Chapter Fifteen: Return to Rainbow City

After their long ordeal and the ambush they had endured, they had at last escaped danger and found safe passage. Only then did they truly set out on the road home.

Of the eight who had once remained, only Li Chengzhu, Yuan Mu, Qiu Feng, and Xiao Ying were still unharmed. Xia Mai and Ke Ba had had their bodies destroyed; without the Muni Pearl needed to rebuild a physical form, they could forget about cultivating immortality for the rest of their lives. A loose spirit infant might still be possible, but how could that compare to ascending in flesh and blood? Besides, the danger of wandering as a spirit infant was far too great. No cultivator would choose that road unless absolutely forced to. Yuan Sen, whose cultivation had already been ruined, had spent the whole journey draped like a lump of mud over his elder brother's back.

Even the much respected Lady Gu Linglong, the great City Lord, had been severely wounded. There was not the slightest fluctuation of spiritual pressure to be sensed in her entire body. Xiao Ying had several times wanted to ask Li Chengzhu about Gu Linglong's condition, but each time she held her tongue. At a time like this, why add snow upon frost to everyone else's already heavy hearts?

"Are you tired?" Gu Linglong lay against Li Chengzhu's broad shoulder, her arms wrapped around his neck. With a small hand, she held her sleeve and dabbed at the sweat on Li Chengzhu's forehead as she asked softly.

Boss Li turned his head a little and grinned. "Not tired!"

"Didn't they say carrying someone while flying is as heavy as a mountain?" Ever since Gu Linglong woke up, she had become a young lady of refinement. Her former coldness was gone, and when she spoke to Boss Li her voice was gentle and light, as though afraid a breath might scatter him.

As for how they had won, or why everyone had survived, Gu Linglong did not care. She knew her own business. The chaotic immortal energy within her had been calmed by some mysterious medicine, and it had to be the result of some immortal pill that the man before her had fed her before she lost consciousness. But she knew she would not live much longer. An immortal pill might suppress immortal energy for a time, but not for a lifetime. Moreover, even if it could suppress it forever, what was the point of following him like this, with not the slightest strength to protect herself, becoming nothing but a burden at his side?

She had hated him before, hated him so much she had wanted to tear him to pieces. But if she had not been clever and opportunistic back then, using the Empty Mirror Treasure to reflect away the final bolt of heavenly thunder, he would never have been brought to the Immortal Realm. And then he had endured her torment for more than a month. Remembering how stupidly he had borne it all, Gu Linglong could not help but feel a pang of heartache.

She did not know when it had begun, when she would secretly glance at him a few times. Was it after that incident? Or was it the feeling that had been honed in the crucible of war? Or perhaps because they had all ascended from the same place, making each other feel especially close?

Gu Linglong knew this was not what mortals called love. At most, it could only be called fondness. Immortals... if not for the stimulus of war, perhaps her heart would still be as hard as stone, sealed in ice for ten thousand years. But she needed this sense of closeness. Let it be, then, a final period of compensation for the emptiness of her thousand-year heart.

Gu Linglong gave a self-deceiving smile.

"Heh, you've been reading too much Journey to the West, haven't you?" Li Chengzhu hoisted Gu Linglong a little higher, and his big hand idly brushed over her small yet firm hips.

Gu Linglong's face flushed instantly crimson, and she secretly twisted hard on Li Chengzhu's broad back.

Boss Li bared his teeth and did his best not to cry out. This girl—when had she learned that move from Xiao Ying? Come to think of it, Xiao Ying had not smiled once the entire way. She had worn a look of worry every day, her face as stern as Gu Linglong's had once been.

Li Chengzhu looked back and smiled faintly at Gu Linglong, then rushed over to Xiao Ying's side, bumped her arm, and asked, "What's wrong? Did your father die, or your mother? Why the long face?"

Xiao Ying's eyebrows shot up at once, and she kicked at Boss Li's shin bone. "Leave me alone. I'm annoyed."

Boss Li scratched his head and asked Gu Linglong in a low voice, "Has that girl got her monthly curse or something?"

"What curse?" Gu Linglong asked in confusion.

"You know. That time of month. Something unique to you women." Boss Li raised his brows.

At last Gu Linglong understood. Her already red cheeks turned into a ripe apple, and she kept pounding Li Chengzhu's shoulder with both hands. "You beast! How can you say that about Xiao Ying?" Yet all those soft attacks were neatly ignored by Li Chengzhu's formidable defenses.

Boss Li chuckled lewdly. "Then what is it, if not that? Is she acting crazy over nothing?"

Gu Linglong let out a soft sigh and breathed in his ear, "Cultivators long ago transcended the mundane world, so... that time of month does not exist for us at all."

"Seriously?" Li Chengzhu cried out in surprise. That shout immediately caused the people in front to turn around and stare at him in astonishment. Boss Li could only laugh foolishly while enduring Gu Linglong's brutal pinching from behind.

"Ha." Gu Linglong looked at Xiao Ying's back and sighed faintly.

Yuan Mu, meanwhile, gave Boss Li a sidelong glance, a faint smile at the corners of his mouth, his lips moving as though murmuring something to his brother.

"What are you looking at?" Li Chengzhu mouthed back, glaring furiously at Yuan Mu.

Yuan Mu's grin only turned more obscene, nearly embarrassing Gu Linglong into burying her face.

Among the group, besides Xiao Ying's gloom, there was also Qiu Feng, cold as a mountain, who from time to time cast venomous looks at Li Chengzhu, whose face was brimming with happiness.

Every time that happened, Boss Li would shamelessly seize Gu Linglong's little hand and rub it gently against his cheek. Since Gu Linglong had no strength at all right now, what was there that he could not pinch as he pleased? At most she would pound him a few times afterward.

Having been provoked too much, Qiu Feng no longer bothered to look back. He simply kept his head down and hurried onward.

Boss Li really was shameless. Yuan Mu watched the subtle currents of feeling at all times, and at more than a few hundred years of age, he suddenly found it all delightfully amusing. He could hardly wait to get back and find a woman to enjoy himself with for a while.

After more than ten days of arduous travel, they finally saw Rainbow City, and everyone's hearts surged with excitement.

Cultivation knows no seasons, but everyone has a home in their heart. Only by returning here could one feel warmth, and only by seeing those familiar faces could one truly feel alive.

The native residents of Rainbow City had already learned that the City Lord was about to return in triumph, and they had awaited this day for many days already.

The moment Li Chengzhu and the others entered the city gates, bells rang out from the center of the city, reverberating to the heavens, and countless cultivators rushed toward them from every direction. Even the busybodies released the firework treasures they had long prepared, weaving a magnificent spectacle across the sky.

Li Chengzhu had never seen such a grand welcome in his life. After setting Gu Linglong down, he could not help but cheer behind the others, raising both hands to greet the crowd gathering around them.

But slowly, Li Chengzhu realized that these natives were not welcoming him at all. This discovery made Boss Li feel rather dejected.

What was more, Yuan Mu and Qiu Feng were also among those being welcomed, receiving no less applause and cheering than City Lord Gu Linglong herself.

Qiu Feng finally felt that he was far more noble than that vulgar man, and he turned back to cast him a contemptuous glance.

Li Chengzhu gritted his teeth, walked over to Gu Linglong, hooked his arm, and extended it toward her.

At once the entire city of cultivators fell silent, staring dumbfounded at this bold and lecherous creature.

But the scene that followed nearly made their eyeballs pop out onto the ground.

The lofty City Lord merely shot this rogue creature a reproachful glance, then obediently slipped her hand through his arm, the very picture of affectionate lovers.

Damn it all, I must not have slept well today. The cultivators who witnessed it all felt dizzy and dazed beyond belief.