Chapter 28: Azure Cloud (6)

The courtyard in the Sword Pavilion was very practical: one main hall for activities, four rooms for living, and a small kitchen in the corner. Beside the small kitchen was a spring pool. Clear water welled up from underground, spilled over the edge of the pool, flowed out of the courtyard along the adjacent channel, and merged into the small river on the outermost side.

The spring water tinkled, and the trees swayed, casting moving shadows. Zhang Duixue looked at the two people opposite him, his face almost stiffening into stone. However, not wanting to disgrace Yuanchen Palace, he could only nod gracefully, then close the door with great poise like other young masters from noble families, shutting out He Tingtong’s gaze.

Fifteen days.

They had to live here together for fifteen days.

Zhang Duixue squatted behind the door, scratching his hair in despair. He could already foresee future daily encounters where the other party would look at him with disdain, mocking and laughing at him every day.

And he would surely lose his patience and beat the person up… If things got big, would he be ordered to leave the academy?

Then he would cause trouble for the Young Palace Master again.

He let go of his hair dejectedly, a few loose strands hanging from his fingertips. Zhang Duixue pursed his lips, determined to be a thousand-year-old tortoise. If someone provoked him again… he would endure!

Cultivators didn’t need to eat after reaching the Bigu (Grain Avoidance) stage, but that was at the sixth realm. Obviously, most students didn’t have this cultivation level. Every day, someone would deliver Bigu Pills to the academy. If students weren’t used to eating them, spiritual food would also be provided. But after all, people came from all over the world, and tastes varied. With the kitchen there, they could also cook for themselves.

He Tingtong had few belongings. After tidying up the room, he went to the kitchen to take a look. There was a food box on the table. Opening it, he found three bottles of Bigu Pills and a plate of hard steamed buns.

Judging by the Bigu Pills, probably only the three of them lived in this courtyard.

So few people entered the Sword Pavilion this year.

Fu Fengyan walked over, looked around in the box, gave up the pills, and had already started gnawing on a steamed bun. Probably because it was too dry, he chewed dozens of times for one bite before swallowing it with difficulty.

Ever since he ran away with He Tingtong, he had never been picky about food. Basically, he ate whatever was available. But today, after chewing half of this steamed bun, Fu Fengyan’s face turned a bit green, and he bent over to find water to drink.

He Tingtong watched and laughed.

Fu Fengyan had always been very curious, poking, trying, and tasting everything. Eating was a kind of enjoyment for him.

However, the cold, hard steamed bun was obviously not on the list. He didn’t want to eat anymore but didn’t know how to deal with it. Holding half a steamed bun, he stared at it with a frown, looking worried, as if he had been beaten up by the bun.

The cooks at Azure Cloud Academy, whether truly unskilled or intentionally so, made food that could only be described as not poisonous enough to kill people. As for other tastes and such, they were basically zero.

That was why there was such a long market street outside the academy. That was why even if the senior brothers in the academy were extremely busy, as long as there was a slight chance to go out, they would buy food outside and take out a large amount.

Fortunately, the Dean of the academy probably couldn’t stand the cooks either, so he built a kitchen for every residence. There were also vegetables and seasonings in the corner, and pots, pans, and utensils were all available.

He Tingtong took the half-eaten steamed bun from Fu Fengyan, cut off the bite mark, sliced the rest into strips, stir-fried a pot, and served three bowls.

The strips were chewy and absorbed the flavor after stir-frying, creating another texture.

Fu Fengyan sat at the table and started to eat.

He Tingtong brewed a pot of tea.

When the tea was boiling, the door of the middle room finally opened a crack. The boy in apricot pink clothes walked out as if nothing had happened, came to the small kitchen, looked around, opened the food box, saw the Bigu Pills inside and a remaining hard steamed bun. He took a bottle of pills, silently closed the lid, and then looked at the two people eating at the table.

He Tingtong pushed a plate of stir-fried strips over. “This is yours.”

Zhang Duixue wanted to refuse aloofly, but he hadn’t eaten for a long time indeed. Smelling the aroma of food, his mouth involuntarily secreted saliva.

Yuanchen Palace was a very elegant place. It should be said that among the five sects and noble families, those born immortals rarely ate. Eating would lead to the cycle of grains. Most of them dined on wind and drank dew, which could replenish spiritual energy and avoid producing waste.

Xie Xuanxiao’s cultivation had long passed the fifth realm and was now at the peak of the seventh realm. He had practiced Bigu for many years, not eating mortal food. He only needed one Spirit Dew Pill daily to calm his mind and replenish spiritual power.

He had also eaten like this for two years.

To sum it up… his mouth was fading out a bird (TL: a Chinese idiom meaning extremely tasteless/bland).

He wanted to turn around cleanly and leave without looking back. But looking at the plate, golden and fragrant, with bean sprouts and vegetable leaves inside, the strips should be chewy, the bean sprouts probably crisp and tender. He didn’t know about the saltiness, as they didn’t eat this kind of food over there, but the stir-fry seemed good.

So his steps stopped, and his head couldn’t turn away, staring straight at the dish on the table. The sentence “I practice Bigu and don’t eat” that he intended to say took a turn and became “Thank you.”

Zhang Duixue reached out and elegantly picked up the plate, then walked away nobly, returned to his room, closed the door, stared at the slightly cold dish, turned it left and right, and after finding no poison, needles, gravel, or broken porcelain pieces inside, he raised his chopsticks and ate with relief, cleaning up every vegetable leaf.

He really didn’t like the empty feeling in his stomach. Swallowing the Spirit Dew Pill felt like a ball of empty air gathering in his stomach. The spiritual power would indeed nourish his limbs and bones, but his mood would be much lower.

Probably as the Young Palace Master said, his cultivation was not enough.

But now… who cares! Anyway, the Young Palace Master was not here.

He lay on the window and peeked out secretly. After He Tingtong and Fu Fengyan finished tidying up and entered their room, he quietly came out and washed the bowl.

The first night was calm. No one scolded him, and no one picked a fight.

Zhang Duixue lay in bed, tossed and turned a few times, and had a good sleep.

Fu Fengyan held a lamp and went to find He Tingtong.

The room here was a bit smaller, but it was also spacious and bright. He Tingtong sat at the desk, writing in his small notebook.

Fu Fengyan looked and saw that a separate page was opened in the notebook this time. Zhang Duixue was written on the left, and Xie Xuanxiao on the right.

“Are we going to get rid of them both?” Fu Fengyan pulled a stool and sat next to He Tingtong, whispering, “The aura on Xie Xuanxiao is different from others.”

“He is indeed different.” He Tingtong’s gaze was plain. “He should also be reborn.”

He still remembered the words Xie Xuanxiao mumbled while holding Zhang Duixue’s body when he rushed into the Thirty-Three Heavens Palace in his previous life.

However, judging by Xie Xuanxiao’s current behavior, his rebirth was different from his and Fu Fengyan’s.

Xie Xuanxiao’s rebirth should be a bit earlier than theirs. When he was sixteen, after waking up from falling into the water, his soul changed. And he seemed to have only relived one life and only remembered his own life, unlike them, who had come back and forth eighteen times.

“He also knows a lot of things. We need to be cautious.” He Tingtong closed the book, his voice cold. “He is very possessive of Zhang Duixue now, to the point of being somewhat paranoid. I provoked him on purpose last time, causing Zhang Duixue to be beaten by the puppet and assigned to the Sword Pavilion, separated from him. He should be holding a grudge now.”

“Maybe he is figuring out how to make me get out of Azure Cloud Academy.”

In his previous life, He Tingtong met Zhang Duixue in Tumi Prefecture. The once-favored Palace Master’s wife had been discarded. They had helped each other in humble circumstances when they were young, but during the long time together, passion gradually faded. One was indifferent and tired, the other still loved deeply, and conflicts increased constantly.

The past doting turned into neglect and cold treatment. Zhang Duixue was angry with Xie Xuanxiao. The two had a big quarrel at the Hundred Flowers Festival in Tumi Prefecture. Xie Xuanxiao left in a huff, leaving him alone on the street.

At that time, He Tingtong had just come out of a secret realm, smelling of blood and weak all over. Passing by the street, he asked him for a bowl of wine.

Jars of Hundred Flowers Drunk, worth a thousand gold, were brought up one by one. He sat at the table, listening to the person behind the flowers tell a story of half hate and half resentment all night.

The next day, Xie Xuanxiao returned and took the drunk-as-mud Zhang Duixue away from Tumi Prefecture.

In the second year, the seal of Hanshan Realm broke. The Guili Sword Master entered the Demon Realm alone, martyred himself for the Dao, and closed the seal between the two worlds.

He Tingtong suddenly lost a friend, reported to the Thirty-Three Heavens Palace, joined the Immortal Alliance, and planned to fight against the Demon Race together.

However, later, internal strife occurred in the immortal sects. The power of the five sects and noble families was reshuffled, and serious trouble occurred. Zhang Duixue was attacked in the Immortal Alliance and seriously injured. Although his body recovered gradually, cracks appeared in his pill platform, and he could no longer cultivate.

When Xie Xuanxiao went missing after an assassination attempt, he was saved by an attendant beside him. The two shared life and death, went through hardships, and after returning, he forgot his wife and devoted himself wholeheartedly to the attendant.

Zhang Duixue’s cultivation was not high. Most of his cultivation was piled up by dual cultivation and pills, not solid. Once his pill platform cracked, his lifespan became equal to a mortal’s. He began to save himself, but Xie Xuanxiao no longer saw him, instead confining him in the backyard to “recuperate”.

Zhang Duixue didn’t want to die. He begged until the end, wrote many letters, sent them up, asking his husband if he could give him a pill. The shattered pill platform was indeed serious, but if there were heavenly treasures to nourish it, or if he was sent to Biyun River, the Medicine Sect would have a way to make up for it.

It was nothing more than offending someone. None of his messages reached Xie Xuanxiao’s ears. He was confined in the backyard and forgotten by everyone.

He Tingtong helped to beg a few times. Probably because he was insignificant, Xie Xuanxiao treated his words like a fart.

Decades later, He Tingtong went to Biyun River to ask for a prescription, found a pharmacist, and made many pills. However, he didn’t have the financial power of the immortal sects, and the effect of the medicine was average. Zhang Duixue’s pill platform had been shattered for too long and couldn’t be repaired.

He didn’t want to live anymore either. He no longer drank the medicine sent to him. Every time He Tingtong went to see him, he would bring a jar of wine from when they first met. Separated by a restriction, he saw Zhang Duixue lying on the wine jar smiling, then crying while smiling, “In the next life, I don’t want to be with him.”

“Xie Xuanxiao, you bully me.”

In a blink of an eye, the seal of Hanshan Realm broke again, and He Tingtong went to the front line.

Zhang Duixue didn’t wait for the life-saving pill and died in the clouds and mist of the Thirty-Three Heavens Palace.

For the remaining fifteen years of his life, he never took a step out of the mountain gate.