The senior brother gently patted the back of the person in his arms, his movements extremely gentle. His eyes, still tinged with a hint of red, slightly turned to look at the scattered cultivator who had crashed onto the guest table.

“Boom—”

The scattered cultivator felt as if his whole body had fallen apart. It took him a long time to struggle to get up. Just as he stood, he suddenly felt a chilling gaze that seemed almost tangible. Before he could react, a powerful spiritual pressure came crashing down like a tidal wave.

His chest sank heavily, and the guest table beneath him shattered, a suffocating dull pain spreading throughout his body. Yet, he couldn’t make a sound and spat out a mouthful of blood.

This sudden turn of events happened in just a few moments. The people around fell silent, with only the sound of the teacups from the collapsed guest table breaking on the ground echoing in their ears, causing their hearts to race. Their gazes darted between the fallen cultivator and the standing figure, unable to comprehend the situation.

They had clearly been wide awake just moments ago, yet they still couldn’t figure out what was happening now, nor did they know where the suddenly appeared person had come from. All they could tell was that the person knew the one in the senior brother’s arms and was not to be trifled with.

Many people knew of Ling Xu Jun but didn’t truly recognize him. Even standing right in front of him, they couldn’t tell who he was. The image of him holding someone without letting go was vastly different from the dignified and composed persona they had heard about. Even if someone said it was him, not many would believe it.

Only a few who had seen him from a distance when accompanying their elders to the sect, and had encountered him just yesterday, recognized him. They shivered, realizing something, and looked down in disbelief at the jade token still held tightly in the green-clad person’s hand.

So, they had just notified this person!

The shock hit them like a bolt, and the green-clad person turned their head, asking, “What’s wrong?”

The informed person succinctly replied, glancing at the one in the azure robe, “That’s Ling Xu Jun.”

“……”

“?”

Well, this was something! A few people nearby jolted in surprise, and the green-clad person’s hand trembled, nearly dropping the jade token. The others hurriedly scrambled to catch it.

The scattered cultivator was already unable to move. The city guards arrived a moment too late, taking both him and his weapons away.

This was probably the liveliest night at the Nan Feng Pavilion. Hearing that someone was causing trouble, many people came to watch, and the place was packed with heads both inside and outside.

Estimating that his wounds were likely cracked, and with the jade token retrieved, Lin Zhu Sheng figured it was time for him to leave.

Though he was a bit injured, he felt he could still walk upright. In the end, however, he found himself on the senior brother’s back.

He could have chosen to be carried, but doing so in front of so many people was just too embarrassing. Given the choice, he unhesitatingly opted for being carried on the back.

The senior brother had come in from the rain, and while he was initially damp, with the elder’s cleansing technique, he became completely dry and comfortable to lean against.

“The sect will send someone to handle the building repairs tomorrow. I apologize for the disturbance today.”

It was still pouring outside. Wen Bai Zhou draped a cloak over the person on his back, covering them from head to toe, and briefly spoke to the innkeeper about the arrangements.

The innkeeper quickly waved his hand, saying it wasn’t necessary, and didn’t dare to ask which sect “we” referred to. He handed over a small cat and said, “Thanks to both of you today, Immortals.”

If it hadn’t been for the mix-up earlier, he and the person who was supposed to take the stage might not have made it through the day. Life was the most important thing; repairs could wait, but it seemed only right that the troublemaker should be held accountable.

The senior brother arrived and left in less than fifteen minutes, not lingering for even a second, directly taking the person away. His sword floated in the air as his figure vanished into the rain.

After wandering outside for a few days, the truth was that Lin Zhan, the homeless one, fell asleep on the senior brother’s back, sleeping soundly and completely unaware that he had been lifted into the air, carried from Luo Du to the bay.

The disciple’s injuries were not yet healed, and they still needed to find someone. The Tian Zong and some other sects remained here. By nightfall, most people had already gone to bed, and the inn only had a lamp lit in the main hall.

“Pat—”

Amid the continuous sound of rain from outside, a loud noise of the door opening mixed with footsteps could be heard. The two drowsy disciples sitting by the lamp raised their heads and saw a figure approaching.

Once they recognized who it was, they jumped up in surprise, instantly awake, and called out, “Senior Brother!”

Without any intention of stopping, Wen Bai Zhou walked upstairs while saying, “When the others return, tell them the person has been found, and there’s no need to search anymore.”

His voice was quite low, just enough for the two disciples to hear clearly.

“Okay… huh?”

The two disciples widened their eyes in confusion, finally realizing that there was a person on his back. They froze for a moment, then hurriedly responded, watching him ascend the stairs.

Wen Bai Zhou tried to keep his voice down, but the person on his back still woke up.

When Lin Shi Fu woke up, his eyes hadn’t opened yet. Habitually, he wanted to throw a few punches and kicks after waking up, but when he kicked out, he realized something was off and finally realized he was still on the senior brother’s back.

After a comfortable sleep, he felt quite energetic upon waking. He had also managed to toss off the cloak draped over him, which fell to the ground just as the door closed.

The clothes he was wearing couldn’t go on the bed. The senior brother set him down on a chair, casually picked up the cloak from the floor, and set it aside.

He lit a lamp and placed it on the table, then half-squatted down, saying, “Let’s take a look at your wounds.”

It wasn’t an illusion; his voice was indeed a bit hoarse. Lin Zhu Sheng felt the location of his wounds, half-removed his clothes, and bent over to look closely at the senior brother’s face in the nearby light. After looking a bit longer, he said, “Senior Brother, you seem really tired?”

“Not too bad.”

Wen Bai Zhou looked down at the wounds and the black lines spreading nearby, then brought up another topic, “How did this happen?”

As soon as this topic came up, Lin became animated, forgetting the pain from his wounds.

He glanced around to confirm that there was no one else in the room, then took a deep breath and dramatically recounted the series of tragic events that had happened after he rolled down from the mountain top to the mountainside.

The more he spoke, the more into it he became, tears streaming down his face as he recounted his tale.

The little cat beside him watched him cry without any pretense, its eyes wide as it turned away.

So, the reason he had been looking around like a thief earlier was to confirm that there was no one else in the room. This person actually had some awareness of image management. Usually, he acted like a wild man, but at times like this, he was a bit reserved. It was hard to imagine what kind of image he was trying to manage.

After the senior brother finished treating his wounds, he paused while changing clothes, then stood up and bent down to wipe away the tears that were flowing freely. With one hand, he gently patted Lin’s back, looking down at his illuminated brows and eyes, and softly said, “I’m sorry, I came late.”

“……”

The torrent of tears finally ended when Lin Shi Fu cried himself out. He took a break and reached for a snack.

He had given his disciple robe to the He Huan Sect’s senior sister, and the clothes from Wu Qi were still too dirty to wear. He had no clothes to change into, so he ended up wearing the kind-hearted senior brother’s clothes. He leaned down to sniff and could still smell the senior brother’s scent, which was quite pleasant.

Once he changed into clean clothes, he earned the right to go to bed. After stuffing a few snacks into his mouth, he quickly moved from the chair to the soft bed, rolling around and hugging a pillow, then asked the question he had been wanting to ask: “How did you recognize me, Senior Brother?”

Aside from the slight redness at the corners of his eyes, there was no trace of the earlier crying on his face. His emotional regulation ability was impressively strong.

“By feeling,” the senior brother said, sitting down on the chair beside the bed. “I just felt it was you.”

Names can’t be trusted, faces can’t be trusted, all that was left was a feeling.

“?”

By feeling. What an abstract answer! Lin Zhu Sheng objectively thought that this senior brother might have a talent for the abstract, laughing as he rolled around with the pillow.

He was in a good mood now, and it was time for the senior brother to ask questions. His gaze fell on the familiar brows and eyes that felt too distant, and he lowered his eyes to ask about his face and hair.

Great! It turned out he hadn’t been asked because the time hadn’t come. Having not heard anyone bring it up, Lin’s smile suddenly froze, and his actions came to a halt.

After so many days focused on other matters, he completely forgot that he still needed to come up with a reasonable explanation.

Struggling to get up from the bed, he quickly thought of an excuse and decided to partially confess about the strange growth he had experienced: “I used a fun little prop that’s a bit hard to explain. Now that the prop has worn off, I’ve changed back.”

It was fun, but explaining it made him want to die.

As he spoke, he absentmindedly tugged at his hair and continued, “This was truly an accident. It will change back later… um, it’s still hard to explain. In short, it turned out like this because of various reasons.”

Overall, it was equivalent to saying nothing at all. Even he felt it was rough, and he wanted to bang his head against the ground in frustration, closing his eyes in pain.

Although he had only been in the game for half a year, upon reflection, it seemed he had already met quite a few people while wearing that face, which he could no longer clearly remember, including but not limited to participating in the sect competition that all sects attended and happily playing with other sect members in the secret realm.

There were too many people to explain to, and no matter how he thought about it, it was a disaster. Burying his head deep into the pillow, he declared, “I’m dead.”

It was hard to explain, as he hadn’t even thought of a good excuse.

The senior brother sitting beside him looked down, as if resigned, and let out a barely noticeable sigh. He reached out to take the pillow from Lin’s hands, allowing him to catch his breath, and said, “There’s a type of herb called Qian Yan Grass. If ingested, it can change a person’s appearance. The antidote is hard to find but exists, mainly growing in the South Sea region.”

“Yin Xue Grass can change hair color, with effects lasting from a few months to a year.”

The answer was right in front of him. Not joking, Lin Zhu Sheng’s eyes lit up, and he immediately leaped forward to hug the knowledgeable senior brother tightly.

But the answer didn’t come for free. After the excited Lin hugged him, intending to pull back to return to his bed, he realized he couldn’t retreat. The back of his neck was caught by the senior brother’s hand, and as he tried to pull back, he ended up pressing against the senior brother’s palm.

Not understanding what this meant, he looked up, “Huh?”

Wen Bai Zhou looked down and asked, “Lin Zhu Sheng, is that name real?”

Seeing that he seemed quite serious, Lin Zhu Sheng thought he was asking a serious question. He was taken aback for a moment, then laughed and said, “Of course it’s real! How could it be fake?”

He seemed quite confident that he wouldn’t give a false name.

The senior brother didn’t respond, finally retracting his hand, letting the white hair slip through his fingers and fall. He placed the pillow back on the bed and said, “It’s getting late. Let’s rest for now.”

He picked up the little cat and tucked it into the blanket. Lin Zhu Sheng lay down and looked at the somewhat tired senior brother, urging him to go rest as well.

The senior brother didn’t leave; he quietly sat to the side, leaning over to extinguish the lit lamp, saying, “I’ll leave once you fall asleep.”

After experiencing such a tumultuous day, Lin Zhu Sheng thought his mind would still be active and that it would be hard to fall asleep. However, as soon as his head hit the pillow, his breathing stabilized within three seconds, breaking the record for the fastest to fall asleep.

The heavy rain continued outside, pattering against the window, making noise that showed no signs of letting up by the next morning.

The sky was gray, and the room was dim.

After wriggling a bit in the blanket, Lin, who had slept until dawn, woke up with his body alert but his mind still hazy. His eyes hadn’t opened yet, but his hands instinctively grabbed the little cat sleeping beside him, while the other hand started to punch.

Punching… didn’t work.

Feeling some invisible obstruction, his vision cleared, and he turned slightly to see a hand gripping his fingers tightly at the edge of the bed.

The owner of the hand was leaning against a chair, eyes closed in light sleep. It was the senior brother who shouldn’t have been here and should have already gone back to rest.

“……”

There was no need to think; he could guess that it was himself who had unconsciously held onto the person during his half-awake state.

Waking up with an additional crime on his record, Lin, the guilty one, wiped his face with his free hand and sat up in bed. To make the person on the chair more comfortable, he tried to gently pull his hand away from the senior brother’s grip while attempting to destroy the evidence of his crime.

“Swish—”

He swore he only moved slightly, and before he could fully pull his hand out, the person sitting in the chair instantly opened his eyes, applying force to his hand and gripping it tightly, enough to make the veins on the back of Lin’s hand bulge.

When he first opened his eyes, there was no hiding the overwhelming emotions swirling within them. Lin was startled, thinking he had seen it wrong, and tentatively called out, “Senior Brother?”

The senior brother snapped back to reality, opened his eyes again, and they returned to their usual calmness as he replied, “Good morning.”

It seemed it was indeed an illusion. The person was awake, still holding his hand, and with no time to destroy the evidence, Lin Zhu Sheng had no choice but to sincerely apologize for his actions.

Perhaps because he had rested for a night, the red veins in the senior brother’s eyes had faded significantly, and he didn’t look as tired anymore. His gaze fell on their still-intertwined hands, and he slowly released his grip, saying, “It’s not your fault.”

It wasn’t his fault for grabbing someone; it couldn’t be that the person had chosen to sit there all night. Even if he thought about it, he knew this was just self-comforting. Lin Zhu Sheng felt grateful for the considerate senior brother.

Standing up from his seat, Wen Bai Zhou lit the lamp and said, “The Grand Elder came by last night, but you were asleep, so I let him rest first. You get dressed, and once you’re ready, I’ll go find him.”

The Grand Elder had also been looking for someone these past few days, but he was searching in other areas of the South Sea and had gone too far. By the time he received news and returned, it was already late at night, not a good time for a meeting.

Lin Zhu Sheng then got up, putting on his clothes one piece at a time, while the senior brother helped him tie up his messy white hair.

Once he was almost ready, he started munching on breakfast, and the senior brother left the room to find the Grand Elder.

When the door to the room opened again, Lin, who had been munching on snacks, had already finished one dumpling. Just as he was hesitating whether to eat a second one, he heard hurried footsteps coming from outside.

Then came the sound of the door opening. A winded old man with white hair rushed into the room, looking quite anxious. As he entered, he glanced toward the bed, not paying attention to the threshold, nearly tripping but completely unconcerned, and asked, “How are your injuries now?”

Seeing the little old man looking so urgent, Lin Zhu Sheng, who had just seen the familiar face after the senior brother, stopped munching on his snack. After crying in the senior brother’s arms yesterday, he now wanted to complain to the Grand Elder, so he stood up from the chair and rushed toward the old man.

The little old man only gave him half a glance, slightly shifting to look in another direction, his gaze searching the room for the person he was looking for. Not finding the person, he immediately frowned and asked Wen Bai Zhou where his disciple was.

“……”

Lin’s heart sank, and his footsteps came to a halt. The tears that had been brewing in his eyes instantly retracted, and his face, like his heart, became completely calm as he stood to the side and simply said, “Old man.”

What a familiar voice, especially that familiar address.

The old man, still searching for someone, immediately turned around. No matter how he looked at it, he could only see a pair of calm eyes staring back at him.

“?”

With eyes as dull as a dead fish, and an attitude that was both annoying and arrogant, yet with a completely different face and inexplicably white hair, the Grand Elder was shocked, confused, and fell silent. After a moment of silence, he raised his head, trying to say something, “You…”

Before he could finish, the person across from him calmly interjected, “If you’re going to ask me who I am, just be prepared to be called ‘old man’ for the rest of your life.”

The Grand Elder, who had just wanted to ask, was left speechless.