When I Mistook My Arch-Rival for My Dao Companion - Chapter 6

Chapter 6

“Wait a moment.” Before Wenren Qian could fully commit to his move, Fu Guzhou interrupted him in advance.

“Oh? Do you perhaps have last words to leave behind?”

“I can explain about this sword.”

However, there was no opportunity for an explanation. Just as Wenren Qian was about to move to kill Fu Guzhou, a strange change occurred in this place.

In an instant, the mountains and rocks collapsed, and the colors of heaven and earth shifted.

As soon as this anomaly appeared, Wenren Qian’s hand movements paused slightly. He wasn’t even in a rush to strike at his former arch-enemy, Fu Guzhou, but instead turned his cold, condensed gaze toward another direction.

The smoke dissipated, revealing a black mass of demons that seemed to have no end. These demons were clearly coming for him.

Fu Guzhou, whose vitals were being forcibly held and whose spiritual power was suppressed, felt his pupils shrink in disbelief.

Demons—countless demons.

Cultivators all possess divine sense to investigate external objects. For such a large group of demons to gather here, no matter how much Fu Guzhou’s strength differed from before his amnesia, he shouldn’t have been completely unable to sense them. Such a situation could only mean one thing: these fellows truly appeared out of thin air.

The only thing that could explain the current situation was a teleportation array. But how could a teleportation array exist silently at Wuying Mountain, where the Demon Venerable Wenren Qian was sealed? Thinking deeply about this was terrifying.

Surrounded by the crowd of demons, Wenren Qian casually brushed away the malicious demonic energy around him and said nonchalantly, “Demon Emperor Xuanyin, I didn’t expect to meet an old acquaintance so soon.”

He said he didn’t expect it, but looking at Wenren Qian’s indifferent demeanor, it was more like he had anticipated it long ago.

The feminine man at the lead, whose skeletal frame was visible, laughed loudly. “Easy to say, easy to say. Hearing that Brother Wenren could emerge from the seal today, we specifically came to visit.”

Wenren Qian lifted his head slightly, looked around, and let out a cold sneer. “Specifically came to seek death?”

Demon Emperor Xuanyin, who had been laughing heartily, saw his expression change. A fierce roar suddenly erupted from his tall, thin, bamboo-like body, booming into the ears like thunder.

This sonic attack directly caused many people present to see stars and bleed from their seven orifices; large numbers of people and demons alike collapsed.

The wrath of a Demon Emperor was not to be underestimated, but to think such a method alone could wound Wenren Qian was to look down on him too much. Therefore, this thing was certainly not just meant to deal with Wenren Qian.

As a half-bystander, Fu Guzhou was still wondering what the opponent’s purpose was. After all, after this sonic attack, although eighty percent of the righteous path side had fallen, even more of the demon race had fallen. This strike by Demon Emperor Xuanyin was practically “wounding the enemy eight hundred while losing three thousand of his own.” What kind of demon would do something so detrimental to both others and himself?

After seeing the blood of the dead flowing into the ground in a very eerie manner, Fu Guzhou immediately realized something was wrong.

Clearly, the opponent was not intending to use sound to deal with Wenren Qian, but was using the sonic attack to summon the grand array he had long buried here.

The blood of the dead had just flowed into the ground when, in the next breath, a terrifying spatial force pressed down violently from the void. It nearly made Fu Guzhou unable to breathe. At the same time, the astral winds that were supposed to have died out suddenly surged again, and their primary target was Wenren Qian.

Fu Guzhou looked in disbelief at the astral winds that should have belonged to him. That wasn’t all; as the astral winds rose, the silver chains that were originally supported by his power also rose up once more.

Where did this thief come from? It turns out these days people don’t just steal techniques and pills, they even steal people’s power!

Fu Guzhou ground his molars.

Fu Guzhou, who hadn’t truly experienced life and death, didn’t take this too seriously at first. Not until he saw a wisp of his astral wind turn black, and the baleful aura within this grand array began to gather continuously, did the expression on Fu Guzhou’s face finally change.

Yin-baleful energy.

Opening his divine sense to the maximum and using his soul to sense the grand array, Fu Guzhou’s face was taut.

Such methods!

It seemed they were in danger.

In Fu Guzhou’s memory, he didn’t have any great achievements in his cultivation level; he wasn’t considered a top-tier genius. The only things he could show off were his sword techniques and his understanding of various ancient arts after being forced to read extensively.

If he wasn’t mistaken, this was clearly a localized and extremely venomous array from ancient times—the “Nine-Cycle Yin-Baleful Array.” It involved using secret methods and borrowing the power of heaven and earth’s spiritual veins to refine for eighty-nine years, causing the local spiritual energy to become chaotic, and then using a blood sacrifice of ten thousand people to open the ancient killing array.

In ancient times, there was an array that used Yin to nourish Yin, and then used the blood sacrifice of tens of thousands of living beings to draw in baleful energy. When the twin baleful energies of heaven and earth moved together, then except for the array core, there would be no survivors in this array!

Never mind Wenren Qian—even he and this group of righteous path people were all going to fall here.

Perhaps even the arrival of this group of people was within Demon Emperor Xuanyin’s calculations.

Wenren Qian was also aware of this array. His eyes narrowed slightly as he spat out the answer, “Nine-Cycle Yin-Baleful Array.”

Demon Emperor Xuanyin was clearly extremely satisfied with the scene before him. He threw his head back and laughed, asking, “Wenren Qian, can you still say those words to this Emperor now?”

The corner of Wenren Qian’s mouth twitched slightly. “Why couldn’t I? A dignified Demon Emperor only has such methods.”

These words clearly enraged the sensitive Demon Emperor Xuanyin once again. The rotation speed of the grand array they were in became even faster.

The long-silent Fu Guzhou couldn’t help but say in his heart that his Dao companion certainly knew how to piss people off.

At this time, baleful energy had already gathered in the field. The astral winds Fu Guzhou had used to seal Wenren Qian had also changed from a pale green to black. Wisps of black astral wind roamed recklessly within the array. This was also why the seal had collapsed so quickly—because someone had stolen it. One could say the seal for which Fu Guzhou had even sacrificed his life-bond spiritual sword had ultimately become a “wedding dress” for someone else.

Regarding the scene before him, Wenren Qian only gave a cold laugh, as if he were watching a play, with no awareness of being in it himself.

The only result of this action was that Demon Emperor Xuanyin became even angrier. He was already as thin as a skeleton, this anger made his white bones even more apparent.

He let out a sharp cry and urged his entire demonic power. The array was forced to speed up its completion. Likewise, the rapid completion of the array caused his control over it to reach a point of near-zero.

When everything that was supposed to be there was present, the Nine-Cycle Yin-Baleful Array was completely formed.

Wenren Qian formed a claw with his five fingers and crushed a black astral wind that attacked him with one hand. The astral wind turned into nothingness in his hand in an instant.

However, a baleful aura composed of tens of thousands of blood sacrifices and refined for over eighty years was no joke.

Wenren Qian was proficient in fire-system spells and had a thunder-fire bloodline himself. He should have been the person who most suppressed this kind of dark and sinister power. But just as water overcomes fire, if the fire is great enough, it can also overcome water. When this Yin-baleful power was strong enough, it was also the thing that most countered Wenren Qian.

Before Wenren Qian could strike again, sword-light flashed. In a brief instant, a succession of eighteen strikes completely cleared the gathering astral winds around Wenren Qian.

Wenren Qian looked with an odd gaze at Fu Guzhou, whose wrist he was still holding.

He hadn’t heard that Immortal Venerable Qingchen’s left-handed sword was also good.

Even Demon Emperor Xuanyin took an extra look at Fu Guzhou, who was dressed in a simple snow-colored long robe with a face like cold jade. This sword cultivator, known as the number one combatant of both the righteous and demonic paths in the cultivation world, was indeed formidable; otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to seal Wenren Qian. However, in his Nine-Cycle Yin-Baleful Array, he could only meet the fate of an early demise.

Once the Nine-Cycle Yin-Baleful Array was opened, there would be no survivors.

A polite smile appeared on Demon Emperor Xuanyin’s face. “Immortal Venerable Qingchen’s sword is quite interesting. This Emperor had no intention of being enemies with the Immortal Venerable or the Xiaoyao Sword Sect behind him. Why doesn’t the Immortal Venerable beg this Emperor? For the sake of the Southern Emperor, it is not impossible to give the Immortal Venerable a way out.”

Fu Guzhou remained unmoved. Isn’t this just coaxing a child? Everyone knew that once the Nine-Cycle Yin-Baleful Array was opened, there was no way to interrupt it.

“Your Majesty is, after all, a Demon Emperor of a generation. Such sinister methods will likely make you a laughingstock.”

“How could that be, Immortal Venerable? Since ancient times, the winner takes all.”

Fu Guzhou stopped speaking. He knew a bit about the grudge between these two. Wenren Qian had once wounded the Demon Emperor with three strikes, and the Demon Emperor who had built Wenren Qian’s illustrious reputation was the very Demon Emperor Xuanyin before him. It was said that because of this, Demon Emperor Xuanyin had been unable to hold his head up before the other three Demon Emperors. The opponent absolutely hated Wenren Qian to the core. This Nine-Cycle Yin-Baleful Array had likely been brewing since Fu Guzhou first sealed Wenren Qian. How could he possibly risk the possibility of a backlash to let them out just because of a few words?

There was no chance of getting through to Demon Emperor Xuanyin. But trying to find a way out within a killing array was probably harder than finding a bone in an egg.

Fu Guzhou, who only had his first seventeen years of memory after his amnesia, had recently been “driven like a duck onto a perch” to suppress the Demon Venerable Wenren Qian. Who would have thought that instead of suppressing the so-called demon head, he was about to “die for love” with his underground Dao companion?

Yes, die for love.

This ancient array hadn’t been used for many years. It wasn’t impossible to find a loophole, but the one who had locked his Dao companion in Wuying Mountain before was him. Regardless of the reason they had ended up like this before, Wenren Qian definitely truly wanted to kill him now. His situation could be described as having both internal troubles and external threats.

Facts proved that his judgment was correct.

After confirming that the outside world could no longer cause any interference to their interior, the hand Wenren Qian used to hold Fu Guzhou tightened slightly.

He had just developed murderous intent when Fu Guzhou, on the other side, delivered the sword in his hand before Wenren Qian.

Faced with such an honest action, Wenren Qian actually saw a trace of harmlessness on that clear and handsome face.

“What is the Immortal Venerable doing?” Wenren Qian laughed teasingly, yet the strength in his hand didn’t loosen in the slightest.

With this grip strength, if Fu Guzhou were still using his original body, he feared his hand bones would have shattered.

“Surrendering.” Fu Guzhou said as briefly as possible to avoid making a gasping sound.

“Surrendering?” Wenren Qian let out a sneer, looking at the other with an inquiring gaze. “Immortal Venerable, you are very unusual today.”

That gaze could even be called gentle, though unfortunately, the more direct murderous intent hadn’t receded. This kind of gentleness from Wenren Qian was more like the peace of mind that comes from knowing the other couldn’t escape.

Being looked at like this by a Dao companion he had somehow had a falling out with, Fu Guzhou was a bit nervous. Okay, not just nervous—he was clearly so nervous he was nearly at a loss. That feeling of his soul trembling hadn’t disappeared since they met.

This feeling of his heart fluttering every single second made Fu Guzhou’s brain stop thinking. It took him a long time to prepare before he choked out a sentence: “The Demon Venerable overthinks.”

“Fine, then we’ll treat it as this Venerable overthinking. Then why is the Immortal Venerable surrendering?”

“…Cooperation.”

“Cooperating with this Venerable?” Wenren Qian, who casually dealt with the surrounding baleful energy again, sounded like he had heard something very funny. “If I recall correctly, the reason this Venerable ended up in such a state was largely due to the Immortal Venerable’s help.”

These sarcastic words made Fu Guzhou feel so ashamed.

He thought seriously for a long time before deciding to speak in a businesslike manner: “In the current situation, I am indeed the only one the Demon Venerable can trust. We can either continue to fight to the death and then both die here together, or we can cooperate and plot a way out together. I am the most suitable partner for the Demon Venerable in this grand array. I have done “a little bit” of research on this Nine-Cycle Yin-Baleful Array before.”

If Fu Guzhou said he had “a little bit” of research, it certainly wasn’t just a little.

Wenren Qian’s eyes narrowed slightly, his gaze looking recklessly into Fu Guzhou’s eyes to see if there was even a shred of guilt.

Fu Guzhou, who had lived for over ten years without even holding a girl’s hand, felt extremely uncomfortable being stared at. That sense of soul-tethering became even stronger—so strong that Fu Guzhou’s body subconsciously wanted to get closer to the person. What kind of damned muscle memory was this?

While despising the muscle memory and his own behavior of wanting to “stick close” to his Dao companion upon seeing him, Fu Guzhou avoided the gaze that almost saw through his soul.

However, this happened to reveal his ears, which had unconsciously turned red against his fair skin.

Everyone in the cultivation world could say Immortal Venerable Qingchen was cold and detached, but everyone had to admit that he possessed a fine appearance rare even in the cultivation world. This touch of vivid color on the face of a person who was usually as cold as ice had a greater impact than even a peerless beauty selling smiles.

Wenren Qian looked away, his demonic power strengthening. After completely isolating the external baleful energy, he said, “Since the Immortal Venerable wants to cooperate, you likely understand sincerity. If the Immortal Venerable is truly sincere, why don’t you explain why you are so strange today? Is it possession, or do you want to use this to lower this Venerable’s guard and then settle things once and for all?”

“No, no, no, I definitely have no intention of deceiving you. It’s just that a small problem has appeared in my body.”

“A small problem?” Wenren Qian narrowed his eyes in scrutiny. “What kind of small problem?”

“For example, I forgot a few things.”

“Are you trying to say you have amnesia?”

“Sort of, but not entirely. I still remember many things—for example, the relationship between you and me.” Fu Guzhou first gave his Dao companion a “tranquilizer.”

Wenren Qian laughed.

Faking amnesia.

One had to say the opponent was very successful; Wenren Qian nearly truly believed him. Unfortunately, it was full of loopholes. If Fu Guzhou truly had amnesia, Gongsun Chen, the “Ghost-Hand Divine Diviner,” wouldn’t have let him take this trip.

Fu Guzhou himself felt this was very unreliable, and asked uncertainly, “Do you believe me?”

Wenren Qian nodded. “I believe you.”

Fu Guzhou: “!”

What kind of heaven-moving, earth-shaking Dao companion love is this!

He had sealed the other party here for five hundred years, yet the other party was only a little angry and was even willing to believe his words. With such a good Dao companion, how did he manage to do the scoundrel’s deed of sealing him away?

Although they weren’t yet familiar, Fu Guzhou felt his favorability toward his Dao companion rising sharply.

Facing the other’s touched gaze, Wenren Qian was silent for a moment. “It seems something really is wrong with your brain.”

Otherwise, why would this cold and detached guy, who wasn’t practicing the “Path of Heartlessness” but was better at it than those who did, smile at him for no reason, blush because of his gaze, and even reveal such an overly simple look? It was too strange—so strange that Wenren Qian was more inclined to believe he had been possessed.

“Something is wrong with your brain”—Fu Guzhou didn’t like hearing those words, but his situation did have a certain similarity to something being wrong with his brain.

Fu Guzhou endured it and still corrected him, “It’s amnesia.”

“Oh, amnesia.”

Knowing that their urgent priority was to deal with the Nine-Cycle Yin-Baleful Array, Fu Guzhou didn’t dwell too much on this matter. “It’s a long story, I will explain the specifics to you later. Right now, our first consideration should be how to escape from this Nine-Cycle Yin-Baleful Array.”

Wenren Qian caught the oddness in Fu Guzhou’s attitude toward him, but the current situation was more pressing. He didn’t look into it deeply but followed the other’s words, “I’m all ears.”

It was true that Fu Guzhou had researched this Nine-Cycle Yin-Baleful Array, but back then he had only skimmed the surface, researching it just a little. He didn’t know if he could actually help the two of them.

Every array has an array core; the core is often the way out. But the core of this killing array cannot be easily touched—especially with such an ancient and miraculous array. According to Fu Guzhou’s previous research, there was only one other method besides the array core, though that method was not exactly an optimal solution.

There were two methods in total. After roughly analyzing the situation, Fu Guzhou inquired, “Dao companion, what do you think we should do now?”

Because he was so shocked, the hand Wenren Qian used to hold Fu Guzhou increased its pressure once again, but his voice was airy as he spoke, “What did you say?”

The words were airy, but the heart wanting to kill someone couldn’t be hidden no matter what.

“Can’t I call you Dao companion?”

Ah, right. Fu Guzhou realized late—what kind of Dao companion would call their other half Dao companion? It was strange no matter how one looked at it.

He changed the title. “Wife, what do you think?”

The blood-red Bone Sword brushed past Fu Guzhou’s cheek and stabbed into the ground. Wenren Qian let out a cold, soft laugh. “Say that one more time.”

Fu Guzhou: “!”

His Dao companion is so fierce!

Under the other’s gaze that looked ready to eat him alive, Fu Guzhou tentatively called out, “Hus—Husband?”

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