"What kind of spirit are you, Boss? How many hearts do you actually have?" Li Dong looked completely dumbfounded.

"Yang energy from heaven," Yin Wushu replied lazily without even glancing at him.

Li Dong really wanted to retort, "I think it's more like turtle energy," but he didn't have the guts, so he struggled to hold back his words, his face turning purple from witnessing Yin Wushu's heart-digging antics.

(NT: Turtles are symbol of power, longevity, and tenacity. In Chinese mythology)

The question "how many hearts are there exactly" had been asked by Xie Bai to Yin Wushu over a hundred years ago.

It was the beginning of spring, with the daylight lengthening, and darkness finally fell after the hour of You (NT: 5-7 PM). Xie Bai had gone to the wine shop owned by Lou Xianyue to buy wine for Yin Wushu. Instead, he got caught by Lou Xianyue and was forced to listen to her gossiping about various things happening around the streets and alleys. Xie Bai's face was completely numb by the time he left.

When he returned to his own yard, Yin Wushu, who had been sitting under a tree refining medicine, was nowhere to be found. Only the used medicine cauldron was still there, emitting wisps of lingering smoke.

That medicine was made for Xie Bai. Xie Bai had a special background, quite different from ordinary people. Although he had come back to life thanks to the Hundred ghosts Corpse nurturing Formation, his body was still weak. Every now and then, he would feel cold, with unexplained blood stasis in his limbs and joint pains all over his body. Yin Wushu said it was because he was growing.

Xie Bai used to suffer from these symptoms more frequently when he was younger, almost every three to five days, his lips turning purple from the cold. At that time, he didn't know what to say, so he would crawl into Yin Wushu's arms like a kitten whenever he sat down, without a muffled sound.

After he turned seven or eight, he stopped crawling, enduring the pain on his own each time. That was when Yin Wushu found a prescription and started making medicine for him. It took a whole day and night each time, filling up a whole bottle, enough for him to use for almost half a year.

At that time Xie Bai was nineteen, and these symptoms occurred less and less frequently, and he used the medicine more slowly. Yin Wushu estimated that after making another big bottle, it would be almost enough, so he spent a whole day and night in the yard refining it.

As Xie Bai's gaze swept over the medicine cauldron, he picked up the wine and walked into the house.

He thought Yin Wushu had taken the refined medicine into the house to bottle it, but after searching through the west room and not finding him, he found that the bottle for the medicine was already full, sealed, and placed on the wooden cabinet. Instead, there was the sound of water coming from the back room.

Xie Bai was puzzled, so he left the wine on the table and turned to the back along the short corridor.

As a result, he regretted pushing open the door as soon as he did, as the room was filled with mist, and there were even a couple of chirping birds coming from a clump of green bamboo.

Yes, you read it right, there were green bamboo and bird chirps.

Because Yin Wushu, this mischief-maker, had set up a transformation array, moving his favorite hot spring from Ting Valley here. Why not just go to Ting Valley to soak in the hot spring? Because Yin Wushu thought that an open-air bath was not clean enough...

He even ostentatiously set up a folding screen in front of the door, but this screen was probably set up hastily by him, it didn't block anything, only half covering the bamboo, and was practically useless.

"It's been an hour, and you've made quite an improvement, young Master Xie, even peeping at people bathing, you really need to stay away from Lou Xianyue," Yin Wushu said, leaning on the edge of the hot spring pool with both hands, one of them holding a fist-sized object.

He often called Xie Bai different things, but the most common ones were "Xiao Bai" under normal circumstances and "Young Master Xie" when teasing him. It was hard to say whether he would switch to "Young Xie" or "Old Xie" when he was thirty-four or a hundred and eighty years old...

Xie Bai's face went paralized as he thought about it. He dropped a poker-faced "I'll close the door; seen enough," and intended to turn around and leave, but his eyes flickered and he noticed a terrifying scar on Yin Wushu's chest.

His hand hesitated as he went to close the door, and without thinking, he pushed the door open and walked straight in.

 

 

Yin Wushu had been with Xie Bai for about ten years, so he thought he knew Xie Bai's character quite well. He probably never expected Xie Bai to come directly to him like this; he was clearly stunned. It wasn't until Xie Bai squatted down beside him that he spoke up, "Are you going through a rebellious phase?"

Xie Bai furrowed his brows and completely ignored this remark, instead staring at his chest and asking slowly, "What’s the matter with this injury?"

There wouldn't be any scars on Yin Wushu's body; Xie Bai had witnessed wounds on him healing visibly at an eye's pace, but scabs would form and fall off within the time it took to finish a cup of tea. After that, the skin would become smooth and flawless, with no trace of injury left behind.

So this scar on his chest was extremely conspicuous, making Xie Bai's hair stand on end.

"Oh, this?" Yin Wushu waved his hand casually, "It's nothing. There were a few too many times the skin broke here, so it's healing a bit slower. It'll be fine by tomorrow."

"Skin broke?" Xie Bai stared at the scar, feeling like pouring the wine he had just bought directly onto Yin Wushu's face. According to how he understood Yin Wushu's method of healing scars, this injury on his chest would have been a bloody hole before healing, yet Yin Wushu had casually referred to it as a skin break.

"How did it happen? How could you let someone injure you here?" Xie Bai glared at him, asking.

Yin Wushu remained expressionless. "Dug it myself."

Xie Bai: "..."

If he wasn't generally restrained, he would have blurted out, "Are you insane?!" Full and uncontrolled, digging a hole in his own chest?!

"Dug this out," Yin Wushu shook the thing he was holding in his right hand.

It was slightly larger than a fist. Xie Bai hadn't paid much attention to it when he glanced at the door just now, but now, seeing it up close, he almost fell into the hot spring pool.

This thing looked like a heart no matter how you looked at it! It was just wrapped in a slightly translucent white membrane.

"Why is your face so pale?" Yin Wushu's empty left hand patted Xie Bai lightly, "Scared? Didn't you see it once when you were a kid?"

As soon as he said that, Xie Bai remembered. He had indeed seen it when he was seven or eight years old. At that time, he didn't recognize what it was, only hearing Yin Wushu say it was something useless to him and needed to be buried.

Xie Bai's face turned even paler. "This is what you called something useless?"

"For ordinary people, it's useful. For me, it's indeed useless," Yin Wushu confirmed calmly. "A few words won't explain it clearly, but this thing, if left for a long time, will cause trouble, and it's easy to attract disasters. Digging it out is good, but I need to find a suitable place to bury it."

At that moment, Xie Bai didn't know what expression to use to respond to his words. After hesitating for a while, he finally asked coldly, "Didn't you dig it out once before?"

"Even if you dig it out, it will grow back," Yin Wushu looked at him with a "are you dumb" look and smiled. "Encountering people and things will always make it grow. Sometimes it grows faster, sometimes slower."

"Every time you have to dig it out?" Xie Bai stared fixedly at the heart, and his exploding hair still couldn't settle down.

Yin Wushu simply replied with an "mm-hmm."

"How many times have you dug it out?" Xie Bai asked.

Yin Wushu counted on his fingers. "Can't remember. Usually, it's about every hundred years or so."

"Every hundred years?" Xie Bai frowned. "From the last time I saw it until now, it's only been eleven or twelve years, right?!"

Yin Wushu didn't answer. Instead, he handed the dug-out heart to him. "Hold onto this for me. I just calculated the direction. I'm going to go to Coffin Mountain."

"What kind of mischief are you up to again?" Xie Bai was already psychologically scarred by him, almost reflexively asking.

Yin Wushu scolded with a stern face, "Tsk—mind your manners! How can you accuse me of mischief? Will go bury this thing."

Xie Bai looked at the heart in his hand with a complicated expression, not daring to exert any force, afraid of damaging it. After staring at it for a while with a grimace, he muttered, "I'll come along too."

 

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The author has something to say

If you live for an extended period, there will inevitably be some eccentric tendencies

 

Translator : DarNan