When I Mistook My Arch-Rival for My Dao Companion - Chapter 2

Chapter 2

 

The Senior Brother, who had achieved great cultivation and become a Sect Leader by relying on swindling and bluffing, was indeed worlds apart from how he used to be. For instance, right now—he insisted on dismissing all the disciples just to speak, not even sparing his junior brother’s own disciple, acting extremely mysterious.

 

Once everyone had left, the Senior Brother was in no rush to speak. He first took a slow, methodical sip of tea before saying, “It seems your seclusion this time didn’t go very smoothly.”

 

He noticed?

 

Fu Guzhou’s heart skipped a beat, but his face remained impassive, steady as an old dog. “What makes Senior Brother say that?”

 

His tone was as cold as ever. Anyone looking at him would never guess that the person beneath this indifferent shell was panicking.

 

Fu Guzhou’s current demeanor happened to perfectly match the usual Immortal Venerable Qingchen, to the point where even Gongsun Chen became a bit uncertain.

 

With a slight wave of his sleeve, an invisible force suspended a cup of tea and delivered it before Fu Guzhou, without a single drop spilling during the process.

 

“Come, Junior Brother, try it and see if you like it.”

 

Before even tasting it, Fu Guzhou had already guessed from the mellow tea fragrance carrying a hint of ice and snow that this was fine tea.

 

He took a reserved sip.

 

Then another sip.

 

It actually tasted quite good.

 

“It seems it is indeed decent. This is new tea picked from the peak of the North Mountain. Its annual yield is no more than one tael, it can be called worth its weight in gold.”

 

Fu Guzhou felt too embarrassed to swallow the tea he had just taken into his mouth, his expression carrying a hint of subtle oddness.

 

Truth be told, this tea that only produces one tael a year doesn’t seem any different from the Biluochun I used to drink at the teahouse. It just has a bit more spiritual energy and tastes slightly better, yet they dare to sell it for a sky-high price!

 

Fu Guzhou felt his Senior Brother had definitely been scammed, but he was too embarrassed to say it directly, so he could only remain silent.

 

But looking at it from another perspective, the usually penny-pinching Senior Brother was now drinking such overpriced tea; just how rich must he be? Fu Guzhou felt a sense of reflected glory.

 

“Lady Fu, would you like to play a game of chess with me?”

 

Fu Guzhou, who had just been feeling reflected glory, nearly exploded because of that title.

 

Don’t let it fool you into thinking it’s just a nickname; if one truly looked into it, it was a piece of the past Fu Guzhou was unwilling to mention.

 

Fu Guzhou’s original name was Fu Guyang. It was said his destiny lacked fire and carried a malevolent aura. His Master had carefully selected the name, specifically adding the characters “Gu” (lonely) and “Yang” (blazing). ‘Gu’ was meant to restrain the malevolent aura, while ‘Yang’ was to enhance the fire in his fortune.

 

Everything was fine, except the name sounded stranger the more it was called. Additionally, many cultivators had accents; when they called him, it sounded like they were calling him “Lady Fu”. Furthermore, when Fu Guzhou was young, he was as cute as carved jade—a boy with feminine features—to the point where many people thought he was a girl. Eventually, Fu Guyang completely became “Lady Fu.” When his Master and Senior Brother found out, instead of comforting him, they often called him that as a joke. Later, this title simply became Fu Guzhou’s nickname.

 

A nickname like this was better left discarded.

 

The sixteen-year-old Fu Guyang had hurriedly changed his name, and his Master and Senior Brother didn’t call him that much afterward. How was it that now he had achieved great cultivation, he would suddenly hear this alias again?

 

With his memory stuck in his teens, the young and hot-blooded Fu Guzhou hated this title the most. However, the thousand-year-old Immortal Venerable Qingchen would have been completely indifferent. This was the biggest difference between the two of them currently.

 

Within the two breaths of Fu Guzhou’s disrupted breathing, Gongsun Chen knew his divination had finally come true.

 

“It seems our Little Lady Fu’s seclusion this time truly didn’t go smoothly.”

 

Fu Guzhou didn’t try to be clever and deny it. Instead, he asked back, “Does Senior Brother perhaps know of my current situation?”

 

Facing such a question, Gongsun Chen spoke with absolute certainty, “Naturally, I know.”

 

Fu Guzhou’s eyes held a hidden expectation. “Specifically?”

 

Gongsun Chen: “Regaining your original heart.”

 

Fu Guzhou: “?”

 

From those four simple and clear words, Fu Guzhou knew for certain that his Senior Brother knew absolutely nothing. If he truly knew his situation, he wouldn’t have said those four words. Does someone “regaining their original heart” specifically arrange for themselves to get amnesia?

 

This wasn’t regaining the original heart; it was returning to the original heart.

 

Fu Guzhou’s silence was visible to the naked eye. This caused his Senior Brother to ask in surprise, “Hmm? Is it not so?”

 

Of course not!

 

It turned out that an unreliable Senior Brother remains unreliable even after becoming a Sect Leader.

 

“Alright, Little Guyang, it’s just a failure in seclusion. With your strength as the ‘Number One Combat Power,’ are you really afraid of failing a seclusion once or twice?”

 

Fu Guzhou, who had intended to tell his Senior Brother about his amnesia: “!”

 

Wait, did I hear that right? Number One Combat Power.

 

Once that title was added to him, Fu Guzhou immediately lost all desire to mention the amnesia. Amnesia seemed so undignified; could the Number One Combat Power lose his memory just because of seclusion? No!

 

Fu Guzhou wanted to ask indirectly about the status of his Dao companion. After all, the first thing he encountered upon waking up was the sword intended for his companion. But then Fu Guzhou had a sudden thought, remembering something he had forgotten for a long time.

 

His Senior Brother seemed to like men, and his own Dao companion was also a man. So, was it possible that his Dao companion was his own Senior Brother?

 

At first glance, this sounded inconceivable, but the more he thought about it, the more it seemed to be the case.

 

Although Senior Brother always cast fake divinations to swindle money, didn’t that money end up being used to support the three of them? Moreover, Senior Brother was indeed steady and reliable most of the time.

 

Perhaps before the amnesia, he had suffered many hardships in his early years, didn’t want to work hard anymore, and was then coaxed by Senior Brother’s flowery words into becoming Dao companions. It seemed unlikely at first, but once he thought about it—heaven help him—the possibility was actually extremely high.

 

Fu Guzhou silently bumped the possibility of his Senior Brother being his Dao companion up a notch.

 

The only thing was, as handsome as Senior Brother was, he had probably seen him too much in his youth; he currently didn’t feel that “heart-fluttering” feeling from the legends at all. Instead, because Senior Brother had scammed some people not too long ago in his memory, the impression was quite deep.

 

Some people never change, no matter how many years pass—for example, his Senior Brother.

 

Even after all these years, he still loved playing chess as much as ever, and he was still exceptionally terrible at it. Even a half-baked player like Fu Guzhou could crush him. He thought that since he had amnesia and only had his first decade of memories, he would surely lose his record of never being defeated by his Senior Brother in chess. Unexpectedly, even with only seventeen years of memory, he could still suppress his Senior Brother in every aspect.

 

“I won.”

 

Fu Guzhou’s words seemed steady, but his eyes held “little stars” he couldn’t hide.

 

Gongsun Chen tapped the chess piece in his hand, and after confirming there was no chance of a comeback in this game, he nodded. “Indeed.”

 

They say “good things come in threes,” and his Senior Brother knew this well. After losing three games in a row, he stopped, completely bowing down to Fu Guzhou’s chess skills.

 

After Fu Guzhou left happily, Gongsun Chen’s hand tapping the chess piece paused slightly. He looked at the pieces on the board and said with a hint of nostalgia, “It’s been many years since I’ve seen my Junior Brother like this.”

 

Fu Guzhou considered himself a smart person. After calming down, he felt that assuming he definitely had a Dao companion was a bit too presumptuous. Even if his strength was slightly superior, finding a companion was incredibly difficult for any sword cultivator. Those Sword Dao Venerables and Ancestors were all still single. The idea of him waking up as a winner in life with a Dao companion was a bit unreliable. What if, years later, he had an impulsive moment and decided to become a blacksmith, and the sword was just a means for him to make money?

 

To this end, Fu Guzhou stayed very low-key, secretly investigating whether he had a part-time job as a weapon smith. After all, being a smith was an absolute gold mine. If it weren’t for the fact that smithing was quite tiring and he had no talent for it, his Senior Brother probably would have wanted to make some dishonest money from smithing back then too.

 

After half a month of secret investigation, Fu Guzhou confirmed that he hadn’t become a heartless smithing maniac for the sake of making a living. Even so, he still wasn’t at ease.

 

One day, on a night perfect murder, Immortal Venerable Qingchen, dressed in robes as white as snow, arrived at Wangyue Mountain, where a few diligent disciples would occasionally come.

 

Wangyue Mountain was a place suitable for female cultivators to practice with lunar essence. However, the lunar essence here carried a heavier chill; one would need to be at least a Golden Core cultivator to endure this power. Likewise, by the late Golden Core stage, the lunar essence here wouldn’t be of much use. Therefore, only female disciples with Golden Core cultivation would appear here. Female disciples at this stage should be the best-informed; they should know very well whether the strongest member of the sect had a Dao companion or not.

 

Who could have guessed that Fu Guzhou would wait for half the night without spotting a single person? Instead, he ended up skewering a string of mosquitoes with a blade of grass. If it weren’t for his protective spiritual energy, those mosquitoes probably could have feasted on him and partied all night.

 

Just as Fu Guzhou was deeply reflecting on whether he should take action tomorrow to make these sect disciples realize the importance of strength and gain some ambition, two cultivators who knew the meaning of hard work finally arrived. Oh wait, no—it was a little couple billing and cooing under the moonlight.

 

Fu Guzhou: Indifferent Face.

 

The point was, the two of them were just passing through.

 

They had no intention whatsoever of practicing together or working hard.

 

Expressionlessly, Fu Guzhou skewered a mosquito flying in front of him and then stood up, intending to leave.

 

He was too foolish. He only thought about being low-key but forgot that not every disciple was like him—forbidden to sleep unless he swung his sword ten thousand times a day.

 

Times really had changed.

 

Fu Guzhou dropped the skewer of mosquitoes he had just made and left the place silently.

 

Sometimes, “the flowers one plants don’t bloom, while the willow one sticks in the ground grows into shade.” Fu Guzhou had already given up. If he wanted to ask questions, he should have just caught someone and asked, rather than running to a desolate mountain peak in the dead of night to wait for a hare.

 

However, on such a desolate peak, Fu Guzhou met a young woman carrying a sword.

 

the young girl hadn’t expected that by just coming to Wangyue Mountain, she would meet a major figure of the sect. The girl, who had been cold-faced just a moment ago, first stared at the person before her in a daze. Seeming to realize her behavior was very rude, she hurriedly lowered her head to hide her slightly blushing cheeks. “Disciple Dongfang Shuhan, seventh disciple under Elder Chang Feng, greets the Immortal Venerable.”

 

With one glance, Fu Guzhou knew this girl had a peak Golden Core cultivation. With such cultivation and such diligence, she was clearly a good prospect.

 

Having finally met someone who could answer his questions, and since he was indeed being low-key, Fu Guzhou intended to get straight to the point. For a moment, his gaze toward the girl became even more fervent.

 

However, in Dongfang Shuhan’s eyes, Fu Guzhou’s appreciative gaze was a cold scrutiny. Her heart tightened, fearing she would be blamed by this notoriously detached Immortal Venerable Qingchen.

 

Who could have expected that in the next second, she would hear a cold, clear voice, like jade stones clashing, slowly ask: “Do you know if I have any sort of Dao companion?”

 

Dongfang Shuhan was first stunned, then shook her head. “This… Disciple does not know.”

 

This answer was clearly not what Fu Guzhou had hoped for. He switched to another question: “Then, how many people are there who are close to me and are skilled with the sword?”

 

This question was clearly not as difficult. Miss Dongfang quickly gave him the answer.

 

Three people.

 

They were the steady, reliable, and exceptionally handsome Sect Leader Senior Brother.

 

The brilliantly talented and elegant-as-jade Close Friend.

 

And his Good Disciple who possessed sword bones.

 

Excellent. Of these three, he had already met two. Now he was just missing this “Close Friend.”

 

Based on the experience of meeting the first two, he felt the possibility of this “Close Friend”—who had been elusive ever since he woke up—being his Dao companion was extremely high. He planned to find a time to meet this friend.

 

“By the way, Miss Dongfang, which one is this ‘Close Friend’ you speak of?”

 

It wasn’t that Fu Guzhou was being nitpicky; it was just that he had friends all over the world, so he had to ask clearly.

 

Dongfang Shuhan seemed very surprised that Immortal Venerable Qingchen would ask such a question, but she still answered honestly: “Immortal Venerable Yuxue, Xiao Jingyu.”

 

Xiao Jingyu!

 

Fu Guzhou, who had been calm just a moment ago with the mindset of ‘as long as I’m not panicking, any question I ask isn’t a problem’, saw his expression change slightly.

 

The moment he heard that name, he almost completely wiped out the possibility of his friend being his Dao companion.

 

Simply because, in Fu Guzhou’s current limited memory, this friend was indeed a friend—but not just any friend. He could also be called the greatest frenemy of his life.