to be together forever?" His voice deepened, and his gaze towards her grew increasingly somber. "Now I can give you anything. We won't have to live those impoverished days anymore. If you want money, I'll give you money; if you want spirit stones, I'll give you spirit stones; even if you want to buy several cities, I can do it. Li Chenjin, isn't that better?"
She smiled again, but the smile never reached her eyes, and she looked unusually cold. "According to what Sect Leader Shen said, now Sect Leader Shen knows everything about my whereabouts, the people I meet, and the words I say? Even if I accidentally die one day, my soul can only be imprisoned by you, is that right?"
"Yes," Shen Zhengyuan said.
Li Chen smiled and said, "That's really a good technique. It seems that Sect Leader Shen has studied a lot of good things over the years."
She smiled, but her tone was unusually calm, revealing no emotion whatsoever. Even her gaze towards him was icy cold. "So everything you said before, Sect Leader Shen, was a lie. You said you never intended for me to live the way you wanted me to. In reality, you've been forcing me all along, Sect Leader Shen."
"What you're doing is no different from making me a pet with no freedom or privacy. I never restrict even the sweet rice balls; they can go wherever they want. But what is Sect Leader Shen doing? Is this what you call repaying a debt of gratitude? Or is it that Sect Leader Shen prefers an obedient canary to a disobedient benefactor?"
“I have never restricted your freedom,” Shen Zhengyuan said. “If you wanted to leave Qingjingjing, I turned a blind eye and let you go. If you wanted to come here, I never sent anyone to stop you. If you wanted to do something, I never prevented you from doing it. Li Chenjin, I have never restricted your freedom.”
"I just want to be with you forever. I just don't want you to abandon me like you did hundreds of years ago. I just want to be able to find you anytime. What did I do wrong? You were the one who broke your promise before, and I never held you accountable for it. What did I do wrong?!"
“I just want to know what you’re doing, who you’re talking to. If you want, I can let you see what I can see, let you hear what I can hear. We can be no different from each other, you can do whatever you want to me. Wouldn’t it be better if we were together like this, in this life and the next, for all eternity? I can give you everything I have…”
“But I don’t need it, Sect Leader Shen,” Li Chen said coldly. “From the day we met again, everything you’ve done has been nothing but wishful thinking on your part. What you’ve given me has never been what I wanted, much less what I needed. If your so-called freedom means living under your constant surveillance, then I’m sorry, I don’t need it.”
"Now, I'm only giving you one way out. Before I turn against you, release the shackles between our souls. That way, we can still be friends and meet again. But if you don't force me to find a solution myself, I swear you'll regret it later."
Shen Zhengyuan's face remained expressionless, his dark eyes still staring at her silently. Only a faint smile appeared on his lips as he said softly, "Perhaps... if you kill me now, you can undo the debunking?"
"Li Chenjin, do you want to give it a try?"
Before he finished speaking, Li Chenjin's tightly clenched fist suddenly moved.
That punch came too fast, flashing by like lightning. He didn't even have time to catch its trajectory. He only felt a blur before his eyes and fell to the ground from the couch.
He lay on the ground, his vision blurring and his ears ringing. After a long while, his hazy consciousness was awakened by the burning pain on his cheek. Only then did he taste the rusty flavor that had been spreading in his mouth.
He swallowed a mouthful of blood, feeling the increasingly intense pain on his cheek. Instead of being angry, he burst into laughter.
The laughter was hoarse and scalding, like a red-hot branding iron, constantly pressing closer to Li Chenjin's heart, causing her belated sense of guilt to vanish completely, replaced by endless anger at being provoked further.
She jumped off the couch, grabbed his collar, lifted him off the ground, and then choked him, barely stopping his laughter.
Shen Zhengyuan's face turned red. He could not laugh, and he even had difficulty breathing. He was also unable to swallow the blood in his mouth.
The blood that he couldn't swallow kept overflowing from his lips and teeth, slowly dripping onto the back of Li Chenjin's hand. It was so hot that she unconsciously tightened her grip, and she immediately heard the even more difficult breathing of the person in front of her.
Even though Li Chen had his weakest point firmly in her grasp, and even though he knew that if she tightened her grip even a little more, he would die on the spot, he showed no fear whatsoever.
Author's note: Before meeting Xiao Shen.
Xiao Li: A gentleman uses words, not fists. Let's find an opportunity to have a heart-to-heart talk. [Hands clasped in prayer]
After meeting Xiao Shen.
Xiao Shen: Blah blah blah, go ahead and kill me if you dare.
Xiao Li: You've been provoking me all along, I'm not going to be a gentleman anymore! [clasped hands]
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