As the relation among Gu Yunjue, Gazing Chen Pavilion and the devil realm was figured out, Mu Chen bit his under-lip, feeling a sudden heartache.
Not noticing Mu Chen's complexion, Gu Yunjue stood the pain and smiled with a sexy curl at his thin lips, "Master, when are you going to drop me down?"
Mu Chen brought back his mind from those thoughts and realized that he was clinging to his almost naked disciple who had been wet all over the body with only a pair of briefs on. Holding this disciple in his arms, Mu Chen was also soaked to the skin that each could feel the other's warmth through Mu Chen's saturated clothing.
Mu Chen looked down at this beautiful youngster who had grown up now, seemingly lost in thought. With a glance, he just caught Gu staring at him and was stunned a while by the trust and dependence rooted in this disciple's eyes. Mu Chen put Gu discreetly in the second bucket with spirit air lingering around, before he turned his head and wore a cold look to prevent the other seeing through him.
Following his previous thoughts, if Gu Yunjue was clamped down by the Devil Lord as a puppet, it explained the fact that Gu Yunjue betrayed the immortal realm in the last life? How could the child be so scheming at sixteen? Should he believe his own disciple being helpless to do so without any other choice? He had just been five years old or so. How could he establish such a powerful force himself? It would have collapsed in any lack of the financial, material and human resources.
With this youngster staying around him all those years, Mu Chen had already regarded Gu Yunjue as the most important person to him as well as his only hope in this life. Therefore, he tried his best to find excuses for this disciple by telling himself that somebody must have coerced him.
However, he himself knew how ridiculous this idea was. This person had concealed him so deep without divulging any clue. How could this bastard still be his innocent disciple?
With the herbal materials penetrating through Gu's body, his spiritual meridians started to recover gradually. Tormented by both the feelings of itches and pains at the same time as if trillions of ants were biting him, Gu Yunjue gave a chocked groan. 'Little Master does love me. How many precious herbs has he put in to make it work so quickly?'
Grievous as he was, he should currently plan deep in his heart to let Bai Yi exchange the medicated bath for some millions of spirit stones.
"Master?" Gu Yunjue called. Mu Chen didn't look straight at him until his call. Feeling some unknown mood hidden in this master's eyes, Gu Yunjue clenched his fist under the water while showing an easy look deliberately, "If I die before Master finds the Ice Soul Pearl…" His pupils constricted instantly while saying those words.
"Nonsense!" Mu Chen paused his hands and berated coldly, "So long as I'm alive, I won't let you die!" Mu Chen felt tightened in his heart as if it was grabbed by something. 'You've been so ill now. How can you still think about the Ice Soul Pearl, bastard! Whether you are coerced by someone or not, I need a clear explanation after you're completely recovered.'
Gu Yunjue gripped Mu Chen and pulled him closer when he just stood up half nakedly. The upper part of his body presented a smooth line, with his shoulders almost on an even height with Mu Chen's. It was imaginable that Gu Yunjue would grow much taller than now.
Maybe it was because Mu Chen treated Gu Yunjue so heartily that this disciple got taller compared to the same period in his last life. Right before Mu Chen, Gu Yunjue had reached the height of Mu Chen's nose tip.
Mu Chen raised his brows, unaware of Gu's intention of doing that.
Right at this moment, Gu Yunjue locked his dim eyesight on the thin lips before him and kissed it fiercely.
Mu Chen just felt numb over his mouth and his brain, his mind buzzing like a stirred string!
It tightened…it was goanna break…
"You evil disciple!" Mu Chen raised his hand subconsciously when Gu Yunjue had fallen back into the water with a grievous look as if it was the last kiss before his death. Mu Chen gnashed his teeth with anger, feeling like striking this evil disciple a palm. But Gu Yunjue was too weak to bear it.
To kill him? He didn't have the heart to do that!
"If Master thinks you've suffered a loss, I'm ready to let you kiss back." Gu Yunjue tapped his mouth with his finger. Although he became almost numb to the physical affliction, he seemed quite satisfied.
Mu Chen pouted his mouth, narrowed his eyes, and asked seriously all of a sudden, "You do like this Master, don't you?"
Gu Yunjue retrieved his frivolous attitude, "Yes, I like Master all the time, as long as I myself can't even recollect when the feelings were nursed."
Mu Chen gave a cold smile and said tiredly, "You've just accompanied me for ten years or so. It can't be that long as you claimed."
Gu Yunjue smiled, "Then it must be that we already have entanglement in the last life, so I've fallen in love with Master ten years ago at the first sight in this life."
Mu Chen looked down. Although he didn't believe in Gu's nonsense that seemed to be prepared for kids. But ten years ago, Gu Yunjue came to the immortal world from the devil realm when Gazing Chen Pavilion was just established.
He closed his eyes to conceal his complex expression and said indifferently, "You meditate there to heal your meridians. I'm tired."
Saying that, he just headed straight toward the bedroom without looking back and shut the door, leaving a thin but upright back to Gu Yunjue.
Gu Yunjue rested his chin on the edge of the bucket, smiling, "I see." However, his eyes didn't seem as easy as those words sounded but were actually wrapped with a layer of night-like darkness to be hardly explored.
*
Mu Chen attempted to find some evidence that could prove Gu Yunjue's innocence through a round of inquiry in the branch of Gazing Chen Pavilion. As a result, he only found it a normal place for business, with nothing susceptible.
Back to the inn, Mu Chen sat on the roof and looked vaguely up at the starry sky, his heart totally in a mess.
At this time he saw a black figure flash in the air. Then a man fell in front of him abruptly.
The man was, seemingly at his twenties, in a bony build of the medium height and wore a black robe. Although he wasn't good-looking, his air was restrained and mysterious to be figured out. What Mu Chen cared most was the other's faintly blood-colored eyes, which exposed him to be a murderous devil cultivator at a glance.
The other just stared at him without saying a word.
As Mu Chen wasn't loquacious even in daily life, so he also remained silent and only regarded the other as a passerby.
After a few minutes, the other smiled abruptly, asking curiously, "You are not going to kill me?"
"Why will I kill you since I don't even know you?" Mu Chen thought this man was somehow ill at his brain. He would be exhausted to death if he killed any devil cultivator he met with.
The man just wouldn't let it go, "Don't you immortal cultivators always treat the other alien cultivators as dishonest and crooked ones, especially those retreated into the devil from the immortal?"
Mu Chen responded impatiently, "That would be definitely stupid. There is no distinction of good or bad cultivations. Bad cultivation becomes good in good people's hands, while good cultivation becomes bad in bad people's hands. Therefore, no one can determine a person being good or bad only by virtue of his cultivation."
The other sat down in a safe distance with Mu Chen, showing some interest, "You're quite interesting!"
Unwilling to talk too much with the man, Mu Chen started getting worried about Gu Yunjue's safety at this devil cultivator's arrival, so he flashed back to the inn. Sensing that Gu Yunjue was alright, Mu Chen sat down and closed his eyes to meditate.
The next day would be the final of the Pills Concocting Competition. Since Mu Chen had come here, he decided to win some awards back. 'Who knows, I might come across some satisfactory treasures.'
On the roof, the black-dressed man stood up and curved the corner of his mouth, saying to himself "interesting" twice in succession before leaving.
*
Right at noon, ten pill alchemists gathered in the general hall of the Pills Concocting Competition after passing six rounds of contests. Two of them happened to be known to and defeated by Mu Chen. One was the so called some "ancestor", the other Ying Lixun.
Their eyes seemed subtle seeing Mu Chen's arrival. Nowadays, it had been hard to find so ferocious a pill concoctor who directly struck others in disagreements. The best pill concoctor Dan Yangzi was said to be hot-tempered but still incomparable to this one.
Mu Chen conversely paid little attention to the other two. After all, he had beaten them before and didn't intend to find their troubles constantly anywhere.
His cold eyes running down the hall, Mu Chen found there should be another nine people directly recommended into the finals like himself—Bo Jinyu by Pill City and the rest eight by other great powers. Most of them looked haughty but became vigilant seeing Mu Chen coming over because of his ability and status as well as his referrer —the awe-inspiring Gazing Chen Pavilion.
Calling to mind what Gu had said when the white-dressed scholar gave Mu Chen this recommendation, he finally remembered he was that man who had always followed Gu Yunjue in the last life. The man had probably just been an accountant without other authorities in his memory so as not to leave a deep impression on him.
Neglecting others' staring, Bo Jinyu came over and slightly pocked Mu Chen with his elbow, "What's going on?"
Mu Chen came back to himself and responded with a faint voice, "Nothing."
Elders of the great powers had taken their places at their exclusive seats above and ten tiny houses were located below at either side of the hall. A servant holding a nontransparent box came over and let the competitors draw lots to decide their room number.
Bo Jinyu leaned over pleasantly and asked Mu Chen out of curiosity, "What's your number?"
Mu Chen checked it and answered, "Number three."
"What a pity! You aren't next to me then." Bo Jinyu lowered the corner of his mouth.
Mu Chen let out a sigh of relief and said in all earnest, "That's really my luck!"
Bo Jinyu threw behind his sleeves discontentedly and strode toward the room with his head high and chest out, while deciding in his mind to reinstate his status by defeating Mu Chen so as to see this person plead him on knees! He cursed secretly that Mu Chen would break the furnace so that he would definitely win. The beautiful dream tingled down his spine. 'Ha-ha-ha! Awesome!'
Looking at Bo's back, Mu Chen just recalled the "embodied pillow" and "donkey dung" things…
However, in Bo Yuntian's eyes, what happened just now between Bo Jinyu and Mu Chen was a lovely and friendly interaction between brothers. He ran his hand down the beard while explaining proudly to the person next to him in the judge panel, "This is Dan Yangzi's disciple."
"Dan Yangzi's disciple? So young?" The man looked at Mu Chen in surprise but happened to be captured by him. Then Mu just stared back.
"Ho! How irritable!" The man exclaimed, "His temper and face do suit the old codger's taste."
A trace of regret flashed through Bo Yuntian's eyes. 'If I have persuaded Mu Chen and his mother to stay or cared more about them, Mu Chen might not have been so cold but been active and innocent, just like Jinyu.'
Mu Chen glanced around and just had eye contact with Bo Yuntian. He shivered unexplainably in a sudden and felt a chill over his neck, every goose bump emerging gradually in his back.
In order to avoid Bo Yuntian's 'loving' gaze, Mu Chen rushed into Room Three.
The room wasn't large, only a dozen square meters, with a whole black brick covering the floor. Mu Chen sensed a great deal of eyes casted toward him as soon as he stepped in the room. He glanced around the room with his brows knitted and finally understood something.
This room was nontransparent from inside while transparent from outside. That was, competitors' every move could be seen clearly by outsiders, so it was impossible for them to cheat.
There stood a stone table in the middle of the room, on which were three shares of herbs and a seemingly middle ranked furnace.
After only one look, Mu Chen simply threw it to the corner of the room. He looked down at the herbs, Phoenix-Returning Grass, Poisonous Snack, Five-Element Blood-Coagulation Pungens…all commonly used. Competitors were free to choose them, which, however, tested pill alchemists' capability.
The concocting time was limited to three days, during which competitors could decide themselves what kind of pills they preferred to concoct.
"Tut!" Mu Chen showed little interest and then picked up the paper of awards list.
The outside audiences looked at pill alchemists' performance through a crystal screen. When the image shifted to Mu Chen, people started to discuss him in hushed whispers. "Both time and materials are limited. If he doesn't produce a good pill successfully, he has to restart. But currently Mu Chen seems quite unhurried."
Bo Yuntian had heard from Bo Jinyu that Mu Chen could concoct different pills of various quantities all together by pouring herbs into the furnace, like cooking congee by pouring beans into a pot. Meanwhile, he used some divine fire that could melt herbs in an instant!
But Bo Yuntian didn't believe it because even he himself couldn't concoct two kinds of pills at one sitting in one furnace. Therefore, he curiously paid close attention to Mu Chen this time to see whether on earth this young person could succeed.
Bo Yuntian smiled when he saw both Bo Jinyu and Mu Chen show great interest in the awards.
There were six awards in total prepared for winners to choose randomly. The champion could select three of them firstly, the runner-up could select two from the rest, and the third could only pick the only one left.
Mu Chen skimmed the list when his eyes suddenly brightened seeing a certain spirit animal egg of the fifth level!
It wasn't bad if Black Egg could hatch it. The furnace could be a compensation for Bo Jinyu's broken one. At last, He tentatively chose a spirit herb for Gu Yunjue. 'Maybe this herb can come in handy to heal the evil disciple's spirit meridians.' Thinking about Gu Yunjue, Mu Chen went solemn again with complexed feelings.
He summoned out his own furnace and indifferently poured all herbs into it, which shocked outsiders to open eyes wide. 'Crazy! This man looks a bit too confident! Shouldn't he be afraid of failing finally? What kind of pill on earth he is going to concoct by simply mixing so many herbs without even a look?'
Mu Chen was quite light-hearted to make progress in the things he knew well, which gave others the impression that he would definitely win. But he was worried secretly about Gu Yunjue, 'What is little disciple doing now? Hasn't he been a lamb and meditated to heal himself in the inn?'
Actually, Gu Yunjue was standing in the crowd and looking carefully at Mu Chen's performance. He seemingly said to himself with a chuckle, "Inform Bai Yi to prepare!"