EHRPS CH198

As soon as the name “Tu Tianba” was mentioned, Nie Wuhui’s expression changed instantly.

Unaware of the inside story, Xu Que assumed he was frowning at the demonic cultivator’s cruel habit of casually annihilating entire sects. Remembering that Immortal Lord Wuhui had been in secluded cultivation for three hundred years and might not know who Tu Tianba was, he hurriedly elaborated:

“This person is a cultivator who rose to prominence over the last three hundred years. He is eccentric and bloodthirsty, with unfathomable cultivation, never concealing the chilling demonic qi that surrounds him…”

The more Nie Wuhui listened, the tighter his brows knitted.

He wasn’t in a hurry to refute or explain anything. Instead, his first reaction was to turn his head to look at the youth beside him, only to find the other casually playing with his fingers, as if he hadn’t heard a single word.

Noticing his gaze falling upon him, the youth’s expression became even more serene and unbothered, yet the hand hidden beneath the table curled into a fist, leaving only an index finger to poke around in Nie Wuhui’s palm.

Nie Wuhui: “…”

Nie Wuhui cast a swift glance at Xu Que sitting across the table. Even though the man was completely oblivious, a faint sense of unnaturalness arose in his heart.

It’s one thing to do this in private, but acting up in front of others?

Moreover, had this person not heard the name Xu Que just mentioned? Clearly, someone else was committing evil acts and pushing the blame entirely onto him…

A few breaths later.

Tu Tianba showed no signs of stopping. He even flipped his wrist, bringing his index and middle fingers together, placing them both into the man’s palm. Like searching for some treasure in the dark, he pressed around in his palm.

The force was very light.

Suddenly, Nie Wuhui felt a heavy press in the center of his palm from the youth. He inexplicably swallowed dryly, his breathing catching as numerous scenes from the past three years flashed through his mind…

Nie Wuhui truly felt helpless.

He had persistently urged the youth to dual cultivate, and although this person cooperated physically, he frequently complained verbally.

Strangely enough, even though they had reached the pinnacle of intimacy, the youth especially liked making some… somewhat embarrassing little gestures during non-dual cultivation moments.

Nie Wuhui had also taught him that this was inappropriate.

However, each time the youth nodded in agreement, he would continue his mischievous behavior the next time, blatantly displaying a double standard, acting as if his nature was difficult to change.

Nie Wuhui endured it, but ultimately couldn’t hold back anymore and gave the back of the youth’s misbehaving hand a slap.

Subsequently, he took a deep breath and used the communication artifact to say seriously: “…Stop messing around for now. Fellow Daoist Xu is talking about a very important matter, settle down.”

Tu Tianba glanced at his slapped, reddened hand, sat up straight with a stern face, and then suddenly felt the man’s thumb gently rub the back of his hand twice. The downward turn of his lips quickly curled into a fleeting smile.

He settled down.

It was just a bit boring.

After all, he had absolutely no interest in whatever was happening between the righteous and demonic paths. He only wanted this chatterbox of an old man to quickly leave his little river valley so he could continue living in seclusion and dual cultivating with his Dao Companion.

What a beautiful thing that would be.

Right at this moment.

A certain inner demon, who had been silent for months, suddenly spoke up, its distinctively textured voice fluctuating in tone: “Holy crap! Host, stop fooling around…! This is a major event!”

“This segment absolutely wasn’t in the original novel! Moreover, the reality is—Host has been diligently dual cultivating, where would you find the free time to annihilate the Xuanxu Sect?! Who is framing the Host?!”

Tu Tianba replied nonchalantly:

“Exactly, where would I find the free time?”

After saying that, he added,

“Eh? You’re still here?”

Having dual cultivated with the man for three years, the voices of slaughter in Tu Tianba’s ears had receded significantly, leaving him feeling utterly refreshed and clear-headed.

The mission reward mentioned by the clever inner demon had gradually lost its appeal. Instead, it made Tu Tianba increasingly resistant to the man recovering his memories, unwilling to complete the mission.

After the clever inner demon asked a few times and received Tu Tianba’s firm answers, it said some ominous words:

“Alright, but based on this system’s experience, a main plot point like the protagonist recovering his memory can almost be called ‘fate’ or ‘heaven’s will’.”

“How does the saying go?”

“…Heaven’s will cannot be defied.”

After saying that, it fell silent, rarely chattering in Tu Tianba’s ear anymore.

Immersed in dual cultivation, Tu Tianba completely forgot about its existence.

Inside the system space.

The white orb, perennially blocked by mosaic pixels, crouched in front of the light screen, staring at the host’s calm, round little face—it wasn’t as round as before; the baby fat on his cheeks had receded, making his features clearer and sharper, his eyes bright…

N001 stared for a while, then asked very curiously:

“Host, why aren’t you angry? This Xu Que was spreading rumors about you before, and now he’s speaking ill of you. Logically, shouldn’t you be sharpening your knife by now?”

Instead of being busy acting like a hooligan right now, as if completely disregarding the fact that he was being framed.

Having been slapped but then coaxed happy by the man, Tu Tianba let out an “ah” and replied: “But I’m Doctor Tu right now; what does it have to do with me?”

Honestly speaking, in the past, he definitely would have flown into a rage.

It was just that now Tu Tianba’s ears were much quieter, and he was accompanied by a gentle, beautiful Dao Companion who showed no signs of recovering his memory.

Wasn’t this a happy ending for everyone?

The white orb fell silent for a moment, realizing that the lunatic host felt absolutely no sense of belonging to the identity of ‘Tu Tianba’, but was increasingly addicted to the persona of the ‘lecherous little medical cultivator’…

He truly didn’t want to do the mission, didn’t want his role to end.

He also truly didn’t care about the person ‘Tu Tianba’.

If the white orb had a siren on its head, it would probably be flashing red light, screeching loudly, ‘Mission—Major Crisis—’

If the mission failed, there would be no points, and the system would be automatically teleported back to the Space-Time Bureau, and then it would truly be done for.

The three-year deadline had arrived, and variables were right in front of them.

How could they remain stagnant!

N001 thought about the total amount of time it had been blocked over these three years, feeling that the host and the protagonist must have developed some genuine feelings by now, and immediately made a decision—

It was time to push the progress bar of the final mission!

Therefore, N001 used a modulated, dramatic tone in an attempt to awaken the lunatic host’s anger:

“Host, but your happiness isn’t real! Doctor Tu is merely your protective coloring! Tu Tianba is you, and you are Tu Tianba! Right now, someone is causing trouble in the Host’s name. The Host is about to fall into a predicament where everyone you care about betrays you, and the whole world turns against you. Hurry up and do something for yourself…!”

Tu Tianba: “?”

Has this inner demon gone crazy from holding it in?

He asked back curiously: “When I was the Demon Lord before, wasn’t I already in a situation where everyone betrayed me and the whole world was my enemy?”

Oh, well, not quite.

It seemed he didn’t meet the conditions for “everyone you care about betrays you”.

After all, those demonic cultivators only gathered around him for their own selfish desires and benefits, never truly swearing allegiance, so where would betrayal come from?

Throughout the entire Heaven Slaughtering Sect, from him, the Demon Lord, down to the group of demonic cultivators, not a single person took it seriously.

Tu Tianba himself merely viewed it as a nice-sounding toy, tossing it to the back of his mind most of the time.

Those demonic cultivators wouldn’t dare act under his or the Heaven Slaughtering Sect’s name either, as few people were truly unafraid of death.

—Tu Tianba’s slap would teach them a lesson in being human.

Meaning, reincarnating and starting a new life as a human.

As for family, he had none.

Tu Tianba, feeling clever, calculated the situation: “The inner demon is truly dense. When I was still Tu Tianba, I was troubled all day by the demonic voices in the Soul-Refining Cauldron, surrounded by demonic cultivators harboring their own agendas, and the righteous path couldn’t tolerate me either…”

Another point was that Tu Tianba became a demonic cultivator out of helplessness. Tracing back to the root, he hadn’t even willingly chosen the path of cultivation in the first place, and had also been one of the sentient beings tormented by demonic cultivators.

Because of this, he disliked demonic cultivators and despised their contemptuous attitude of treating mortals like grass, casually deciding life and death.

Speaking of which, the number of demonic cultivators who died by Tu Tianba’s hands was no less than those killed by righteous cultivators eradicating demons and protecting the Dao.

The ultimate result was that “Tu Tianba” couldn’t be a pure demonic cultivator, nor could he be accepted by the righteous path; calling the whole world his enemy wouldn’t be an exaggeration.

But “Doctor Tu” was different.

—He had a Dao Companion who treated him very well, who never tired of talking to him. Even if he got angry and patted the back of his hand as a lesson, he only used very light force.

—He was no longer troubled by demonic qi. Although the inner demon’s voices still spewed resentment-filled nonsense in his ears, it wasn’t as unbearable anymore.

—Thanks to dual cultivation, he had even grown taller! Given time, he would definitely grow into a majestic, strapping man!

—Oh right, there was also a righteous cultivator who had treated him to food infused with spiritual energy, and extended a helping hand when facing danger.

Tu Tianba listed them out one by one, realizing that all of this was because he now had an A-Hui by his side.

A-Hui treated Doctor Tu well.

But Nie Wuhui wanted to kill Tu Tianba.

And after being ‘Doctor Tu’ for three years, he no longer knew how to continue being ‘Tu Tianba’…

He couldn’t go back, and he didn’t want to go back.

He would go crazy.

He might even want to destroy this world.

However, right at this moment.

Tu Tianba suddenly felt a very faint pain from his fingers. Strictly speaking, it wasn’t pain, but a tingling, numb squeezing sensation, very heavy.

He looked down.

The man was gripping his hand. Perhaps losing control of his emotions slightly, the force beneath his palm also slipped control. The blue veins on the back of his hand bulged slightly, his knuckles turning white.

Tu Tianba didn’t quite understand.

He lifted his face, turning to look at the man’s profile.

The person across the table truly smelled of old man, still rambling on about the Xuanxu Sect’s annihilation, talking about how he captured that female disciple, but she tried to drag him down with her, opting to self-destruct and perish, and other unimportant things…

The old man also mentioned that he had been injured and originally intended to return to his sect to formulate a plan, but was ambushed by several demonic cultivators along the way. After battling them for hours, he ended up falling here.

Those demonic cultivators belonged to the Heaven Slaughtering Sect.

“…”

Tu Tianba found it quite boring to listen to.

But staring at the man’s profile, he noticed that the jawline he had kissed and bitten countless times was drawn tight. The man’s lips were pressed into a thin line, and his gaze was piercingly cold.

As if swords were shooting out from within.

Is he angry?

Why is he angry?

The next instant.

As if realizing something, the man abruptly loosened his grip and said in a steady tone to the person across the table: “Fellow Daoist Xu, excuse us for a moment.”

As soon as his voice fell, he stood up, leading Tu Tianba by the hand back into the small wooden cabin.

Tu Tianba was lazily pulled inside, watching the man raise a hand to cast a barrier, then turn to face him with an exceptionally serious expression, slowly exhaling a breath.

As if he had some earth-shattering matter to confess.

An ominous premonition suddenly arose within Tu Tianba. Seeing the man open his mouth, he hurriedly called out for him to stop, yet couldn’t prevent the other’s voice from drilling into his ears…

He said,

“Xiaoxiu, someone is framing you.”

“We cannot sit back and ignore this.”

Buzzz.

Tu Tianba only felt his mind go completely blank. He couldn’t even hear the inner demon voices anymore, leaving only a single sentence echoing incessantly in his head:

—He remembers. What should I do?

__

Author’s Note:

Here I am. Ultimately, Xiaoming has embarked on the path of becoming a famous detective (not).