BB | Chapter 29

You Just Watch Your Brother Make a Joke of Himself Like This…

Shen Guanqi picked up the waist token and wanted to leave Qin Chun a recording, to prove himself, but unfortunately the two had already separated. Only the sound of laughter still echoed through the empty room.

Shen Guanqi silently hung the waist token back up again.

Li Yaochen’s eyes swept over the four spirit stones placed by the door. “Why didn’t you take the reward?”

Shen Canglan: “Reward?”

Li Yaochen walked over, picked up the spirit stones, and handed them out to the others while explaining, “For every requirement you complete in a room, you can get a reward. This secret realm is practically as if some senior deliberately made it, just to help out the younger generation.”

But that was only Li Yaochen’s guess. Making a secret realm like this, without some special method, was something only cultivators at the Great Ascension stage could do. In this world, so full of abnormalities, would there really be such a senior who cared for the younger generation?

There was another thing that surprised Li Yaochen. He had thought Shen Canglan would come alone, but unexpectedly four people had shown up at once. Was this the “good stuff” Shen Canglan had told him about in the jade pendant?

The man in the blue robe looked somewhat familiar to him, but he could not immediately remember where he had seen him before. Li Yaochen handed the spirit stones to him, and the blue-robed man suddenly looked at him with burning enthusiasm. “Father-in-law!”

Li Yaochen: “?”

Seeing that Li Yaochen did not speak, Sui Qing called out again, “Father-in-law! It’s your son-in-law!”

Li Yaochen: “…”

What was all this?

He turned to look at Shen Guanqi. “There’s work. Treat him.”

Shen Canglan turned his head away, the corners of his mouth lifting slightly.

Li Yaochen asked, “What exactly is going on?”

Sui Qing explained everything himself.

Li Yaochen listened, but still could not understand Sui Qing’s inner world after falling for a paper crane at first sight. He folded his arms. “Oh. Fine, whatever. But I still have use for the paper crane, so I won’t give it to you for now. And stop calling me father-in-law.”

Sui Qing: “All right, father-in-law.”

Li Yaochen: “…”

From the moment Li Yaochen and Sui Qing met, Shen Canglan had been holding himself back beside them, just wanting to see his brother’s reaction. Now that he was finally satisfied, he laughed until his thighs hurt, but he did not control his strength well. “Hahaha… hiss—”

Li Yaochen glanced at him and reached out to pull him over.

He clamped Shen Canglan’s head under one arm and rubbed hard with the other hand a few times. “And you just stand there watching your brother make a joke of himself.”

If he didn’t watch his brother make a joke of himself, what kind of brother was he?

Shen Canglan was under his control now and did not dare say that. He only flailed his arms. “I was wrong, I was wrong, Chen-ge, Chen-ge.”

After a few more apologies, Li Yaochen finally let him off.

Shen Guanqi took money and did the work, then picked up the waist token again.

[Silent at the Chessboard]: Canglan called Daoist Li a handsome older brother several times.

[Human Warmth Exists]: …

[Human Warmth Exists]: Haha, Senior Brother Shen, you’re even better at making things up than I am at writing story booklets.

Shen Guanqi wanted to leave a recording again, but Shen Canglan and Li Yaochen had already separated once more.

Shen Guanqi ground his teeth in frustration: “…………”

Could someone please come prove that he was not lying? Anyone??

–

Li Yaochen said, “Follow me.”

With that, he led the way ahead.

For rooms they had already passed through, he could go in again without having to complete the task. But Shen Canglan and the others still needed to. From time to time, the few of them would spin in place, jump a few times, lie down for a while, and it was all far more tiring than expected.

The rewards were there too, four sets each, but the types and quality were all random, a scattering of small odds and ends, like toys meant to placate children.

Shen Canglan was very enthusiastic about it, but the other three were clearly not interested. Shen Guanqi in particular yawned without any politeness at all.

Shen Canglan asked, “How about you go wait outside, brother?”

Shen Guanqi thought about it. “Then when can you be done? Can you get out in two hours?”

“Can’t,” Li Yaochen answered. “Let alone one or two hours, even one or two days wouldn’t be enough to walk through everything here.”

Shen Guanqi was stunned. “It takes that long? Then I should just keep following along.”

He was starting to regret agreeing to Qin Chun. Fortunately, the patients at the clinic had mostly recovered, and he had asked a few junior brothers and sisters to help take care of them, so there was no rush to return for now.

Sui Qing did not want to be too far from Li Yaochen. He kept calling out “little bird” with longing as he followed behind Li Yaochen. Since he would not leave, Ning Dong could not leave either, and the group continued onward like this.

The speed at which they came out of the rooms varied. By evening, they had only gotten through fewer than ten rooms. By then the other three were truly exhausted and could not walk another step no matter what was said. So Shen Canglan and Li Yaochen left them to rest where they were, while the two crouched in a corner and played with the human-shaped paper dolls they had made earlier.

Li Yaochen used spiritual power to control his paper figure to circle around Shen Canglan’s paper figure and asked, “Guess what cultivation level I am now.”

Shen Canglan controlled his paper figure to spin with him. “What?”

“Heh, guess.”

Shen Canglan looked up at Li Yaochen.

His brother, though he looked very young, was usually the type to keep his emotions hidden. At this moment, however, his eyebrows were lifted and his mouth curved with a smile, the smugness impossible to conceal.

Shen Canglan made a bold guess. “Are you about to condense your golden core?!”

Li Yaochen looked at him with smiling starry eyes and said nothing, taking Shen Canglan’s guess as the default answer.

“Oh my god, brother,” Shen Canglan praised him with the most sincere words he could think of. “Amazing! So amazing! Your speed is way too fast!”

Li Yaochen coughed. “Keep a low profile, keep a low profile.”

Shen Canglan suddenly remembered something. “Right. Chen-ge, you told me before that starting from the golden core, every breakthrough requires tribulation crossing.”

According to what Li Yaochen had taught him before, the golden core was a watershed. Only after forming a golden core did one truly step halfway into the Dao. From then on, every step was a struggle against fate, and the heavenly lightning that descended at a breakthrough was punishment from the Heavenly Dao.

Li Yaochen hummed in acknowledgment.

Shen Canglan asked, “So, Chen-ge, are you about to get struck by lightning?”

There was a trace of nervousness in the sentence, but the remaining nine parts were all anticipation for his brother being struck by lightning.

Li Yaochen: “…”

He nodded.

Shen Canglan cleared his throat, tucked away the anticipatory expression he had accidentally let slip, and said solemnly, “Then I’ll protect you, Chen-ge.”

Li Yaochen said, “All right.”

As soon as he finished speaking, the paper figure under his spiritual control suddenly stopped spinning and collided with Shen Canglan’s little paper figure right behind it.

Li Yaochen’s paper figure lifted Shen Canglan’s little paper man up entirely, balancing it triumphantly on top of its head. Shen Canglan was caught off guard and hurried to manipulate his spiritual energy so his paper figure could struggle, but there was no saving it now. The defeat was already decided.

Shen Canglan tapped the top of Li Yaochen’s paper figure with his own like beating a wooden fish. “Sneak attacks are shameless!”

“Your brother is aboveboard and upright,” Li Yaochen said lazily. “I made all the moves right under your nose. You just didn’t keep up.”

Shen Canglan snorted and, accepting defeat, put the two little paper figures away in his storage pouch.

Li Yaochen looked up at the others in the room. “Are you planning to sleep?”

The three people inside jolted awake.

“Strange…” Ning Dong said, rubbing his face in confusion. “When did I close my eyes?”

“You should rest if you want to,” Li Yaochen said as he stood. “There are still rooms nearby I haven’t been into. I’ll go look with Xiao Lan.”

Shen Guanqi picked up the waist token.

[Silent at the Chessboard]: Daoist Li called Canglan Xiao Lan.

[Human Warmth Exists]: Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

[Silent at the Chessboard]: …

“Xiao Lan?” Shen Canglan followed behind Li Yaochen out the door. “Me?”

Li Yaochen took out the parchment scroll and flipped back a few pages, studying it carefully. He also answered Shen Canglan, “Of course it’s you. Who else is there with that name? Isn’t it nice? Or should I change how I call you?”

“It’s not that it’s unpleasant,” Shen Canglan said, touching his chin. “It just feels like you’re calling me little, like you’re a hundred years older than me.”

Li Yaochen: “.”

He rubbed his nose, coughed, and very guiltily did not take up the conversation.

[Such an obvious concealment after lying.】 The System said, [Only because your brother trusts you that much. If it were anyone else, they’d have seen through it already.]

Li Yaochen asked humbly, “Then what do you think I should do?”

[Grab your brother’s chin, pin him to the wall, and then use a low voice -]

…He shouldn’t have asked.

Li Yaochen quickly cut the System off.

He found a room he had never entered before. “This way.”

The moment the two of them went in, the room door slammed shut with a bang. The two of them skillfully started searching everywhere for clues.

As he searched, Li Yaochen said, “There really are many kinds of rooms here. Some can even only be completed by two people working together.”

His tone was rather eager, as if he was looking forward to completing a room with Shen Canglan, but Shen Canglan frowned in concern.

“So both people have to complete the requirements to get out? Then what if next time we run into a room that requires three or four people working together, we still barely have enough. But if it requires ten people, a hundred people, or even ten thousand, where am I supposed to find that many people?”

Li Yaochen didn’t understand. “If there aren’t enough people, the room door won’t close automatically. Wouldn’t you just come out?”

Shen Canglan slapped his forehead. “Heh, I’m stupid.”

Li Yaochen wanted to laugh, but before the smile could fully form, he heard Shen Canglan call to him again. “Chen-ge.”

The voice was a little soft, unlike his previous liveliness, as if there was some concern in it. Li Yaochen looked over at his brother and saw a red mark already appearing on Shen Canglan’s fair, smooth forehead.

He really was delicate-skinned.

That day, Shen Canglan had drunk too much and he had carried him back to the room. Once he lay on the bed and slept soundly, Li Yaochen had idly reached out to rub and pinch his brother’s face, and it turned red immediately. He had used a whole bottle of medicine before Shen Canglan’s face finally returned to normal.

The feel was very good, soft when pinched, and he looked forward to the next time he could pinch it again.

Li Yaochen collected his thoughts. “What’s wrong?”

Shen Canglan asked, “What if… I mean hypothetically, what if the requirement this room gives is for the two people who enter to kill each other? Then what?”

Li Yaochen put one hand on his hip and smiled.

Shen Canglan: ?

The pose was very cool, but what did that mean?

Li Yaochen pointed at Shen Canglan’s waist.

Shen Canglan asked hesitantly, “Cut me in half?”

Li Yaochen: “…”

He said helplessly, “Look for yourself. What is on your waist?”

Shen Canglan lowered his head.

What was on his waist? What was there on his waist?

There was the uniform he had washed very soft, the sash he had worn for many years, a string of cheap trinkets clinking and clattering, You Tajui, his strong and fit body, and —

And Li Yaochen’s black storage pouch.

Oh!

So if the room really did give them a self-slaughter requirement, Li Yaochen had a way to break it too?

Forcing their way out, or some kind of medicine that could make someone appear dead?

No matter what, Shen Canglan settled down.

He was embarrassed to tell Li Yaochen that he had actually already been prepared to sacrifice himself for his brother.

After the worry in his heart was resolved, the two of them continued searching for clues.

One stick of incense, two sticks… an hour gradually passed.

Shen Canglan straightened up and wiped the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. His face was still as expressionless as usual, his brows and eyes calm and steady, but what came out of his mouth was just these two words: “We’re done for.”

Done for.

They couldn’t find the clue at all.