A breeze brushed gently past, lifting strands of Gu Yi's hair.
He said calmly, "I'm not the person you're looking for. He's the Demon Venerable, while I'm merely an ordinary disciple of the Tianmu Sect."
Lin Yuan smiled faintly, his smile as gentle as a cool breeze against the face. He said softly, "But I just saved you, Miss Ye."
"Huh?" Gu Yi looked up in surprise. He hadn't expected Lin Yuan to change the subject so suddenly.
Lin Yuan gazed quietly into his eyes and asked gently, "Shouldn't you thank me?"
Gu Yi froze for a moment, then pressed his lips together and said quietly, "Thank you."
Lin Yuan's voice suddenly turned cold. "But I never said the person I'm looking for was the Demon Venerable. Miss Ye, how did you know it was him I was looking for?"
Gu Yi shuddered slightly. He turned around, a trace of panic showing in his eyes.
Lin Yuan slowly approached him, his tall figure looming behind him, his low voice carrying a hint of coldness. "Miss Ye, why are you so certain the person I'm looking for is the Demon Venerable?"
Shit!
Gu Yi felt Lin Yuan's warm breath brush his neck, and his body trembled involuntarily.
He really never said that...
"Young Master Lin, men and women should keep their distance. Please behave yourself." Gu Yi shoved Lin Yuan away, then took two steps back to put some distance between them.
"People have said before that I resemble the Demon Venerable, so I mistakenly assumed you were looking for him. But whoever you're looking for, that person definitely isn't me."
Gu Yi tried his best to appear composed, attempting to find a reasonable excuse to deal with the situation before him.
At that moment, he really couldn't think of a better reason and could only hope this explanation would get him through. After all, he and Lin Yuan came from entirely different worlds.
Lin Yuan was the major villain who was about to turn evil, while he only wanted to live a peaceful life.
"Oh, I see." Lin Yuan's voice carried obvious disappointment, as though all his strength had been drained away.
Just then, brilliant fireworks suddenly bloomed in the sky, their dazzling light instantly illuminating the entire sky as brightly as day.
Startled by the sudden light, Gu Yi instinctively closed his eyes.
Yet that momentary flash still stung his eyes and left him dizzy.
"Miss Ye?" Lin Yuan swiftly caught his tilting body and asked with concern, "What... what's wrong? Are you feeling unwell?"
However, the deafening explosions of the fireworks drowned out Lin Yuan's words, making his questions indistinct.
Only after the fireworks ended did Lin Yuan gently release him and say softly, "You can open your eyes now."
Gu Yi said, "Thank you."
"Are you sensitive to light?" Lin Yuan suddenly asked.
Gu Yi opened his eyes, looking dazed at first, then turned to him. "I was naughty as a child and injured my eyes, so I've never been able to look at anything too bright since. I've made a fool of myself, Young Master Lin."
The night market was brightly lit, and Gu Yi had actually been uncomfortable almost the entire evening. He hadn't expected fireworks too.
He really wasn't suited to going out.
"Let's head back." With that, Lin Yuan wrapped an arm around Gu Yi's waist, and the two flew down from the city wall.
The instant he landed, Gu Yi put distance between himself and Lin Yuan, thinking to himself, As if I can't fly myself. What a frivolous man.
You lose your head and get handsy the moment you see a pretty girl. No wonder the female lead doesn't like you.
Still...
There was one thing Gu Yi was rather curious about: why Lin Yuan knew Yezi.
"Young Master Lin? You know Miss Yezi?" He looked at Lin Yuan walking beside him and asked as though casually.
"Yes. She saved my life," Lin Yuan answered truthfully.
"Oh..." Gu Yi pondered. Saved his life...
Wait...
Wasn't it the female lead who saved his life?
But the female lead's name wasn't Yezi. If I remember correctly, wasn't her name supposed to be Ye Lengyan?
As for the male lead, his name seemed to be Mu Yang.
Because he had pushed himself so hard before and completed his mission far ahead of schedule, he had felt certain he would be able to go home, so he hadn't properly read the plot following the original owner's death at all.
Now the system was gone. He didn't even have a chance to look at the original novel anymore.
But that young man beside Yezi...
"Don't you know Yezi and Mu Yang too, Miss Ye?" Lin Yuan knew he had given his room to Yezi, so the two clearly knew each other.
Mu Yang!!!!!
He's Mu Yang!!!
Now everything lined up.
Lin Yuan had gone to the Overseas Immortal Island and met the male and female leads. The female lead had saved him, and from then on, he had fallen in love with her.
So now, the female lead is Yezi, and the male lead is Mu Yang!!!
You should already be fucking in love with the female lead by now. What are you still looking for me for?
Could it be...
Suddenly, Gu Yi felt a chill run down his spine.
Could he be trying to find me so he can kill me...?
After all, I'm a stain on his life...
He likes Yezi. He definitely can't let her know he dual cultivated with a man!!!
"Why aren't you saying anything?" Lin Yuan turned his head and asked.
"Oh, I met Miss Yezi once before." There was a barely perceptible tremor in Gu Yi's voice.
For some reason, he had even had the courage to self-detonate when facing He Yan, yet when facing Lin Yuan, he felt fear from the bottom of his heart.
Although he had only skimmed the novel, his sympathy and fondness for Lin Yuan's character had led Gu Yi to read his parts a little more closely.
After turning evil, he simply wasn't human! He was a devil.
Killing people on a whim already counted as mercy. He gouged out people's eyes while they were alive, dug out their hearts and livers, and left them soaking half-dead in the Water Prison.
His treatment of the female lead was even more emotionally tormenting...
Although the male lead had rescued her before he could go all the way, he had still left the female lead psychologically scarred.
That had made the male lead his sworn enemy, determined to kill him.
His ruthless decisiveness when killing earlier, and the blood on his face, seemed to indicate that his progress bar toward turning evil was nearly full.
Back when they were inside the barrier, Gu Yi had thought from the outset that he didn't have long to live.
Someone with nothing to lose had nothing to fear. If he was going to die anyway, there was nothing much to be afraid of.
Later, after the two had become physically intimate, he had forgotten about that.
But now... after three years of an easy life, Gu Yi, who had settled into doing nothing, was a little afraid.
Death wasn't frightening. What was frightening was being tortured before dying.
Neither of them spoke again along the way. Gu Yi's head was filled with the original novel's descriptions of Lin Yuan in the later stages, and even his lips couldn't stop trembling.
Lin Yuan followed silently beside him, his gaze resting on Gu Yi.
He had just seized the opportunity to test him again, but he still couldn't sense Gu Yi's aura.
Yet he had clearly smelled Gu Yi's scent.
Besides, he could sense the tension in the person before him. If he wasn't Gu Yi, then what did he have to feel guilty about?
Presumably, as long as he went to the Illusory Demon Sect and found Gu Yi's Life Lamp, there would be a way to determine whether Ye Yiyi really was Gu Yi.
And at that moment, Gu Yi was thinking the same thing.
His Life Lamp was still in the Illusory Demon Sect, and it could prove he was still alive.
No one had discovered he was still alive all these years, so presumably no one had found his Life Lamp yet.
He had to take this opportunity to steal his Life Lamp when he went to the Illusory Demon Sect.
That way, no one would ever know Gu Yi was still alive again.
That was also why he had agreed to come this time.
Before you continue