To Raise a Soul 53.2

Boom!

Suddenly, there was the loud crash of a collapsing building. Startled, Yu Zhen’s mind instantly jolted away from his indecent thoughts. He flung aside the blankets, pulled on his pajamas, rushed to the balcony, and looked towards the source of the noise.

The rickety wooden house which was used to store random junk had been reduced to ruins. Yin Yan stood before the ruins with his black sword in hand. The sunlight bounced off it, producing a dull glare.

Shocked, Yu Zhen asked, “What are you doing?”

Yin Yan looked over and put away his sword. Calmly, he replied, “The house was too worn out. Knock it down and rebuild it.”

“…” That’s your justification for an unscheduled violent demolition first thing in the morning?

Yin Yan walked close to the balcony and stretched out both of his arms. “Come down.”

Yu Zhen estimated the height from the second floor of the building to the ground. He gulped and replied, “Go down? How do I go down? There’s no ladder here.”

“Jump straight down.” Yin Yan looked at him as if that was obvious.

The plant nursery was quite old, so each level of the house was taller than that of the average house. Even if he was only on the second floor, there were still three to four meters between him and the ground. If I jump down, I’ll definitely break my legs.

Although Yu Zhen’s mind had been muddled by love, he wasn’t stupid. He shook his head vigorously, not believing that the dumb, idol drama-like stunt had been suggested by Yin Yan.

Yin Yan slightly crooked a finger. 

Yu Zhen’s eyes widened as a familiar spiritual energy wrapped around him, and he lost control of his body. His body took a step forward, climbed over the banister, and jumped.

The moment that his body soared into empty air, the spiritual energy around him disappeared. A yelp lodged itself in his throat as he expected to miserably crash into the ground. At that moment, Yin Yan’s voice sounded in his mind.

[Circulate your spiritual energy. Calm down and relax your body.] 

The voice seemed to have a magical effect on him. Yu Zhen did as instructed and he felt a warmth in his dantian. His descent immediately slowed down and he softly settled into a warm embrace. 

“Although you can’t fly on a sword yet, you can partially use spiritual energy to walk on air.” Yin Yan set Yu Zhen firmly on the ground. Then he summoned his sword once again and slashed at the small building by them. 

Rumble. Rumble.  

Violent demolition number two was achieved.

Yu Zhen was dazed by the shock.

“This one was also too worn out. It also had the aura of the previous owners.” Finally satisfied, Yin Yan put away his sword. “Since the plant nursery was already in need of repairs, something can be rebuilt here.”

Yu Zhen whipped his head around and glared at Yin Yan. He wanted to bite him. 

“Want to bite me?” Yin Yan met his look. He lowered his head, moving it closer to Yu Zhen’s, and tapped his forehead. “Bad child.”

Sugar-coated bullet.

Yu Zhen pursed his lips and looked at Yin Yan’s face which was calm, but still appeared to be teasing him. He secretly pinched himself. 

Crazy.

The spot that was pinched hurt, but there was a sort of masochistic joy within his heart.

Either I’m crazy, or Yin Yan is crazy. Or maybe the world is crazy.

Yin Yan was already very charming, but after they became more intimate, Yin Yan appeared even more charming to him.

Summer must have arrived. Yu Zhen’s breath turned shallow. 

The summer sun scorched his brains and induced an uncontrollable fondness for Yin Yan. He stared blankly as his feelings rose to a boil and completely overflowed in him.

With no place to live, Yu Zhen could no longer use the excuse of tidying up the plant nursery to stay there overnight. He had no choice but to return to the apartment with Yin Yan.

However, he wasn’t fully at ease as he had tidied up less than half of the plant nursery, and the planted flowers still needed tending to. 

Understanding the direction of his thoughts, Yin Yan said, “You’d said that if you bought this plant nursery, you wouldn’t need to spend too much energy on it.”

In a last-ditch effort, Yu Zhen reasoned, “… But Xiaoxiao and San’er don’t have physical bodies. They can’t take care of the flowers. They can only guard the plant nursery. And there’s no time to hire workers, so I can only be a bit busier for a short while.”

Yin Yan mercilessly quashed his excuses. “The plants that you’ve moved from the dimensional pot have been partially transformed under the influence of the bodhi lotus. It’s not suitable to have outsiders take care of them.”

Yu Zhen, the owner of those plants, was even more aware of that point than Yin Yan. 

He choked on his words, and with a guilty conscience, he could say no more.

Having acquired his own plant nursery with much difficulty, he had indeed wanted to spend more time there.

Yin Yan smoothly drove through an intersection, then glanced at Yu Zhen. “I’ll settle the issue of hiring workers for you. You can come to check on the plant nursery at regular intervals, and I’ll accompany you. However, you can’t continue to live here. You also cannot fall behind with your cultivation.”

Yu Zhen raised his head and looked at Yin Yan with glistening eyes. 

“You’re also not allowed to secretly do naughty things.” 

“I didn’t do naugh-” Yu Zhen started to retort, but upon remembering the previous night’s failed “seduction via white robes”, he quietly shut his mouth. He then became obedient, sitting properly and facing the front. 

After being away from the apartment for a few days, he’d missed the place. As soon as they arrived, Yu Zhen plunged himself into the dimensional pot. 

He had been asking Xu Wu to retrieve things from the dimensional pot for the past few days, so he hadn’t personally entered it to look after the place. 

The little tree by the lotus pond had remained at the same stage for quite some time, still only bearing ten leaves. Vexed, he asked Xu Wu, but it didn’t know what was going on. He then rushed over to Yin Yan’s side and asked him, but Yin Yan said to leave it up to fate and not to worry about it too much. 

With no solutions, he visited the tree every day to feed it merits. That way, even if it didn’t grow new leaves, it likely wouldn’t lose any either. [pg change]

At the construction site, the work for the greenery finally started. The plants which were needed had been prepared well in advance using xirang*. He had brought workers with him to every large plant nursery, and with great fanfare, he bought batches of plants of all types. Then, behind the scenes, he proceeded to toss them all into the dimensional pot and secretly replace them with the ones which he had grown.

^{*Reminder: special soil} 

There was no other way of dealing with the matter. His own plant nursery hadn’t been completely fixed up, so to avoid looking suspicious, he could only use that silly trick.

One by one, trucks drove into the construction site carrying flower seedlings and tree saplings. The workers planting the flowers were baked under the hot and dry weather, but when they smelled the sweet scent of the plants, their minds cleared up and they stood up, gathering together.

“I’ll have to thank everyone for their hard work for the next part.” Yu Zhen left the first truck and greeted the lead worker.

The lead worker was a single-armed, middle-aged man. Although his disposition was serious, gratefulness was apparent in his eyes. “It’s not particularly hard work, it’s not hard at all. For Mr. Yu and Mr. Yin to employ us handicapped veterans and physically challenged workers, and with such good benefits, we are truly fortunate.”

Yu Zhen patted the man’s shoulder and didn’t say any more polite words. He greeted everyone and asked them to unload the goods and bring them to the planting areas.

The unusual workers weren’t professional gardeners, so Yu Zhen had to detail the method for planting each piece of greenery. The workers listened seriously. Although they were uncouth fellows, they were attentive and reliable in their work.

Yu Zhen didn’t act like other bosses who gave orders but didn’t lift a finger. He took part in the process of planting the flowers and other plants. Occasionally, he gave merits to wilted plants and those which were damaged during transportation.

When Yin Yan brought Feng Yuan over, they saw him digging a hole amongst a flock of workers.

Although he was a cultivator, he was also a human made of flesh and blood. His face was red from being under the sun for a whole day. His shirt was covered in sweat, and there were two streaks of mud on his face which were from who knows where.

“Were all of these plants selected by Xiao Zhen?” Feng Yuan squatted down and touched a sapling.

“He obtained them from different channels and picked them personally,” Yin Yan replied. Then he said his goodbyes and left the old man in the care of Jin Kai, Yin Hexiang’s assistant.

Feng Lin squatted down next to Feng Yuan. Pretending to observe the sapling, he asked, “Grandpa, did you notice something?”

Feng Yuan shook his head. “Although Yin Yan’s energy is strange and his fate is also strange, he is only an ordinary person. And he doesn’t seem to know that Yu Zhen is a cultivator.”

Bo Xiu also squatted down and shuffled close to them. “Old Feng, today we must get past Yin Yan and have a talk with Yu Zhen. The recent activities in B City should be related to him. Even if it’s only for the stability of the cultivators’ community in B City, we have to establish contact with him.”

Feng Yuan shook his head and replied as he had before, “Let’s keep watching.”

Without Bo Xiu saying another word, Feng Lin piped in with worry, “Grandpa, what are you watching out for? We’ve confirmed Yin Yan’s ordinary person status. We’ve also confirmed that Yu Zhen isn’t using some kind of evil technique to bewitch Yin Yan. And on top of that, Yu Zhen is solving the issue of the evil energy from this piece of land. We’ve confirmed that Yu Zhen is a benevolent cultivator who works for the good of the people. So what are you waiting to see?” 

Bo Xiu also looked at Feng Yuan expectantly, showing that his thoughts were the same as Feng Lin’s.

Feng Yuan hesitated for a moment. With a slight movement of his fingers, he temporarily stopped the people nearby from hearing their words. Then he said, “That wasn’t what I’m looking for. Actually… When I had met Qing Xu Zi years ago, I had a conversation with him and he told me something.”

“What thing?” Feng Lin impatiently asked.

Although it wasn’t a good place to talk, Feng Yuan suddenly didn’t want to keep the secret any longer, and he spilled the details. “Qing Xu Zi said he had determined that a great evil would be born into this world via a person. He wasn’t able to calculate the location of the person of great evil, but he had reasons to suspect that they would be by his side. Then he immediately chose a place to live in seclusion. As much as possible, he’d wanted to prevent the appearance of the person of great evil. In all the years since, Qing Xu Zi hasn’t made an appearance. Everyone knew that he lived in seclusion in H Province, but no one went to look for him.”

With Qing Xu Zi’s name reappearing in the cultivation world, Feng Yuan’s thoughts returned to that matter.

The gears in Bo Xiu’s mind spun quickly, and he immediately understood the old man’s misgivings. Frowning, he looked towards Yu Zhen who was speaking with Yin Yan. “Old Feng, are you thinking that Qing Xu Zi’s predictions came true? That Yu Zhen…”

“But Grandpa, didn’t you say that the merits on Yu Zhen’s body are very dense? A person who brings great evil wouldn’t be able to retain merits.” Feng Lin’s thoughts were straightforward and he found Feng Yuan’s words to be contradictory.

In rare agreement with Feng Lin, he replied, “That’s why I said to keep watching. Yu Zhen came to B City alone and Qing Xi Zi didn’t follow him. There are two possibilities for this. One possibility is that Qing Xu Zi is still living in seclusion and the person of great evil hasn’t appeared. The other possibility is that Qing Xu Zi is already… but the person of great evil has been born, and Yu Zhen is the successor chosen to deal with the person of great evil. I’m more inclined towards the latter possibility. Combined with the recent happenings in B City, I suspect that the person of great evil is in B City, beside Yu Zhen.”

Beside Yu Zhen… from what they knew, Yu Zhen has had the most contact with the Yin family since arriving in B City.

Feng Lin and Bo Xiu’s gaze fell on Yin Yan.

Speaking of which… The fate of the Yin family’s young master is quite strange. For several years, he was supposedly chasing after a woman like it was a matter of life or death. But then he all of a sudden changed his inclinations and married Yu Zhen. 

Moreover, this Yin family’s young master had a car accident in H Province before the new year. And he met Yu Zhen at that time.

The signs of the evil spirit appeared shortly after Yin Yan returned to B City…

Suspicious, it’s too suspicious. 

A coincidence? It’s too much of a coincidence.

A good and honest cultivator gave up his own sexual preferences to get close to the person of great evil. It was all to resolve a great crisis in the cultivation world. In their minds, they conjured up a story. A person was poised to resolve a crisis while giving up their life and facing the mouth of the wolf.

Feng Lin and Bo Xiu looked back at Yu Zhen. They watched Yu Zhen smile widely at Yin Yan, appearing to be full of unrestrained love. They sighed deeply.  

If that is truly the case, Qing Xu Zi’s successor has suffered bitter hardships… He’s a good child, a truly good child.