Chapter 95
Song Xixiao saw that Mei Liangyu had actually left, frowned, and was about to stop him when Mu Wu and Zhu Rong came over to mediate, blocking her. Zhang Yuxuan also politely said some nice words before going to chase after Mei Liangyu.
Only after seeing Mei Liangyu leave did Brother Gu lower his guard and look back at Wenyang Hui. He was probably not feeling well right now, so he held back from saying anything.
It was fine for his own people to discipline their own for wrongdoing, but he couldn't stand Mei Liangyu openly teaching Wenyang Hui a lesson.
The two groups already had grudges, and their hatred had escalated after this Dragon Slaying Cave trip. Brother Gu would never sit idly by while Mei Liangyu's group attacked Wenyang Hui.
As for Sheng Hao, he had always been like this. Brother Gu was too lazy to bother with him now.
"Let's treat the injuries first," Brother Gu said quietly.
Wenyang Hui was supported by Huo Xiao, his eyes full of murderous intent as he looked down.
This Golden Thunder strike had been so sudden that he now had blood stuck in his throat, neither going up nor down. His Five Elements Energy was in chaos, and even breathing hurt.
The thunder marks left behind could be eliminated, but the humiliation of being struck down so pathetically in front of so many people was unacceptable to Wenyang Hui. He held his breath, and even with his Five Elements Energy in chaos, his five fingers gripping the chair armrest pressed down tightly.
Wenyang Hui leaned back in his chair and slowly closed his eyes, hiding all his emotions.
How dare he go to Mechanism Island.
He could wait to die.
……
Yu Sui heard knocking at her door. It was Li Jin Shuang calling for her, so she got up to open the door while having the Five Elements Light Core at the Legalist plaza follow Mei Liangyu as he left.
"Let's go," Yu Sui smiled with curved eyes at Li Jin Shuang standing outside the door.
It was already evening, almost time for the dining hall's extra charge period. There weren't many people on the road to the dining hall.
Yu Sui and Li Jin Shuang chatted about their experiences in Dragon Slaying Cave as they walked. When they were almost at the dining hall, they saw Mei Liangyu being chased by Zhang Yuxuan at the intersection ahead.
On the same flowered path, she had once stood below while Mei Liangyu sat at the dining hall's upstairs window.
Stone lamps along both sides of the path glowed with bright firelight. Mei Liangyu walking from ahead also saw Yu Sui, but she looked away first, smiling and talking with Li Jin Shuang. She no longer smiled brightly and greeted him first with a call of "Senior Brother" like before.
Yu Sui avoided eye contact and also avoided the path, walking straight into the dining hall.
Mei Liangyu looked over thoughtfully. He hadn't been listening to what Zhang Yuxuan beside him was saying for a while. Only after seeing Yu Sui's figure disappear into the dining hall did he absentmindedly hum in response.
Zhang Yuxuan sighed: "You weren't listening at all, were you."
Mei Liangyu nodded: "Mm."
"I think you need to be careful when you go to Mechanism Island. Wenyang Hui was publicly humiliated by you, so he definitely can't swallow this insult." Zhang Yuxuan rambled, "Those old predecessors from the Wenyang family won't just keep watching you bully him either."
Mei Liangyu snorted: "Who's bullying whom?"
Zhang Yuxuan said: "Anyway, be careful yourself."
Mei Liangyu acknowledged this and said casually: "Go about your business. Don't worry about me. He doesn't dare attack me on the road. I'll go see Master first."
Yu Sui had just reached the second floor of the dining hall when she heard this and glanced out the window. In the night, she could only see the bright stone lamps on the road but couldn't see the figures that had been walking by the roadside.
She hadn't gone to see Master at Ghost Way Saint Hall immediately after returning. Although she had many questions to ask, she now had to consider what should and shouldn't be said.
Mei Liangyu being punished to go to Mechanism Island for violating academy rules right after leaving Dragon Slaying Cave was unexpected, but his wanting to see Master before leaving was within expectations.
Yu Sui sat down at a table, poured herself a cup of water, then poured one for Li Jin Shuang.
She waited patiently, but Mei Liangyu walked slowly to Ghost Way Saint Hall. He didn't even use Wind-Riding Techniques, seeming not at all hurried, walking all the way from the Legalist School to Ghost Way Saint Hall.
By the time Yu Sui finished eating and Li Jin Shuang had already left, leaving only her sitting alone, Mei Liangyu finally reached the Ghost Way School.
Walking was also a form of exercise and cultivation, and it allowed Mei Liangyu to calm his mind and think more. He kept himself in a perpetually calm and rational state, which was the only way to suppress the anger deep in his heart.
Either get the body moving, or get the brain moving.
No one knew what Mei Liangyu was thinking about. Only he knew.
When he reached the entrance of Ghost Way Saint Hall, Mei Liangyu looked at the lit stone lamps inside, his gaze lightly shifting to look at the apricot tree beside it where flowers had fallen and fruit had withered, now covered with lush green leaves.
He'd been thinking about his Junior Sister too frequently lately.
As Mei Liangyu withdrew his gaze, he also suppressed his thoughts and walked toward the main hall door.
Yu Sui held the warm teacup with both hands, looking down at the light reflected in the cup. Her consciousness looked through the cup water to see Mei Liangyu standing in Ghost Way Saint Hall.
Senior Brother didn't directly mention the Strange Fire matter, but instead lounged in his chair in a relaxed posture, chatting casually with Master. The first thing he talked about was attacking Wenyang Hui right after coming out.
Saint Chang Gen didn't ask why. Mei Liangyu explained the reason: "If it had been someone else, he wouldn't necessarily have attacked. Given his status as a Class A Student, he wouldn't attack a First Realm disciple no matter what."
If it hadn't been Yu Sui but someone else, Wenyang Hui would have just let Princess Shangyang handle it.
"I haven't paid much attention to him these past two years, which made him bold enough to think he could bully my Junior Sister."
Mei Liangyu flipped over on the reclining chair, pillowing his hands behind his head. His expression was inscrutable, and when he half-closed his eyes, the slight curve at the corners became more obvious.
Yu Sui's gaze wavered slightly when she heard this.
What kind of attitude was this?
Saint Chang Gen: "If you had fought with an instructor, even I couldn't speak for you."
Mei Liangyu: "Why would I fight an instructor? When she attacked, I just had to dodge."
Truly worthy of being my genius disciple.
The scroll hanging on the stone statue was lifted lightly by the night breeze and fell again. That subtle sound of paper seemed like Saint Chang Gen's low laughter.
What Mei Liangyu chatted about with Saint Chang Gen were all trivial daily matters, and Saint Chang Gen responded to each one.
The eldest disciple sometimes felt that it wasn't he who needed Master, but Master who needed him.
When Mei Liangyu first came to Taiyi, he spent long periods at Mechanism Island, only occasionally being sent back to Ghost Way Saint Hall for a few days to receive cultivation guidance from Saint Chang Gen.
Mei Liangyu still remembered that at the beginning, Master didn't talk much. Apart from necessary cultivation guidance, he rarely said anything else.
It was in the summer of his second year at Taiyi. The youth sat on the stone steps, hands supporting his cheeks as he looked at the stars in the sky. His face still held some childishness, appearing somewhat obedient in the starry night.
Saint Chang Gen urged him: "You should go back."
After hearing this, the youth simply spread his hands wide, leaned backward, and lay flat on the ground. Pouting in complaint, he said: "I don't want to go back. The children there are all annoying. They gossip about me all day, hate me, won't play with me. I'm all alone with no one to talk to."
Those distinct black and white eyes reflected the Milky Way above, holding the stubborn loneliness that the youth was unwilling to show.
Before Saint Chang Gen could respond, he was already talking to himself: "Is not having parents something worth mentioning every day? I'm sick of hearing it. Master, tell me who my parents are and where they are. Whether they abandoned me or not, as long as it proves I have parents, that's enough."
Saint Chang Gen replied: "You have no parents."
"Nonsense." The youth sat up indignantly, turning to sit cross-legged with his back to the steps, facing the main hall. "Everyone is born from parents. If I have no parents, how did I come to be? Did I pop out of a rock crevice?"
Saint Chang Gen: "You can understand it that way."
The youth frowned: "Then wouldn't I be more amazing than all of them?"
Saint Chang Gen was speechless.
The youth crossed his arms and snorted lightly: "Serves them right for losing to me in mechanism arts competitions."
That night he talked to Saint Chang Gen about his experiences at Mechanism Island for the first time, telling him everything about being mocked, ostracized, and beaten there, not leaving out a single detail. The youth spoke indignantly about others' ostracism while proudly recounting his own victories.
He said he didn't like the other children, only liked the Wenyang Zhou and Wenyang Xiu brothers.
Because only these two brothers liked him.
People who didn't like him, he didn't like either. He only liked those who would like him.
The youth's words of "like" and "don't like" went round and round repeatedly. Saint Chang Gen listened silently without responding.
Every time it was the youth talking.
Saint Chang Gen always listened silently.
The youth treated him as a confidant, asking Saint Chang Gen: "Master, you're alone here with no one to talk to. Don't you feel lonely? Anyway, when no one talks to me at Mechanism Island, I feel very lonely."
Saint Chang Gen's consciousness couldn't wander freely everywhere.
The youth looked at the portrait in the main hall and said: "Even if it's just consciousness, staying in the same place forever with no one coming would be very sad too."
"I have no one to talk to at Mechanism Island, and Master has no one for company at the Saint Hall. Is this some kind of sect tradition? Can I choose to switch to studying something else?"
Saint Chang Gen: "No."
The youth had actually been clever since childhood. Even though he had lost memories of a certain period, he could still quickly adapt to his current environment and perceive others' emotions.
For a consecutive period, he would run to Ghost Way Saint Hall every night to chat with Master. One day he suddenly stopped going, leaving Saint Chang Gen alone for three to five days before coming again. The youth discovered that Master's responses increased.
The youth began repeating this pattern, going frequently for a while then not going, returning after some days. Master's words would increase.
Master never said he should remember to come back and keep him company, nor ever responded to questions about loneliness, but the youth knew Master was lonely and also wanted someone to accompany him.
Because Master's attitude toward him grew increasingly gentle.
The former Saint Chang Gen seemed to deliberately maintain distance, only watching silently. Now he had spread his wings to embrace him within.
Saint Chang Gen thought Mei Liangyu needed him more.
But Mei Liangyu believed Master needed him more.
……
Yu Sui watched patiently for a long time, but found that Senior Brother and Master were chatting about trivial, inconsequential matters. He even talked about the night he was trapped by Qian Ying's Five Mysterious Poison Array, playing stone skipping with Pang Rong and the others to pass time. Saint Chang Gen even asked who won in the end.
Mei Liangyu said since stone skipping used Five Elements Energy, of course he won.
He talked about even such small things, but didn't mention a word about the divination in the Divine Wood Seed or the Strange Fire disturbance in Three Thousand Divergent Paths.
Saint Chang Gen asked: "How is your Junior Sister?"
"She accidentally fell off a cliff midway, but fortunately she was clever and reacted quickly, so she wasn't eliminated. I searched for her all night, getting rained on for over two hours before finding her." Thinking of that night, Mei Liangyu couldn't help but sit up and move his neck, making cracking sounds.
He bent forward slightly, elbows on his knees, looking down at the ground with flickering eyes.
Memories of Dragon Fish and that rainy night flashed rapidly through his mind, all images of Yu Sui.
The thoughts he had originally suppressed came surging back like revenge after Master's question.
Mei Liangyu recalled the moment in Dragon Fish Cave when Yu Sui threw herself into his arms, when she grabbed his sleeve to wipe her tears. He remembered in Three Thousand Divergent Paths when Yu Sui crouched down, speaking in a slow tone telling him to get lost, leaning forward to lightly bump his forehead, that fleeting look of fearlessness.
He also remembered when they met at the dining hall, Yu Sui pretended not to see him, casually looking away and walking farther and farther.
When the two spoke those few words in Three Thousand Divergent Paths, the changes in their tones and expressions were somewhat extreme.
The emotions from that time seemed to not have been completely digested yet, or perhaps something else was blocking them, making the relationship between him and Yu Sui become subtle.
Until Mei Liangyu said he would return to the dormitory to wash up before going to Mechanism Island and left Ghost Way Saint Hall, Yu Sui never heard him tell Master about Strange Fire, or even mention the topic of World Destroyers.
Mei Liangyu used Wind-Riding Techniques for this journey, and the Five Elements Light Core took the opportunity to attach to his clothing.
Yu Sui's control over Five Elements Light Cores had improved considerably. The first time Senior Brother detected it was because the light core's power hadn't been upgraded yet. The second time he detected it in the valley was because he used Divine Mechanism Arts.
Now, as long as Senior Brother didn't use Divine Mechanism Arts, he would never be able to detect the existence of Five Elements Light Cores.
Even if he did detect them, he wouldn't know the light cores could be used for surveillance.
So there was no possibility that Mei Liangyu knew she was monitoring him and therefore chose not to mention Strange Fire.
The Strange Fire power fluctuation in Three Thousand Divergent Paths, Senior Brother definitely knew about it, otherwise he wouldn't have concealed it when the two Saints came.
Since he would also be gazed upon by ancient dragon power, it meant such disturbances being discovered didn't matter, unless he thought it couldn't be discovered as Strange Fire, so he lied and concealed it.
Clearly knowing, but not speaking.
Yu Sui had thought Mei Liangyu would tell Master.
Wasn't Master the person closest to him in this world?
Yu Sui initially hadn't paid much attention to Mei Liangyu as a person and didn't understand him well. Many times she would just glance at him casually and remember the general impression.
Because what she cared about before was only Saint Chang Gen.
As fellow disciples of Saint Chang Gen, and since she loved going to Ghost Way Saint Hall, the two would inevitably encounter each other there.
As a Senior Brother, Mei Liangyu seemed to have nothing to criticize, and precisely because of this, Yu Sui didn't care much about him. It was fine for them to maintain a Senior Brother-Junior Sister relationship.
Many times, Yu Sui heard about how Mei Liangyu was from others' mouths, what he had done, what his attitude was, what others thought of him, what kind of person he was, etc., but she had never heard Mei Liangyu himself describe what the real situation was.
Even when Master said he wanted to destroy the world, it was the same.
Initially she thought it was just a joke. Only that rainy night in the valley, when Mei Liangyu couldn't suppress his killing intent right after waking up, did Yu Sui feel that perhaps it wasn't a joke.
No one would want to destroy the world for no reason.
But harboring destructive desires was one thing, having others destroy the world and kill oneself was another.
Mei Liangyu wouldn't want to die at others' hands.
The greater a person's inner darkness, the less willing they are to let others control their life and death.
The destructive desires that tormented Mei Liangyu day and night had to be fulfilled by his own hand, not handed over to others.
When knowing that others possessed Strange Fire, such world-destroying power, one couldn't be completely certain that Senior Brother would help conceal it because of his own destructive desires.
Thinking carefully, they had never had a heart-to-heart conversation even once.
Yu Sui wouldn't be presumptuous, nor would she be someone who blindly trusted and waited until death was imminent to regret.
She came back to her senses, her consciousness passing through the Five Elements Light Core to see that Mei Liangyu had returned to the dormitory. In the bathing compartment of his room, his outer clothes were removed and hung on a clothes rack. Spring water steamed in the bathtub, with hot vapor drifting through the room.
Mei Liangyu revealed his upper body's robust and smooth muscle lines. He stepped forward and reached into the bathtub to test the temperature, then turned and walked forward a few steps. This let Yu Sui see his lean shoulders and back, the shoulder blade lines possessing the beauty of hidden power, becoming more obvious with his movements of walking and reaching.
Yu Sui still sat by the dining hall window, quietly watching Mei Liangyu undress and bathe. This was the second time she gazed at this man's features.
Compared to her previous casual indifference, she now observed more seriously. Yu Sui recalled every moment of their contact. Perhaps the answer she wanted could only come from Senior Brother's own words.