Jealous Husband
Shuangjian silently observed Yingshi's reaction.
Undeniably, the original male lead that Yingshi so despised was not entirely a fake persona crafted barehanded by fate. A large part of what molded his character was himself.
Aside from considering himself undeserving of terms like fickle or casanova, he was indeed deeply calculating, despicable, and hypocritical. Even at this very moment, as he presented the broken red string before Yingshi's eyes, it was hard to say he hadn't planned on exchanging the old for the new.
He knew that after Yingshi had given him the red string, she had prepared an identical one for herself to avoid detection, which was currently tied around her ankle. In the realm of the Marrow Cleansing Spring, he had personally felt its texture.
Regardless of why the knot had suddenly come undone, it had brought him three months of freedom.
He wanted Yingshi to stay by his side, and he wanted her things too.
He was just that... greedy.
Shuangjian's eyelashes trembled imperceptibly.
When even he couldn't stop mocking himself, how could he extravagantly hope for others to retract their disdain and contempt...
Therefore, he must never let Yingshi discover that he wasn't a so-called transmigrator.
Never.
Shuangjian's eyes darkened.
"The red string actually broke..."
Yingshi murmured, reaching out to touch the blood-soaked knot, but Shuangjian slightly withdrew to dodge her.
"I dirtied it," he said lightly. "It is better not to touch it... It is all my fault for not keeping it carefully."
Yingshi did not insist, still staring blankly at the broken end.
In reality, she had heard similar sayings.
A broken red string was like shattered jade; people often saw it as blocking a disaster. The object had taken the blow of evil or misfortune in place of the person, meaning its mission was complete.
Although this saying was highly superstitious and largely served as a psychological comfort, Yingshi took it to heart.
Thus, Shuangjian saw the very scene he had anticipated before speaking those words unfold.
"It does not matter if it broke, I have another one here!" Yingshi bent down to untie the red string on her ankle, but halfway through the motion, she stopped. Retracting her hand, she looked at Shuangjian with a bit of embarrassment, pursed her lips, and said, "Once the Heavenly Dipper Martial Gathering is over, I will prepare a new one for you."
She felt a little shy.
At that time, the red string was a setting of the original body. She had not worn it for long, and the conditions back then did not allow her to give Shuangjian anything else as a keepsake.
But now, after spending this time together, not only had they both somewhat adapted to this different world, but she had also come to understand Shuangjian's personality. In truth... he clearly wasn't the type of person who needed a companion's personal item by his side just for peace of mind.
How could she have the nerve to give him a red string worn on her foot as a peace charm? It also seemed like an act lacking boundaries.
"..." Shuangjian remained silent for a moment before asking, "Why?"
"New is always better than old," Yingshi vaguely brushed it off.
"But I want the one you have worn."
Shuangjian blurted out the words, his fingers curling involuntarily.
He originally thought such words would be difficult to say, but unexpectedly, the speech flowed more naturally than he imagined.
Perhaps, after becoming self-consistent, all the self-contempt and disdain could be turned around to become the confidence supporting him.
After all, he was a greedy person to begin with.
So he could ask for it without a doubt, and demand it as a matter of course...
Then why could he still not help but avoid Yingshi's astonished gaze?
"Wh-why?"
This time, it was Yingshi asking the question.
Her sitting posture had become much more reserved.
Shuangjian's Adam's apple bobbed gently as he spoke, "Rather than saying the red string is warding off evil and avoiding misfortune, I prefer to think... it is borrowing your luck."
"My luck?" Yingshi picked at her fingers and said ignorantly, "As a transmigrator, it does feel a bit like being a chosen one, but we both are. You even transmigrated into the original male lead."
"The old string broke in response to a tribulation, and I think... continuing the old practice is the safest," Shuangjian added in a low voice, his tone carrying a softness akin to showing weakness. "Besides, having your token on me, I... do feel somewhat more peaceful and calm."
Yingshi unconsciously gripped the hem of her clothes tightly, feeling the temperature on her neck and behind her ears seemingly rising.
She bent down to hide it, clumsily untying the red string, and only when she felt her ears shouldn't be too red anymore did she straighten up and hand the red string to Shuangjian.
"Then you must stay safe."
Shuangjian gripped the new red string in his hand, which was still tainted with the lingering body heat from having recently left a human body. He was slightly stunned because of this, and after a long while, he said hoarsely, "... Thank you."
Even if she did not completely understand, Yingshi wholeheartedly trusted him, respecting and doing her best to satisfy his needs.
He knew why he did not dare to look into Yingshi's eyes; it was because there was something in her eyes that would scorch him...
That was truth.
Sincere, genuine, and wholehearted.
It contrasted sharply with his falsehood, his hypocrisy, his endless scheming, and his sanctimoniousness.
An imperceptible panic would instinctively arise in Shuangjian's heart.
Almost as a remedy, he wanted to give something to fill the gap in his heart. In fact, just anything was not enough; it was as if he had to offer something massive, almost his entirety, to equal that gap.
And the most Yingshi ever asked of him, aside from the intangible companionship, was merely guidance in cultivation.
So he asked, "Is there any spell you want to learn?"
"Your most important task right now is to recover from your injuries!" Yingshi could not help but frown upon hearing this. "If I were to exploit you as a teacher at a time like this, I would be too inhumane!"
"... Then what about things you want?"
This question reminded Yingshi once again of her lost storage bag.
The storage bag she had prepared for Shuangjian still contained the huge sum she had coaxed and wheedled out of Xu Mingcheng, a full dozen or so spirit stones and five or six strings of silver coins, enough to buy a new storage bag... What would happen if she could not get it back?
Her change in expression was seen by Shuangjian, and he asked astutely, "Did something happen?"
"Compared to your matters, it is just a small thing." Although Yingshi said this, the heaviness of her expression did not diminish in the slightest. She furrowed her brows and said, "The storage bag you refused to accept seems to be lost..."
Shuangjian's body stiffened a bit at the words refused to accept.
However, Yingshi's focus was clearly not on this. She had no intention of bringing up old scores and merely said in a sorrowful tone, "I searched the entire room and could not find it. It was most likely lost on the way. I wonder if someone picked it up... Everyone staying here is a proud genius from a major sect, so it couldn't possibly be a thief with ill intentions who stole it, right?"
Yet Shuangjian said with a dark expression, "That is not necessarily impossible."
Yingshi locked eyes with Shuangjian for two seconds, taking a good while to understand his meaning, and could not help but open her mouth wide.
How could she have forgotten? Among the participating disciples in this year's Tiangang Martial Arts Tournament, there was indeed no petty thief, but there was a master thief—the fourth male lead, Qin Yuman, who was extremely proficient in puppetry and had driven puppets to help him steal in the original plot!
This person's first appearance in the original book was exactly in the Tiangang Martial Arts Tournament arc. He was an independent cultivator, unaffiliated with any major sect, who had already made a name for himself and thus received a special invitation from the Daoyi Immortal Alliance.
Categorizing his character setup into stereotypes, Qin Yuman's role was that of a chaotic evil thrill-seeker.
He had an eccentric personality, a mischievous nature, excelled at wandering the gray areas between good and evil, and his thought process was completely different from ordinary people.
As a sorcerer proficient in puppetry, every time he appeared, he would either bring along some sanity-dropping dolls, or craft his puppets into chameleon-like figures that lurked in the environment to help him give others a jump scare at crucial moments.
In the plot, Qin Yuman's first appearance was introduced through stealing. He stole Bai Fangsui's hairpin—stealing it from the male lead's sleeve without anyone noticing, using nothing more than a ball of cotton thread kneaded into a human shape.
His action effectively pushed the romantic subplot forward, because Bai Fangsui later suspected that the male lead hadn't returned her hairpin because he kept it for himself, thus giving rise to a hint of ambiguity of sharing a tacit secret.
But this time, the hairpin had long become an open murder weapon, and Shuangjian and Bai Fangsui hadn't even had any normal interaction. Yingshi really hadn't thought about her lost storage bag in Qin Yuman's direction.
Could it be this weirdo with a criminal record who stole her storage bag?
But did the storage bag and the hairpin have anything in common? They were completely unrelated. Why would Qin Yuman be interested in them at the same time?
Uh, if one had to say, both things were somewhat related to Shuangjian... So Qin Yuman was just targeting Shuangjian to steal from?
Yingshi hadn't yet decided whether to fully follow this line of suspicion to launch an investigation and hold the thief accountable, when she saw Shuangjian on the bed suddenly drop his expression and strike backward with a backhand.
She didn't know where a person who was just coughing up blood and near death had gathered such strange strength. An extremely swift burst of energy hit the tightly closed window of the room with a smack—
A bizarre scene occurred. The window didn't shatter after being hit; instead, a human-shaped paper cut-out fell from it. It had originally been folded onto the white window paper, blending in perfectly.
At this moment, the paper cut-out fluttered to the ground and actually struggled to bend, as if it were alive, showing signs of being severely injured. The edges of the paper even seeped a dark red—the color of blood.
The hairs on Yingshi's arms stood up, but at the same time, she also understood. Qin Yuman was undoubtedly the thief, and an eavesdropping thief at that!
Only a culprit would return to the crime scene after committing the act to admire the victim's predicament!
Shuangjian sat up expressionlessly. The puppet made of window paper on the ground suddenly burst into flames, turning to dust in an instant. Seeing him move, Yingshi grew anxious and pushed his shoulders, pressing him back onto the bed.
"You stay here and recover. I'll go apprehend him right now!" she said.
Some people really had no self-awareness of being a patient. He had lost so much blood and was now vainly attempting to get out of bed. Yingshi would not allow such a thing to happen!
However, in her anxiety, she seemed to have used too much force. Shuangjian was pushed down by her, looking quite stunned. The way he lay flat on his back looking up at her somehow made one sense a bit of strangeness. Yingshi felt guilty for a moment, but there was no time to delay. Recovering the property was the most important thing right now!
She flew out, anger burning in her eyes.
—Qin Yuman, where are you running to!
...
Yingshi went out, and the room returned to quiet.
Shuangjian maintained the posture of being pushed down by her and didn't attempt to get up again. He simply parted his lips and said softly, "Come in."
The simple two words carried no fluctuation in tone, yet inherently held a sense of threat.
The figure standing outside the door paused for a moment, then pushed the door open and entered.
"How did you discover me?" Qin Yuman's tone held not the slightest shame of being caught, only heavy curiosity. "I clearly hid very well."
"Because you didn't hide well," Shuangjian said indifferently.
"..." Qin Yuman pulled the corners of his lips and smiled carelessly. "How dare you say that? Your cultivation is shallow, and you are severely injured. I'm very curious, how dare you speak to me in such a tone? Are you hiding your true strength, or are you completely unafraid of death?"
The pile of residual ashes from the window paper on the ground seemed to be blown up by the wind, circling around him once.
For a moment, there was a dangerous feeling of being in the eye of a storm. Qin Yuman's expression steadied slightly, and when he raised his head again, his eyes narrowed slightly.
"Are you a demonic cultivator?" he asked.
He hadn't sensed the slightest demonic aura, but it was an intuition.
Shuangjian remained noncommittal.
In the silence, Qin Yuman sensed an unprecedented pressure. On one hand, he found it novel and interesting; on the other, he was alert and on guard, faintly about to lose in this silent confrontation. But the mysterious demonic cultivator on the bed suddenly coughed a few times, just like an ordinary patient, his posture no longer as cold and composed as before, even carrying a bit of vivid wretchedness: "Cough, cough..."
Immediately after, the door was pushed open, and all the tense atmosphere was broken by the newcomer's appearance.
The young girl who rushed into the room held a bundle of rope she had found from somewhere. She stared at Qin Yuman with a burning hatred for evil, abruptly throwing one end of the rope at him while scolding, "You thief, aren't you going to hand over my things?!"
Yingshi hadn't chased out for many steps just now before she felt something was wrong. Sure enough, this cunning master thief was actually using a diversion tactic to lure the tiger away from the mountain!
Fortunately, he hadn't had time to do anything threatening to Shuangjian, but just the stealing and eavesdropping were enough to make Yingshi burn with anger!
She sized up the person in front of her, convinced that he was exactly the puppetry master described in the book.
Looking to be in his early twenties, he wore a dark outfit in a maximalist style. His hair was also pitch black, of a medium length, somewhat like a modern mullet. The most iconic feature was the symmetrical small black moles on the left and right sides of his lips. With this characteristic, she could never mistake him!
"..."
Qin Yuman stood still in place, allowing the rope infused with spiritual energy to bind him. While Yingshi solemnly scanned him, his gaze also slowly roamed, shifting for a moment between the suddenly changed Shuangjian and Yingshi, before he curved his lips and started laughing.
—Interesting.
"Little sister, the thing you're talking about, is it this pouch in my arms?" Before his hands were also bound by the rope, he pulled out a familiar storage bag from his clothes and even intoxicatingly raised it to his nose to sniff. "So fragrant, it turns out to be the youthful and sweet scent of a young woman..."
Yingshi was incredibly annoyed. That was exactly the storage bag she had prepared for Shuangjian! The fabric even had her hand-drawn portrait masterpiece painted on it!
She rushed over to snatch the storage bag back, but another force was even faster than her. In the blink of an eye, the storage bag had already broken free from the puppeteer's hands and teleported to Shuangjian's fingertips.
Not only did Qin Yuman himself fail to react, but even she was stunned for a few seconds, only experiencing an invisible, permeating frosty chill.
At that moment, Yingshi even thought of the ghost fog and the bone-piercing coldness beneath the Marrow-Cleansing Spring. Because of this, she froze for a few seconds. Strangely enough, just as she was about to try and locate the source of this chill, she felt it recede rapidly, as if its sudden descent had been nothing more than an illusion...
Following her instincts, Yingshi quickly walked back to Shuangjian's side, hastily opened the storage bag, and poured out all of its contents. Thank goodness, the money and spirit stones were still there!
While she was taking inventory of her assets, the thief, whose attitude towards admitting his mistake was rather lax, was clearly chattering his teeth, yet he still managed to say, "I have heard that mortal women often give embroidered pouches to express their affection. I see that the pouch has a drawing of me on it. I suppose it was meant for me, right? Sister, have we met before?"
What the heck? Embroidered pouch my foot, that is a storage bag! To confuse the two, what a country bumpkin!
Besides, the figure drawn on the storage bag was clearly Shuangjian. Although Qin Yuman was not bad-looking, how dare he try to pass himself off as the male lead? Yingshi even began to doubt her own drawing skills.
It seemed this detestable thief could not wait another moment and was only hoping to thoroughly enrage her with his words so that she would continue to settle the score with him!
Yingshi raised her eyes and glared at him. By now, Qin Yuman was tightly bound all over. He had not struggled, and his posture seemed completely at ease, yet his complexion looked faintly pale.
But Yingshi could not care less about that. She walked over and threw a punch straight at Qin Yuman's jaw. This simple, purely physical strike was meant just to vent her anger; she had not infused it with spiritual energy to turn it into a true cultivator's attack. However, Qin Yuman's reaction to the punch was quite dramatic. He fell backward, his head slamming hard against a pillar, and let out a muffled groan of unconcealed pain, "Ugh!"
Yingshi dumbly withdrew her hand and looked at her fist, not expecting it to be so powerful as to knock Qin Yuman silly. It was worth noting that this fourth male lead was not weak; how could someone who had mastered a spell to its absolute pinnacle be a worthless weakling? But his reaction was simply too exaggerated...
Yingshi hesitated over whether to hit him a couple more times, but would this count as picking quarrels and fighting at the examination venue?
While she hesitated, she heard Shuangjian say indifferently, "The Dao Yi Immortal Alliance will not interfere with the disciples' pre-match sparring."
"..."
Is that so?
Great! Then let's have a proper spar!
Yingshi rolled up her sleeves, threw caution to the wind, and charged forward with a cold sneer.
...
That day seemed to pass incredibly slowly.
By the time Yingshi set foot on the path back to the southern peak, the moonlight was already exceedingly clear and serene.
If she had not considered that Senior Brother Wei Kai had nowhere to go, she might have stayed until dawn.
She clutched the fully stuffed storage bag tightly to her chest. There was only one. The one that originally belonged to Shuangjian had successfully been returned to his hands, though the assets inside were still entrusted to her care.
And the amount of those assets had silently doubled, because after their spar, the defeated Qin Yuman had voluntarily offered up his worldly possessions to compensate Yingshi for her emotional distress.
However, when she let the bruised and battered Qin Yuman go, Yingshi could never have imagined that the events of that day, after several rounds of brewing rumors, would be twisted into something like this:
"Have you heard? Among the disciples in this year's Tiangang Martial Gathering, there is a massive romantic! Just because his junior sister gave a hand-embroidered pouch to someone else, he got so angry that he coughed up blood and collapsed. Then, dragging his sickly and frail body, he beat that innocent passerby until he was unrecognizable... What a jealous husband!"
