When I Mistook My Arch-Rival for My Dao Companion - Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Northwest Peak, Wangxu Cave.

Since the battle of Wuying Mountain five hundred years ago, this place had been consecrated as the number one peak and the number one grotto-heaven in the cultivation world.

At this moment, inside Wangxu Cave, a man dressed in dustless white robes stared at the sword in his hand with a tight frown, as if he were looking at something inconceivable.

The longsword in the man’s hand had a blade like jade, cold to the touch; it was clearly crafted from the finest cold jade. If it weren’t for the three words “Gift to Beloved” written on it in tiny, regular script, even he would have praised it as a fine blade.

The problem lay precisely with those three words.

“Gift to Beloved.”

In the cultivation world, those who stay together for a lifetime are called “Dao Companions,” meaning those who walk hand-in-hand on the future path of the Dao. But once the word “Love” was added, the meaning became much deeper.

Yet, within Fu Guzhou’s limited memory, he could not remember at all who this companion was that had given him a sword.

He had amnesia.

It wasn’t exactly amnesia; his mind wasn’t a total blank. He still held vague memories of practicing the sword for seventeen years.

Before opening his eyes, he was still a poor sword cultivator, so destitute he couldn’t even afford to maintain his own life-bond spiritual sword. After opening his eyes, a sword had appeared in his hand out of thin air—a sword he couldn’t have afforded even if he had sold himself back then.

Upon suddenly seeing such a peerless sword, Fu Guzhou was first ecstatic, admiring it back and forth. But when he saw the three words “Gift to Beloved,” the hand holding the sword immediately became unsteady.

At that time, Fu Guzhou had not yet discovered the changes in his body. He still thought of himself as a seventeen-year-old youth. Seeing those three words, he suddenly thought he had finally been forced by life to sell his “flesh and skin.”

It wasn’t his fault for thinking that way. No matter how much Fu Guzhou disregarded his own face, he knew his features were outstanding; to put it bluntly, he could even be called beautiful.

Just as he was recovering from the shock of his perceived moral fall upon waking up, he noticed that his hands also seemed a bit off.

Alright, it wasn’t seemed—they were definitely off.

Having practiced the sword for many years without being able to afford spiritual herbs or pills, his hands should have been covered in calluses. Yet now, although these hands looked long and powerful, it could not hide the fact that they were fair and delicate.

The expression on Fu Guzhou’s face went blank. He had probably taken someone’s pills as well.

Just as he forced himself to calm down, wondering how he could earn a large amount of spiritual stones to pay back an equivalent value and dissolve this intimate relationship, his thoughts moved his will. Before him appeared a mountain of spiritual stones large enough to drown him.

The stones were crystal clear, emitting a gentle purple light. If he wasn’t mistaken, these were top-grade spiritual stones.

Fu Guzhou swallowed hard.

He, who had only two low-grade spiritual stones on him before waking up, was now completely numb.

Look on the bright side, he thought, maybe I was so poor I finally couldn’t resist killing and looting?

After a period of chaotic panic, Fu Guzhou discovered to his relief that he had not become a pretty boy, nor had he committed the immoral act of murder and robbery. He had even achieved great cultivation, able to manifest a sword with a wave of his hand. The unfortunate part was his amnesia. The words on the sword were actually written by him; one could see a hint of it from his currently immature refinement techniques. This sword was also crafted by his own hand.

This sword wasn’t given by a Dao companionm, it was meant for a Dao companion.

Fu Guzhou did not enjoy smithing, and because he was unskilled, he would often waste good materials, leading to a certain repulsion toward the craft. For a Dao companion to make him personally refine a fine sword—it seemed the pre-amnesia him loved his companion very much.

Waking up with a Dao companion was a good thing; it saved a hundred years of struggle. The reputation of sword cultivators had always been poor; finding a companion was truly difficult.

He believed the companion he chose to be with must be someone he liked very much. Unfortunately, his amnesiac self had no impression of this person, which was why Fu Guzhou continued to frown incessantly at the sword.

The seventeen-year-old Fu Guzhou had practiced the sword in the deep mountains for many years. He sought the sword at age three, drew Qi into his body at five, and established his foundation at ten. His talent destined his life’s sword path to be smooth. When he was a brash youth, he had thought of being a young hero in fine clothes, of romantic entanglements, and roaming the world with a beauty and a sword. He never once thought that the companion he would find for himself would be a man.

Yes, a man.

Looking at the shape of the longsword in his hand, he really couldn’t lie to himself and say this was a sword meant for a female cultivator.

They say “to see the sword is to see the person.” Fu Guzhou tried to perceive some semblance of the so-called Dao companion from the sword. In the end, the sword remained a sword. Even if he stared a hole into it, he couldn’t imagine what its owner looked like.

It was a total headache. Amnesia was indeed more irritating than his Master making him swing a sword ten thousand times.

Cang Huai, the only disciple under Immortal Venerable Qingchen, was currently a cold-faced young man holding his sword, quietly waiting for his Master to emerge from seclusion.

However, the noble purple Qi that had been floating in the void had long since vanished, yet his Master had still not appeared.

Cang Huai waited and waited, his face showing a hint of subtle anxiety. He had heard that his Master’s meditation this time was dangerous; he hadn’t expected something to actually go wrong. Just as he was about to report to the Sect Leader Uncle, the heavy stone door slowly rose, making a deafening noise.

Immediately following, Immortal Venerable Qingchen, with a face like frost and dressed in robes as white as snow, walked out.

His Master was still his Master—with features as fine as a woman’s and an air of high nobility. Even that freezing aura that made people keep their distance couldn’t make one ignore his appearance. But this time, his Master seemed even harder to get along with.

Fu Guzhou—the “Cold Immortal Venerable” in the eyes of others—walked out and immediately fixed his gaze on the person outside.

He silently praised him instantly: What a spirited young man with sword bones!

With those sword bones, if they were extracted and forged into a blade, it would surely amaze the world.

Fu Guzhou’s eyes held a hidden expectation: Someone who waited outside while I was in seclusion must surely be my good Dao companion!

In the next second, the young man who was just a candidate for Dao companion put down his longsword and knelt on one knee, saying: “Disciple Cang Huai greets Master.”

Fu Guzhou’s mouth twitched, and the expectation in his eyes fell through. He had overlooked it—the person waiting outside the door could be a Dao companion, but could also be a “good disciple” from his later years. What cultivator of great achievement doesn’t take a few disciples for fun? It was normal for him to have a disciple.

But then again, who said a Dao companion couldn’t be one’s own disciple?

Fu Guzhou comforted himself, and his eyes once again held hidden expectation.

Under his Master’s scrutinizing gaze, Cang Huai for a moment didn’t know where to put his hands and feet, so he only straightened his back even more.

“Does Master have any instructions?”

Fu Guzhou shook his head. He didn’t know what his former self was like in front of his disciple. He was a bit nervous, and when he was nervous, his face appeared even more ice-cold.

Cang Huai’s heart sank slightly. To make his usually bright and upright Master look so cold, it seemed this seclusion was far more than just dangerous.

Wait.

Cang Huai captured a more important point. A person like his Master, even if he really encountered something, wouldn’t look at him with such a gaze. That slight approval in his eyes earlier turning into disappointment must be because he realized that after practicing for so long, his disciple’s cultivation hadn’t progressed at all.

Immortal Venerable Qingchen had been in seclusion for over twenty years. In such a period, as long as one wasn’t lazy, their cultivation should have increased by a notch. But Cang Huai had spent these twenty years specializing in sword techniques; his cultivation hadn’t moved an inch, though his sword skills were barely presentable. Clearly, his Master’s previous approval was because he saw through this.

Who could have thought that without a single word being spoken, Master had already seen right through him.

Cang Huai felt even more respect in his heart, but his tone remained the same as before: “Sect Leader Uncle previously performed a divination saying Master’s seclusion this time was dangerous. He stated that if Master emerged smoothly, you should pay him a visit.”

Sect Leader Uncle.

Fu Guzhou’s brow twitched slightly, marveling that his Senior Brother, who only knew how to cast random divinations to swindle people’s money, had actually made something of himself.

In those years when Fu Guzhou was still dirt-poor, his Senior Brother was in the same boat. What was worse was that this Senior Brother was very busy, often running around for the livelihoods of the three of them—Master and the two disciples. For him to create such a massive family business while supporting the three of them… his Senior Brother couldn’t have become someone’s live-in son-in-law, could he? Back then, he had heard that some Princess of the Northern Dynasty was frantically chasing his Senior Brother, chasing him across three continents, yet never managed to catch him.

Fu Guzhou was thinking about these matters, so his voice became indifferent: “Then let us first go see the… Sect Leader Senior Brother.”

Adding the word “Sect Leader” before “Senior Brother” was truly difficult for Fu Guzhou. After all, he really couldn’t associate the “Sect Leader” title with the penny-pinching Senior Brother in his memory who would fight someone over a few stones. Was his Senior Brother being the Sect Leader just a way to get rich off the other members of the sect? For example, making internal members like them do profitable missions every day while the Senior Brother sat back and enjoyed the fruits? He couldn’t help thinking about it; the more he thought, the more it felt like the truth.

Fortunately, his disciple was indeed a genius born with sword bones; he knew to lead his Master to find the Sect Leader. Otherwise, the amnesiac Master would probably have had to use his divine sense—quite rudely—to find out exactly where their Sect Leader was squatting.

Inside the sect’s grand hall, where the immortal aura was ethereal and spiritual energy was as cheap as water, Fu Guzhou was first a bit excited to see the familiar Senior Brother from his memory, but then felt a bit of estrangement. In his memory, the Senior Brother who spent most of his time running around wearing a pure white mask rarely showed his actual face. Suddenly seeing a face that completely contradicted his personality made Fu Guzhou feel a bit of a stranger. Truly, this face was exceptionally handsome, and his manner of sipping tea really made him look like a great grandmaster.

But Fu Guzhou had a deep impression of his Senior Brother using a fake divination to trick a child out of a Blood Soul Herb; it was hard to change his view.

Fu Guzhou quickly prepared himself mentally and called out “Sect Leader Senior Brother” to the man who didn’t look much like his Senior Brother.

The Sect Leader’s name was Gongsun Chen, known to the world as the Ghost-Hand Divine Diviner. One divination could calculate a hundred lives. People would search high and low, from the highest heavens to the yellow springs, just to find something he was interested in in exchange for a divination. Yet this divine man, who ought to be in the Heavenly Secret Pavilion, happened to love the sword with an intoxicating passion and even specifically founded a sect. Relying on his tactics and his Number One Combat Power Junior Brother, this sect—which seemed to have nothing—managed to squeeze into the top ten cultivation sects.

In Cang Huai’s eyes, this figure had always been a powerful existence no lower than his Master. But this great figure, who never joked around, looked at his Master and gave a light “tsk.”

“That gaze of yours reminds me of many years ago.”

Fu Guzhou’s brows rose slightly. Good, Senior Brother felt guilty under his righteous gaze.

Then he heard his Senior Brother’s next sentence: “This kind of gaze, filled with a clear sense of stupidity… this Venerable hasn’t seen it for at least a thousand years.”

Fu Guzhou: “?”

Do you even hear what you’re saying?

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