Chapter 36 Just Friends
Although Ren Yi's main account was deeply puzzled by Hong Xuzi's riddle-like behavior, he quickly learned the other party's guess about the relationship between the two pseudonyms. The reason was simple: Hong Xuzi had come to find the Sword Master's alternate account.
Before Ren Yi's main account even returned to Han Cang Peak, he sensed an unfamiliar aura on the peak. Ren Yi hadn't allocated much mental energy to his Sword Master's secondary account, and the latter's actions were more driven by physical instinct. Before he could even discern who the aura belonged to, he had already formed his fingers into a sword and slashed in that direction.
After a scream, a chubby baby, only the size of an adult's palm, appeared on the spot. The chubby baby was holding a neatly cut lock of hair, which had obviously been cut off by the sword energy just now.
The familiar-looking little boy, his face contorted with heartache, rebuked her in a rough voice that belied his adorable appearance, "After all these years, is this how you greet your senior uncle?!"
Sensing the change on the alternate account, Ren Yi quickly switched to the new account and was speechless.
Ren Yi remained silent for a while before respectfully bowing and saying, "Uncle-Master."
Although the other party kept calling him "Senior Uncle" and making solemn vows, Ren Yi, having lost his memory, had no way to refute it. However, he decided to trust his intuition.
In fact, when Ren Yi was mistaken for someone else and the other person called him "Senior Uncle," he wanted to correct him, but the situation at the time was obviously not suitable for him to speak up.
Upon hearing Ren Yi address him in this way, Hong Xuzi, with his two-headed Nascent Soul form, performed a dramatic glare and a blustering gesture.
Hong Xuzi and Hong Mengzi entered the sect around the same time, and were about the same age. The rivalry between the two senior and junior disciples remained unresolved until one of them passed away. However, Hong Mengzi died earlier, and no one in the Taichu Sect dared to disobey this remaining ancestor. Thus, Hong Xuzi's title of "senior brother" was firmly established and officially recognized within the sect. But Qing Ran, that little rascal, stubbornly insisted on calling him "uncle-master," which infuriated Hong Xuzi every time.
If it were Hongxuzi himself glaring here, he might be able to intimidate people, but it's just a tiny, two-headed baby making that expression... kind of adorable.
Ren Yi: "..."
Thankfully, the alternate account is expressionless.
Hong Xuzi was indeed telling Yan Shuoyun the truth when he said they couldn't go to Han Cang Peak. The formation at Han Cang Peak could stop Hong Xuzi, but not his Nascent Soul. However, Hong Xuzi suppressed his burning curiosity about his junior nephew's "Daoist partner" and didn't step into Han Cang Peak. After all, it would be disrespectful for an elder to have such a small Nascent Soul in front of his junior nephew; Hong Xuzi refused from the bottom of his heart.
However, after meeting Ren Yi, he couldn't care less about saving face for a moment.
It's actually a "Soul Contract"!
Hong Xuzi never imagined that such a thing would happen to his nephew, who was born with the mind of an immortal.
From the moment his junior brother took on a disciple, Hong Xuzi felt that Qingran was excessively composed, lacking any youthful vigor. He had teased him many times under the guise of being his mentor's nephew, but the boy always maintained a calm and unhurried attitude, as if he were born without desires. Given Qingran's detached nature, it was already surprising that he would have any desires, let alone this kind of entanglement that spanned lifetimes and endless cycles of life and death.
But the situation is completely different now.
Regardless of Qingran's intentions when he formed the bond with that person, given Qingran's current condition, if the soul contract between the two of them continues to be maintained... does he intend to drag the other person down with him and cause their souls to dissipate?
Hong Xuzi had a lot to say, but when he looked up at Qing Ran again, his face suddenly darkened.
The lively, exasperated emotions he had displayed when his hair was cut and when he was addressed as "Uncle-Master" completely vanished from his face. Hong Xuzi stared at Qing Ran for a long while before speaking in a deep voice, "You don't remember."
He used a tone of absolute certainty.
Ren Yi: "..."
He hadn't deliberately tried to hide his amnesia, but being exposed so quickly was still beyond his expectations. He had thought that as a person with very few expressions and a taciturn demeanor, it would be difficult for others to notice.
Ren Yi's current amnesia is due to his own mishap (according to Yan Er, it seems to be a side effect of the three-no pills) plus the loss of the system database. The Sword Master's alt account is purely an undeserved disaster caused by being affected by the main account's accident.
However, the same thing was interpreted in a completely different way by Hongxuzi.
Many of the beings in this illusion are remnants of the master's divine consciousness left behind when he was still alive, but Qingran is different. As the core of both the illusion array and the seal, he maintains both with his own divine soul. Inevitably, there will be losses in this process, and Qingran's divine soul is being weakened day by day... When his divine soul weakens to a certain extent, his memories will naturally disappear.
Hong Xuzi seemed a little dazed, and he murmured, "So much time has passed since then."
The two-headed nascent soul floated up from the table. Hong Xuzi's gaze swept over Qing Ran and landed on "Ning Shuang" beside him. He suddenly realized, "So that's why you went into seclusion earlier."
Ren Yi had sensed the newcomer's cultivation level earlier, so he wasn't surprised that the other party had noticed the changes in the array's core.
However, considering Hong Xuzi's attitude, Ren Yi felt that the other party might have misunderstood something. Did this senior uncle think that he was about to "die"?
Although Ren Yi had abandoned the pseudonym "Sword Master" for some time, it remained in a state of perpetual death, much like Schrödinger's cat, as the sealing array's core. In this small world, Qing Ran, whose soul still existed, was, to some extent, "alive." However, from the perspective of the Transmigration Bureau, the Sword Master's character had no plot, his position remained unchanged, and his soul was in a deep sleep, unable to communicate with anyone; he was essentially a prop serving as the sealing array's core.
Although the department where Ren Yi works is called the "tool department," it doesn't actually treat its subordinates as "tools," especially since there are also background "props" with no technical content.
This is a completely meaningless waste of the department's valuable human resources!
After Ren Yi completed the expected storyline, he immediately reported to the bureau and had a mass of energy placed in place of the Sword Master's dormant soul. Then, he jumped to a different timeline, donned a new identity, and began the main storyline.
Although Ren Yi didn't remember the whole series of events at the moment, this was a routine operation of the Transmigration Bureau. After finding out the timelines of the two alternate identities from Yan Er, Ren Yi was able to guess the truth of what he had done back then.
Logically, the Sword Master's storyline should have ended the moment Ren Yi took off his disguise. The rest would depend on whether the energy body that replaced the divine soul or the sealed demonic dragon could outlast the other. However, the quality of Transmigration Book Bureau's works has always been reliable, so Ren Yi was quite at ease with this.
No one expected that after the spacetime turbulence, the system would fall into the Sword Master's alternate account, which existed purely as a tool. During its dormant self-repair, it directly consumed the energy body that had replaced the soul. The system now only has the core program and incomplete functions. Ren Yi is also unable to contact the bureau. With no second energy body to apply for, and no one to unify the system, this alternate account will truly be gone once they leave. When the seal is broken, all the hard work Ren Yi has put into the missions of these two alternate accounts will have been for nothing.
It is precisely because of this that Ren Yi is now forced to urgently relocate the array's core and search for the successor of this illusion.
Thinking about it this way, although the reason wasn't quite right, Hong Xuzi's guess couldn't be said to be wrong—this pseudonym really wouldn't last much longer. This situation of "the entire deduction process being wrong, but accidentally stumbling upon the correct answer" left Ren Yi silent for a long time, and he could only swallow the words he originally wanted to explain.
Caught off guard by the news, Hongxuzi remained silent for a moment.
Silence spread between the two. After a while, the small Nascent Soul suddenly sighed heavily and sat down on the low table in front of Ren Yi with an air of nonchalance, saying in a seemingly carefree manner, "I knew this day would come back then, but now it has finally arrived."
Ren Yizong would never think that he was truly carefree.
After all, everyone is born and eventually dies; "I knew it all along" and "it's right before my eyes" are two completely different things.
Ren Yi glanced at the expression on the still very young Nascent Soul's face, and hesitated before speaking, "...Master Uncle."
Hong Xuzi waved his hand impatiently, "Alright, you're the one with the problem, not me. I don't need you to comfort me."
After these words, the two fell silent again.
Hong Xuzi stopped looking at Ren Yi and instead seemed to suddenly become interested in the piece of hair that had been cut off in his hand. He tied it into knots and then circled it, clearly trying to divert his attention and not wanting to show any heavy emotions in front of his junior disciple, but the result was of little effect.
After a while, Hong Xuzi, unable to bear the heavy and oppressive atmosphere any longer, forced a stiff smile. "If you really don't like it, then call me 'Senior Uncle' before you leave, and I'll consider myself..."
"Uncle-Master".
Before Hong Xuzi could finish speaking, Ren Yi readily chimed in.
Caught off guard, Hong Xuzi revealed an expression as if someone had grabbed him by the neck.
It took him a long time to seem to come to his senses. He looked Ren Yi up and down, back and forth, and finally concluded, "You really don't remember."
Ren Yi: "..."
He felt that wasn't the reason.
Given the tone of the other party's "last wish," even if he really remembered, he would still call him "Uncle-Master."
Despite this unexpected "pleasant surprise," Hong Xuzi was far from happy given the current situation. He hadn't come here to gossip like this in the first place. After going through all this trouble, Hong Xuzi finally remembered his original purpose for coming to Han Cang Peak: "That... junior, what do you plan to do with him?"
Ren Yi knew, of course, that Hong Xuzi was referring to the senior account he had just met (Ren Yi felt that the other party had definitely not intended to use such a polite term as "junior" at first). Coincidentally, he also wanted to know how Hong Xuzi guessed the relationship between the two accounts, so he composed himself and pricked up his ears to listen carefully.
Hong Xuzi continued, "If the soul contract isn't broken, do you want to drag him down with you?"
His blunt and unpleasant way of speaking is so annoying that he hasn't been beaten to death; the only way to say he has such strong self-cultivation is that he's protected by his own abilities.
However, although Hong Xuzi said this, his tone was not very worried. He did not know how Qing Ran had deceived the heavens back then, but it was clear that the latter's soul contract partner had not been sealed or implicated before, and had been reincarnated as he was supposed to. If the other party had not entered the illusion this time, the soul contract would not have worked again.
If Qingran could sever the first connection back then, he can sever the second connection now. Hongxuzi has always trusted this junior disciple.
He didn't come here purely to annoy anyone; he immediately said, "You're not calling me 'Senior Uncle' for nothing. If there's anything I can help you with, just let me know."
Back then, this old fellow couldn't save his junior apprentice. Now, ten thousand years later, Qingran has finally found someone he cares about, so he has to protect him.
He paused, then continued, "If you're really worried, I've recently taken a liking to someone. I'll exchange my inheritance for his soul to swear an oath to protect your Daoist partner."
Hong Xuzi didn't mention the "snatching" thing he had discussed with Yan Shuoyun earlier. With the soul contract in place, the two parties were essentially each other's half-bodies, and even their soul auras were similar. It would be a joke for outsiders to interfere.
Moreover, his so-called "stealing" was just empty talk; he didn't intend to actually force anyone to do anything. He just wanted to find someone to help Qingran take care of his sweetheart.
Hong Xuzi didn't think there was anything wrong with using Yan Shuoyun as a tool. In the cultivation world, it all comes down to "the strong are respected." His cultivation level was enough to make him look down on most worldly things.
He didn't find the behavior of "an apprentice's soul still intact, yet he's already rushing to find a new husband for his nephew's wife" particularly strange. After all, so many years had passed; countless reincarnations had occurred. Whether it was Qingran or him, they were both "dead people," barely maintaining a sliver of consciousness through this illusion. Ultimately, they were from a different world from the living, and they had to accept it and let go…
As Hong Xuzi was thinking this, he noticed that Qing Ran on the other side had not responded since the beginning.
He suddenly realized something and looked up sharply. "Qingran, you don't really want to..." drag the other person down with you, your soul scattered to the winds?!
Hong Xuzi had already noticed Qing Ran's attitude before he finished speaking.
The swordsman, still appearing as a young man, remained silent, but made no attempt to deny it—he tacitly accepted the statement.
Hong Xuzi suddenly realized that this matter was much more troublesome than he had initially thought.
Even now, Qingran's expression remained extremely calm.
This person was very clear about what he was doing; he was going crazy with an extremely calm and rational attitude.
—Of course it's "going crazy"!!
Hongxuzi felt that his junior disciple had been sleeping for too long and was a little mentally unstable.
Would a normal person do something like dragging their loved one down with them?!
He took a deep breath, just about to say something to make his junior apprentice come to his senses, but then realized something else.
...Was that person, Qingran's soul contract partner, really an "accident" who came to the illusion?
A certain possibility surfaced in his mind, and Hong Xuzi's expression as he looked at his junior disciple opposite him was nothing short of horrified.
He gritted his teeth and asked, word by word, almost the same question he had asked Ren Yi before, only this time his tone was much more intense, "Qingran! Do you really know what you're doing?!"
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