The Villain Loaded My System

After that day, no matter how close he and Bu Tianhan got or what they did, the risk value still fluctuated between 30-35, as if they had reached a bottleneck. In contrast, Lu Cheng, who was also at the Demon Palace, had become more and more refined in his cultivation.

With regard to Bu Tianhan, Lu Cheng had gone from being hostile and resistant at the beginning to unconsciously returning to the way they got along in the Tiansu Immortal Sect. Only this time, the person teaching and lecturing based on seniority became Bu Tianhan, probably because he had lectured him so much when they were in the Immortal Sect, so Bu Tianhan wanted to get back at him, and he even replaced Gu Xiyu in Lu Cheng’s daily training.

At first, Gu Xiyu was quite worried that Bu Tianhan would ruin his training, after all, according to the original script, these two were ‘natural enemies’. But to his surprise, Bu Tianhan was quite serious about teaching Lu Cheng, probably because Lu Cheng was his disciple after all. He would listen in and find that what he said was quite correct.

Lu Cheng initially thought Bu Tianhan was trying to use instruction as an excuse to bully him, but after he found out that what he said and gave him was indeed useful for his sword dao, he no longer rejected it. So in the end, Gu Xiyu could see two people, one from the immortal Dao and one from the demonic Dao, hanging out harmoniously in the demon realm.

“Master, Bu Tianhan asked me to make for you this soup, it’s from a spirit beast he caught for you.” Lu Cheng, who was obsessed with the sword dao, paused his training today. Gu Xiyu listened to his words and suspected that it was Bu Tianhan’s order after using rather strong tactics.

Lu Cheng was a good cook, and from time to time, Bu Tianhan would bring back some rare ingredients from outside and ask him to cook them, calling it ‘filial piety for the master’. Lu Cheng felt it was justified, so he did not argue with Bu Tianhan in this regard.

Gu Xiyu glanced behind Lu Cheng and didn’t see Bu Tianhan, so he casually asked, “Is he out again?” If it were normal, Bu Tianhan would have come over to take credit and would have made a point of hugging him in front of Lu Cheng, holding his hand, or doing something to deliberately provoke Lu Cheng, just to see if he would dare to speak up.

Since he hadn’t come over, it meant that he wasn’t in the Demon Palace.

Lu Cheng nodded, “Mm.”

After putting the soup down, Lu Cheng looked at him with a tangled expression and finally could not resist asking the question he had wanted to ask for days: “Master, did you and Bu Tianhan… that demon do a lot of excessive things after he brought you here?”

Gu Xiyu could feel that Lu Cheng had been feeling guilty towards him for being his disciple but was unable to help him. There were so many people in the cultivation world that making an agreement with Bu Tianhan shouldn’t have been up to him alone, so he had always been worried about his mental state.

Gu Xiyu’s state of mind was fine: “It’s okay, you don’t have to think too much, I’m staying of my own free will.”

After a moment of silence, he added to Lu Cheng, “Don’t worry; if it’s something I don’t want to do, no one can force me to do it.”

Lu Cheng thought about the deeper meaning in Gu Xiyu’s words, and fearing that he had misunderstood, he could only look at him with astonishment. Gu Xiyu did not explain more and only quietly drank the soup. After a long time, he said casually, “He seems to be going out a lot lately.”

He didn’t know what Lu Cheng thought, but the first thing he did was to stand up for Bu Tianhan: “He should be busy with other things when he goes out; don’t worry Master, he’s definitely not looking for flowers and women!”

After these words came out, the air was stagnant for a moment.

The relationship between Bu Tianhan and Gu Xiyu was an unspoken matter in the Demon Palace, and because of the two men’s authority, few people had ever directly pointed it out. Lu Cheng was so embarrassed that he wanted to find a place to bury his head, but Gu Xiyu chuckled and instead said, “It looks like you know what he’s been up to lately.”

It was mainly because everything had been too calm during the time he had been living in the Demon Palace. There weren’t many times when he could go out, and Bu Tianhan never told him too much about what was going on outside. Judging from the data records he had provided from the main system, the orthodox cultivators in the cultivation world were not vegetarians either, so would they really leave Bu Tianhan, a hidden danger, alone and rest on their laurels?

Lu Cheng did not expect him to ask this, and after struggling for a moment, he still told him, “It is true that quite a lot of things happened a while ago.”

“Master knows about the sect master and elder of the Tiansu Immortal Sect, Yuan Chengjun, right? I heard that after Bu Tianhan brought Master here, he cleared the several false charges imposed on him to redeem the image you have of him. With his move, he pulled out another “demon” who was wearing the skin of the orthodox path and roaming around among the major sects.” After Lu Cheng briefly explained those things to him, he went on to say, “Bu Tianhan is quite cunning, and after everyone followed the ‘thread’ he put out, they slowly discovered that the sect master and Yuan Chengjun were the most likely the real culprits.”

“Rumors are going around that Sect Master Lin’s wife was killed by him and Yuan Chengjun, and that these two were even having an affair behind her back…” Lu Cheng looked quite sad.

“They didn’t expect Bu Tianhan to have so much information in his hands, and the layout against them looks like it’s been planned for a long time. The reputation of the Tiansu Immortal Sect is not as good as before, and many of their allies have cut their ties with them out of fear. Many clean and honest disciples are clamoring to leave. The demon and immortal realms are now openly going to the sect’s territory to cause trouble, I don’t know how long it can hold out.”

Lu Cheng was a sentimental person after all. He had spent years in the Tiansu Immortal Sect, and although he hadn’t had much contact with either Lin Wuhen or Bu Mingfeng, there were several fellow disciples that he had befriended, so it was quite normal that he would be worried.

“I see.” Gu Xiyu said this after listening, and added meaningfully, “It’s really nice to have someone willing to risk their lives to give you outside news, but the demon realm is complicated after all, remember to remind her to be more careful.”

“Your junior brother knows everything, if it wasn’t for his secret protection, a young girl walking around in the demon realm would probably have been in trouble already.”

Lu Cheng did not expect Gu Xiyu to point it out so directly and was even more shocked that both he and Bu Tianhan knew about his private meetings with Lin Qianyue. He blushed and lowered his head, whispering, “I, I know.”

Gu Xiyu finished the big bowl of soup as they chatted, and when he put down the spoon, he suddenly asked Lu Cheng, “A lot has happened at the sect, do you want to go back?”

Lu Cheng froze and asked in return, “Master wants to go back?”

Gu Xiyu was silent for a moment and said, “I have a reason for going back, and there are also things that I want to confirm.”

Lu Cheng showed a tangled expression and said, “But we have already made an agreement with Bu Tianhan, and he has not done anything to break it, isn’t it wrong for us to leave without permission?”

Gu Xiyu looked at the distant mountain scenery and agreed in a light voice, “Not only is it wrong, but it might also even make him angry.”

———

“Bu Tianhan, if you have the guts, you can just kill me, what’s the point of all these petty tactics? On the muddy road, surrounded by the deep wilderness where few people would pass, was the wretched Bu Mingfeng, surrounded by chaotic footprints and traces of a formation that had been broken.

The man he was angrily rebuking sat high on an earthy grey rock, his chin propped up with one hand and a mocking look in his eyes: “Wouldn’t it be too cheap to just kill you? Isn’t power and fame all you care about? I just want you to experience the feeling of being unable to cultivate, to experience the feeling of having a reputation so bad that you wouldn’t dare to go out, and even if you do, you’ll have to suffer the contemptuous stares and abuses.”

People in the cultivation world have recently become dissatisfied with the status quo and have been trying to find ways to mess with him. In particular, Bu Mingfeng and Lin Wuhen had been trying to lobby others for a collaboration, but unfortunately, their reputations were now so damaged that not many people were willing. Knowing that he would be in and out of certain places in the cultivation world, especially to find something Gu Xiyu would like, Bu Mingfeng used the old tricks and deliberately let slip the rumor that there was something good at a certain location to lure him over.

Bu Tianhan knew that those were false reports, but he still went over. He was simply curious about what other tricks people in the cultivation world were trying to use against him, especially as these people did not know that he was practicing dual cultivation, so they thought that his cultivation would stagnate now that he was restricted and were filled with confidence.

He enjoyed destroying and dismantling their confidence and looked forward to their shocked expressions when they found out the truth.

After finishing his thoughts, he turned his attention back to Bu Mingfeng: “How is it? Aren’t you quite happy? Is the look of those people you killed coming back to collect their debts from you scary?”

Bu Mingfeng’s eyes went wide as he recalled something and said in a trembling voice, “You, so it was you who-“ Before he could finish his words, his anger went to his head, and he spat a large mouthful of blood and could only continue to sit paralyzed on the ground.

His body felt unbearable, and even his spirit was suffering, but Bu Tianhan deliberately let him hang on to his breath to prevent him from dying.

He said viciously, “What right do you have to look down on me? You’ve killed more people than I have since you became a demon cultivator, don’t you deserve retribution more than I do?”

“I didn’t say I didn’t deserve it.” Bu Tianhan said frankly, “It’s just that the evil things I’ve done and the evil techniques I’ve practiced are well known to everyone, I didn’t hide them. If you want to do evil things and practice evil techniques, why do you still want to be attached to a good image and pretend to be moral and deceive people?”

“If you had gone onto the demonic path, I wouldn’t care about you, and you could do whatever you want.”

Bu Mingfeng choked at his words and went silent.

Bu Tianhan looked at the tattered formation around him, and his voice turned a few degrees colder. “You used the same tactic to lure me into the demonic path back then, the same trap, do you think I would step on it again?”

He knew exactly what Bu Mingfeng wanted to do; induce his demon seed just like back then, and he would start attacking people uncontrollably and indiscriminately, much like how he felt at the Stone Pagoda. Now everyone was waiting for him to break the agreement so they could snatch Gu Xiyu away from him.

But he was no longer the young and ignorant Bu Tianhan, and he would not let that happen in any way in order not to lose Gu Xiyu. Even if the only way to stay awake was to hurt himself, he would not hesitate to do so—this was actually his coping mechanism nowadays and he had managed to hide it from Gu Xiyu except for the time when the trap he stepped into was too deep and he was seriously injured.

However, Bu Tianhan underestimated Lin Wuhen’s ruthlessness.

He didn’t kill Bu Mingfeng after meeting him, he only made him half-crippled. Moreover, Bu Mingfeng was timid and could only yell that he would kill him. Once he got a chance to escape, he ran away in a huff and disappeared immediately.

He thought this little episode would be over today, but to his surprise, when he wandered around outside and heard Bu Mingfeng’s name again, the man was dead.

It was also said that he had been killed.

The person who let out this news was Lin Wuhen, who told everyone that in order to prove his innocence, Bu Mingfeng had personally gone to ambush Bu Tianhan, despite how much he was persuaded not to. As a result, he failed in the ambush and ended up getting killed. Apparently, only Bu Tianhan could leave the type of wounds on Bu Mingfeng’s body.

Once this news came out, public opinion instantly changed, and people began to discuss whether the turmoil in the immortal realm these days was a deliberate move by Bu Tianhan to trigger civil unrest and then wipe them out in one fell swoop.

With this in mind, everyone was naturally clamoring for him to release Gu Xiyu.

In this regard, Bu Tianhan was not worried. To protect himself against such false accusations, he had privately made a contract with Gu Xiyu, which would be broken automatically the moment he killed someone for no reason. So even if everyone suspected him and believed Lin Wuhen, he was assured of Gu Xiyu’s trust.

After all, Gu Xiyu knew best whether he had done it or not.

Such optimistic thoughts were maintained until he returned to the Demon Palace.

As soon as he returned, he felt the gloomy atmosphere of the demon cultivators in the palace, and when each of them saw him, their eyes became guilty and evasive. His heart sank, and without saying anything, he went straight to his and Gu Xiyu’s bedroom, but he didn’t see the figure that would normally be waiting for him to return.

Maybe he went to look for Lu Cheng.

Bu Tianhan reassured himself in his heart and went to the place he had arranged for Lu Cheng, but found it empty too.

Only then did he come to the main hall and ask in a calm tone, “Where are those two?”

The demon cultivators in the hall knew who he was asking about, and they exchanged glances with each other before pushing a man out to answer.

The man’s scalp tingled against the pressure Bu Tianhan was giving off, and his tone was trembling: “Back, back to Palace Master, Tai Ling and his disciple had already left before you returned.”

Bu Tianhan did not say anything, but the demonic cultivators in the hall knelt one after another, “It is because we subordinates did not do a good job and did not keep an eye on the people, we are at the mercy of the palace master, please punish us.”

They were worried that after losing Gu Xiyu, the restraint, Bu Tianhan would turn back into the old demon that would kill at the drop of a hat to vent his anger, and their whole bodies were shaking with fear. Unexpectedly, after a long silence, Bu Tianhan only whispered back, “Is that so? I see.”

After saying that, he turned around and walked into the depths of the demon palace. They didn’t know where he went, and the crowd in the main hall looked at each other, not knowing what to do.

Bu Tianhan had given Gu Xiyu the freedom to move around a long time ago, and he could leave at any time if he really had the desire to do so. It was just that Gu Xiyu had always kept his side of the agreement as well and had never left without permission, even though he had had many opportunities to do so.

But at this moment, he wished Gu Xiyu had slipped away during those days rather than leave at this time.

He clenched his fists and walked in a daze, but when he reached the unoccupied corner, it was as if he suddenly lost all his strength. He leaned against the wall and slowly slid down, raising his hands to cover his eyes, his face pale.

…… Why? Gu Xiyu knew they were all false accusations, so why did he leave?

Was he unhappy with all the things they had done over the past few weeks, so he wanted to get back at him in this way?

Thinking of this, Bu Tianhan suddenly laughed.

Yes, thinking back carefully, although Gu Xiyu had indulged in his nonsense, he had never said he liked him.

What made him think that Gu Xiyu’s indulgence meant that he liked him?

From the very beginning, their relationship was probably just wishful thinking on his part.