Lin Mu waited for a long time, yet there wasn’t a next sentence.
He looked up, somewhat confused, realised that everybody hadn’t closed their eyes, and that Nie Shen had disappeared.
He slightly paused, and in his heart, had a bad premonition. He asked softly, “where’s Nie Shen?”
Yan Xuanjing sat next to him, raised his hand and gently rubbed Lin Mu’s head, but didn’t say a word.
Lin Mu was very calm.
No one had answered him, so he simply asked, “he went outside?”
Di Wu looked at him and snorted softly.
“I thought he was in a strange mood.” Lin Mu said, then sighed.
Now, even if Di Wu and the rest didn’t tell him what were the consequences of Nie Shen going to face the resentful energy, Lin Mu could guess it himself.
He probably was ready to die.
The reason why he found a time where they closed their eyes to leave was probably because he didn’t want them to watch as he left.
Unexpectedly considerate and gentle.
Lin Mu looked down at the identity card in his hand; he was the prophet.
“Perhaps he wouldn’t die.” He said.
The decision to face death was Nie Shen’s own choice, he had sinned too much, and by right, he should have paid with his life.
Lin Mu was still very clear about this point, it’s just that, from his point of view, Nie Shen himself was a victim, and adding on the fact that he had saved Mentor Tan, if he could help, he would.
But now, when he knew that Nie Shen himself decided to end it all, Lin Mu didn’t react much.
In the end, he had to make amends.
The only difference was using his life to make amends or live on and accumulate merits, and Nie Shen chose the former.
But if it was possible, Lin Mu still hoped that Nie Shen could survive.
Morally speaking, he wouldn’t be able to clear these sins that he accumulated, but personally, Lin Mu didn’t want Nie Shen to die.
After all, to him, Nie Shen really was a miserable and unlucky little fella.
Even worse than Qin Chuan.
But this was Nie Shen’s own choice, and Lin Mu felt that there was nothing he could say.
Yan Xuanjing glanced at Lin Mu, shoved a bag of pickled chicken feet to him and tapped the identity card on the table, and asked, “are we still playing?”
“Play.” Di Wu nodded his head, closed his eyes and pointed his finger, and chose Lin Big Mimosa, “Lin Big Mimosa, go be the narrator.”
Lin Big Mimosa was playing Old Maid, and after being chosen, he shrunk back his neck and stood up.
Lin Mu held his own prophet card, and suddenly thought about his own house, and asked, “where did you guys place my house?”
“It’s at Qin Chuan’s hometown.” Di Wu said, “a very safe place.”
Lin Mu sighed, “can’t we put the house into a fabric bag and take it along?”
Di Xiu shook his head, “there’s too many little things in the house, if something dropped after bring shrunk, we won’t be able to find it again.”
Also true.
Toss it in the fabric bag for a while, not only would those tiny things fall out, but the whole entire house would probably collapse.
A group of people continued playing in the heart of the mountain while listening to the clanging outside, and it was much noisier compared to before.
Di Wu looked up at the shaking candles above his head, and said, “… it’s pretty intense outside.”
It was indeed pretty intense outside.
Nie Shen wasn’t good at directly facing the resentful energy, so his fog covered the whole mountain, and pulled both enemies and allies into an illusion.
Yan Gui stopped the moment he realised Nie Shen arrived, but when he saw the face that appeared in front of him, he grinned, and a large group of flames burst out of his hand.
The illusion that appeared before him wasn’t the most respected person in his heart, but was the fox spirit he had ranked as the most annoying.
— That is, the previous Qingqiu Country’s leader that threw the blame onto him.
To be honest, Yan Gui had wanted to beat this fox up for really long, but unfortunately, this fox was extremely slippery, and he couldn’t even catch him.
Well, if he couldn’t get the actual body, then hitting an illusion would be good too!
With a flame in each hand, Yan Gui enthusiastically entered into the battle in full swing.
And the illusion that had appeared on the resentful energy’s side was Di Wu, who he had wanted to find.
The grey-black mist suddenly exploded, and with a green flame that could never be extinguished, pounced on the illusory figure.
Standing at a high area, Nie Shen looked at Yan Gui, who was crazily throwing out flames to the resentful energy in the illusion, and also looked at the resentful energy that had rushed towards Di Xiu, but was burned by Di Xiu’s power, and carefully adjusted the illusion in an attempt to weaken the resentful energy.
In the mountain heart, Di Xiu paused, and instinctively raised his eyes.
Lin Mu followed his line of sight, “Dad, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing much.” Di Xiu shook his head, used his power to extinguish Yan Gui’s flames that had accidentally burned his original body, and said, “Yan Gui seems to be having a good time.”
Di Wu wasn’t that surprised, “of course he would be happy to hit a sandbag.”
Usually, when resentful energies couldn’t find their target, they would attack the surrounding area indiscriminately. However, once they locked onto their target, they would ignore everything else around them.
This was a fairly obvious shortcoming, akin to finding a weak point on a monster’s original form.
Lin Mu looked at this, then looked at that, and asked, “how did you guys handle resentful energy before? ”
“In the past, in the Great Wilderness, the one who dealt with the resentful energies as a profession was me.” Di Wu pointed to himself, “as soon as I got close to it, the resentful energy would disappear.”
But obviously, it wasn’t appropriate to deal with this resentful energy in such a way.
While Di Xiu also could that, but before, he was guarded by Yan Gui and the rest, so he wouldn’t go and do such things.
But now, his vitality was injured, and it wouldn’t be easy for him to handle it.
After all, resentful energy had no actual body, and he originally was very difficult to catch it, and additionally, this resentful energy had attained spiritual awareness for so many years, and he could have a bit of cultivation by now. As long as he continued to exists, he would be able to provoke any monster.
— Any.
Nobody’s heart was perfect, and as long as there was the slightest gap, it would be enough for the resentful energy to make a move.
Even Yan Xuanjing’s mother couldn’t completely guard against this resentful energy, and gave him a way to escape. Let alone other monsters.
“That time, I thought that my power could naturally resist the resentful energy, which was why I shove it over.” Di Wu sighed, “originally, I just wanted to give some lessons to those monsters who did me in.”
Who would have thought that in the end, this stone would have smashed him instead?
“Hmm……” Lin Mu supported his face, “does that mean that there’s no way?”
“Wait for your father.” Di Wu said, “and Yan Gui might have some other means — who knows if there’s any surprise package waiting for him at the rapidly changing scene outside.”
This fox spirit was the best at going along with people. When they were still young and did all sorts of outrageous things, every time they were about to crash, it was always Yan Gui who would suddenly grab onto a point, and the two of them would turn and run, and return next time.
When necessary, this fox would even send a few friends into the enemy camp first, and come and get them after half a year or so.
Just like a Doraemon, his little head was full of all kinds of messy thoughts.
Although his means were really annoying, but when it came to these type of large matters, Yan Gui was quite reliable.
“You can always trust Yan Gui.” Di Wu said, “after all, I had never figured out Yan Gui’s, this fox, lower limit.”
Just as he finished speaking, the clanging sounds outside suddenly stopped, and immediately after that came a huge explosion that shook the entire mountain.
Yan Xuanjing took Lin Mu into his arms for protection and waved aside a few candles that fell from above. As soon as he looked up, he saw a ray of light that suddenly cut through the dimness of the mountain’s heart.
A flash, and from the open hole rolled in a pile of grey fluff.
Yan Gui climbed up covered in dust, shook his fur, turned back into his human form, and his face showed that he was still suffering from the shock.
“Fuck, scared the hell out of me!” Yan Gui shook the soil on his body, and his heart was beating heavily, “wow, where did this half-monster get his inspiration from, the suicide squad? He simply rushed up and merged with the resentful energy, then blew himself up, not giving me any time to prepare at all. Scared the hell out of me!”
Everybody who was in the mountain’s heart paused.
Yan Gui didn’t notice it and continued to complain, “wah, he didn’t even think about what the result would be like if he exploded with a few thousand years’ worth of Di Wu’s power. Even in the Great Wilderness, we have to find a more remote place for him to explode. What’s up with this young man, so impulsive, none of you warned him?”
Lin Mu froze for a while and asked, “he…… exploded himself?”
Yan Gui looked up towards Lin Mu and said, “if it wasn’t my sharp eyes and deft hands, let me tell you, a good half of the country would be flattened, and at that time, all three realms would face a huge earthquake.”
He said, then took out a transparent square about the side of a human head from his fabric bag.
The square was wrapped layer by layer, like a matryoshka wrapped in chaotic colours.
From inside, one could vaguely hear sounds of something cracking.
“Here.” Yan Gui shoved it to Lin Mu and continued to shake the soil on his body off, “but thanks to Nie Shen’s stupid act of merging with the resentment, this thing was something my wife and I created to ward against the Shen. Although it can’t contain the resentful energy, it can contain Nie Shen.”
Lin Mu held the huge transparent square and carefully looked inside.
The centremost part of the chaos was a greyish black and white mist, along with the bright green flames of the Morning Dusk.
Looking closely, that mist was still tumbling and tearing.
The innermost layer of the transparent square was repeatedly cracked and recovering. The vibrations made by the explosion caused the layers to constantly hit each other, producing a crisp and clear sound.
“Inside this is……Nie Shen and resentful energy?” Lin Mu asked, somewhat confused, “they seemed to be fighting.”
“Yeah.” Yan Gui nodded, “it’s much better compared to a suicide bomb. No matter who wins or loses, as long as it’s Nie Shen’s body, neither of them can come out.”
Lin Mu opened and closed his mouth, “……”
Okay then.
It was better than simply dying.
Di Wu was not surprised that Yan Gui could always take out some sort of messy item, and took the big square from Lin Mu, lifted it up and asked, “where should we place this?”
Yan Gui frowned when he heard it, thought for a bit, and after a while, said, “hang it on Di Xiu’s body as a wind chime.”
Lin Mu: “?”
You call this thing a wind chime?
Yan Gui boasted, “it can reduce resentful energy and be a wind chime, I think it isn’t bad!”
Yan Xuanjing tilted his head, looked at the passage where a monster was poking his head out.
It was a messenger from Qingqiu Country.
Yan Gui was over there bragging, and didn’t notice this monster at all.
Yan Xuanjing took the letter, glanced at the content, then looked at the entrance of the huge passage in the mountain’s heart, turned back towards Lin Mu and said, “it’s a letter from my mother.”
Yan Gui’s ear moved and immediately, he stopped bragging and nudged over.
Yan Xuanjing thought of the list of animals written in the letter, he coldly placed the letter back into his arms and told Yan Gui, “Mother told you to return as soon as you finished everything.”
Yan Gui instantly agreed, turned and went into the passage.
Yan Xuanjing watched him leave, hesitated for a moment, and rubbed the newly delivered letter with his hand, and told Lin Mu, “Mother also wants to meet you.”
— Of course, the original words weren’t like this.
Yan Xuanjing’s mother original words were: Di Xiu’s kid would be a hit in the Great Wilderness, quickly settle down. In the future, if he gets stolen by your group of uncles, you’ll have nowhere to cry.
Yan Xuanjing felt that it made sense.
He reached out to Lin Mu, and his voice turned mild and gentle. Then, he asked, “do you want to return to Qingqiu Country with me?”
Lin Mu froze, looked at Yan Xuanjing’s hand, and turned to look at Di Xiu.
His father was watching him with a smile.
So, Lin Mu simply took Yan Xuanjing’s hand.
“Okay.”
He said.
The author has this to say:
Main text end.
The translator has this to add:
And the main story ends here! Thank you for reading until this point, and don’t worry, there’s extras coming after this, about what happens in the future, about Di Wu and Qin Chuan, about Nie Shen and being a wind chime, and we’ll get to meet the ever illusive Mama Fox!
This is such a sweet novel, I’m so happy it got translated, thank you so much for giving this to us
I’m going to miss this story. It’s a good plot.
Glad that Nie Shen kinda didn’t die but… It sounds like a torture to always be fighting the resentful energy. I hope the extras address this but oh well…. Ahhh finally the mom is gonna meet Lin Mu! Really like her character. Can’t believe the main story is over already… Once again, thanks for all your hard work for the translations. Really appreciate it 🙂
TvT)/ aaah so many novels ending.. what am I supposed to do with my life haha jk.. but I’m glad Nie Shen lived.. and I’m kinda shocked that it will end hehe I’m also looking forward to the extras and your future projects as well.. Thank you very much for bringing us a wonderful translation of this amazing novel (and is Di Wu and Qin Chuan cannon?) Hahahaha.. again, Thank you so much for the chaptersss x3 🙇🙇🙇🙇🙇🙇
Thank you for translating!
I’m glad Nie Shen is alive and that he had the chance to experience some normal things like playing games with friends.
Thanks for the update
Well, at least NS is somehow still alive (and fighting) xD
Ahahaha, YG have fun when you return home >D
Let me thank you in advance for translating this fluff novel (シ_ _)シ Looking forward to the extras :3
Yes, at least Nie Shen didn’t die. Although he was a relatively minor character in the scheme of the plot, it’s a bit melancholy he’s stuck fighting the resentful energy in a small space.
Thank you so much for continuing and translating this unique mystical, but slice-of-life danmei — it really does give Natsume Yuujinchou vibes. 💕 Wonderful job!
recently bl translations have been ending…
they all end at the least expected parts…
I’m a little sad…