Chapter 24: A Whiff of the Longevity Debate!

“Benefactor, thank you so much for saving Ah Mo. If you hadn’t helped, I can’t imagine what I would do all alone after losing her.”

The old man, named Wang Zhuihai, thanked Meng Yingxing while applying medicine and wrapping bandages on his injured arm.

Great. First, it was Li Mo calling him “Little Benefactor,” and now this old man was also calling him “Benefactor” repeatedly. Meng Yingxing really couldn’t take it.

“It’s nothing, hiss—”

As the ointment was applied, Meng Yingxing felt a sharp pain shoot from the wound straight to the top of his head, causing him to swallow all the words he was about to say.

Xiu Qingcheng seemed to have no sympathy for her new disciple, laughing heartily in his ear.

‘It’s no crime for a man to cry, my dear disciple. If it really hurts, you don’t have to endure it. Just shout it out loud, and it won’t hurt as much.’

‘Come on, repeat after me, ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall!’

“Master!”

Meng Yingxing shouted at Xiu Qingcheng, a hint of displeasure in his voice.

He really wanted his heartless master to know the pain he was enduring, to make her scream a little too.

Oh, he forgot. As a sword, his master was indeed literally heartless.

After teasing him for a while, Xiu Qingcheng obediently shut her mouth and stopped joking with Meng Yingxing.

“Benefactor, thankfully, most of your injuries are just scrapes and some shallow cuts. I’ve applied the best medicine in the clinic for you. Go back and rest for a few days, and you should be mostly healed.” Wang Zhuihai meticulously treated Meng Yingxing’s wounds and gave him earnest instructions.

Hearing Wang Zhuihai mention “the best medicine,” Meng Yingxing was genuinely flattered.

“Sir, you’ve spent too much. Some ordinary medicine would have been fine.”

Wang Zhuihai waved his hands repeatedly, “It’s alright. You saved Ah Mo, and I don’t have much else to thank you with. Consider this medicine as my repayment.”

Meng Yingxing knew that elderly people like Wang Zhuihai could be very stubborn, so he didn’t say any more words of thanks and instead made some small talk.

“Elder Wang, where are you originally from? Why did you decide to move here?”

“Qizhou, Mingyue Village.” Elder Wang paused for a few seconds before answering with a chuckle, “When you get tired of living in one place, isn’t it nice to change to another?”

To this, Meng Yingxing agreed.

Afterward, Wang Zhuihai checked all of Meng Yingxing’s injuries and, once he was sure they were all properly bandaged, he cleaned up the cotton cloths stained with Meng Yingxing’s blood and the dirty water. With Li Mo’s help, he walked into the inner room.

Xiu Qingcheng silently watched the items stained with Meng Yingxing’s blood, a question still in her mind.

‘Perhaps the relationship between me and Meng Yingxing is indeed related to his blood, but why do only his and Li Mo’s blood cause a reaction in me?’

‘Looks like I’ll have to find another chance to let out some of Meng Yingxing’s blood and see if any other changes occur.’

‘It sounds inhumane, but what’s wrong with a disciple bleeding a little for his master! At worst, I’ll let him take some of my blood in the future!’

‘If I had any, that is.’

Poor Meng Yingxing, about to be played with in the palm of his master’s hand.

Meng Yingxing moved his body slightly. After the medicine was applied, the wounds indeed didn’t hurt as much as before.

Then, as if he sensed something, Meng Yingxing suddenly shivered.

“I feel like the relationship between Elder Wang and Li Mo is much closer than that of an ordinary grandfather and granddaughter.”

Meng Yingxing rubbed his arms and turned his head to look in the direction where Wang Zhuihai and Li Mo had disappeared, speaking to Xiu Qingcheng with a hint of envy.

He had grown up alone in the Tianfeng Sect and had never experienced any familial affection. Even such an ordinary emotional connection was enough to make him yearn for it.

“No need to envy them.” Taking advantage of the fact that no one was around, Xiu Qingcheng moved the Ting Tian Sword’s body slightly, patting Meng Yingxing’s shoulder a couple of times as a form of comfort.

“In the future, I, your master, will let you experience that kind of family affection too!”

When Xiu Qingcheng said this, she was simply trying to comfort her love-deprived little disciple.

Meng Yingxing, deeply moved, nodded heavily and smiled, “As long as Master is here, I’m not afraid of anything.”

Not expecting Meng Yingxing to say something so cheesy, the Ting Tian Sword, resting on his back, trembled violently a few times. Xiu Qingcheng couldn’t help but feel that she had planted some strange seed in him.

After a while, Li Mo once again helped Wang Zhuihai out from the inner room, both of them smiling.

They stood before Meng Yingxing and extended an invitation.

“Benefactor, our clinic is about to open. If you don’t mind, how about you join us for the opening ceremony?”

Meng Yingxing wanted to refuse, but under Xiu Qingcheng’s intense, child-like insistence, he had no choice but to agree to fulfill his master’s wish.

That’s right, Xiu Qingcheng just loved joining in on the excitement.

A moment later, Meng Yingxing stood with other onlookers at the entrance of the ‘Changyue Medical Clinic’, watching as Wang Zhuihai and Li Mo, who had concealed all her Jiaoren features, lit the long string of firecrackers hanging by the door.

“The Changyue Medical Clinic officially opens today!” Li Mo’s gentle voice carried with incredible penetration, spreading all around.

In an instant, the sound of firecrackers shot into the sky. The smell of gunpowder, along with the red fragments of the firecrackers falling from above, entered Meng Yingxing’s nostrils.

The crowd of onlookers included both cultivators and ordinary people, and they were all cheering and applauding for the newly opened clinic.

It was an incredibly festive scene.

Xiu Qingcheng was smiling.

Meng Yingxing was smiling too.

Perhaps the lonelier a person is, the more they flock to lively scenes, and the more they are… drawn to each other.

Although the man and the sword had not known each other for long, their repeated life-and-death journeys these past few days had already forged a sufficiently deep bond between them.

The opening ceremony didn’t last long, ending amidst the mess on the ground, leaving a slight sense of melancholy.

Meng Yingxing pulled himself out of this faint feeling of loneliness and glanced at Wang Zhuihai and Li Mo, who were still standing at the entrance, smiling at each other.

He pulled up his hood and silently turned to leave.

‘My dear disciple, do you remember when I asked you before, what was Li Mo’s reason for living among humans despite the danger?’

Xiu Qingcheng withdrew her gaze from Li Mo, her mood suddenly turning melancholic, turning emo.

“Yes. Belief, or desire.”

Meng Yingxing nodded to show he remembered but didn’t know why Xiu Qingcheng had brought it up again.

“Master, what’s wrong?”

‘Nothing, I just suddenly remembered a little love story about the demon race.’ Xiu Qingcheng said, then changed the subject to ask Meng Yingxing:

‘Do you know what the most painful psychological trauma is for the demon race?’

Meng Yingxing shook his head.

He knew very little about the demon race.

‘The demon race has a long lifespan. When they fall in love with a human, they can only watch as their beloved is carved into an aged figure by time, and then dies.’

‘The love of a demon is a desire, an obsession. After their lover dies, it becomes a sharp sword thrust into the demon’s heart, one that can never be pulled out.’

‘This is the most painful psychological trauma for the demon race.’

Meng Yingxing didn’t know what Xiu Qingcheng meant by suddenly saying this.

“Then the demon race… kind of deserves it,” Meng Yingxing honestly stated his opinion.

‘What a blockhead!’ Xiu Qingcheng knew her disciple was dense, but she never expected him to be such a blockhead, completely impervious to matters of love and romance!

She decided to tell him a fairy tale when he was cultivating that night—The Little Mermaid.

‘I really don’t know how you’ll win a girl’s heart in the future!’ Xiu Qingcheng was extremely worried about Meng Yingxing’s future love life.

Meng Yingxing was utterly bewildered, having no idea what this had to do with winning a girl’s heart.

So profound, so mysterious, who on earth could understand what she was talking about!

‘Let go of the urge to help, respect the fate of others! Forget it!’

Xiu Qingcheng took a deep breath, deciding to spare herself. She consoled herself that it was normal for Meng Yingxing to be slow to awaken to matters of love and romance since he grew up with no one to guide him. He would probably develop some empathy for these things in the future.