Young Master Bai — Chapter 7
Chapter 7: Let's Make Another Deal, Shall We?
It gets dark early in the Great Snow Mountain. After Bai Chen finished chatting with his two juniors, night had already fallen. Stepping out of the Fox King’s hall, the first thing he saw was Li Wuming roasting meat under a tree by a fire.
Li Wuming was, after all, human. There were things Bai Chen could discuss with Yunce and Chenzui, but not with him. Li Wuming was tactful enough not to follow them into the hall and waited outside while the Fox Kings finished their talks.
But Li Wuming was not the type of person who mistreats himself. While Bai Chen handled official matters, he had flown to the kitchen to get mutton and seasoning. He dragged over a stool, carved a stone slab, sheltered from the falling snow under an old pine, started a fire with silver coal, sliced the mutton thinly with his sword aura, laid it out on the slab, brushed it with fine salt and soy sauce, and sprinkled on scallions, chili, fennel, and a handful of cumin from the Northern Wastes. The aroma made the gatekeeping bear guards salivate, their eyes nearly rolling over.
There’s little scenery amidst heavy snow. Ordinary people trapped here for ten days would go mad, yet he lived more happily than an emperor. Bai Chen’s previously gloomy mood lifted at this domestic scene. He walked over curiously, half helpless, half admiring, and sighed, “How do you manage to live so comfortably no matter where you are?”
Li Wuming took it as a compliment, crooked a finger, and with a stream of true qi, summoned another stool from the Fox King’s hall. Setting it by the fire, he beckoned to Bai Chen. “This is grilled mutton I learned in the Northern Wastes. Come, have a taste.”
After losing his yao core, Bai Chen could no longer resist the cold. Unfortunately, the yao rarely used fire since their fur was sufficient. Even the Fox King’s hall was icy. But now, warmed by the fire, he felt much better. He never stood on ceremony with Li Wuming and tasted the meat using the man’s chopsticks. The flavor was excellent — tender lamb and perfectly balanced spices. If Li Wuming ever stopped being a Sword Immortal and opened a tavern, he would thrive.
With a warm belly, Bai Chen felt more at ease. He glanced at the face that had once made him both troubled and moved, his heart involuntarily skipping a beat. He took the rare initiative to make conversation. “The Northern Wastes — is that the main base of the Demon Sect?”
“It is. Who would have thought such a desolate land would become the mountain stronghold of the human race’s second-largest power?”
Back when Bai Chen died, the Demon Sect's current headmaster [Cun Jie] had just been a minor demonic cultivator who betrayed the Demon Lord. The Northern Wastes were uninhabited. Knowing Bai Chen was unfamiliar with the present world, Li Wuming sighed. “Back then, the head of the demonic path was still the Demon Lord He Huan. It's been nearly four hundred years since his ascension. The leadership has already changed twice. Time truly flies.”
Bai Chen had slept for too long. All the names and people he once knew were now characters in legend. His peers were mostly gone. But during those years, while he lay unconscious, Li Wuming lived through every day. The sense of time’s passage must weigh heavier on him.
Bai Chen thought: this man’s life over the years probably hadn’t been as carefree as he pretended.
“Alone in a foreign land, living couldn't be easy, right?”
“It wasn't that bad. Your original form was small. I made a little coffin out of glacier wood and, when bored in the mountains, packed you in and carried you on my back. I traveled all over and had plenty of excitement.”
Bai Chen had never seen Li Wuming show much emotion — no great joy or sorrow. Even now, the black-clad man responded with playful ease, even gesturing the coffin’s size proudly.
Naturally, this earned him another eye-roll from Bai Chen. He knew that while this man was his Dao companion in name, he might never open his heart. Bai Chen could only protest coolly, “I died in my original form to let you retrieve my heart unimpeded — not for you to carry my corpse around as a toy.”
Love could fool others but not oneself. Before dying, Bai Chen had thought only of Li Wuming. Believing that, after all their companionship, Li Wuming might hesitate to harm his human form, he had died as a Nine-tailed White Fox, thinking the swordsman could more easily open a beast’s chest. Such careful planning only came from deep affection.
Li Wuming had always avoided the topic of that mission. But now he stopped joking, his voice rare and low. “If I hadn’t searched the world for the greatest experts, how could you have woken up?”
“So it really was you who brought me back…”
If the yao had the means to extend his life, Bai Chen wouldn’t have waited to die. When he saw Li Wuming’s unsurprised reaction upon waking, he already suspected it. As expected, his resurrection wasn’t a miracle — it was Li Wuming who had fought fate and snatched him back from the hands of the Lord of the Underworld.
To return from death — how could that be easy? The journey must have been harder than Li Wuming made it seem. And those capable masters wouldn’t have offered resurrection techniques for free. Who knew what price this man had paid?
Bai Chen stared dazedly at him. Li Wuming, uncomfortable under the gaze, patted his Dao companion’s head. “Don’t look at me like that. Finding a Dao companion is such a rare event. If you stayed dead, wouldn’t that have been a huge loss?”
When Bai Chen once wandered the land, he had learned of Li Wuming’s temperament. Now, he could only give him a helpless side glance. “You’re the type who never lets anyone remember your kindness.”
“I’m not used to gratitude. Too much of it becomes attachment. And with attachments, it’s hard to act freely.”
Li Wuming didn’t care much for these words. He extinguished the fire with snow and, out of habit, embraced Bai Chen. In a soft voice, he said, “It’s late. Let’s go back.”
The words reminded Bai Chen of their first travels together. Li Wuming’s sword, the Supreme Emperor Sword passed down from his master, was known as the king of all swords. When drawn, it made all swords yield; no blade dared unsheathe in its presence. Yet Li Wuming used it to kill chickens, chop firewood, and even toss it into rivers to catch fish at night — a true waste of a divine weapon.
One day, Bai Chen couldn’t bear it and confronted him. “The Supreme Emperor Sword is the finest blade in the world. You use it to catch fish?”
Li Wuming just smiled casually, still chewing a grass stalk. “I’m a swordsman, not a chivalrous hero. A swordsman draws his sword for himself. Killing is for survival, fishing is for food — what’s the difference?”
To this day, the man who claimed to live only for himself hadn’t changed. Even as Bai Chen rested in his arms, he couldn’t read his thoughts.
Still, Bai Chen wasn’t without means. He looked up at the snowflakes trailing behind their sword flight and said softly, “You spent five hundred years reviving me. There must be something you want from me.”
Li Wuming’s sword was swift. Bai Chen used to bury his face in his chest, eyes shielded from the snow. Now, half-hidden, showing just one eye, he looked rather cute. The Sword Immortal path seeks freedom from attachment. Yet when Li Wuming looked down at him, attachment stirred. He could only chuckle. “Little fox, plotting something again?”
Before his death, Bai Chen’s every plan had been seen through by Li Wuming. Though he claimed to seek a Dao companion who met his standards, those standards all served the Great Snow Mountain. The candidates were all powerful figures, and each was rejected when the deal seemed disadvantageous. This sly little fox would never waste effort on anything outside the yao’s cause. Like his ancestor, who once took a man’s heart — but all for the yao clan’s sake, letting the heart gather dust over time.
Knowing all this, Li Wuming still disobeyed his master’s orders. He never took the heart he was supposed to bring back. Perhaps it was love. Good or bad, it didn’t matter. From the day he became Li Wuming, he vowed to never again do anything he didn’t want to.
Amid wind and snow, human and yao each had their thoughts. The Nine-tailed White Fox clutched the Sword Immortal’s robes and finally voiced his request. “Let’s make another deal. Help me sneak into the human realm and find a way to restore my yao power. Once it’s done, you can have whatever you want.”
In five hundred years, the human race had developed beyond imagination. This wasn’t good for the yao, but not necessarily bad for Bai Chen. Perhaps the problem that plagued him for so long could finally be solved. As for Li Wuming, once Bai Chen regained the cultivation of a Nine-tailed White Fox, surely six hundred years of cultivation would be enough to win over a man already married to him?
It wasn’t a fair trade. But Li Wuming never cared for fairness when it came to the little fox. Hearing this, he disregarded the risk of bringing a yao into the human world and simply smiled. “My master once said: the most unreliable thing in this world is affection; the most reliable is a deal. I like your proposal. It's a deal.”
~ Chapter End ~
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