Transmigrated as the Villain and Driven Crazy by the Vengeful Male Lead - Chapter 20

Chapter 20: Fainting and Waking Up — Where Did Your Cultivation Go?

Lu Shuyao’s heart skipped a beat.

Wait, the hatred points just dropped, so why does Su Cheyue want to kill me again?!

He had just been draped over the man’s lap, enduring the agony of a thousand scratches and bites for his sake! The mind of this “crazy-batch” protagonist, especially after being crippled, was truly impossible to decipher.

—Of course, it never crossed his mind that the very act of “being draped over him” might have been the catalyst for the protagonist’s murderous intent.

Done for, done for, done for.

“Su… can I die a little bit later?”

Even if he had to be killed, could it at least wait until his wounds healed? Or at least until his clothes were intact so he wouldn’t be a ragged corpse in the wilderness?

Su Cheyue glanced at him as if looking at an idiot. “Shut up. Focus your breath and rest your spirit.”

You’re about to kill me; does it really matter if I rest?! Lu Shuyao shot back a look that said, “You’re the idiot.”

Su Cheyue: “What is that look? Believe it or not, I’ll gouge your eyeballs out and feed them to the raccoon.”

“…”

Zero human rights!

“A-Yue, what exactly do you mean?” Su Qingyang asked, bewildered.

Su Cheyue held his breath and frowned for a moment, then shook his head. “Nothing. Back to the inn first.”

Lu Shuyao’s heart, which had been dangling in his throat, finally settled back into his stomach. After the emotional roller coaster of the night, things finally seemed to be calming down. Once a person relaxes, their will weakens; Lu Shuyao fell asleep on the sword mid-flight.

Before losing consciousness entirely, he thought he heard Su Qingyang say: “…cultivation… what happened?”

…

Lu Shuyao had a dream.

He dreamed of the year his father brought home a beautiful calico raccoon cat. Lu Shuyao fell in love at first sight and named it Juanjuan. Juanjuan was a bit cold and aloof—she didn’t meow much or cling to people—but every day after school, she would wait for him at the door. The moment she saw him, she would roll over and show her belly, refusing to stop until Lu Shuyao had petted her to her heart’s content.

With the cat around, his father came home more often. Lu Shuyao mistakenly thought it was a sign that his parents’ long-strained relationship was mending. Until one day, a WeChat notification that accidentally popped up on his father’s phone shattered that ridiculous dream.

“Three months apart, finally heading back. Miss you. Seeing you share photos of Zhouzhou every day and taking such good care of him, I know you miss me too.”

Lu Shuyao’s father was named Lu Yizhou. The contact name for the message was “A-Zhou.”

The message was discovered by his mother. His father was still in the shower. She grabbed the phone and charged straight in. The two of them fought tooth and nail in the bathroom, shouting so loud that no one noticed the hot water streaming from the showerhead—it was like a sudden, torrential downpour.

Lu Shuyao huddled behind his bedroom door, clutching Juanjuan and crying.

For the next ten years, he remained trapped in that small bathroom rainstorm.

He remembered how he cried and begged his father not to take Juanjuan away. He even said: “Juanjuan knows me now; she recognizes me. I’ll take good care of her for you. As long as you come home often, Dad, you can even bring the Auntie to see Juanjuan…”

His mother slapped him hard. “You bastard! Have you no spine?!” She dragged the calico cat out of the house and slammed the door shut. “What Auntie?! Lu Shuyao, let me tell you, your father’s filth will never be recognized by the law or accepted by the world! Even if I divorce him, he can forget about ever marrying again! Why bother? I’ll waste my life just to spite him until the day he dies!”

Lu Shuyao didn’t fully understand, he only wailed, “Juanjuan! I want Juanjuan!”

“Crying is useless! Listen well: that beast isn’t named Juanjuan. There is no cat named Juanjuan in this world!”

There is no cat named Juanjuan in this world.

In the dream, Lu Shuyao was soaked to the bone by the rain. When he woke up, he stared at the ceiling for a long time, instinctively reaching up to touch the corner of his eye.

It was dry.

“Men don’t shed tears easily.” He had finally reached an age where he no longer woke up crying from dreams.

As his senses returned, Lu Shuyao realized he was in the familiar inn and the familiar room. However, he had been moved from the small cot to the bed. He wasn’t lying flat on his back, but rather on his stomach.

The wounds on his chest and back had been bandaged.

Lu Shuyao propped himself up. “…Su Cheyue?”

The person in the wheelchair had his back turned, contemplating something. Hearing the voice, he turned around. For a split second, his dark brown eyes seemed to light up slightly before dimming again.

“You’re awake.” Su Cheyue moved toward the table. “You’re lucky. My brother saved your life.”

Lu Shuyao said, “Thank you. Um…”

Su Cheyue looked at him. “What do you want to ask?”

Lu Shuyao: “Are you okay?”

“…I’m fine.”

“And… the Eldest Young Master Su is okay too?”

“He’s fine as well.”

“And Rou-rou, and the Racoon-Ghost—”

“Everyone is fine.” Su Cheyue looked displeased. “Lu Shuyao, did your brain get scratched out? Do you wake up and not even think to ask for a drink of water?”

“Ah?” Lu Shuyao followed his lead blankly. “Oh, I… I want some water.”

Su Cheyue immediately poured a cup of water and brought it over.

Lu Shuyao was overwhelmed by the unexpected favor. He gulped it down in one go and licked his lips. “Can I… continue?”

Su Cheyue’s throat moved inexplicably. “Continue what?”

“Asking questions.”

“…” Su Cheyue frowned. “Ask.”

“What is the connection between that Racoon-Ghost and the ‘evil thoughts’ you can hear? Have your five senses fully recovered?”

This question touched upon Su Cheyue’s secrets and was sensitive. In the original book, it only stated that the Desire-Seeking Pearl inside Su Cheyue’s body suddenly exploded with energy, allowing him to hear evil thoughts within a hundred miles, but the author was vague about the mechanics. Now, Lu Shuyao was asking partly out of curiosity as a transmigrator.

The other part was for “knowing the enemy and oneself.”

He deliberately avoided the term “Desire-Seeking Pearl” so as not to rouse suspicion. Given Su Cheyue’s lack of trust in him, he didn’t expect a real answer; he was just trying his luck.

“The Purgatory of Evil Ghosts was reopened, and thousands of ghosts escaped; the raccoon was one of them. It didn’t know I could hear evil thoughts. It only knew that months ago, when I fell into the ghost prison, I brought in a powerful force that caused chaos. Tens of thousands of low-level ghosts were devoured by that power.”

Su Cheyue continued, “I suspect the Desire-Seeking Pearl in my body took effect, consuming those ghost remnants and activating its ‘evil-seeking’ side. To function, it needed to absorb more ghostly energy, which cleared the energy that had been suppressing my five senses. As for the future…”

Whether he would go deaf or blind again, no one knew.

Lu Shuyao shuddered. He felt like he had just heard something he wasn’t supposed to!

“No, no, no—” Lu Shuyao covered his ears. “Retract that! I didn’t hear anything!”

God knows if Su Cheyue just had a slip of the tongue and would decide to silence him later!

Su Cheyue’s brow twitched. “Since you’ve heard it, whether you live or die from now on is up to me. There is one more thing; do you dare to listen?”

Lu Shuyao pointed blankly at the corner of Su Cheyue’s mouth. “Forget the ‘listening’ for a second. Did you just… smile?”

Su Cheyue: “…No.”

“Alright, keep going.”

“I have always had a doubt,” Su Cheyue said. “How did the Racoon-Ghost, who isn’t a particularly powerful spirit, manage to possess different creatures so frequently and seamlessly without leaving a trace?”

Lu Shuyao thought for a moment. “The Soul-Shifting Knot?”

The Soul-Shifting Knot was another magical treasure Su Cheyue would obtain later in the original book after kidnapping Lu Shuyao. It allowed one to attach their soul to different bodies and control the host’s consciousness. The higher the cultivation, the longer one could stay.

Combined with the Desire-Seeking Pearl, Su Cheyue’s later path was one of absolute vengeance, toying with everyone who had wronged him while he was crippled.

The answer had slipped out instinctively. Su Cheyue narrowed his eyes dangerously.

Lu Shuyao scrambled to cover his tracks: “Ah, I… I heard my father mention it, the Spirit Treasure Shop—”

“Correct. It did indeed come from the Spirit Treasure Shop.” Su Cheyue didn’t press him, saying calmly, “A ghost has no resources to trade with the Spirit Treasure Shop. To be precise, someone bought the Soul-Shifting Knot for a high price and gave it to the raccoon.”

Lu Shuyao sat bolt upright, forgetting the wound on his back. The sudden movement made him hiss in pain.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Su Cheyue’s fingertips twitch ever so slightly.

“…Who was it?”

Su Cheyue glanced at him, clearly not intending to answer. “Your questions are finished.”

“…”

“Now it’s my turn to ask you.”

Lu Shuyao hadn’t thought much about why Su Cheyue was so interested in playing Q&A today. But since Young Master Su was essentially his “lifeline,” he couldn’t afford to offend him.

“I’ll tell you everything I know,” Lu Shuyao said.

Suddenly, Su Cheyue rolled his wheelchair forward and grabbed Lu Shuyao’s wrist.

Lu Shuyao, completely unprepared for the sudden physical contact from someone who usually loathed it, flinched back slightly.

Su Cheyue hesitated for a fraction of a second due to the flinch, but in the next heartbeat, he gripped tighter. “Where is Duan-you?”

Lu Shuyao realized the wrist-grabbing was to check if the Duan-you whip was there. He said dazed, “I… I left it at Xifeng Crossing.”

Su Cheyue raised his gaze and released his grip. “Why?”

His dark brown eyes were deep and misty, and his voice was chilling: “You don’t like using it?”

“Of course not!” He had said before that the Duan-you whip was his favorite! It was just…

“My father gave me the family heirloom sword; I had to leave a treasure for him to protect himself, right? After thinking it over, the best thing I had was the whip. So before I left, I…” Lu Shuyao looked away guiltily, not daring to meet Su Cheyue’s eyes.

It was unclear whether Su Cheyue believed him. He simply rolled his wheelchair back a bit, rested his chin on his hand, and adopted a relaxed, scrutinizing posture.

“One last question,” he said.

The sky had cleared after the snow. The warm winter sun slanted through the window, mingling with the flowing light of the indoor incense between them. Lu Shuyao had never seen such a light expression on Su Cheyue; the relaxed brow made his soft, elegant beauty even more apparent. The corner of his pale lips was almost curled in a smile.

More importantly, he had never seen Su Cheyue look at him like this.

Lu Shuyao was dazed for a moment. “Hmm?”

In the dusty sunlight, Su Cheyue raised his hand. His cold white fingertip pointed toward the space between Lu Shuyao’s eyebrows.

“Where did your cultivation go?”