Wen Renhe walked around Yin Hanjiang’s body and saw that his face was flushed, with a handkerchief in his palm. With a wine jug at his side, grasping an empty wine cup with his other hand he was holding Wen Renhe robe in his arms.
“Patriarch Yin, are you weak at drinking?” Wen Renhe asked.
If a cultivator did not want to get drunk, he could completely force out the strength of the wine with his genuine Qi and would not get drunk at all. If he was drunk, either he hadn’t forced out the wine or he was drinking immortal wine.
Wen Renhe sniffed the wine jug, in the wine pot was the kind of spiritual wine he often drank, made from the spiritual fruits of the back mountains. It was a good wine, but it was not intoxicating.
Yin Hanjiang’s drunken eyes were drowsy, and his red robe slipped off in a large part. He half raised his eyes to look at Wen Renhe before pouring himself another cup of wine, drank it down and then say: “Didn’t you call me Hanjiang these days? Why are you calling me Patriarch Yin again?”
“Hanjiang?” Wen Renhe asked rhetorically.
He had never seen Yin Hanjiang look like this. In his impression, Patriarch Yin was always dressed in black and silent like a shadow. Even though Wen Renhe knew that he was handsome, he always acted like he was invisible so it was easy to overlook.
The current Yin Hanjiang, wore a robe redder than blood and his ink black hair were fluttering lightly with the breeze. But there was wickedness between his eyebrows so if he appeared in the crowd, he would be the one who attracted the most attention.
Wen Renhe remembered that Yin Hanjiang usually did not drink and only dared to sneak a sip when he wasn’t paying attention. He never thought he would see him drink one cup after another.
“This wine jug and wine cup …” Wen Renhe raised his eyebrows, vaguely remembering that he presented them to the other party after Yin Hanjang stole a drink that time.
“It’s the one Venerable drank from.” Yin Hanjiang’s lips pressed against the empty wine cup, the corners of his lips revealing a light smile.
A strange feeling arose in Wen Renhe’s heart as he observed the Yin Hanjiang he had never seen before, who was much more striking than his once silent self.
“This Venerable thought you didn’t like to drink.” Wen Renhe also sat on Yin Hanjiang’s left side, the development of the situation was beyond his expectation, but he didn’t mind having a good conversation with Yin Hanjiang.
“Yes, I don’t like drinking.” Yin Hanjiang looked to his right and raised his cup to the empty night: “I love the wine that venerable has drunk, if venerable will take a sip first I’m willing to taste it.”
Wen Renhe: “…”
Only then did he notice that for every cup of wine Yin Hanjiang poured, he would first tilt it to the right side and spill a little wine. He acted as if he was feeding someone wine.
After feeding the air and drinking, Yin Hanjiang then turned the wine glass around and put the side that was facing the air on his lips and then slowly drank the wine.
“Patriarch Yin, who are you feeding wine?” Wen Renhe noticed that something was wrong.
“Why, do you want to drink, too?” Yin Hanjiang hazel drunken eyes looked at Wen Renhe and then he picked up the wine jug and shook it: “Unfortunately, there is no more wine left.”
He picked up the jug, took his red clothes and wiped the non-existent dust, then he put the cold jug against his face and closed his eyes happily as he said: “ This is the jug and wine cup that Venerable gave me, he drank from it.”
Then he picked up the handkerchief he was holding in his palm and said: “This is the handkerchief Venerable had wiped his hands with, it had the blood of Protector Shu on it, so I washed it and put it away.”
Wen Renhe frowned, he thought for a long time before remembering that Shu Yanyan mistakenly thought that he liked Baili Qingmiao and wanted to lure Wen Renhe to pursue her. At that time, in order to warn Shu Yanyan, Wen Renhe pierced his five fingers almost completely through her skull, leaving Shu Yanyan’s blood on his fingertips. At that time, Yin Hanjiang, who was standing behind Wen Renhe handed him out a handkerchief, but after Wen Renhe wiped his hand, he threw it away.
Yin Hanjiang wiped his face with a handkerchief and smiled with satisfaction, then carefully put the handkerchief, wine cup and wine jug into his storage bag and left with an Alkaid triangular bayonet by his side.
When the Alkaid triangular bayonet was refined, Wen Renhe blood and soul was incorporated into it so he could tell at a glance that this was originally the Alkaid sword, Wen Renhe could not help but ask: “Patriarch Yin, is this your soul bound weapon? Wasn’t it originally a sword? Why has it become like this now?”
“Venerable wanted me to practice with the sword, so I practiced with it. Venerable thought that I was suitable for sword cultivation, so I became a sword cultivator.” Yin Hanjiang hugged Wen Renhe robe, his eyes a little lost: “Venerable did not allow me to accompany him to death, so I lived.”
“Patriarch Yin, it was only Venerable’s suggestion, but it might not necessarily be suitable for you. You don’t have to do everything according to my idea.” Wen Renhe looked at Yin Hanjiang and suddenly realized that he had never seen this loyal subordinate clearly, the Yin Hanjiang in his eyes was Yin Hanjiang’s self according to Wen Renhe’s expectation.
He thought he had expressed himself clearly, but who knew that Yin Hanjiang would not look at him and just stretched his hand to the air in front of him, seemingly touching someone’s face and whispered : “Venerable likes Baili Qingmiao, right? Is it okay if I send her to you?”
“This Venerable does not like her.” Wen Renhe assured him.
This time Yin Hanjiang’s eyes finally fell on Wen Renhe and he raised his hand wanting to grab Wen Renhe sleeve, but his palm went through Wen Renhe’s body. At this moment, Wen Renhe’s body was made from condensed chaotic Qi so he was not an entity that could be touched.
“This Venerable…”
Wen Renhe was just about to explain his current state, when he heard Yin Hanjiang say: “Fake.”
Yin Hanjiang’s expression was so calm as if he had experienced it a thousand times before, he kept reaching out to the front, the back and the right, and every time his arms were empty. He laughed loudly to the sky: “Fake, all fake.”
“Only this is true.” He hugged Wen Renhe robe tightly, curled up his body, and lay down on the edge of the spiritual spring, quietly closing his eyes, seemingly already asleep.
“Patriarch Yin, how many of me are there in your eyes?” Wen Renhe started to roughly understand Yin Hanjiang’s condition at this moment so he couldn’t help asking.
Yin Hanjiang did not answer, he would only talk to the illusions when he was lonely. But more often than not, they were ignored, especially when there were people around, Yin Hanjiang did not want to reveal his weaknesses.
Wen Renhe sat next to Yin Hanjiang, recalling the ghost face in the later period of 《Abusive Love Affair》 and combined this with the Yin Hanjiang in front of him and he finally seemed to understand something.
It’s not that Yin Hanjiang went mad because of heart demons but rather that Yin Hanjiang had always suppressed his character for the sake of Wen Renhe.
Since he saw the book, he had always told Yin Hanjiang that what he needed was not a subordinate who would do everything he was told, but rather a companion who could go hand in hand with him. From the time he picked up the boy and told him to practice his sword, Wen Renhe had always instilled in Yin Hanjiang what he thought he wanted, but it might not have been what Yin Hanjiang wanted.
Wen Renhe always thought that Yin Hanjiang’s qualifications were suitable for sword training so he had always wanted Yin Hanjiang to practice swordsmanship. Wen Renhe thought that Yin Hanjiang was his most trusted subordinate so he believed that he would be able to maintain the Xuanyuan sect after his departure and Yin Hanjiang tried to do what he wanted.
Whenever Wen Renhe’s ideas contradicted Yin Hanjiang’s nature, he always chose Wen Renhe over himself.
Devil Venerable sat by the spiritual spring and saw the full moon rising in the sky. He used his genuine Qi to take out a handful of water from his space and looked at the full moon reflected in the water.
This was Yin Hanjiang’s favorite pastime as a child, after the massive demonic war, he had given it to Wen Renhe.
It was as if an image appeared in Wen Renhe’s eyes, Yin Hanjiang as a young man looking at the false moon in the water and quietly smiling.
“It was this venerable who was wrong.” Wen Renhe put away the handful of water and said softly.
He picked up this child, raised him the way he wanted and gave him what he thought was best, but never thought whether Yin Hanjiang needed these things.
Heart demons can never be formed overnight, so from the beginning Wen Renhe was the one who planted them in the heart of Yin Hanjiang.
He took out the red stone, held it in his palm, and whispered: “Borrowing it.”
Holding the stone, Wen Renhe’s body condensed into an entity, and the clothes conjured from chaotic Qi disappeared. He tapped his fingertips and put on the clothes in Yin Hanjiang arms and sat beside him, stretching out his palm to gently stroke Yin Hanjiang hair.
“Hmm?” Yin Hanjiang’s spiritual consciousness was very strong so he immediately came back to his senses. When he found that the robe was gone he looked panicked, he no longer had the determined and calm look from before as he scrambled around, looking for the robe.
Wen Renhe waved his sleeve and said in a low voice: “Here it is.”
He then saw Wen Renhe wearing his real clothing so he grabbed Wen Renhe hand and found that it was actually solid!
“Has the heart demon already gotten this strong?” Yin Hanjiang shook his head in disbelief, thinking in his heart that it was fake, but his palm held Wen Renhe hand without letting go.
“Patriarch Yin, this Venerable is real. I have returned from the Underworld Blood Sea.” Wen Renhe firmly said.
“Yes, Venerable has returned.” Yin Hanjiang didn’t believe it and just casually agreed.
Wen Renhe didn’t mind that he was treating him as a fake and just took this opportunity to say: “The Wen family has been loyal to the emperor and loved the people for generations, but in the end the whole family was executed. I pieced together countless severed bones in the mass grave and every time I found one I would expect that there was still a head on it. But none of them were still alive. Probably since then, I have had an obsession in my heart, hoping that at least one person from the Wen family could have survived.”
“Years later, I thought I had let go of my past and become free from the turmoil of the mortal world, embarking on the road of immortality, but I didn’t know that this obsession was always hidden in my heart.
“When I found you in the mass grave, my first reaction was to touch your neck but from then on, I confused you with the survivors of the Wen family, and raised you in the same way I would have raised an outstanding general.”
“It’s my fault, it was my obsession that turned you into what you are now.”
Wen Renhe took Yin Hanjiang into his arms, and said softly: From now on, Yin Hanjiang can’t live for Wen Renhe, use your eyes to see, use your ears to hear. There is no need to wear a mask or pretend anymore, do what you want to do.”
A warm embrace, a gentle voice and words that he had never heard before caused Yin Hanjiang to knowingly indulge in it even though he knew it was just his heart demons.
“I want to take revenge for my lord.” Yin Hanjiang said, “I have a cruel heart and may spoil my lord’s previous plans, I must be patient and not willful.”
“You can be willful.” Wen Renhe said: “This Venerable allows it, whatever you want to do, I will help you.”
“I want to destroy all the things that venerable likes and offer them to you, sending them down to keep you company, can I?” Yin Hanjiang lifted his head and looked expectantly at Wen Renhe
“…… This Venerable doesn’t like Baili Qingmiao so there is no need to burn her.” Wen Renhe clarified.
“How nice” Yin Hanjiang sighed softly, “No wonder countless people indulge in the illusion of heart demons unable to extricate themselves, this is actually such a beautiful thing.”
“This Venerable is not an illusion created by heart demons.”
Yin Hanjiang did not take this statement seriously at all and just pursed his lips as he gathered his courage to say: “The subordinates want to like his lord, can he?”
The author has something to say:
Yin Hanjiang: I want to light a lamp
Wen Renhe: I don’t like Baili Qingmiao, no need to burn her, no need!
Yin Hanjiang: Then I’ll burn myself
Wen Renhe: No, no, no! Put down the fire!
Edited by: Ninja
Proofread by: Nio
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