Chapter 451 The Relationship of Eating Together
Mei Liangyu nodded slightly to him, a silent signal. As soon as Wan Qi relaxed, he saw Xing Chun and Kong Yiyi behind Mei Liangyu. The two of them had woken up earlier than him and were now staring at him expressionlessly.
It's over.
Wanqi awkwardly raised her hand and pinched the back of her neck.
With his back to the two men, Mei Liangyu explained to Wan Qi, "This is the underground of the workshop. The workshop is where they make Orchid Poison, mainly the Resurrection Incense."
"Orchid Poison?" Wan Qi exclaimed in shock.
Mei Liangyu: "Those who make Orchid Poison are people who have been implanted with worms. They have been blessed by famous people and have had their memories of the outside world erased, so they think that this underground world is the whole world."
He told the three of them what he had learned from Du Zheng and his sister, so that they could quickly understand the situation.
The three of them fell into a workshop. The small room was filled with materials for making orchid poison, and a row of jars of all sizes were piled up against the wall.
Wan Qi nodded and said "oh" throughout, indicating that she understood. She didn't give Kong Yiyi and Xing Chun a chance to speak. After listening to Mei Liangyu's explanation, she immediately explained their situation: "We just came in and encountered a low-level sorcerer who practices evil Buddhist magic. We were chased terribly by his 'flower in the mirror'."
"The evil art this person practices is the Reincarnation Sutra. He can obtain a huge amount of the five elements' energy by eating people and seize the nine kinds of arts."
"Shen Liu was eaten by him."
Mei Liangyu: "You must be referring to Robb, one of the eight guardians of the royal city, a Buddhist acrobat."
Upon hearing this title, Wan Qi thought to himself, "As expected! The acrobat the instructor failed to catch was the person they encountered!"
"Shen Liu ate the Golden Cicada Gu and used the Resurrection Incense. He deliberately let Luo Bo eat him to transfer the poison of the Golden Cicada Gu to him. It was supposed to make him explode and die, but after we crossed the river, we saw Luo Bo again."
Wan Qi was completely baffled: "How come he didn't die?"
Logically, this plan shouldn't have failed.
“There must be another way to perform the Reincarnation Sutra, so…” Before Mei Liangyu could finish speaking, Kong Yiyi interrupted her loudly, “Hey, you two are deliberately chattering away, are you still thinking about how to avoid the main point?”
Wan Qi awkwardly wrinkled his nose, then heard Kong Yiyi sneer, "Mei Liangyu, is hide-and-seek fun? How old are you?"
Mei Liangyu blinked but didn't say anything.
Wanqi turned her face away, pretending not to hear anything, thinking to herself: She's targeting you, I can't help you, don't count on me.
Mei Liangyu calmly turned around: "You found it, so you win."
The timing wasn't right, so Wanqi pinched her thigh to stop herself from laughing out loud.
Kong Yiyi: "Are you sick?" She laughed in exasperation.
"Is this funny?" Xing Chun couldn't take it anymore. "Do you think it's funny? Do you think we've been looking for you all this time? Who can't live without whom!"
"You're hilarious, Meimei! Do you think we'll cling to you forever or what? Do you really think we'll look for you forever if you hide away?!"
"It's like everyone's only concern when they're eating, sleeping, or looking for you! Who cares if you're hiding or not? You can show up whenever you want, or not show up whenever you don't want to! Nobody's going to search desperately for you when you disappear!"
His angry questioning left both Kong Yiyi and Mei Liangyu speechless.
Because they both knew very well that Xing Chun was the kind of person who would still eagerly ask, "Will you still hang out with me?" even after his friends had settled down and started their own families. So every word he just uttered was true.
Mei Liangyu clearly remembered that Xing Chun once asked him:
"Will we still be able to eat together after you get married?"
At the time, he wondered if Xing Chun was crazy for asking such a question.
"Why not?" Mei Liangyu retorted.
Xing Chun answered seriously and honestly: "I know who the other people will be with. We're all acquaintances, so we can definitely eat together. But you're different. I don't know who you'll be living with in the future."
Seeing how serious he was, Mei Liangyu thought about it seriously for a while as well, and asked, "You mean, after I get married, you'll still come over every day to freeload off me?"
Xing Chun: "Is that not allowed?"
Mei Liangyu: "I don't like living with three people."
Xing Chun was shocked: "That's not what I meant!"
Mei Liangyu ignored him and turned away, which amused Xing Chun, who chased after him for several days to explain.
Faced with the furious Xing Chun, Mei Liangyu remained remarkably calm. Only after Xing Chun finished speaking did he say, "You're right."
A cold and distant remark reignited Xing Chun's anger, but as soon as he opened his mouth, he bent over and coughed violently because the worms were devouring the five elements, choking so badly that he couldn't utter a single word.
Mei Liangyu glanced at Wan Qi, who got up from the ground and walked towards Xing Chun: "Don't get excited, let me take a look."
"The workshop supervisors, including Wang Jun, are temporarily unable to resist, but there are many 'white eyes' in the ground. They are all united to resist Wang Jun because they don't want to be beaten and scolded by the supervisors anymore."
Mei Liangyu didn't continue with the previous question, but instead looked outside and explained the situation: "The entrance and exit are blocked by the two guardians of the royal city and their newly arrived royal troops, but there are still many finished Resurrection Incense sticks in the underground workshop. If we light all of these Resurrection Incense sticks, we can perish together with them."
"What? To die together? That's not what we want!" Wan Qi was the first to object.
Mei Liangyu: "If Wang Jun forces his way in, they will lose these Soul-Returning Incense. This method would be a huge loss for them, so they are still at a stalemate, trying to persuade and threaten those who are 'white-eyed' to leave on their own."
Wanqi asked, "What was the cause of the previous mountain tremors?"
"The guardians of the royal city have made their move. They're using the Taoist Water Transport Divination technique to freeze everyone in the workshop with the snowmelt outside, and also to prevent the Soul-Returning Incense from being lit. In its later stages, the Water Transport Divination technique can even freeze the five elements, at which point the Soul-Returning Incense will be ineffective." Mei Liangyu raised his hand and tapped the mountain wall, signaling them to touch it and try it out.
Kong Yiyi reached out and touched it; the mountain wall felt as cold and hard as ice. No wonder she felt it was unusually cool underground when she woke up.
Mei Liangyu said, "I used magic to set up a barrier to interfere with the water transport divination, and at the same time changed the terrain of the workshop, causing the mountain to collapse, which also happened to move you down from above."
"Where is the Royal City Protector who was with us?" Kong Yiyi asked.
Mei Liangyu said expressionlessly, "Probably in some crack in the ground."
"How do we get out?" Kong Yiyi asked directly. "That Buddhist acrobat told me that Yuezhen is dead."
After these words were spoken, the room fell into a brief silence.
Mei Liangyu was clearly unaware of this matter, and his eyes seemed to freeze for a moment when he heard Kong Yiyi mention it.
Kong Yiyi continued, "Did you secretly help Chun'er get rid of the Heart-Eating Ants?"
Before Mei Liangyu could answer, Kong Yiyi raised her voice again and asked, "Is that right!"
Mei Liangyu glanced at Xing Chun out of the corner of her eye: "Yes."
“Okay, at least I don’t have to worry that Chun’er was cured of the Heart-Eating Ants because of the Orchid Poison.” Kong Yiyi didn’t have the energy to ask about Mei Liangyu at the moment. She appeared extremely calm and composed. “The Acrobat said that Ye Shuiya died in the medicinal insect pool on the day he captured Yuezhen. Whether what he said is true or false, I have to go in and see it with my own eyes to confirm. Since you can change the terrain and make us fall down, you can also send us in, right?”
In the medicinal insect pool.
Mei Liangyu, however, caught this information: was it the Blackwater Insect Pool that Du Zheng and his sister had mentioned?
He did not answer immediately.
“That must be difficult, since the Water Transport Divination has sealed off the mountain, and… do we still have anyone outside?” Wan Qi couldn’t help but ask, “Isn’t Nangong Sui here?”
Upon hearing this, the remaining two also looked at Mei Liangyu.
“She’s not here,” Mei Liangyu said. “She went into Black Castle first.”
Kong Yiyi frowned: "You're letting her go to such a dangerous place alone?"
Mei Liangyu looked up and examined the mountain wall. Wan Qi realized that the two of them would not easily separate unless there was something important here that required them to act separately.
"What else is in this underground besides the Resurrection Incense?" Wan Qi asked.
“Fire-absorbing ice stone.” Mei Liangyu took a step forward, tapped the mountain wall with his finger, and after the surface of the mountain wall fell off, the black and red raw material hidden inside was revealed. “It is also the sacred stone that Shuizhou refers to to outsiders.”
"...Is it a sacred stone that can identify the destroyer of the world and block the burning of the strange fire?" Wan Qi couldn't believe it. After feeding Xing Chun the medicine, he went over to examine it up close.
Kong Yiyi was also somewhat surprised by this unexpected discovery.
"But the sacred stones distributed by the water boat are all black, aren't they?" Wan Qi asked, puzzled, looking at the black and red rocks in front of him.
“The sacred stone given by Shui Zhou has been refined and modified by the Mechanists,” Mei Liangyu said. “Compared to the sacred stone provided by Shui Zhou, the Fire-Absorbing Ice Stone in front of us is denser and stronger.”
These more powerful fire-absorbing ice stones grow deeper into the mountainside and cannot be discovered without excavating to a certain depth.
Kong Yiyi asked, "Is this workshop not only manufacturing orchid poison, but also refining sacred stones?"
Mei Liangyu: "If it were a refining of sacred stones, there would be no trace of mining."
Kong Yiyi added, "If we can get out, we can tell Su Tong this news. She's currently working on a business trip on the Water Boat, and the discovery of a large number of sacred stones here will definitely be helpful to her."
Wan Qi also said, "Moreover, because of the mining of sacred stones, the people from Shuizhou will also get involved, so we won't have to worry about taking down this unscrupulous workshop."
So he suggested, "Why don't we stop taking the risk and wait a bit longer? Let's spread the word first and wait for the people from Shuizhou to arrive."
Wan Qi initially thought Black Castle was just an ordinary shady organization, but he didn't expect it to be related to Lan Du. It wouldn't have reached this scale without some unspeakable power behind it.
How could a few of them possibly stand up against such a large organization?
Including him and Kong Yiyi, two ordinary people with no power or background, and then look at Mei Liangyu and Nangong Sui, two down-on-their-luck fugitives wanted worldwide, and a naive girl who has lost her family's power.
Not to mention Pu Heng, that unfortunate fellow who was already threatened by Xuan Kui.
It seems hopeless for them to try and overthrow the ruthless organization backed by Xuan Kui's power. It's much simpler and more effective to use an organization like Shui Zhou, which has multiple Saints and currently enjoys the highest prestige and power, to resist.
Mei Liangyu calmed down.
Kong Yiyi did not immediately agree to Wan Qi's suggestion, but looked at Mei Liangyu: "Say something!"
After recovering from the medication, Xing Chun said in a low voice, "Don't you want to give the Sacred Stone to Shui Zhou?"
"I don't want to," Mei Liangyu said with his back to everyone.
"Why?" Wan Qi asked, puzzled. "Do you want the strange fire to burn down the whole world? It's already burned an entire..."
Realizing that Xing Chun was right next to her, Wan Qi immediately shut up.
Wan Qi glanced at Xing Chun, who remained expressionless. Instead, he continued, "The strange fire has already burned down the Zhou Kingdom. Why are you unwilling to give Shui Zhou the sacred stone that can stop the strange fire from burning?"
Before Mei Liangyu could answer, another violent earthquake shook the ground, nearly causing Kong Yiyi and the others to lose their footing. Wan Qi asked, "Why is it still shaking?"
"The Water Transport Divination hexagram is located on the frozen mountain, which is why it's conflicting with the outer barrier," Mei Liangyu explained, then asked Kong Yiyi, "You just said Su Tong works on the water boat?"
Kong Yiyi: "Shui Zhou is calling on all the sorcerers and magicians in the world to join them. You must know about the divination and prophecy about the strange fire, right? Have you been living in some remote mountain forest for the past two years?"
Mei Liangyu knew about this, but she never expected Su Tong to join Shui Zhou.
As the mountain shook again, a huge crack suddenly appeared in the mountain wall behind the house, and a pale hand covered with countless scratches reached out from inside, grabbing the edge of the crack and prying it open to both sides.
"What is that?" Wan Qi was so frightened that he retreated repeatedly, backing up behind Kong Yiyi and in front of Xing Chun.
After the smoke and dust cleared, they could see that the person who had crawled out of the mountain crevice was actually Rob.
Rob grinned, revealing a mouthful of bloody teeth, and said with a strange laugh, "I don't know which one of you I underestimated, that you would actually use such a strange technique to trap us in the cracks of the rocks."
Mei Liangyu coldly scrutinized Luo Bo. He manipulated the mountain, trapping the two guards inside a crevice, waiting for the mountain to heal so he could crush them to death. If he had known about the Reincarnation Sutra, he wouldn't have imprisoned them together; he would have separated them.
Wan Qi stared at the clothes Luo Bo was clutching in his hand and exclaimed in shock, "You ate your companion?"
Rob casually tossed his clothes aside and said matter-of-factly, "He was seriously injured by you and trapped in the crevice between the rocks with me. How am I supposed to get out if I don't eat him?"
Listen to what you're saying, is that even human language?
Wan Qi was shocked and speechless, completely unable to understand Luo Bo's actions. When she looked at him, she always thought of Shen Liu, and felt uneasy.
"Mei Liangyu, can't we just lock him up again?" Wan Qi asked.
“Kid, the same trick won’t work twice, and besides…” Rob’s eyes darted around, “Are you calling him Mei Liangyu?”
“I heard my senior brother has been looking for this person for the past two years. This young man named Mei Liangyu is the young master of the mechanical family whom he is willing to serve with his life.” Luo Bo looked at Mei Liangyu with ill intent. “I never expected to run into him today.”
"If I were to take your head to Lin Chenghai, do you think he would kneel down and kowtow to me a few times?"
A glint of gold appeared in Mei Liangyu's eyes: "How many do you want him to take?"
"A thousand or eight hundred is not an option." Luo Bo laughed heartily, and in a flash, he headed towards Xing Chun.
Mei Liangyu seemed to have sensed something beforehand; with a slight twitch of his fingertips, the Eight Trigrams Life Technique had already taken the lead in manifesting itself.
The Xun hexagram generates the spiritual wind and shadow.
Golden and crimson sword shadows burst forth from around Xing Chun, their immense power pressing down, forcing Luo Bo to use his ultimate stepping technique to change course, not daring to get any closer.
Fortunately, Luo Bo deliberately attacked Xing Chun to get others to intervene, allowing him to create distance. Even his provocation of Mei Liangyu was intended to get him to save the person, rather than prioritizing his own attack.
Rob slipped through the smoke and disappeared into the outer room, where he saw the glaring men carrying the Resurrection Incense in the workshop.
Many people were curious about the commotion inside the house. They turned around and saw Robo leaving using the Flying Step technique. They were quite startled and exclaimed, "Your Majesty! What happened? Someone just ran out!"
Kong Yiyi was about to give chase when she heard the shouts and abruptly stopped. She turned back and asked Mei Liangyu, "...Are they calling for you?"
Mei Liangyu said expressionlessly, "You can let them call you that too."
Kong Yiyi: "Maybe I can understand why you've been hiding these past few years. It's true that there are some shameful hobbies involved in being a mountain king."
Mei Liangyu: "..."
Kong Yiyi chased after him. Mei Liangyu was about to follow, but after seeing Xing Chun's condition, she changed her mind and told Wan Qi to go after him.
The workshop's underground was covered by his protective barrier; Rob only had two ways to escape:
Mei Liangyu removed the barrier; Luo Bo lit all the resurrection incense in the workshop.
The amount of orchid poison is too large; it will take five or six days to clean it up with the current workforce in the workshop.
Mei Liangyu went out to comfort the people who were still moving and cleaning up the orchid poison. When she returned, she found Xing Chun sitting in a chair as if he had fallen asleep.
There were only two quiet people left in the storage room, which seemed somewhat eerie compared to the noisy bustle outside.
Xing Chun was a little groggy when he woke up and subconsciously asked the person standing opposite him, "Was I asleep?"
“You fainted from exhaustion,” Mei Liangyu said. “Your injuries are still not fully healed, so you shouldn’t have moved, let alone used your internal energy. Now you’re so weak that you can’t even beat a three-year-old child.”
Xing Chun stared at him silently, not uttering a word, his eyes fixed on Mei Liangyu.
Mei Liangyu neither dodged nor avoided him, letting him see her without showing the slightest discomfort.
The two remained silent for a long time.
Just as Mei Liangyu was about to get up and leave, Xing Chun said, "Dashan told me about you."
Mei Liangyu had just stood up when he asked in his usual casual and lazy tone, "What did you say?"
Xing Chun said slowly, "He said your name is Dong Lanli."
Mei Liangyu said calmly, "Dong Lanli is already dead."
Xing Chun was stunned; this was not what he had expected. He thought that Mei Liangyu had regained her memories and identified herself as Dong Lanli, which was why she wanted to sever ties with him and Zhonglishan and had disappeared for so many years.
"...Then who are you?" Xing Chun asked in a daze.
Mei Liangyu seemed uninterested in these topics and had no intention of discussing them: "Whoever you think I am, that's who I am."
Xing Chun's mental preparation crumbled. He thought he and Mei Liangyu were going to have a very serious conversation about family, life and death, and friendship, but when she said, "Dong Lanli is dead," he was left speechless.
"What have you been doing all these years?" Xing Chun felt his question was very stiff and awkward.
It's like exchanging pleasantries with someone you don't know well.
But when did he become estranged from Mei Liangyu?
Mei Liangyu's answer remained simple and straightforward: "Eating, sleeping, and cultivating."
A reasonable and impeccable answer.
Xing Chun had reached her breaking point: "Do you have to talk like that? Fine, you say you're not Dong Lanli, you're Mei Liangyu. Didn't you, Mei Liangyu, say it was the last time you would save me? Why did you still help me get rid of the Heart-Eating Ants? Did I kneel down and beg you to save me?"
Before Mei Liangyu could respond to his question, Xing Chun continued to press:
"Meimei! Can't we just have a proper talk?"
"You were like this from the beginning, saying nothing and making all the decisions on your own. What makes you think we'll become enemies, like our families? You can decide what you want, but let me tell you, I won't become like that, absolutely not!"
Xing Chun braced himself on the table and stood up, took a deep breath, and looked up at Mei Liangyu again. His hesitant and wavering eyes became calm and peaceful.
“Even if they are all gone, I’m only saying this now. It doesn’t matter if you don’t believe me. I just want to express my own thoughts, not what you’ve assumed to be.”
“You can say that was the last time you saved me, but I will not say that to you. No matter how many times, I will never turn a blind eye to your danger.”
"Whether it's me, Dashan, Yiyi, Sutong, Yuezhen, or Cangshu, we have never blamed you!"
"We just want you to have a proper talk with us! Instead of you arrogantly taking everything and deciding everyone's thoughts!"
Even if you confess everything to us and then turn against me, even if it means we're locked in a life-or-death struggle, I'll gladly accept it!
Faced with the menacing Xing Chun, a look of surprise flashed across Mei Liangyu's eyes.
Even an honest person, when pushed to the limit, can spout a bunch of profound truths. Xing Chun at this moment was completely different from his usual easygoing and mild-mannered self. He became sharp, assertive, and possessed the courage and strength to withstand any storm.
Xing Chun was angry that Mei Liangyu wouldn't say anything. He would rather Mei Liangyu just say it outright, that their two families were enemies, that Mei Liangyu's father had killed his family, and that he was breaking ties with Mei Liangyu and could no longer consider him his brother.
He would accept and understand Mei Liangyu's words, but he would not make the same decision as Mei Liangyu.
But this guy said nothing and acted as if he couldn't bring himself to do it, caught between hatred and gratitude. In the end, his decision was cruel to himself and cruel to others.
After scolding Mei Liangyu, Xing Chun added, "Can we talk this out now?"
Mei Liangyu slowly sat down again, his languid and indifferent aura softening slightly. He raised his hand to touch his brow, even finding his current behavior somewhat amusing.
But somewhere deep in his heart, he finally found peace.
"What do you want to talk about?" Mei Liangyu asked.
Xing Chun did not sit down, but looked down at him: "Do you want to fight me from now on for revenge?"
Mei Liangyu glanced at him sideways and said disdainfully, "Killing you is as easy as turning my hand. I'm too lazy to bother with a life-or-death struggle with you."
After they had frankly and openly confessed to each other, Xing Chun finally felt relieved and slumped back into his chair, looking at Mei Liangyu with a mixture of wanting to scold and laugh.
"It would have been so much better if we had just made things clear earlier," Xing Chun muttered to himself.
"Have I never told you this before?" He raised his hand to press his tired temples and said slowly, "When I was little, I often ate alone. The elders were busy all day long, and I could only see them once every few days. Some of my other siblings thought I was too quiet, some thought I was too stupid, and some were jealous that I was more talented than them, so they didn't like to play with me."
"But after a while, I got used to eating alone and realized it wasn't a big deal."
“But when I got to Taiyi, I suddenly hated eating alone. There were too many people coming and going around me, and it annoyed me.” Xing Chun sighed. “What used to be a small thing suddenly became unacceptable and even annoying.”
Mei Liangyu: "You care too much about what others think."
"Shut up and let me finish," Xing Chun said fiercely.
Mei Liangyu turned to the side.
"Later, on the day you and I had dinner together, it suddenly dawned on me that it's actually quite easy to eat with others, and it's not a big deal. If I wanted to, I wouldn't have to eat alone."
“You made me realize that these are all small, easy things that I could do if I were willing to. But it took me many years to do them for the first time.”
Xing Chun paused for a moment, as if making up his mind, and said to Mei Liangyu, "The hatred between us does exist, so we can't go back to the way things were. Let's keep it simple. From now on, you and I are just people who can eat together."
He couldn't expect Mei Liangyu to pretend the conflict between the two families never happened, and Xing Chun himself couldn't do that either.
They can no longer be as open and honest as before, but they also cannot hate and be hostile to each other.
Mei Liangyu's gaze was fixed on the divine soul core that Xing Chun could not see. It flickered before his eyes with a gentle frequency, as if someone was laughing softly beside him.
Fine, I'll just listen to him.
Mei Liangyu turned around and looked at Xing Chun again.
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