The Immortal Lord Always Pretends To Be Affectionate Towards Me - Chapter 2

The supreme sword light was cold and sharp. Seeing this familiar azure glow after several hundred years, Yu Zaixi could still recall the sensation of the past. It was a pain that shattered his internal organs. If others had not intervened, Yu Zaixi would never have been imprisoned in the Buer Prison; he would have been reduced to ashes on the spot.

They claimed the Demon Lord had possessed and coexisted within him, accusing him of colluding with the demon to harm the world. They declared him a sinner who deserved to die but insisted he should not die too easily, demanding he be imprisoned in the Buer Prison to suffer for eternity.

Twelve chains were connected to the prison’s formation, activated every five days. In an instant, an agonizing pain would spread from the marrow of his bones, traveling through his meridians like needles of fire, piercing into the depths of his very soul. It served no other purpose but pure agony; they used eternal suffering to punish him.

But that was not him. He was paying the price for the original owner’s mistakes.

Yu Zaixi leaned closer to Jiang Yan, a brazen, mocking smile still on his face, though his eyes remained fixed on the blade, dark and gloomy. Jiang Yan did not draw his sword as Yu Zaixi approached. He stared for a moment, relaxed his grip, and sheathed the weapon, looking at him with an inscrutable expression. “It is true.”

The wind rose in the street, bringing an inexplicable chill. Yu Zaixi looked up at him, noticing that Jiang Yan’s expression had returned to normal. There was no trace of any hidden intention in his indifference. It was as if he were not talking to Yu Zaixi at all.

This situation was not to be taken lightly. Yu Zaixi scanned him up and down, asking with confusion, “You are not going to kill me?”

If he did not kill him, it meant he would drag him back to be locked up again, which would be worse than death. Yu Zaixi considered his options and decided that it might be better to provoke Jiang Yan today until he struck him down, saving them both the trouble.

Thinking this, he leaned even closer, pressing against Jiang Yan’s neck, his breath washing over the other man’s profile as he asked with a grin, “Since you are not killing me, it means you have feelings for me. Why not grant my wish?”

Yu Zaixi tilted his head to look at him. Finding that insufficient, he rested his head on Jiang Yan’s shoulder, though he felt disgusted by his own actions. It was truly repulsive. It was a battle where he suffered a thousand losses to inflict a thousand injuries. Yu Zaixi’s entire body stiffened. As he smelled the faint, clean scent from Jiang Yan, he inwardly cursed himself for letting a moment of impulsiveness lead to such a strategy. Would it not have been better to just strike him? Jiang Yan should be unable to keep smiling at this point. If he drew his sword and killed him, it would be over in an instant. Yu Zaixi even felt a sense of relief at the thought.

Yet, Jiang Yan remained motionless. He neither pushed him away nor spoke, simply allowing Yu Zaixi to lean against him.

The two remained in a standoff.

After several breaths, just as Yu Zaixi was about to give up on this humiliating charade, Jiang Yan stepped back. He acted as if nothing had happened, turned to the side, and began to walk forward. His voice was steady and cold, like jade, leaving behind only one sentence: “I will take you somewhere.”

Where could they go?

Yu Zaixi looked around. The silence was eerie; this was clearly not a normal street. It was an illusion created by Jiang Yan. Wherever they went, he would only be seeing what Jiang Yan wanted him to see. He stood still, his mind divided between wondering why Jiang Yan did not kill him and why his attitude could even be described as indulgent.

Before he could ponder it further, he felt a strange sensation in his body. Yu Zaixi froze, his gaze tracking Jiang Yan. He was currently at the late Nascent Soul stage and unable to break through to the Deity Transformation stage because a mysterious force was suppressing his cultivation. He had been too angry to notice earlier, but now he realized something.

Yu Zaixi was unsure, but he took two steps forward, discovering that it seemed to be exactly as he suspected. Whenever he drew near to Jiang Yan, the inexplicable force within his body was suppressed. Could that force be leftover demonic energy that had not been fully stripped away, and were they afraid of Jiang Yan’s aura?

Yu Zaixi’s mind was a fog of confusion. He felt uncomfortable the moment he stopped walking. He thought about it for a moment, deciding that since nothing could be worse than death, he might as well follow along. Perhaps Jiang Yan wanted him to die with a clear understanding of why.

With that thought, he followed behind, hands clasped behind his back, walking with a slouch.

The two walked toward the Wang residence. The surroundings were as quiet as a dead city, with a thin mist lingering in the distance. Jiang Yan had not bothered to create a sophisticated illusion; it was crude and substandard. Yu Zaixi had wandered this street for many days and was familiar with everything, soon realizing something was wrong. He laughed and caught up to Jiang Yan, mocking him: “Your skills are lacking. Look at that tavern over there. There should be three tables by the window on the second floor, but you only put two.”

Jiang Yan did not respond to the provocation. He glanced over, frowned imperceptibly, and the inherent coldness in his eyes poured out without restraint. His voice was chillingly cold: “Watch where you are walking.”

The words sounded familiar. The original owner must have heard them often. But Yu Zaixi was Yu Zaixi; he was not the one who had died. He felt only hatred for Jiang Yan, nothing else. He sneered and drawled, “Immortal Venerable, I had almost forgotten what legs were for when I crawled out of the Buer Prison. I knelt in there for two hundred years. My knees have long been ruined. It hurts.”

He was intentionally trying to irritate Jiang Yan, though he knew Jiang Yan would not care. Jiang Yan simply disliked his crooked gait; whether or not he was in pain was irrelevant. Yu Zaixi found it tiresome and pursed his lips, crossing his arms and swaying forward. “We are going to the Wang house, I assume?”

Jiang Yan did not answer, but his silence was consent.

His gait was not actually ugly; it was just slouchy, lazy, and carried a hint of childishness. Yu Zaixi cared about his dignity. Crawling out of the prison was something he had forced himself to do by gritting his teeth. Afterward, he had to relearn how to be a person—how to walk, stand, and use his hands. It had hurt then, and while it still hurt now, he had grown accustomed to it.

Yu Zaixi stopped to wait for Jiang Yan, who stood motionless in the distance. Jiang Yan twitched the corner of his mouth, his eyes deep as he began to walk. The two moved one after the other, not too far or too close, turning the corner toward the Wang residence.

In the illusion, the Wang house maintained the appearance of the wedding day. Fragments of firecracker casings littered the ground, and red lanterns hung swaying in a way that looked ridiculous.

Yu Zaixi opened the door and entered, following the corridor around the rockery and trees until he reached the courtyard. He easily found the wedding chamber. With double-happiness paper cuttings on the windows and bright red candles, the entire room was filled with a festive atmosphere.

Yu Zaixi looked around and finally understood why that tavern had one less table; he had been talking about the tavern days after the incident, while Jiang Yan had recreated the wedding day. There was no demonic energy in the illusion, so he could not see anything amiss. He sat at the table to rest his legs and looked at Jiang Yan: “What are you showing me? The room layout? I am afraid I have no use for this. Whether I can live through today is a struggle in itself.”

Jiang Yan seemed not to like hearing this. He frowned, looked around the room, and finally smoothed his sleeves before sitting down opposite Yu Zaixi. Yu Zaixi looked down to see two cups of nuptial wine placed before them.

He sneered again, mocking, “So the Immortal Venerable really is here to grant my wish? Forget it. I only said those things to disgust you; don’t take it seriously.”

Jiang Yan looked at him expressionlessly. Yu Zaixi pouted, stood up, and leaned against the wall near the window.

The two stood and sat in silence, not disturbing each other. One was sleepy, and the other seemed to be researching something. When the wedding candles had burned halfway, movement suddenly came from outside. Yu Zaixi opened his eyes and walked to the door to look out. The bride and groom had been escorted back, surrounded by a crowd. Yu Zaixi stood in the doorway, but the people seemed not to see him. When they reached the door, the groom reached out to open it, gallantly helping the bride inside. Yu Zaixi was too lazy to move, so he simply stayed put, not bothering to dodge. They were all illusions; these people could not touch him.

Before that thought even finished, Yu Zaixi’s vision shifted. Somehow, he had become the bride being helped into the room. His vision was blocked by a red wedding veil, and he could only see the ground beneath his feet.

He was stunned and wanted to lift the veil to find Jiang Yan, but his hands would not lift. His other hand was gripped tightly by the groom, and he could not break free. Yu Zaixi whispered, “Jiang Yan, what do you want?”

Jiang Yan did not answer. Yu Zaixi knew the person holding his hand must be Jiang Yan; otherwise, how could his late-stage Nascent Soul cultivation be unable to break free from a mere illusion? Knowing this made Yu Zaixi feel deeply uncomfortable. He hated Jiang Yan with a passion, yet the moment the man came out of seclusion, he started playing games of wedding chambers with him.

Yu Zaixi had heard plenty about the love and hate between Jiang Yan and the original owner, but that was their business. What did it have to do with him? He was so angry he wanted to draw his sword, but his wrist was held firmly by Jiang Yan, unable to move even an inch. The suppression of a Mahayana-stage cultivator over a Nascent Soul-stage one was terrifying. He gritted his teeth and hissed through his throat, “Jiang Yan, I am telling you, I am not Yuan Qi. He was killed by you long ago. I just haven’t found a way back home. Otherwise, would I be here suffering your insults?”

Regardless of what Yu Zaixi said, Jiang Yan did not react. He continued to help him walk into the room as usual, earnestly playing the protagonist of this tragedy. Yu Zaixi was helpless in his anger, forced to play the part of the bride. He was helped to the bed and sat down. The crowd entered noisily and left noisily, leaving only the two people married that day.

Yu Zaixi sat upright on the edge of the bed. Only when the room fell silent did he discover his hands could move freely. He ripped off the veil, glared at the “groom” standing by the table with the bride’s face, and demanded angrily, “Have you had enough?”

He had been dragged into this illusion for no reason just to play along with Jiang Yan’s farce. It was utterly ridiculous. No matter how you looked at it, Jiang Yan was the only known Mahayana-stage cultivator in the world; his lack of restraint was absurd.

As Jiang Yan wore the groom’s face, Yu Zaixi gradually realized something was wrong. When the groom had died, his upper body was missing. Yu Zaixi had never seen the man’s face, but seeing it now, he found it familiar. It seemed as if he had seen this face somewhere before. Yu Zaixi frowned and tried to recall, but his brain was a mess. His memories had always been chaotic, and he could not reach a conclusion after a long time.

Jiang Yan seemed to pity his state and reminded him, “Wufeng Tower.”

Wufeng Tower. Yu Zaixi repeated the words under his breath and pulled a face from his memories—it was the leader of the Wufeng Tower, and it was exactly the same as the face Jiang Yan was wearing now.

Not similar; it was exactly the same!

Yu Zaixi looked at him again, but Jiang Yan had already changed back to his original appearance. The moon-white robes reflected the festive red, the outer layer shimmering with flowing light—made of the best firefly silk in the world—spotless and elegant. His black hair was tied up, and he stood tall and upright, as refined as the moon. It was no wonder they were fellow disciples; their way of tying their hair was identical.

Jiang Yan ended the wedding chamber illusion, and Yu Zaixi returned to his own appearance. He angrily crossed his legs and leaned against the head of the bed, his posture lopsided, as if his body lacked support. Jiang Yan glanced at him, turned to the window, and looked outside. In the illusion, it was already night; the sky was pitch-black, and there was no bright moon.

The twelve states of Yunlu had not seen a moon for hundreds of years; everyone was used to it.

Yu Zaixi leaned against the bed and tilted his head to watch the window with him. Soon, the groom and bride would argue, followed by the groom’s tragic death. Even now, Yu Zaixi did not understand what Jiang Yan wanted him to see. The red candles had burned to the end, the flame flickering and drooping, with red wax dripping in several lines. This candle seemed unaffected by the illusion’s changes, following its own pattern.

Yu Zaixi stared at the flame until it suddenly went out. A beast with a wolf’s head and a tiger’s body leaped through the window into the room. Yu Zaixi was stunned. A wolf’s head and a tiger’s body? What kind of breed was this creature that looked neither like a wolf nor a tiger?

He remained seated. The beast had already mauled the non-existent groom, acted out its scripted plot, and leaped out the window again. Yu Zaixi looked at Jiang Yan in surprise, “It really was a vicious beast?”

Should it not have been a demonic creature? Also, this beast looked so advanced, almost like a hybrid. Jiang Yan turned to look at the crime scene in the room, his brow furrowed, as if he had not expected this either.

Seeing him like this, Yu Zaixi felt inexplicably happy and sneered, “Having cultivation is not enough. If your brain cannot keep up, you are useless.”

Jiang Yan looked at him. After being antagonized for so long, he finally asked in return, “Why are you unable to break through to the Deity Transformation stage?”

Yu Zaixi was choked by the question, rolling his eyes in frustration and forcing a smile to annoy the other man. “Because I am not the young genius Jiang Yan.”

After saying this, Yu Zaixi crossed his arms and prepared to leave. “If you want to investigate this, do it yourself. Do not involve me. If you are not killing me, I am leaving. I will stay far away in the future and never disturb you again.”

Seeing him about to leave, Jiang Yan directly waved his hand to dispel the illusion. The two returned to the crowded street, with Yu Zaixi sitting back at the original tea stall, opposite a calm Qin Nai.

“Investigate with me,” Jiang Yan said. He turned to look at Qin Nai opposite him. “You as well.”

The words of a Mahayana-stage person were truly impossible to refuse. Qin Nai let out a dry laugh and accepted on behalf of Yu Zaixi.