When I Mistook My Arch-Rival for My Dao Companion - Chapter 22

Chapter 22

That is a good question.

Under the gaze of the other, Fu Guzhou hesitated for only a second before honestly taking out the pills.

It was truly because Wenren Qian was severely injured; it felt as though if things got any worse, the man would die.

Reason kept telling him that this was merely an illusion, something unearthed from his deep memories, but the Wenren Qian before his eyes was far too much like the one in reality. Fu Guzhou found it hard to abandon such a Wenren Qian, as if a voice in his heart was constantly urging him: Hurry and help him; as long as you help him, he will surely have a good impression of you.

It was as if he would regret it if he didn’t help.

Fu Guzhou didn’t know where this feeling came from, but he followed his instinct nonetheless.

When Fu Guzhou took out the pills, Wenren Qian’s expression finally changed, his gaze becoming very strange.

If one had to describe it, Fu Guzhou would automatically interpret it as the look a rich man gives a poor man.

Fu Guzhou almost wanted to kneel. He had long heard that demon cultivators were generally very wealthy; could it be true?

Fortunately, Wenren Qian’s surprised gaze was brief. He only looked at Fu Guzhou for two more beats before asking, “Why did you come back?”

“To give you a bottle of pills,” Fu Guzhou copied his previous answer.

“But such low-quality pills would likely fail to have any effect. Brat, you might as well generously admit that you regret it.”

Fu Guzhou grew a bit anxious. Disregarding whether his behavior differed too much from what the other had just seen, he said with utmost sincerity, “I don’t regret it. I just don’t want you to die.”

“This Seat is a demon, and you are a human. Why would you not want This Seat to die?”

Silence. A long silence.

Just as the other was about to twitch the corner of his mouth into a cold sneer, Fu Guzhou finally squeezed out an answer: “Because you are good-looking.”

Now it was Wenren Qian’s turn to fall silent.

Fu Guzhou had answered quite smoothly, but when he saw Wenren Qian staring at him with that bizarre gaze, he nearly died of shame. It felt as if he had done something incredibly inconceivable. Was that sentence really so abrupt?

Fu Guzhou thought about it carefully. Fine, it was indeed very abrupt.

Fu Guzhou, unable to maintain his high-and-mighty persona, gave up the struggle. He channeled spiritual energy through his fingertips to stop the bleeding of the other’s wounds and fed his best few pills into the man’s mouth.

Wenren Qian originally wanted to refuse, but fortunately, he was severely injured and his previous illusion technique had exhausted his meager remaining demonic power. Thus, despite his resistance, he was still fed the pills by Fu Guzhou. The only fly in the ointment was that Fu Guzhou’s hand was bitten. The powerful bite force almost caused three liters of blood to spray from Fu Guzhou’s hand.

Actually, the body had already used essence blood twice earlier, so there wasn’t even that much blood left.

But the pain was very real. This dull ache was not at all inferior to a wound from a sharp blade.

Internally, Fu Guzhou was screaming in pain, but outwardly he remained expressionless as he helped the man up from the ground and placed him on his back.

Terrified that the man would bite his neck again, he hurriedly said: “Calm down a bit. I truly have no ill will toward you. Right now I’m just taking you to find my friend. Hey, hey, don’t move around! My friend’s strength is even inferior to mine, but his family is quite wealthy. He should have better pills to give you, and he knows a bit of medicine too. Don’t move, okay? If you keep moving, I’m going to get angry. I’m really going to get angry.”

He said he was going to be angry, but his clear voice lacked any conviction. Instead, it sounded like a tiny kitten’s mewl. Wenren Qian couldn’t help but let out a chuckle.

At this moment, his attitude was completely different from before, when he had seemingly wanted nothing more than to kill Fu Guzhou immediately. He spoke in a nearly teasing tone: “Could it be that there are two souls inside your body?”

“…… How can you tell?”

“It’s simple, really. Two meetings, two different feelings. If I had to name the biggest difference, it would be the eyes. Before, your eyes were full of cold desolation. Afterward, while they couldn’t be called full of vitality, they could be considered ‘ashes reignited’ compared to before.”

Fu Guzhou’s fingers trembled slightly, and the hands supporting the man almost let go. Wasn’t his Dao companion about to die? Didn’t he only have one breath left? How could he still notice so many things? How could he play like this?

But there seemed to be no way to explain it away. With two different attitudes and two different demeanors, if he wanted to force an explanation, he could only explain it as having an illness; otherwise, no matter what he said, it would only make people more suspicious of his ulterior motives.

After pondering for a long time, Fu Guzhou painfully chose to accept this blame: “Then you can just assume there are two souls in my body.”

Sure enough, the other successfully accepted this answer and didn’t ask further. Just as Fu Guzhou was happy that Wenren Qian had stopped questioning him, in the next second, Wenren Qian’s head slumped onto his neck and stopped moving. This scared Fu Guzhou half to death; he hurriedly set the man down and checked his pulse. Fortunately, the breathing and pulse were still there; it seemed he had simply lost consciousness due to physical exhaustion.

After a flurry of chaos, Fu Guzhou let out a heavy sigh of relief. He put the man back on his back, his steps becoming steadier, while his mind grew curious.

This situation was strange. Earlier, when he encountered Wenren Qian in the mist, he was able to draw his sword and resolve the fake Wenren Qian without hesitation once he knew it was a fake. Even against his long-unseen Master and his life-and-death friend, he could strike decisively. Why was it that this time, after being forced to watch a segment of past memory, he changed his approach and even thought of helping the other? Could this be a sign that the miasma had invaded deeper into his body? Or was it that the sight of the injured Wenren Qian stimulated him, making him want to heal the other quickly?

Even though Fu Guzhou was extremely puzzled by his own behavior, he didn’t just dump Wenren Qian right then and there.

The body Fu Guzhou was currently using was already somewhat weak due to previous blood loss; now, with another person on his back, his steps were even more unsteady. Yet Fu Guzhou worked hard to make every step firm. During this process, he felt his heart rate constantly accelerating due to the lack of blood, thumping so loudly it was somewhat distracting.

Li Chengyuan was waiting for him two mountains away. The Fu Guzhou who could have reached the battlefield in an instant before found it much harder to return.

Every step was difficult, yet he persevered, unaware that the person on his back whom he thought was unconscious had long since opened his eyes.

Wenren Qian was awake. Or rather, after Fu Guzhou’s first departure, he had slowly regained control of his body. Before he could heal himself, Fu Guzhou had already returned.

This was a memory that hadn’t existed before. In his original memory, shortly after Fu Guzhou left, a crane had arrived carrying a bottle of pills from the Tianji Pavilion.

But now it had changed to Fu Guzhou returning himself. The other’s reactions made Wenren Qian feel even more intrigued because those were not the reactions of the Fu Guzhou in his memory; instead, they were more like the post-amnesia Fu Guzhou.

When Fu Guzhou was distressed because he couldn’t produce decent pills, this feeling reached its peak, because that cold Immortal Venerable would never show an embarrassed expression over such a thing.

This led to Wenren Qian’s subsequent probing. Even the so-called “unconscious state” was just a form of testing. Yet Fu Guzhou actually carried him step by step toward the friend he had mentioned.

Strange. Truly too strange.

Wenren Qian was even willing to treat the Fu Guzhou before him as the amnesiac Fu Guzhou rather than an illusion created by the miasma.

Precisely because of this, it proved even more that he had been entangled by the miasma to a deeper degree. The opponent was constantly siphoning his memories. Of course, there was another possibility: the miasma had intentionally lured the real Fu Guzhou over, wanting to trick them into killing each other.

Carefully sensing the surge of spiritual energy around him, Wenren Qian knew it was time to act.

For Fu Guzhou, the surprise came quickly. The Dao companion who had been quietly resting on his back suddenly struck. To counter this sudden attack, the seemingly defenseless Fu Guzhou unexpectedly parried the blow, as if he had anticipated it all along.

Sword in hand, Fu Guzhou looked coldly at Wenren Qian, who had retreated several meters away after the sudden assault. His gaze seemed to say, “Finally couldn’t hold it back anymore?”

Thus, there is no truly simple person in this world. Although the seventeen-year-old Fu Guzhou would trust those he believed in with all his heart, he could also recognize his situation. For example, being in a miasma meant he would not completely surrender his back to anyone. Wenren Qian’s bite was less Wenren Qian testing Fu Guzhou, and more Fu Guzhou testing Wenren Qian in a roundabout way.

The two were acting against each other.

Wenren Qian gave a cold laugh. “A mere illusion, yet you act the part quite well.”

Fu Guzhou, standing with his sword, was slightly stunned. He called out tentatively: “Dao companion?”

Wenren Qian ignored the “Dao companion” comment. The man who had looked like he was about to kick the bucket earlier was now full of vigor as he drew his bone sword, attacking Fu Guzhou again with lightning speed.

Fu Guzhou was a bit bewildered and, for a moment, wasn’t quite sure if the person before him was truly his Dao companion.

Cold light flashed. Fu Guzhou was shaken several steps back, nearly unable to withstand that sword strike.

Fu Guzhou’s eyes widened slightly as he felt the power the other displayed—it was inconceivable. Why was the other able to use strength completely exceeding the Nascent Soul stage?

After taking several more attacks, Fu Guzhou quickly realized: since this place was an illusion, could his own strength also be free from the suppression of Wujian?

By letting go of his self-perception, his cultivation actually returned to the level before it was suppressed by Wujian. Fu Guzhou, who had been annoyed by being constantly dragged into different illusions, suddenly exploded with intense interest in this place.

However, if this place could return his cultivation to the Exalted stage, could it allow him to achieve his previous hypothesis?

A flash of inspiration hit Fu Guzhou’s mind. Before he could think further, Wenren Qian’s fierce attacks continued to rain down upon him.

At the very beginning, Fu Guzhou had indeed treated the other as a complete illusion, but he quickly ruled that out.

Simply because the “heart-racing” feeling was back.

The heart-racing feeling, simply put, was that Fu Guzhou’s heart would inexplicably beat faster when facing Wenren Qian, as if there were some resonance between them. When they were close, this feeling was particularly obvious and made Fu Guzhou extremely want to be near Wenren Qian. In this illusion, after Fu Guzhou gained control of the body, his heart had initially begun beating faster. Fu Guzhou had thought it was a physical reaction to severe blood loss, but thinking carefully, this feeling was exactly the same as when he saw Wenren Qian before.

Once he figured everything out, Fu Guzhou became happy in an instant. Looking at Wenren Qian, he gave a crisp shout: “Dao companion, I’m the real one!”

Wenren Qian: “……”

He had miscalculated. Of all his calculations, he had never considered that Fu Guzhou would actually recognize him.

However, given the current scene, continuing the act was impossible. He could only give Fu Guzhou a meaningful look, hoping that the other’s somewhat clever little brain could understand his meaning.

Fu Guzhou clearly didn’t receive the meaning; he tilted his head.

But Fu Guzhou was very seriously trying to understand Wenren Qian’s meaning—so seriously that the sword was practically at his face and he didn’t even move.

Finally, Fu Guzhou had a sudden realization and hurriedly parried the sword, changing his wording: “Husband, I’m really the real one!”

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