Chapter 156: I Only Ask to Never Return

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After hearing Xing’s words, the great weight in Qin Haoxuan’s heart was finally lifted. No wonder the creature had been sleeping so soundly; so that was the hidden story.

“I came to find you today because I need your help with something,” Qin Haoxuan said very directly.

Xing smiled happily, his gaze on Qin Haoxuan seeming to say, Little guy, you’ve finally come to beg me. He did not, however, ask what the matter was, putting on the full airs of a grand expert.

Seeing his punchable smile, Qin Haoxuan had the urge to smash a shoe in his face. “I obtained a jade slip. There is a restriction inside it that I cannot break. Help me break it.”

“Wow, a jade slip! Generally, the arts and secret manuals that are recorded in jade slips are all good things, especially one with a restriction. It sounds like the art in your slip must be extraordinary. Your luck is quite good.” Xing acted as if he were happy for Qin Haoxuan, but he was just talking around the issue, completely avoiding the topic of breaking the restriction.

Qin Haoxuan knew immediately what this fellow was up to. He took the jade slip for The Great Art of Talismans from his robes and placed it on the table. “Break the restriction, and you’ll be well rewarded.”

“Not doing it,” Xing replied just as briskly.

“We can discuss the reward.” Through the Blood Demon incident, Qin Haoxuan and Xing had unknowingly grown much closer. He nudged him with his arm. “In a few days, I have to ‘Enter the Mortal World.’ At that time… it’s not guaranteed that Master Chi Lian won’t make a move against me… I want to see if there’s a chance for survival in here.”

Xing gave Qin Haoxuan a resentful, sidelong glance. “What does your death have to do with me? If you die, this seat will have to summon heavenly lightning to celebrate. There will finally be no one nagging me about the trivial matter of eating people.”

“If I don’t die, you’ll have a chance to recover your former strength, won’t you?” Qin Haoxuan pushed the jade slip in front of him. “It would be a true waste of your incredible skills not to use them to break this restriction.”

Xing shivered. He was used to being at odds with Qin Haoxuan. This sudden change in attitude gave him goosebumps.

Ignoring his reaction, Qin Haoxuan stared at him with a half-smile, making his skin crawl.

Xing said with an aggrieved tone, “It’s no use looking at me like that. Although I can break restrictions, entering the jade slip and breaking the one inside requires manipulating spiritual sense. Our Nether-race’s spiritual sense is inherently weak, and I haven’t recovered my cultivation. I can’t even probe inside this jade slip to see what the restriction looks like, let alone break it for you.”

Qin Haoxuan nodded. That was indeed a problem. He had also tried to infuse it with spiritual energy, but there was no reaction. It seemed Xing wasn’t lying.

“Then what do we do?” He thought for a while, and an idea struck him. “How about you teach me the method to break it?”

Seeing the bright glint in Qin Haoxuan’s excited eyes, Xing immediately shook his head. “For the sake of our shared life-and-death bond, of course I have no problem teaching you.”

Qin Haoxuan’s face lit up. It was rare for this guy to be so generous.

“But…” At Xing’s “but,” Qin Haoxuan’s expression immediately fell. Xing seemed to enjoy his disappointment and continued with a satisfied smile, “But do you think you can learn it just because you want to? Restrictions are a profound subject within the study of arrays. A peerless genius like me studied for many years. Many with ordinary aptitude can’t even grasp the basics in a lifetime. You think you can learn it in an instant?”

Although Xing spoke bluntly, Qin Haoxuan was not angry, because he knew it was the truth. To learn it in twenty days and then break the restriction in the jade slip was simply impossible.

Thus, he was once again plunged into despair.

Xing couldn’t laugh out loud, but the delight in his eyes was obvious. He had always been on the losing end of his exchanges with Qin Haoxuan; now, he had finally stumped him.

After sitting silently for the time it takes an incense stick to burn, a sharp glint suddenly flashed in Qin Haoxuan’s eyes. He had thought of a brilliant solution. “I will copy the restriction from the jade slip, and then you can tell me how to solve it.”

The happy, relaxed expression on Xing’s face instantly froze. He never thought Qin Haoxuan would come up with such a stupid-sounding, yet workable, method. It seemed it was indeed the only way.

“I can do that, but the labor fee…” Xing smiled pointedly.

Having dealt with him for so long, Qin Haoxuan knew his greedy nature all too well. He adopted a solemn, heartfelt tone. “There’s one thing you must understand. You and I are grasshoppers on the same rope now. If I can’t jump, you’ll have no way to live either. You call yourself my brother in life and death, so you should be doing everything you can to help me. Help me break this restriction, and after I learn how to make a few life-saving talismans, you won’t have to worry about protecting me anymore. To talk about money between us, wouldn’t that hurt our feelings?”

Xing was stunned. He never thought Qin Haoxuan would use his own rhetoric against him. But he was not swayed. “No matter what you say today, I’m getting my fee.” He sat down on the bed excitedly. “You know, knowledge is a priceless treasure! This demon’s knowledge is vast. I must charge a fee out of respect for knowledge itself!”

Qin Haoxuan admired his persistence. “No problem. Five low-grade spirit stones.”

Xing’s neck snapped back, and he leaped to his feet. “Cheap! So cheap! You think you can buy me with a mere five stones? That’s an insult to the knowledge in my head! Do you understand what knowledge is? I’m making you pay not because I’m greedy, but to show you that knowledge is precious!”

Unmoved, Qin Haoxuan nodded along and presented his own argument. “Everything you say is right. But what can I do? I’m still a poor man. I’m at a low cultivation level; it’s not easy to earn these spirit stones. If you exploit me for all of them and I get killed, you’ll go down with me. For me to spare five stones for you is already a great feat.”

Xing rolled his eyes and gave him a thumbs-up. “Your mouth is more terrifying than an Instigator Demon from the Netherworld… Alright, alright, for the sake of our shared hardships, I’ll help you this once. You should know, if it were anyone else, even if the Sect Master of your Taichu Sect came and begged me on his knees, I would not teach him. This knowledge is too precious!” Seeing Qin Haoxuan’s resolute expression, he knew there was no more room to bargain and helplessly agreed.

He then thought of something. “I’ll help you break the restriction, but I have an additional condition.”

“Speak.”

“You’re planning to send me back to the Netherworld through the Aqueous Manor next month, right?”

“Of course.”

“My condition is simple,” Xing said. “You can’t send me back.”

Qin Haoxuan was surprised. “Why? Aren’t you much safer in the Netherworld than you are here? This is a world full of cultivators. If you slip up, not only you, but I will be finished as well.”

Xing rolled his eye at him. “Did you not see those Nether-Creatures chasing me? A peerless genius like me easily attracts jealousy. They’re all trying to kill me. I’m not any safer back in the Netherworld. Here in the Taichu Sect, as long as I’m careful, people think I’m a cultivator. At least no one is hunting me.”

Qin Haoxuan certainly didn’t believe his nonsense, but he couldn’t help but ask, “Just what kind of trouble did you cause in the Netherworld to make even your own kind hunt you down so frenziedly?”

Xing said with a deep, mournful expression, “Geniuses… are always easily envied.”

“Get out of here,” Qin Haoxuan spat. “Fine, you can stay in the Taichu Sect. But I have a condition: you cannot eat people, and you must follow my commands in all things.”

“Not eating people, I can agree to that. But if you tell me to do something unscrupulous, I certainly won’t do it! A righteous demon like me has his own code of conduct!” Xing paused, a glint in his eye. “But if I really have to do something unscrupulous, remember that there will be a fee.”

Not bothering to argue with the creature, Qin Haoxuan tossed him five low-grade spirit stones. Xing caught them and swallowed them in one gulp. His spirits instantly lifted. “Let’s begin. You copy the contents of the restriction, and I’ll teach you how to break it. Aigh, such valuable knowledge, exchanged for only five stones. The cultivation world is truly a place that lacks morals and does not respect learning. No wonder your generation of cultivators is worse than the last.”

Qin Haoxuan ignored the chattering creature and went back to his room to begin copying the jade slip.

His spiritual sense entered the slip, and he looked at the restriction, especially the strangely shaped inscriptions, some of which were intricately intertwined. He roughly estimated that there were at least ten thousand of them, none of them repeating. In addition, there were fine threads connecting them all, making it look like a tangled mess.

He quickly discovered a problem. He had thought his memory was quite good, but he was completely wrong. No matter how carefully he memorized a few of the inscriptions and the golden threads connecting them, by the time he withdrew from the slip and began to copy them, he could at most draw one or two before the details faded. The extremely strange and twisted characters gave him a massive headache.