When I Mistook My Arch-Rival for My Dao Companion - Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Pain. It wasn’t just on the skin, every single meridian was screaming with an unbearable, overburdened ache.

It seemed it had been a long time since he had woken up with his entire body hurting like this.

Fu Guzhou jolted awake from the chaos, greeted by the sight of a misty, gray sky.

The blood on his body had already dried, and his wounds were relying on his own innate resilience to recover. It was fine, aside from feeling a bit uncomfortable, everything was alright.

After all, the other party hadn’t taken the opportunity to cut him down while he was unconscious.

Fu Guzhou wasn’t a total fool; he naturally knew his Dao companion held a grudge against him. This act of his was actually a final test to see if Wenren Qian truly was his Dao companion.

If the other party was his Dao companion, then no matter how much resentment they held in their heart, they certainly wouldn’t strike while he was down. If they did move against him, it would serve as a side-proof that they might not be.

For once, Fu Guzhou had been a bit cautious in this matter of finding his Dao companion, leaving himself a contingency plan and even preparing for the possibility of being left in the Nine-Cycle Yin-Baleful Array or being killed outright. As it turned out, he had overthought it; he really had found himself a Dao companion with peerless sword skills.

The moment he regained consciousness, Fu Guzhou began searching for Wenren Qian’s figure.

The Demon Venerable, dressed in dark red robes and possessing a powerful aura, hadn’t left. Instead, he was sitting several meters away, playing with a small snake in his hand.

The pitch-black snake was only as thick as a finger, its fan-shaped head embedded with crimson vertical pupils. Currently, it was coiled around that well-proportioned hand. The pale fingers and the pitch-black snake formed a striking color contrast, making one’s breath hitch slightly; even the snake’s crimson eyes looked like a piece of jewelry on the man’s hand.

Before Fu Guzhou could look for more than a few moments, Wenren Qian’s lazy voice drifted over, “You’re awake.”

“Mm?”

“Your behavior is quite incredible to this Venerable. Fu Guzhou, even if your brain is broken, you should have realized that after being sealed by you for five hundred years—after being pinned to Wuying Mountain by your sword and disturbed daily by your astral winds—this Venerable might just kill you?”

Fu Guzhou’s conscience pricked him with pain. “…I’m sorry.”

If he were facing his Senior Brother or a close friend, he would definitely use the excuse that those were things done by the pre-amnesiac Fu Guzhou, and what did they have to do with the “post-amnesiac” version? But now, thinking that his past self had treated his Dao companion this way, he felt a deep sense of moral unease.

“If apologies were useful, why doesn’t the Immortal Venerable let me stab you a few times first to vent some anger?” Wenren Qian sneered, speaking unhurriedly.

Fu Guzhou gave himself some mental preparation, then said, “Then… can you be a bit gentle?”

“Hmm?”

Fu Guzhou hurriedly fed himself two medicinal pills to slightly suppress the boiling pain in his meridians, then said weakly, “I said, can you be a bit gentler? I’m a little afraid of pain.”

Anyway, his image was already mostly ruined; Fu Guzhou was now giving up entirely.

“Gentle? That’s likely impossible. This Venerable said before, I am fair. I won’t ask for much, just let you experience what I suffered before, but doubled.”

Fu Guzhou thought this was reasonable; he couldn’t just rely on the fact that his Dao companion liked him to let the matter slide easily.

He closed his eyes, looking as though he was ready, even tilting his chin up slightly to signal the other to start.

Wenren Qian stared at Fu Guzhou with a strange gaze.

Having waited for a long time without feeling any pain, Fu Guzhou cautiously opened one eye halfway to look ahead.

He saw that Wenren Qian was still playing with the small snake in his hand, not moving at all.

“Aren’t you going to start?”

“Heh, I’ll start in a moment,” Wenren Qian sneered.

Hearing this, Fu Guzhou felt even more guilty. His Dao companion clearly couldn’t bear to strike him; how could he have had the heart to seal his companion away before?

“Then… can you start a little sooner?” Fu Guzhou voiced his small selfish wish. After all, he was already in a lot of pain; a few more holes wouldn’t matter much now. But if he were to suddenly get stabbed after his wounds healed, that would be the real pain.

Unfortunately, the other party ignored him completely.

“Lord Demon Venerable?”

Still no response from the opposite side.

“…Wenren Qian?” Fu Guzhou called out tentatively again.

He still received no response whatsoever.

Fu Guzhou fell silent for a long time. The surroundings were very quiet, so still that he could only hear the hissing of the small snake.

He let out a soft sigh, breaking the silence. “Wenren Qian, please stop being angry, okay?”

“I know it was my fault. I will make it up to you. If you’re really that angry, just poke a few big holes in my body like you said. You can also use demonic winds to wash over my meridians every day. Actually… I’m not that afraid of pain.”

While saying he wasn’t particularly afraid of pain, Wenren Qian had already caught the slight twitch of his muscles at the mention of the word.

The Demon Venerable chuckled, showing a rare bit of patience. “How do you know this Venerable is angry, and not simply annoyed by you?”

“Because you stopped talking. Are you very angry that I forgot you?”

“Hardly.”

“Is that not it?”

“Naturally not. Because to this Venerable, you have always been an insignificant existence. Therefore, this Venerable naturally wouldn’t be angry over this. Rather, why don’t you tell me what you think our relationship is?”

Wenren Qian’s words made Fu Guzhou’s heart sink slightly, but he still answered honestly, “Dao companions.”

This time, Wenren Qian truly laughed. It wasn’t a sneer or a mocking laugh, but a genuine, hearty laugh. “Although I don’t know what caused you to have such a misunderstanding, the thought of you believing this Venerable is your Dao companion is truly farcical. The Immortal Venerable has always cherished those close to him. If I were truly your Dao companion, do you think you would have sealed me under Wuying Mountain for five centuries?”

Fu Guzhou had already sat up from the ground. At this moment, the pain in his meridians hadn’t subsided in the slightest despite the spirit elixirs, but that pain couldn’t compare to the tremor in his heart. He fell silent, frowning as he looked at Wenren Qian, pondering something. At this moment, the carefree and unrestrained air he had when cleaving the chaos was gone; Wenren Qian actually saw the familiar Immortal Venerable Qingchen in him once more.

“So, what you’re saying is…?”

“This Venerable’s meaning is, naturally, that I am not your Dao companion.”

“Truly?” Fu Guzhou looked directly at Wenren Qian.

The hand Wenren Qian was using to play with the snake paused slightly. He gave an almost gentle smile. “How could I lie to you? Poor Lord Immortal Venerable—after all that effort, not only did you fail to rescue your Dao companion, but you also released a great arch-demon. Now, whatever shall we do?”

But, my feelings can’t be wrong!

That sense of closeness, that erratic heartbeat—could it really be that they weren’t Dao companions?

How was that possible?

Fu Guzhou quickly thought of a possibility: the other party was being sarcastic. Instantly, Fu Guzhou felt even more self-reproach.

“Wenren Qian.”

“Oh?”

“I know I was wrong.”

Wenren Qian looked at Fu Guzhou with some surprise. Right now, Fu Guzhou’s eyes were slightly red, making him look a bit like a child who had been wronged.

Wenren Qian didn’t answer his statement but instead asked, “Are you going to cry?”

“No!”

Fu Guzhou really didn’t intend to cry. He was just overwhelmed with guilt. His pre-amnesiac self was truly a scoundrel—not only sealing away his powerful Dao companion but also using astral winds to keep him from peace. Now, he’d done it: his companion was angry, his companion didn’t want to be with him anymore, and he was about to lose his Dao companion!

One second he was a winner at life with a spouse, and the next second he had ruined everything.

He felt quite miserable, but wasn’t Wenren Qian, who had been treated that way by him, even more miserable?

Fu Guzhou was so full of self-reproach that he felt too embarrassed to keep pursuing the man. Then, he saw the person who was several meters away suddenly approach him step by step.

Fu Guzhou’s heart leaped into his throat. Not only was the man done with him, but he was going to add those holes to his body before leaving.

Now he would have a broken heart and a body full of extra pain.

Fu Guzhou quickly prepared himself mentally, quietly gritting his teeth so he wouldn’t accidentally cry out if it hurt too much.

However, in the next second, a slender hand gently brushed something from the corner of his lip.

That crimson color… it was blood.

After wiping away the sticky moisture, a flame instantly appeared in Wenren Qian’s hand, cleaning the blood away. “The Nine-Cycle Yin-Baleful Array is indeed not simple.”

Then, he tilted Fu Guzhou’s head up and scrutinized him carefully, as if trying to discern who exactly was beneath this shell.

Fu Guzhou was stunned by the action, blinking slightly. “Aren’t you here to put holes in me?”

“Probably not.”

Fu Guzhou: “…” What do you mean ‘probably’?

“Fu Guzhou, do you truly remember nothing at all?”

“I remember. There’s no problem at all with my earlier memories.” Fu Guzhou said with full confidence.

“Roughly how many years?”

“…” The man who was full of confidence just now immediately deflated.

Seeing Fu Guzhou didn’t answer, Wenren Qian raised an eyebrow. “What? You don’t even remember that?”

“…Se-Seventeen years!” Fu Guzhou said in grief and indignation. How can someone just ask a person’s age like that?

“Fine. This Venerable is your Dao companion.”

Fu Guzhou: “?”

“You see, even you don’t believe it yourself, so how could—”

Wenren Qian’s words came to an abrupt halt because Fu Guzhou suddenly leaned in, his handsome face nuzzling against him affectionately as he called out joyfully: “I knew you were!”

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