Villainous Junior Chapter 57
Translated by Sylver (ko-fi)
Chapter 57: Plum Blossom
The Demon Venerable was suddenly frightened, and then felt extremely distressed. He quickly jumped up and frantically wiped Meng Chen's tears.
"What's wrong? Why are you suddenly crying!?" He was most afraid of seeing Meng Chen's tears. While wiping with his sleeve, he anxiously said, "I know my handwriting is ugly. Don't be angry. I'll practice hard from now on, okay?"
Meng Chen almost choked, and for a moment, he didn't know whether to laugh or cry. This fool actually thought he was crying because of his chicken scratch handwriting!
His mind was filled with countless thoughts, and his heart was a mix of emotions. Unable to say anything, he could only reach out and tightly embrace the man before him.
The Demon Venerable was instantly frozen, his arms suspended in the air, not knowing where to place them. His face showed a shock and confusion that he had no time to react to.
What was happening?
Meng Chen... hugged him?
Meng Chen took the initiative to hug him!?
No... surely he must be feverish again!
His heart skipped a beat, and he hurriedly pushed Meng Chen away to check his forehead temperature. However, Meng Chen stopped his action and, trying his best to calm his emotions, looked at him steadily with reddened eyes and said, "If I tell you that you and Xue Lang are very likely to be the same person, would you believe it?"
...The fever must be quite severe.
The man was worried in his heart but dared not agitate him. So he nodded along with his words. "I believe, I believe. I'll believe whatever you say..."
"Your handwriting is exactly the same, even the way you hold the pen and the writing habits are the same," Meng Chen said. "I still have the sect rules that Xue Lang wrote from memory back then. They're still in the Taixuan Sect. I can take you to see them anytime."
"There are tens of thousands of combinations for the Nine Stars Eight Trigrams Formation. For thousands of years, no one has ever 'guessed' the correct way to break the formation. Yet you and Xue Lang both managed to do it."
"You clearly have no memories, and the Soul Returning Grass didn't recall Xue Lang's soul either. But you're still so similar—why?"
One instance might be a coincidence, but if everything was similar, could it still be a coincidence?
The Demon Venerable's expression became somewhat strange. "What do you mean? Are you serious about all this?"
Meng Chen: "Yes."
"...Have you gone mad missing him?" The man's eyes were full of absurdity. "You wouldn't let me take on his appearance before, but now you're saying he and I are the same person? I've been dead for thousands of years, and how old is Xue Lang? I'm more like his ancestor from eighteen generations ago!"
His face was full of anger, forcefully controlling himself not to lose his temper at Meng Chen, and turned his face away fiercely. Yes, he loved Meng Chen to death, loved him humbly and meekly, but no matter how humble he was, he wouldn't go so far as to be Xue Lang's substitute, to be absurdly declared as "the same person"!
"Xue Lang is not from this world," Meng Chen was not surprised by his attitude and said softly. "He came to my side from another completely different time and space. I couldn't understand before why two unrelated worlds would intersect, why Xue Lang would come to this world in particular. Now I understand. What if he was originally from this world?"
The Demon Venerable couldn't understand what he was saying, convinced that Meng Chen was having a fit of madness, and remained silent with a stiff face.
A slightly cool hand carefully grasped his, gently squeezing his palm.
"I'm not going mad, nor have I ever thought of treating you as Xue Lang's substitute," Meng Chen slightly raised his face, his clear eyes looking at him expectantly, with a hint of pleading in his soft voice, "Will you listen to my explanation?"
Demon Venerable: "..."
He couldn't withstand Meng Chen's rare display of coyness, and even more so, he couldn't bear Meng Chen's pitiful and wronged attitude.
Now that both came together, how could he resist?
He slowly turned his face back, his ears reddening, and lightly grunted. "...Fine, I'll listen."
—
Meng Chen spent over an hour, recounting bit by bit everything he and Xue Lang had experienced, more detailed and more real than what was in that secret letter.
Including the fact that he himself had also died and been reborn, living another life.
"If the dead can be revived, and souls can traverse thousands of years and cross worlds, what else is impossible?" Meng Chen said softly. "It's hard for me to believe these things are real, but the facts force me to believe."
Seeing the man still lost in thought, he gently touched his arm. "What do you think now?"
The man came back to his senses and suddenly said, "So Xue Lang never kissed you?"
Meng Chen: "...???"
"That means..." He suddenly became cheerful, his face full of self-satisfaction and secret joy. "Your first kiss was mine, wasn't it?"
Meng Chen took a breath with an expressionless face and reached out to pinch the soft flesh at his waist.
"Hiss—" The Demon Venerable's handsome face twisted in pain. Clutching his waist, he angrily scolded, "When you need something from me, you act all pitiful and coy, but as soon as you get what you want, you change face just like that. You heartless man!!"
Meng Chen responded with an "Mm" and looked at him. "So?"
"...Nothing." The Demon Venerable swallowed his anger, "Do as you please."
"Let's be serious," Meng Chen patted him again and asked, "What do you think?"
"It is indeed a bit strange," said the Demon Venerable.
After calming down and hearing the whole story, he understood that Meng Chen was indeed not talking nonsense. Setting everything else aside, just looking at the Nine Stars Eight Trigrams Formation incident, to say it was a coincidence, even he couldn't believe it.
Moreover, Meng Chen wasn't the kind of person who would be confused enough to treat someone as a substitute. They were equally serious about their feelings and had their own bottom lines.
"But the problem is, these are all just speculations, there's no way to prove it."
If he and Xue Lang were really the same person, then what exactly happened for their soul to scatter into different times and spaces?
Meng Chen thought for a moment. "If you could recover your memories, perhaps everything would become clear."
"It's useless," the man said dejectedly. "I've been trying for three months before you came, and I can't even remember my own name."
"I think there's one place we could try," Meng Chen tapped his knee with his knuckles and looked up, "Plum Blossom Valley."
Plum Blossom Valley, also known as Divine Doctor Valley, gathered the most famous doctors, pharmacists, and poison masters in the cultivation world. It was said that there was no difficult disease in the world that Plum Blossom Valley couldn't cure. Although this might be an exaggeration, it indirectly confirmed the excellence of Plum Blossom Valley's medical skills. Each generation's valley master was the heir of the divine doctor Mei family, mastering medical and poison skills not passed on to outsiders. Each had left a significant mark in the history of cultivation. The current valley master, Mei Xiaohan, though young, had already surpassed his predecessors. If they could request his help, there might be hope to recover the memories.
The Demon Venerable thought for a moment and made up his mind. "Alright."
Recovering his memories would help find his identity. Most importantly, the matter between him and Meng Chen needed to have a conclusion.
—
Having made the decision, once Meng Chen's body had recovered sufficiently, the two set off for Plum Blossom Valley.
The Demon Realm was quite a distance from Plum Blossom Valley. Even with the nightmare horses known for their speed pulling the carriage, it would take two days to arrive.
The carriage prepared by Qing Hao was extremely luxurious. The interior was spacious, covered with thick carpets, equipped with all necessities for eating, dressing, and daily use. It even had a stick of incense burning, trying to appear refined.
That fragrance probably had a calming effect. Meng Chen had been overexerting himself recently. Although his body was no longer in serious condition, he still tired easily. Sitting in the warm carriage for a short while, he started to feel drowsy.
While the carriage was spacious, it was not possible to set up a bed. He looked around, then sidled up to a certain man. Like a lazy cat, he nestled into his embrace, finding a comfortable position before closing his eyes. He even let out a small yawn.
The Demon Venerable was overjoyed by the youth's unguarded affection, his heart pounding wildly. On the other hand, he clearly knew that Meng Chen was treating him this way because he was certain that he was Xue Lang.
He didn't know whether to feel happy or sad, and felt a bit uneasy and bitter. He couldn't help thinking to himself, "What if it turns out that I'm not actually Xue Lang? Wouldn't all of this become an illusion then? Would Meng Chen and I end up completely falling out?"
Meng Chen, with his eyes closed, seemed to sense what he was thinking. He fumbled to grasp his hand and said lazily, "Stop overthinking. I can't beat you anyway. If you're not Xue Lang, I'll let you do whatever you want with me for the rest of my life."
Demon Venerable: "..."
In an instant, he imagined 108 different beautiful scenarios in his mind. Suddenly, he felt that the urge to prove he was Xue Lang didn't seem quite so urgent anymore.