Chapter 17: Traveling Together

The fortune teller went to bed far too early, just as the city was at its liveliest. The streets bustled with crowds, and the taverns echoed with raucous voices. Ye Minwei, Wen Ci, and Xie Yuzhu still sat together in a private room, surrounded by the lively sounds from outside.

Xie Yuzhu suddenly remembered the matter at hand and hurriedly took out the vision stone and bracelet she had painstakingly protected, handing them over to Ye Minwei.

“Everything’s here. I’ve kept them safe. Master, please check if they’re broken and if they can be repaired.”

Thinking of what Ye Minwei had said before being swept away by the wind, Xie Yuzhu sighed, “If these weren’t made by you, then who else?”

Ye Minwei turned to look at Wen Ci. Xie Yuzhu, puzzled, followed her gaze, then widened her eyes in disbelief.

Wen Ci lifted his eyelids to glance at the vision stone and bracelet, casually dropping a bombshell: “I made them. So what?”

Xie Yuzhu was stunned for a long moment, her mind racing.

“So… it wasn’t because you discovered Master secretly forging spiritual instruments that you split with her. From the start, you were her accomplice!”

“Accomplice?” Wen Ci sneered, unconcerned. “I was gravely ill and imprisoned by my body; she was full of ideas she couldn’t realize. So she treated my illness, I helped her forge spiritual instruments. I needed her brain, she needed my hands. It was a fair trade.”

“So… those spiritual instruments the Nightmare Beast spread around…”

“Almost all were made by me. What are you staring at? Want me to make another batch? Dream on. I merely followed her blueprints. Now she can’t draw them, even a deity couldn’t make spiritual instruments.”

He paused, then picked up the gold bracelet, weighing it in his hand. “As for this ‘Myriad Phenomena Senluo,’ it was originally a half-finished product. She fancied that after making different spiritual instruments for each technique, she could combine them all into one. The spiritual vein diagram was too complicated; I gave up halfway.”

“The Nightmare Beast was shrewd, stealing all the good stuff and leaving behind this junk.”

Ye Minwei thought for a moment, then took out a seemingly unremarkable bag she always carried. That plain-looking bag could hold something as massive as a mountain. She usually kept vision stones and various tools inside.

“The Nightmare Beast left me not only this bracelet but also these.” Ye Minwei tipped the bag into her palm, spilling out a heap of blue stones.

Wen Ci had been leisurely picking at his food, but upon seeing the stones, his expression darkened instantly. Quick as a flash, he grabbed her hand, covering the blue crystals, then waved his other hand to shut all the windows. In a low voice, he ordered, “Put them away quickly!”

Xie Yuzhu stared, wide-eyed and stammering, “These are… blue crystals? So many blue crystals!”

Blue crystals were also masterpieces of the Myriad Phenomena Sect. To spiritual instruments, they were like wind to a windmill or water to a boat—the source of their power. When a spiritual instrument’s blue crystal power was exhausted, it could no longer function and needed replacement.

No one knew the origin or manufacture of blue crystals, so aside from the ones the Nightmare Beast occasionally discarded, no new crystals appeared. Thus, blue crystals fetched prices far exceeding gold, even surpassing many spiritual instruments in the ghost market.

The handful of blue crystals Ye Minwei had just taken out was even more enticing than a thousand taels of silver. Wen Ci asked seriously, “How many blue crystals do you still have?”

Ye Minwei opened the mouth of the bag and held it out to Wen Ci. He reached in to feel around, his expression shifting multiple times.

Xie Yuzhu curiously asked, “Master, how many blue crystals are there?”

A window slowly opened. Wen Ci pointed to a huge dome far away outside. “See that granary?”

“Mm.”

“Full to the brim.”

“F… full?” Xie Yuzhu nearly bit her tongue.

At this moment, the richest man in Jiangdong was not her father, Xie Zhao, in Jinling City, but the master sitting before her—the newly acknowledged Wen Ci.

Still stunned, Xie Yuzhu suddenly had a flash of insight: the plan to turn techniques into spiritual instruments was a joint scheme between the Nightmare Realm master and the Myriad Phenomena Sect. Even if her master was the mastermind, the Nightmare Realm master had contributed no less. They were clearly grasshoppers on the same rope.

Since they were grasshoppers on one rope before, and that rope had caused so much trouble, further chaos would benefit no one. Now was the time to unite and help each other.

Xie Yuzhu immediately said, “Mr. Wu, there’s a saying—‘Don’t speak of success, don’t criticize failure, let bygones be bygones.’ The feud between you and my master is from twenty years ago. The disaster caused by spiritual instruments now is honestly a joint mess from both of you. My master remembers nothing. Can you and my master… start anew, and together find the Nightmare Beast to quell this calamity?”

Facing the renowned Nightmare Realm master, Xie Yuzhu was somewhat nervous. Wen Ci looked at her, his expression inscrutable.

He found it laughable, curling the corner of his mouth and raising his chin: “Let bygones be bygones? Start anew? If anyone can say that, it’s me. What right do you have to speak for me?”

Xie Yuzhu glanced at Ye Minwei, signaling her: “Then… Master, what do you say?”

Ye Minwei caught the hint, put down her chopsticks, and turned to face Wen Ci. She looked into his eyes solemnly, a faint light shimmering in her misty gaze. Bowing deeply, she said, “Wen Ci, can we let bygones be bygones and start anew?”

Let bygones be bygones, start anew.

The tea cup lid on Wen Ci’s hand stopped spinning.

He stared at Ye Minwei’s bowed back, silent and motionless for a long time, his gaze profound, lost in thought.

Only when Ye Minwei straightened up did he slowly and resolutely say, “Impossible.”

Ye Minwei’s brows and eyes drooped.

Wen Ci pressed his lips together, furrowing his brow, clutching the cup lid tightly, eyes filled with anger and bewilderment.

“Ye Minwei, why are you so determined to find your Nightmare Beast? The cultivation and knowledge you lost—given your talent, you can relearn all of it in less than decades. You are still you, Ye Minwei. What’s the difference from before? It’s a hundred times better than you getting involved in this chaos and losing your life!”

Ye Minwei remained unmoved and asked, “But what about my memories?”

“Your memories? Are they that important?”

“Of course they are. I need to know who I am.”

Wen Ci chuckled lowly, as if finding it absurd: “You actually think that matters.”

He paused, then continued, “If you live decades more, you’ll naturally know who you are. You, Ye Minwei, such a unique oddity, no matter how you live, it’s still you. Can you live as someone else?”

Ye Minwei said nothing, her gaze quietly fixed on him, unflinching.

After a moment of eye contact, as if reading the meaning in her eyes, Wen Ci said deliberately, “You still want to find it.”

Ye Minwei nodded, “I still want to find it.”

Then, persistent and sincere, she made her request again: “Help me find it. Whatever you want to do, I can do it for you.”

Wen Ci looked at her silently, fists clenched tightly, as if both annoyed and as expected. It seemed that over many years and countless confrontations, he had never convinced her otherwise.

“You stubborn fool!” Wen Ci ground out through gritted teeth, flipping the cup lid onto the teacup as if sealing the matter.

“Just so happens there’s one thing only you can help me with. In exchange, after you regain your cultivation and memories, you must do it for me.”

His words came fast, as if throwing them all at Ye Minwei’s face in one go.

“So?”

This time Wen Ci slowed down. “Didn’t understand? I agreed.”

Ye Minwei’s eyes brightened, she looked at him joyfully for a moment, then asked seriously, “Then what do you want me to do?”

Wen Ci’s eyes dropped, tapping the table irregularly.

“There’s someone relentlessly chasing me. You must help me so he can never find me again,” he said slowly.

Xie Yuzhu leaned forward curiously. “So you really are hiding from an enemy? Who’s looking for you? Do they want to kill you?”

Wen Ci shot Xie Yuzhu a sidelong glance, his smile forced and hollow. “Kids, mind your own business.”

Seventeen-year-old Xie Yuzhu looked at these two century-old elders in front of her and sulkily fell silent.

No one expected that after such a twisted reunion, despite the twenty years of grudges and rumors of mortal enmity between the Myriad Phenomena Sect and the Nightmare Realm master, they would temporarily make peace and set out together to find the Nightmare Beast.

That very night, Wen Ci used the power of nightmare arts to take them away from Ningzhou, as if wanting to cut through the mess swiftly and finish matters before parting ways with Ye Minwei again.

They traveled north, stopping and going, seeking news of the Nightmare Beast. At night, the bell in Wen Ci’s hand, silent during the day, jingled constantly, summoning wondrous creatures from the nightmare realm. He barely slept at night, and even when not using nightmare arts, he stayed awake as if habituated by long years.

During the day, Wen Ci was drowsy, lacking energy until sunset, searching for places to lie down or nap, always chronically sleep-deprived.

Ye Minwei, meanwhile, threw herself wholeheartedly into studying the “Myriad Phenomena Senluo.” She fiddled with the vision stone, developing a function that allowed her to see the spiritual veins inside the instruments, and from there, she was unstoppable. Though the Senluo was incomplete, it contained dozens of intertwining spiritual vein diagrams from different techniques. Ye Minwei began teaching herself—learning from her past self, striving to become proficient, keeping herself busily engaged.

At the inn, at midday, Xie Yuzhu rushed anxiously to Wen Ci’s room. “Mr. Wu! Mr. Wu! My master is rolling on the floor! She doesn’t respond when called! Is she possessed?”

Wen Ci lay lazily on the table, not even looking up. “She can’t figure it out and has a headache.”

“Then I…”

“Move the tables, stools, and porcelain away.”

He waved his hand without further words, implying: let your master roll around freely, and you’d better get lost and stop disturbing my sleep.

Xie Yuzhu hurried off.

By evening, she came again. “Mr. Wu! We’re about to set off, but my master is still calculating and won’t respond no matter how I call!”

Wen Ci reached into his pocket and threw out a book. “Pick the hardest question from this and read it beside her ear.”

Xie Yuzhu grabbed the arithmetic book and hastened to her master’s room.

Opening the door, Ye Minwei was indeed wearing the vision stone, intently watching the Myriad Phenomena Senluo. Her fingers continually moved up and down, back and forth on the table, calculating something. If she stayed here longer, that wooden table might be carved into a pit by her movements.