BB | Chapter 19

Are You Here to Buy in Bulk?!!…

Shen Canglan followed closely behind the man.

He had talked so much that it was almost more than everything he had said in the first seventeen years of his life combined. Although someone as cool as him should not really talk too much, seeing that demonic creature look so frustrated still gave Shen Canglan a great sense of accomplishment.

It was just that the demon was now completely ignoring him.

Whether Shen Canglan said, “Chen-ge, do you want to bare your abs so I can record you,” or “Look at the sky, there is a sword spirit ascending to immortality,” the demon acted as if he heard nothing. That left Shen Canglan with far less fun.

After thinking about it, Shen Canglan was about to say something else when his eyes suddenly lit up.

They really lit up. Shen Canglan covered his eyes. “Ah–”

A pair of hands steadied his shoulders. “It is fine. Rest your eyes for a moment.”

It was Li Yaochen’s voice.

Shen Canglan said in delight, “Brother?!”

The owner of the hands gave a hum. “It is me.”

It was exactly the same voice as the man posing as Li Yaochen, but the words spoken by that man and the words spoken by Li Yaochen himself were completely different. Just those few words from his brother carried all the steadiness in the world.

By now Shen Canglan’s eyes had recovered from the bright light, and the first thing he saw was his brother standing right in front of him.

He felt as if he had only been separated from Li Yaochen and the others for a little over an hour, yet at that moment he somehow had the feeling of “one day apart feels like three autumns.”

He reached out and patted Li Yaochen, wanting to speak, but then forgot what he wanted to say. His brother’s muscles felt pretty good.

A voice came from behind him. “Cough, cough.”

Qin Chun sucked in a breath. “Don’t make a sound!”

Then he said, “You two continue, no need to mind us.”

Shen Canglan: “…”

Continue what continue! What had they even done to continue?

With a straight face, he withdrew his hand and asked Li Yaochen, “What exactly happened just now? You all suddenly disappeared, and then someone popped out pretending to be you.”

“It was an illusion. I did not expect the demonic creatures here to have the ability to create illusions.”

Looking at the three similarly blank faces before him, Li Yaochen briefly explained and finally helped the three of them understand what an illusion and a heart demon were.

He then asked, “Are you all all right? Were any of you injured?”

Qin Chun smiled, looking almost radiant. “I’m fine. This heart demon was actually rather nice. He listened to me tell stories for a long time and was very supportive. I almost couldn’t bear to end it.”

Shen Guanqi, on the other hand, looked somewhat tired. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “In a daze, I went back to the sect and was busy for an entire day. Fortunately, he helped me so I wouldn’t be so exhausted.”

Li Yaochen: “…”

That works too?

If the people in his original world knew there was such a way to break a heart demon, wouldn’t their eyes pop out one by one?

With the two of them as a lead-in, Li Yaochen grew even more curious about Shen Canglan’s method of coping, and turned his gaze to Shen Canglan.

Shen Canglan puffed out his chest and said proudly, “… I didn’t hear those things, maybe because I kept talking and talked the demon into shutting itself down.”

Li Yaochen’s eyebrows curved. “That can count as a method of breaking it.”

The two looked at each other and let out some hearty, self-satisfied laughter.

Li Yaochen even reached out and gave Shen Canglan’s head a casual rub.

The System sighed in Li Yaochen’s mind: [Sigh! Straight man! Sigh!]

Qin Chun was also sighing. “Sigh! Delicious!”

Shen Guanqi gave him a sidelong look. “You really should not take it seriously. My younger brother’s brain is broken, and Daoist Li’s is a bit more flexible, but it is not exactly great either.”

Qin Chun hugged his waist token and drifted farther away. “Don’t worry about it.”

Shen Guanqi: “…”

Kindness repaid with ingratitude!

Angry, he fished a beast-use anti-heat pill out of the gourd holding medicine pills and swallowed it.

–

After Shen Canglan finished laughing, he looked around.

He raised his voice. “Where is that demon? Where did it hide?”

He had not expected that the demon with a pair of ram horns would still be nearby, but just as his voice fell, he actually heard a voice from behind a tree diagonally ahead. “… Our king wants to see you. Come with me.”

As the words fell, the black-robed man Shen Canglan had seen earlier flashed out from behind the tree and walked in a certain direction without looking back.

Shen Canglan exchanged a glance with Li Yaochen.

Li Yaochen said, “Follow it!”

That sheep demon’s pace was actually much faster than before. Shen Canglan was now at the Body Tempering stage and could keep up easily, but Shen Guanqi and Qin Chun struggled quite a bit. In order not to drag them down, the two of them even each took a beast-use tonic pill.

Shen Canglan could not bear watching it and stopped the sheep demon. “Wait while we rest for a bit.”

The sheep demon let out a gloomy snort. “You are not allowed to rest. Our king is still waiting for you.”

Shen Canglan stared at it without blinking until it became extremely uncomfortable. “W-what are you doing?”

Shen Canglan asked, “What is your name?”

The sheep demon struggled for a long time before reluctantly squeezing out two words. “Huanxin.”

Shen Canglan said, “Oh,” then pointed at his own temple and made two circles, looking at Huanxin as if it were an idiot. “If you say no, then no? We are going to rest. Are we supposed to stop and wait if it comes to that?”

Huanxin: “…”

That did make some sense.

It fell silent.

Shen Canglan pulled out the portrait of Yun Fang’s youngest son from his chest and asked Huanxin, “Have you seen him?”

Hearing Shen Canglan’s voice now made Huanxin feel uncomfortable all over. But it still answered, “He is our queen’s brother-in-law.”

“Brother-in-law?”

That answer surprised Shen Canglan a little, though not too much.

Qin Chun, however, became interested. He moved closer. “How did they get together?”

The stories of the king and the brother-in-law were something they would often bring up in daily conversation, finding them incredibly sweet. Huanxin immediately grew spirited. “Now that is a story…”

In Huanxin’s telling, the first time their king left the underground palace, he slipped into a household out of hunger and met Yun Fang’s youngest son, Yun Lian.

Yun Lian brought food and drink to receive their king and even applied medicine to the wounds on his body. Their king immediately fell in love with this gentle and kind man.

Their second meeting was in the dead of night. Their king had been drugged, and Yun Lian chose to accept him with his own body…

In this part, Huanxin spoke very vaguely and skipped over many details directly. Shen Canglan listened in utter confusion. A story he had originally had no interest in at all instead sparked some curiosity.

He asked, “What drug did your king take?”

Huanxin: “… It was, it was…”

Shen Canglan looked at Huanxin with burning thirst for knowledge.

After a long struggle, Huanxin squeezed out a few words. “It was a medicine that made the body energetic and full of vigor.”

Shen Canglan grew even more bewildered. “Then why did they have to look for someone else? Why not just go out and run two laps by themselves?”

Huanxin: “…”

Li Yaochen doubled over laughing directly against Shen Canglan’s back.

Shen Canglan: “?”

What was so funny? Looking down on running?

Li Yaochen braced himself on Shen Canglan’s shoulder. “Stop asking. You do not need to know.”

Shen Canglan: “.”

Fine, if even his brother said so.

He did not waste a single moment and sat nearby to cultivate for a while. Only after Huanxin finished explaining how their king and Yun Lian met did the group set off again. This time they did not stop, following the hidden passage inside the room all the way to the real underground palace.

Going down along the tunnel, Shen Canglan’s first impression was that the smell here was rather unpleasant.

The decor was very primitive, a simple dwelling built from large stones, dim and damp.

It was exactly the same as the demon den Shen Canglan had imagined.

He tightened his grip on the sword at his waist, ready for battle at any moment, while also keeping track of every path they passed in case he had to flee if they could not win.

This move won Li Yaochen’s praise. “Well done, brother.”

Shen Canglan snorted two proud laughs through his nose.

After walking a little farther, Huanxin said ahead of them, “We are here.”

Then it added, “King, we are back.”

Someone gave a low, magnetic hum.

Shen Canglan looked up.

Seated on the stone stool was a male demon. His true form could not be seen, but he was huge, three Shen Canglan-widths across and a half-length long. His muscles were also extremely bulky.

Beside the male demon was another person, who asked, “You are the people sent by my father, right?”

Shen Canglan froze. “You, you are Yun Lian?”

The person said, “Of course I am.”

Li Yaochen pulled Shen Canglan to his side and took the portrait from his sleeve, repeatedly looking up and down as he compared the person in front of him with the person in the portrait.

The man in the painting had refined and proper features. Though he was a bit inferior to Shen Canglan, he could still be called handsome.

But now, the person sitting beside the king had eyes even bigger than Qin Chun’s, skin fairer than Shen Canglan’s, a waist slimmer than the water snake at Shen Guanqi’s place, and lips red with teeth white, beautiful and delicate.

The System said dreamily, [Ah, the power of love is so great.]

Li Yaochen: “.”

He had already witnessed this so-called “power of love” at Yun Fang’s auction last time, and seeing it again now still felt deeply unsettling. Yet everyone except Shen Canglan seemed completely used to it, not finding anything strange at all.

Forget it.

Better not look too deeply into it.

Li Yaochen habitually folded his arms across his chest and asked Yun Lian, “Do you want to leave with us now, or should we beat everyone here senseless first and then tie you up and take you back?”

In his view, a small commission like this really did not require much thought. It was enough to use the simplest method to carry it out.

Yun Lian shrank back a little and asked, “Is there really no third choice? For example, I do not go back.”

Li Yaochen said, “No.”

“I know you are formidable. I do not want the king to fight with you and end up injured.”

Yun Lian asked, “Even if I can offer a reward richer than what my father gave, and release the people who came looking for me earlier, still no?”

He said, “You have seen it yourselves. I am very happy here, very content. Why must I go back?”

Li Yaochen: “…”

He did not answer immediately.

Yun Lian lowered his head. “Besides, I am already pregnant… You cannot possibly make my child be born without a father, can you?”

Li Yaochen: “?”

Right, he always forgot that in this world, some men could also become pregnant.

Under Yun Lian’s hopeful gaze, he considered for a moment. After glancing sideways at Shen Canglan, he said, “Fine. Then I want two hundred gold-element inner cores, one thousand mid-grade spirit stones, storage items with space, and no fewer than three protective magic treasures.”

The burly demon king let out a roar and hurled a battle axe over. “Do not go too far!! Are you here to buy in bulk?!!”

Shen Canglan was actually shocked by Li Yaochen’s price as well.

He had not expected his brother to dare ask for so much. For a moment, his eyes toward Li Yaochen were filled with deep admiration.

Li Yaochen lightly leaped back, avoiding the crack in the ground, and said with unhurried calm, “If it works, bring it. If it does not, then we fight.”