Chapter 67

As soon as the words left his mouth, Xiang Ting realized something was off and immediately shut up.

Nie Chen, however, caught something from Ke Xingzhou’s expression and suddenly turned to glare at Xiang Ting. “What else do you know?”

“…” Xiang Ting furrowed his brows and said nothing.

But the way he looked at Nie Chen was filled with suspicion, as if he couldn’t understand how Nie Chen could be completely unaware.

Being stared at like that made Nie Chen feel an unexplainable wave of irritation. He couldn’t shake the feeling that something was slipping out of his control again.

Ever since Ke Xingzhou got involved in metaphysics, this feeling had appeared again and again, plunging him into bouts of anxiety and unease.

Originally, he had relied on his own memory and analytical ability to forcefully master the basics of metaphysics. Later, he accidentally discovered that his own flesh and blood could be used by Ke Xingzhou, and since then, he hadn’t felt so powerless—until now.

Under Xiang Ting’s gaze, he was once again confronted with that vast, unbridgeable chasm between himself and Ke Xingzhou.

A gulf that separated them, pushing them farther and farther apart.

Nie Chen’s heart sank, and his gaze grew even colder. “Who exactly are you?”

Sensing the hostility, Xiang Ting looked confused and slightly helpless. He stared at Nie Chen for a while, then said, “It’s fine if you don’t remember. But you don’t have to treat me like your enemy. I just happen to know a few things, that’s all.”

With that, he cast a complex glance at Ke Xingzhou.

“Don’t do something like that again. Otherwise, when the day comes that you remember everything… you might regret it deeply.”

“Regret what?” Ke Xingzhou looked puzzled.

All he did was give the old lady ghost a tiny bit of merit. That might have been a heavy burden for the old him, but for who he was now, it didn’t even scratch the surface.

Besides, as long as the Xiaoyao Sect still existed, his merit would keep accumulating, and that gap would be filled quickly.

As for the old lady ghost, the moment she reincarnated, their connection ended.

Rebirth meant a completely new person. He could still tell that much about cause and effect.

Ke Xingzhou really wanted Xiang Ting to explain himself more clearly, but he keenly sensed that right after Xiang Ting finished those last two sentences, the air around them suddenly seemed to solidify.

A mysterious force enveloped the area.

Ke Xingzhou didn’t feel much, but Xiang Ting’s forehead instantly broke out in sweat, and he let out a barely audible grunt.

After that, no matter how Nie Chen or Ke Xingzhou questioned him, Xiang Ting only replied with, “Heaven’s secrets cannot be revealed,” and refused to say anything further.

Soon after, he took his leave.Downstairs, the flashy red sports car drew a lot of attention.

The driver was a young girl. After rejecting who-knows-how-many guys trying to hit on her, she caught sight of Xiang Ting walking out of the first-floor lobby and raised her pale arm to wave at him.

Xiang Ting stared coldly for a moment before getting into the car under the girl in the red dress’s urging.

With a roar of the engine, the car shot out like an arrow leaving the bow.

Xiang Ting was slammed back against the seat by the forceful acceleration, but his expression remained unchanged. He simply said coolly, “Speeding. Three points off. 200 yuan fine.”

“…” The car immediately slowed down.

Unfortunately, it was already too late. Xiang Ting had picked up his phone and reported the car. The girl instantly received a violation notice.

She was furious: “You bastard!! I work for you, and you only pay me seven hundred a month. That doesn’t even cover my gas. And you report me?! This crap job—I swear I’m quitting!”

Xiang Ting remained unmoved by her threat. He leaned wearily against the passenger seat and let out a long sigh. “Abiding by the law is the duty and obligation of every citizen.”

“I’m not even a citizen!”

Xiang Ting opened his only remaining right eye and turned to look at her. “You are.”

“…” The girl didn’t bother arguing that point. She shot him a disgruntled glance. “Weren’t you going to arrest the evil cultivators? Those two were already taken downstairs this morning. What were you doing up there for so long?”

Xiang Ting was silent at first. Just when the girl thought he wouldn’t answer, he suddenly said, “I saw him and Nie Chen.”

“Isn’t that normal? The Celestial Eye Division has been watching the two of them. I already told you they were involved, didn’t I?” The girl was indifferent. “Are you getting senile or something, forgetting stuff like this?”

Xiang Ting shook his head. “You don’t understand what I mean. I mean, he’s still himself—even gave away his merit again. But Nie Chen… I’m starting to suspect we might have found the wrong person.”

—

In the apartment, Nie Chen stared darkly in the direction Xiang Ting had left.

Lan Xing didn’t dare stay in the apartment anymore and planned to sell it after repairing the exterior. He and Ke Chenyi both left in a daze.

The property manager, whose worldview had been thoroughly shaken, left with them, furiously typing on his phone on the way out to gossip with his family about this unbelievable experience.

With the clients gone, Ke Xingzhou and his group also prepared to leave.

Zhu Chu had remained silent the whole time, only daring to watch quietly from the side. It was only when Nie Chen got into the car first that he cautiously edged over to Ke Xingzhou and lowered his voice. “Master, who was that guy just now?”

At first, he thought the man was a plainclothes cop, but the officers who came in didn’t seem to know Xiang Ting very well. They even had to confirm his identity with headquarters before proceeding.

A normal cop wouldn’t know so much about merit and golden light, right?

Ke Xingzhou pulled back from his thoughts and briefly explained Xiang Ting’s identity to him. When he mentioned the Special Incident Response Bureau, he paused for a moment.

The Special Incident Response Bureau…

When Xiang Ting had spoken, Ke Xingzhou had carefully gone over all his memories since childhood. There wasn’t a single gap. Xiang Ting seemed familiar with both him and Nie Chen, but Nie Chen clearly didn’t remember him either.

He had a hunch that what Xiang Ting referred to wasn’t something from this lifetime for him and Nie Chen.

So… a previous life?Ke Xingzhou was silent for a moment.

Ever since he met Lu Li, he had been trying to uncover what had happened in his past life—how things had reached the point where he lacked even enough merit to maintain a normal life. According to logic, if his merit had really been that low, he wouldn’t have been reincarnated into the human realm in the first place.

But not only had he been born human, he also possessed a talent for metaphysics, and had even been lucky enough to be swapped into a wealthy family.

To top it off, Lu Li had scoured the Book of Fate and still couldn’t find any record of Ke Xingzhou’s past life. He was even forced to develop a software system himself to convert the information in the Book of Fate into data and slowly feed it into a database.

And even now, they had come up with nothing.

If even Lu Li couldn’t find his past life, how could any mortal organization possibly know?

A tangle of mysteries surrounded Ke Xingzhou. When he glanced over and saw Zhu Chu opening the public platform for daily account maintenance, it suddenly reminded him—Xiang Ting’s fate had always been shrouded in fog as well.

Previously, he thought Xiang Ting was just another Taoist, and didn’t pay much attention to the fact that he couldn’t read his fate. But now, comparing him to those two fake Taoists from Jiulong Temple, he finally noticed something was off—

Xiang Ting’s fate wasn’t simply obscured. Nor was it like that of a typical Taoist, full of constantly shifting possibilities that made it hard to pin down a definitive path.

When he first laid eyes on Xiang Ting, he had been able to clearly see his seemingly peaceful but unusual life. But later, when he sensed something was wrong, he realized that every key point in Xiang Ting’s life was blurry—there were no clear images.

It felt like watching a movie, where anything off-camera existed in a state of Schrödinger’s cat. Until the movie described it, no one could say whether something had really happened or why it had.

But this sort of situation wasn’t supposed to happen to Ke Xingzhou.

He had the Celestial Eye. He could see through most people’s fates at a glance. Even if he couldn’t see everything, he should still have a god’s-eye view—not the perspective of a mere audience member.

What he saw in Xiang Ting’s life felt more like a scripted life plan, presented to him as a series of images.

Ke Xingzhou couldn’t help but fall into deep thought.

After Zhu Chu finished posting the daily science content on their official Weibo, he noticed that his master seemed a bit down. Normally, after finishing a ritual, he’d cling to his phone, checking the “Merit ATM” app eight hundred times a day. But today, he hadn’t even looked at it once, just stuffed it in his pocket.

Zhu Chu hadn’t fully understood what Xiang Ting said earlier, and now didn’t know how to comfort his master. So he turned to his junior for help.

Who would have thought the junior was also full of gloomy energy?

Usually, he’d shamelessly stick close to their master. But now, he had even crossed his legs the other way, not sneaking in any leg-brushing or under-the-table fights for attention.

Zhu Chu opened his mouth: “Didn’t Mr. Lan say there was a bar nearby? Maybe we could…”

Before he could finish, he suddenly felt a chill. His junior, who had been staring out the window with a stern face, turned his head toward him at some point, giving him a look as if he’d committed some crime.

Nie Chen spoke coldly: “No.”

Zhu Chu: “…Okay.”

Fine, no it is. What’s with the attitude?

Come to think of it, ever since Mr. Nie became Master’s disciple, he, the senior disciple, had been losing more and more authority.

Feeling aggrieved, Zhu Chu looked to Ke Xingzhou for support. But when he turned, he saw Mr. Nie had already changed seats.

He was no longer sitting upright. His body now leaned back against the seat, and his long legs in suit pants stretched across from the other side. The angle of his raised leg placed it just beside Master’s lower leg—almost touching his thigh.The tips of the leather shoes were polished to a shine, creating a blurry outline under the dim light inside the car. As the car moved, the proximity became almost imperceptible.

Zhu Chu saw his master’s gaze suddenly become intense, staring at Nie Chen across from him without blinking, not even sparing a glance in his direction.

Zhu Chu: “…”

What a despicable way to vie for attention! Not even giving me a chance to complain, truly a cunning capitalist!

He looked up indignantly, but as soon as his eyes met Nie Chen’s calm gaze, he quickly shrank back and subconsciously shifted his gaze away.

Staring at the fast-moving lights outside the window, tears filled his eyes. With deep sadness, he thought: Never mind, for now, I still have to learn how to draw talismans from my junior. I can’t fall out with him so quickly.

Besides, my junior protected me earlier.

If it hadn’t been for his quick thinking, I wouldn’t have remembered that our sect’s official account was registered with the business license of the Dharma Flowing Department. It would have been so embarrassing to be caught by those two fake Taoists.

Looking at it this way, my junior doesn’t have bad intentions. Maybe he’s just concerned because Master didn’t want to take him as a disciple back then, so now he’s so clingy and competitive.

He’s waiting for me to learn how to draw talismans!

When that time comes, I’ll increase the sales of the online store and make up for it. Master will definitely stop being fooled by my junior and will pay more attention to me again!

Zhu Chu comforted himself with a mix of frustration and determination. He recalled the drawing methods for talismans in his mind and slowly became focused, entering a state of total absorption.

The car was silent for a while, with the three of them each harboring their own thoughts as they quietly returned to the filming base.

Zhu Chu still had to go back to the rental apartment, so Nie Chen told the driver to take him back. Nie Chen, however, got out of the car and followed Ke Xingzhou into the base.

It didn’t take long for him to notice something was off. Ke Xingzhou had walked quite far ahead before he suddenly noticed Nie Chen trailing behind. He turned around and looked at him speechlessly. "Why aren’t you going home? Why are you following me?"

Ke Xingzhou’s ears were a little red, his mind replaying Nie Chen’s bold actions in the car earlier. His tone wasn’t great as he shot Nie Chen a glare.

Nie Chen, however, showed no sign of embarrassment and changed the subject: "What do you think of Xiang Ting?"

Ke Xingzhou stared at him for a while, seeing that he was really intent on discussing serious matters. He lowered his guard slightly.

When it came to matters of the past, he could only communicate with Nie Chen. After some thought, he decided to temporarily put aside what had happened in the car and found a long bench to sit down.

The contestants of "All-around Idol" were still training hard. The sound of music and the friction between shoes and the floor during practice drifted from the nearby studio, with the light from the practice room casting their shadows side by side.

Ke Xingzhou shifted his gaze away from the shadows and spoke blankly: "I don’t know him."

The pent-up frustration that had been swirling in his mind dissipated immediately. Nie Chen let out a barely perceptible sigh of relief and leaned closer to Ke Xingzhou. "I don’t know him either."

The spring night in Beijing was still quite cold, and a small breeze quickly stripped away the warmth from their bodies.

Because of this, Ke Xingzhou didn’t notice how close Nie Chen had gotten. He looked up at the crescent moon in the sky and, after a while, spoke in a daze: "But I feel like I might have known him in my past life."

Nie Chen paused.

"Why do you say that?"

"When he said I ‘again’ gave my merit to someone else, it gave me a strange sense of familiarity, but I can’t remember why." Ke Xingzhou explained slowly. "Do you think it’s possible that the Meng Po soup I drank didn’t work?"

Otherwise, how would memories I’ve never experienced suddenly come to mind?Nie Chen: "..."

"There's a possibility," Nie Chen said nonchalantly as he took Ke Xingzhou's hand, "What did your ghostly friend say?"

At first, Ke Xingzhou wanted to pull away, but Nie Chen's palm was so warm, like a little furnace. He hesitated, and his thoughts were pulled away by Nie Chen’s words.

"He couldn't find my past life." Ke Xingzhou paused. "He was just curious about what I did in my past life that made me end up like this, but even after developing a whole office system, he still couldn't find the answer."

Ke Xingzhou hadn’t intended to tell Nie Chen any of this.

After all, their relationship was a bit awkward right now. He met Lu Li after they had separated, and he hoped Nie Chen and Lu Li would never meet. That way, it wouldn’t be too awkward when he faced Lu Li.

But now, when it involved a stranger who knew them but whom neither of them knew, it was hard to hold back too much.

Who would have known that Nie Chen’s first reaction after hearing this was: "So, he knows about us?"

Ke Xingzhou: "..."

He was a little ruffled, but Nie Chen took his other hand as well, wrapping it in his warm palm, and changed the topic: "So, the information about Xiang Ting probably didn’t come from the underworld."

Ke Xingzhou was startled by his actions and quickly turned his head to glance at the practice room. Thankfully, no one was idly wandering by the window.

He furrowed his brows as he looked at Nie Chen, wanting to pull his hand back, but the cold wind made him abandon that thought.

"But if even the life records can't find this information, how could an organization on Earth know?" Ke Xingzhou voiced his confusion.

Reincarnation meant there was no connection to the past anymore. From the body to the soul, one became a completely new individual. Even the underworld could only rely on reincarnation records to connect the two lives.

Ke Xingzhou had never understood this point. Did the other party have some other method of identification?

Suddenly, the bright golden light of his merit swayed in his field of vision. Looking at the overwhelming light, Ke Xingzhou had a sudden realization: "...Could it be that he recognized you from the merit light?"

This golden merit light was so abundant it almost drowned him.

Even Xie An, whose family had been doing good deeds for generations, only accumulated a bit more merit than the average person, which was enough to help him avoid some misfortunes.

But Nie Chen was completely different, it was like he was a walking merit vault.

It would be understandable if Xiang Ting recognized Nie Chen through the merit light, considering how vast it was now, but how did Xiang Ting know that he was someone from his past?

Ke Xingzhou was perplexed and then told Nie Chen about the strange fate he had observed with Xiang Ting.

"...I think the scenes I saw were just what he wanted me to see," Ke Xingzhou concluded.

Nie Chen also fell into thought.

"Can you do this?"

Ke Xingzhou shook his head decisively: "No."

Although he practiced Taoist arts and could help some people change their luck, it was all within the boundaries allowed by the Heavenly Dao. Even those who practiced the evil path, their so-called fate-changing methods were just substituting one cost for another.

No matter how profound the methods, they only changed the fortunes, not the actual fate of a person.Moreover, the fate that Xiang Ting showed him was completely fake.

Ke Xingzhou said, "When I looked earlier, he should have been working overtime and wouldn't have been at the apartment. But when he appeared today, the fate changed."

Nie Chen: "Since it can't be real, could it be an illusion?"

It wasn’t impossible.

Ke Xingzhou thought about the two fake Taoists from the Nine Dragons Temple. They had easily tricked him, right?

The fact that they could easily deceive his Heavenly Eye meant that their strength should be much greater than his. However, the abilities of those two fake Taoists were hard to put into words.

Thinking of how the two at the Nine Dragons Temple had been scared and running all over the place by the old ghost, Ke Xingzhou fell silent for a moment.

After pondering for a long time without finding an answer, Ke Xingzhou didn’t want to continue standing in the cold wind. He stood up, intending to go back to sleep.

But he forgot that his hand was still being held by Nie Chen. As he stood up, he was pulled towards Nie Chen.

Nie Chen quickly let go to protect him, and the two of them ended up embracing each other. Both of Ke Xingzhou’s hands were grabbed by Nie Chen, and when he looked up, he accidentally bumped into Nie Chen’s chin.

The two of them couldn’t help but cry out in pain.

"Ah!"

"Hiss..."

In the cold night, these two not too loud cries were perfectly timed with the music in the practice room stopping, making their voices stand out all the more.

Their eyes met, and Nie Chen’s gray-green eyes darkened. His breath immediately became heavier.

Ke Xingzhou's heart skipped a beat. He tried to pull away from Nie Chen’s hand and create some distance, but his head was covered by Nie Chen's large, warm palm. Nie Chen stepped forward, and when his burning lips met Ke Xingzhou’s cold ones, it felt like he had been scorched.

It was so hot that Ke Xingzhou involuntarily let out a muffled sound.

His mind, already muddled from thinking, became even more confused. He hesitated for half a second, forgetting to keep his lips sealed, and they were forcibly invaded. Even his breath was filled with a burning heat.

Above them, a sharp crescent moon hung in the sky. Ke Xingzhou, in a daze, was led by Nie Chen, his breathing growing uneven.

He didn’t know if it was because Nie Chen had ambushed him so many times recently, or because they had sat down today and calmly discussed things, but it made him recall the days when they relied on each other. Ke Xingzhou instinctively responded a few times.

The small pushes, which could hardly be considered as encouragement, were taken by Nie Chen as an invitation. At some point, his arm, which had crossed behind Ke Xingzhou’s waist, tightened, as if wanting to blend him into his very bones.

Ke Xingzhou felt a part of his body burn.

When he came to his senses, he realized he didn’t know when they had been led behind a tree. A security guard drove by slowly in a patrol car, passing by the bench where they had been sitting.

Ke Xingzhou didn’t have time to feel relieved before Nie Chen’s lips were on his again.

This time, the kiss was much gentler, but it was even more entangling, tenderly stirring every nerve in Ke Xingzhou’s body.

The faint sound of water seemed amplified in the silent environment, its presence very strong. Ke Xingzhou’s heart raced in panic, and he even wondered if the practice room could hear them.

As he thought this, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a figure appear faintly at the window behind Nie Chen.

Xie An, drenched in sweat, turned off the music and panted heavily. While wiping sweat off, he walked toward the window, still worried, muttering, "Why hasn't brother come back yet? Didn’t Zhu Chu say they had already arrived? I’ll send him a text… although he hasn’t replied to me in over an hour..."The heating inside the room was turned up too high, and the practice room had a small window open, so the voices were clearly transmitted outside.

"..." Ke Xingzhou was startled. How did they end up so close to Xie An's practice room?

And so close to the window!

He immediately pressed down on Nie Chen's hand that had slipped under his shirt, shivering as he fumbled for his phone in his pocket.

After struggling to find the pocket in his messy clothes and getting hold of his phone, he didn’t have time to press the mute button before his phone rang.

Xie An paused, then suspiciously asked, "Brother? Are you outside?"

He quickly walked to the window, leaned against the glass, and looked outside, his gaze directly at the tree shadows outside.