He was Very Fortunate to Live to This Day.
After a bath and a change of new clothes, Gu Feidi used his internal energy to help Su Yang dry his hair and took out a comb to comb his hair.
A moment later, Gu Feidi said, “Now that your hair is a bit longer, your crown won’t come loose during your coming of age ceremony.”
Su Yang nodded and raised his hand to cover a yawn.
Although they didn’t rush their journey and even rested in Old Qi’s farmhouse last night, their accumulated fatigue from the past several major events hadn’t been completely relieved yet. Plus just now in the bath, the two couldn’t restrain their emotions and had to have a little fun for several rounds. Su Yang was indeed somewhat tired, as he almost tilted sideways to lie on the bench in the bathhouse’s dressing room.
Gu Feidi hugged the other man and chuckled. “Go rest in the house if you’re sleepy. I’ll bring you lunch.”
Su Yang closed his eyes and leaned against Gu Feidi, mumbling, “I’m so tired and don’t want to move. Carry me back…?”
Having no other choice, Gu Feidi smiled and shook his head. He carried Su Yang all the way back to the small house and put him to bed in their bedroom.
Su Yang turned over, pulled the quilt and covered most of himself. He immediately fell into dreamland as soon as he closed his eyes.
Seeing that the other was sleeping soundly and there was no danger in the House of Jade, Gu Feidi pulled the quilt out of Su Yang’s arms and covered the sleeping man properly. He turned around, draped his outer coat over his shoulders and went out to the Pavilion of Infinite Knowledge.
At that time, he was prompted by Su Yang and rummaged through the Returning to the Nest stored inside of Calamity Phoenix’s Everlasting Fire on the pavilion’s top floor. Even now, he could still clearly remember the mental skill manual’s location.
Arriving at the Pavilion of Infinite Knowledge’s highest floor with ease, he stopped at the corridor in the southeast corner, there was a sign marked ‘Intense Blaze’. He didn’t stop, and went straight to the innermost corner, reaching out to get the box made out of a Chinese parasol tree on the top of the bookshelf.
However, when he took down the wooden box that originally contained Calamity Phoenix’s Everlasting Fire, the hands holding the box paused.
The box was very light, it didn’t feel like it contained the manual.
He flattened his lower lip and quickly opened the box to see it was indeed empty. The mental skill manual was missing.
Leaving the pavilion with the wooden box, he went straight to search for Di Ling.
On the other hand, Su Yang felt that the moment he fell asleep, it sounded like someone was talking in his ear very vaguely.
Awakened by the hum of whispering, Su Yang opened his eyes slightly irritably, frowned at the snow-white ceiling coming into his view.
It was a scene he hadn’t seen for a long time. White walls, simple ceiling lights, air conditioners that made a weak hum, and the source of the bursts of human voices that woke him—the TV hanging on the wall at the end of the bed.
Su Yang’s brain was numb for a moment. Once he finally reacted, he sat up and stared at the show being played on the screen.
That was the historical drama Arch-Rivals he starred in, which he would never mistake.
But, this shouldn’t be.
Why did he return to modern time just after a short nap?
Judging by the time, it was obviously not connected with his drunken transmigration!
This house wasn’t where he used to live!
No, that wasn’t the main point.
The main point was...if he really returned to the modern time, then...what about Gu Feidi?
His sleepiness disappeared immediately as Su Yang abruptly lifted open the quilt, stumbled down from the bed and searched the desk to find his phone.
—He must find out what time it was!
His phone wasn't on the desk, only an open laptop and a web page being displayed on the screen.
At the top of the page was a book cover titled Arch-Rivals in flamboyant, bold cursive calligraphy, and the author’s signature on the side—Qing Bo. A list of hundreds of chapters under the cover picture.
He immediately understood that this page was the original novel of the online drama he played in.
But he wasn’t in the mood to read the novel right now.
Everything was too strange and illogical here. He realized that this might not be the real world, but his dreamland.
Su Yang stepped over to the door and tried to open it, but found it was locked. He went to the window and saw that all the windows in the room were completely sealed. He swung his chair to smash the window glass, but it was still in vain.
After using all sorts of methods, Su Yang finally had to admit that, in fact, the only way to escape from this dream was standing in front of him.
He took several deep breaths to calm his mood, then sat back in front of the desk and clicked open the first chapter of Arch-Rivals.
* * *
Gu Feidi took the Chinese parasol tree wood box to Di Ling’s residence, but didn’t find a trace of her. Gu Feidi went to search Mo Shixiong and Wang Ke Shixiong next, but neither of them knew where Di Ling went or the whereabouts of the Calamity Phoenix’s Everlasting Fire.
Seeing that noon was approaching, with no other alternative, Gu Feidi could only go to the canteen to retrieve food and carry it back to the Lively Spring Garden.
He could search for the missing mental skill any time, but it was absolutely unacceptable to make Su Yang hungry after the older man woke up from a restful sleep.
Putting the lunch boxes on the dining table on the first floor, he walked up the stairs and slowly opened the bedroom door.
Behind the door, a woman dressed in light green clothes was by the front of the bed, and an emerald green bird was resting on her shoulder. While Su Yang was still lying quietly on the bed and slept soundly.
“Shizun!” Gu Feidi exclaimed in a low voice and immediately cupped his fists to give a salutation. “Disciple Gu Feidi greets Shizun!”
Qing Bo raised her hand to allow the other up. Gu Feidi paused and asked, “Why is Shizun here? Do you have an order for me?”
After a moment, Qing Bo opened her mouth to reply, “...Just here to visit Su Yang.”
Then, her eyes landed on the wooden box in Gu Feidi’s hands and sighed, “You really went to search for that mental skill.”
Gu Feidi nodded and whispered, “Shixiong has the Apparition of Frozen Lake and Half-Withered Crimson, but I only have the White Flame Gu. If I want to dual cultivate safely, I have to practice an extreme mental skill in the opposite way.”
Qing Bo was silent for another moment and said, “Although you tamed the White Flame Gu, and even if you don’t practice an intense sun mental skill, you still have a way to continue living in the future when Su Yang leaves. But once you practice the skill, you will have no choice but to die if Su Yang leaves unexpectedly.”
Hearing the word ‘leaves’ coming out of Shizun’s mouth, Gu Feidi couldn’t contain the trembling in his heart.
He clenched his fingers into his palm and asked in a hoarse voice, “Why would he leave? Shizun...don’t you have a way to break his...curse?”
Qing Bo met Gu Feidi’s eyes, paused and answered, “It doesn’t matter whether the curse can be broken or not. If he wants to stay, I have a way to let him stay. But if he insists on leaving, I can’t force him to stay.”
He didn’t understand. “What do you mean?”
She smiled. “When he wakes up, you and I will know.”
He immediately came forward. “I’ll wake him up now…”
Yet, he didn’t expect her to stop him.
“You can’t wake him up now. Wait until he wakes up himself.” She hummed. “Judging by the time, it should be any time now.”
Between saying that, on the bed, Su Yang’s eyelashes trembled slightly before he suddenly opened his eyes wide.
“Gu Feidi!” He suddenly sat up, slid his feet to the side to get out of the bed. When he put his feet half way into his shoes, he found that the person he was looking for was standing right in front of him.
Feeling stunned for a moment, he asked subconsciously, “How long have I slept?”
Gu Feidi frowned slightly and felt something wasn’t right, but he still replied, “It’s already noon.”
Su Yang blinked slowly and muttered, “Noon…”
In his dream just now, in order to return here, he didn’t eat, drink, or sleep. He binge read the novel provided by the laptop from the beginning to the end. In a trice, about two or three days had passed. But he didn’t expect that not much time had passed outside of his dream. He didn’t know the reason for the huge time difference between what he dreamt and how much he really slept for.
Pondering over this, Su Yang’s eyes moved and then he saw that there was a young woman in light green standing next to Gu Feidi.
“...Qing Bo?” Su Yang called out dumbfoundedly.
Gu Feidi was startled by how Su Yang blurted out such an address. As he was about to remind the just woken man, he was interrupted by Qing Bo.
“That’s me.” She smiled slightly.
Su Yang sucked in a deep breath, closed his eyes, and raised his hand to slap himself on the forehead.
After a while, he turned back to Qing Bo and asked, “Shizun?”
Qing Bo smiled wider and nodded. “That’s me.”
Su Yang: “...”
Sure enough, this mysterious, sorceress-like Shizun was really the original author who wrote this wonderful story!
Now that he knew the original novel’s plot, the emotion inside of his heart was almost at a frenzy, but he was tongue-tied with Gu Feidi here. For a moment, he didn’t know how to get to the heart of the matter—originally he thought that after breaking away from the adapted film and television script, everything he experienced was from the original novel, but unexpectedly, he still deviated from the plot of the original work from the very beginning!
It was all thanks to his extremely great fortune to be able to live to this day...
Seeing that Su Yang wasn't talking, and his face wasn't looking very good, Gu Feidi was inevitably worried. He came forward to grasp Su Yang’s hand, asking, “Are you hurting anywhere? Were you having a...nightmare just now?”
“Well, it wasn’t exactly a nightmare…” Su Yang answered, raised his hand and put pressure on his temple. “Give me some time to sort through my thoughts…”
Gu Feidi stopped urging the other. He kept clutching Su Yang’s hand and joined him on the bed.
Qing Bo studied their moods and couldn’t cover the smile on the corner of her lips and eyebrows.
After a moment, she turned to Su Yang and said, “Since you woke up, I understand your determination. Let me know of your single request to me.”
Su Yang met Qing Bo’s gaze, recalling that last scene in his dream.
—When he finished reading the novel, Arch-Rivals, through his gritted teeth, a dialogue box popped up in the middle of the screen.
[Chen Suyang, you’re now faced with a choice: Do you wish to return to your real world, or stay in the novel world that you have experienced?]
[If you choose to return to your world, you’ll be sent back to the time where you fell asleep drunk. Everything will develop according to the original timeline and there will be no impact on your future life.]
[If you choose to stay in the novel world you have experienced, you’ll wake up in the Lively Spring Garden’s bedroom at the House of Jade and will fully become the Evil Sect’s Young Master. You can ask the original author, Qing Bo, to create a new setting for you.]
[Please give this careful consideration and relay your decision with caution.]
Su Yang was so anxious at that time that Gu Feidi was all he could think about. He didn’t spend careful consideration over this at all. He chose to stay in the novel world without a second thought.
The dialogue box gave prompt confirmation several times repeatedly, seeing that he was not willing to change the option, a white light finally flashed...He woke up here when he opened his eyes again.
Thinking back now, he didn’t know if the system message was telling the truth or not on how Qing Bo could create a new setting for him.
“You still have time to carefully decide the setting that you want. Let me know before your coming of age.” Qing Bo stated, “Once you are done thinking, come to the Hidden Pearl Pavilion to find me.”
With that, her figure slowly disappeared, and for a moment, she actually dissipated like fog.
Gu Feidi’s expression immediately changed. He immediately got up, cupped his fists and bowed his head, saluting in the direction Qing Bo had left.
Su Yang’s respect towards the House of Jade’s Shizun had long dissipated the moment he learned of her real identity. Seeing how she left, which caused shock in Gu Feidi’s eyes, while he couldn’t resist his urge to roll his eyes.
Now that I think about it, it’s so obvious that Immortal Qing Bo is a self-insert of the original author. She speaks casually, she can predict what will happen, she gives essential items to help the characters and she ships them so hard. These are probably super obvious details lmao im slow