Cultivation Nerd (xianxia)

Chapter 369 - Déjà Vu

I returned home, landing softly on the grass, with the pleasant smell of flowers easing my mind. Nothing had changed: one wooden house, one stone house, and the spring array quietly humming as it kept the greenery alive, no matter the season.I walked inside, careful not to make the door creak. I’d planned to tease my wife a little.

But Fu Yating was already there, sitting on the stairs facing the entrance, looking distant. When she noticed me, her eyes widened.

I smiled and knocked on the door.

“What? There is no need to lie and say you didn't miss me,” I brazenly said.

A smile bloomed across her face as she stood and rushed forward, wrapping me in a hug. I returned it, her head resting against my chest.

She smelled like spring flowers, soft and familiar.

“I knew you would come back alive,” she said. “A bastard like you is too difficult to kill.”

“I could do without the insult, but I will take it as a compliment,” I replied.

Still, a faint frown tugged at me. Something didn’t quite add up. From the way she spoke, it felt like she’d known about the plan, or maybe I was just reading too much into it.

Fu Yating tightened her arms, then lifted her face to look at me, a bright smile on her rosy lips.

“You smell like boiled wine, and gross like you have not bathed in a month,” she said.

“Yeah, because I haven’t,” I admitted.

“Well, I don't mind it so much,” she said. “Also, you don't really smell that bad.”

That wasn’t what she’d said a moment ago, but I let it slide.

Without warning, I grabbed her by the waist. She blushed immediately, staring at me with a strange look in her eyes.

Before she could run with that thought, I hoisted her over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

She struggled at once. “Hey, while I said that I was okay with the smell. That doesn't mean that I like to do it with you smelling old boiled wine.”

“Hm?” I glanced at her, noting the red on her cheeks and that look again.

“Never thought I would marry a woman with such a filthy mind,” I sighed dramatically. “I just came from a very distressing and mind-numbing battle, and just picked you up like this so we could spend some time together while I went around my room looking for something. But you had to make it weird.”

“It is not weird between husband and wife, you're the one who is making it weird. This isn't the first or second time we're doing the deed, hubby,” she said.

That was the problem. I only remembered the wedding night; everything after that was blank.

“Well, the thing is that I deleted my memories and woke up in my room,” I said, rubbing my chin. “It is likely that I left said sealed memories, or at least a clue leading to them in the room. Either that, or I gave them to someone else to carry.”

I walked into my room while Fu Yating grumbled under her breath, criticizing me for not putting her down sooner. So I did, setting her aside as I began surveying the scene. I felt like a detective revisiting a crime scene, trying to piece together what I’d missed.

I circled the room, extending my senses, searching for even the faintest fluctuation of Qi or mental energy, anything left behind by the orb I’d sealed my memories in. There was nothing.

That made sense. If I’d gone through the trouble of sealing my memories, I would’ve prepared against my body being taken over as well.

Next, I searched physically. Under the bed. The pillow. Inside the mattress and pillow stuffing. The room was sparsely furnished, with no hidden compartments or clever mechanisms.

Nothing.

Had I misread my own intentions? Why assume the memories or even a clue would be here?

Then it hit me.

I was married.

So why had I woken up alone, in a single bed, in my own room?

I turned to Fu Yating. She was leaning against the doorframe, a smug smile dancing on her lips. She slipped a hand into her robe and pulled out a dark orb.

“That took you way too long to figure out, dear husband,” she said. “Hopefully our kids take after me. The older you get, the more your mind withers.”

I chuckled at her lame joke.

I wouldn’t have expected myself to entrust something like this to Fu Yating. I would’ve chosen… someone else?

There was a person I had deleted from my memories. Why would I do something like that? Was this person such a weakness that I erased every trace of them?

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“Please, dear wife,” I said, “don’t start with a lecture.”

Her smile didn’t falter. She looked at me like she knew something I didn’t.

“No. After marriage, our relationship was never one where we argued. It was more just hardcore–”

“I don’t need the details,” I cut in quickly. “I’ll get them through the memories.”

I took the dark orb and pressed it against my forehead. The familiar mental resonance washed over me.

Yes. These were mine.

In an instant, everything came back.

And it wasn’t anything dramatic. No revelation that reshaped who I was.

Just an absurd amount of planning.

Contingency plans layered on contingency plans.

So many, in fact, that I half-expected to find a note telling me to don a bat costume and fight crime using money and paranoia.

Also, holy shit, that had been close.

My only real plan had been sealing that bastard.

What the hell did that letter mean when it said I shouldn’t worry and that everything would work out? It was just hyping me up!

And another note to self: there were discrepancies when deleting memories related to Wu Yan. Even though I’d erased everything about her, I’d still felt an absence. Whenever my thoughts drifted in a certain direction, there was a tug. A sense of déjà vu. I knew someone was missing.

I just couldn’t remember who.

Even though the Blood Step Immortal had read my mind, he likely knew there were memories of someone I had deliberately erased. That much was probably obvious.

But enough of that. There was another person who had tricked me.

I turned toward my wife.

Our relationship was good, but it definitely hadn’t been as lovey-dovey as she’d acted during that morning of the plan, with all the kissing and clinging.

Fu Yating smiled, clearly reading the look on my face and discerning exactly what I was thinking.

“That was the relationship I wanted,” she said calmly, “and I got it for that brief morning.”

“Your idea of a good relationship is just slobbering over each other all morning?” I asked.

“I know you’re trying to frame that as an insult,” she smirked, utterly unapologetic, “but yes. That is my perfect idea of love.”

I nodded, filing that information away. I didn’t particularly mind acting like a lovesick idiot who couldn’t keep his hands to himself if it made her happy. Besides, she was beautiful; it wouldn’t exactly be a hardship.

“So,” she asked, tilting her head slightly, “what are you going to do now?”

“Hm?” I rubbed my completely nonexistent beard, genuinely thinking it over. Getting a second opinion from someone like Fu Yating wasn’t a bad idea.

“Are you going to take a shower and then push me into bed,” she continued casually, “and punish me for lying and tricking you?”

Ah.

So that was what she meant by what I was going to do now. I’d thought she meant future plans. Apparently, she just wanted to sleep together.

“Dear wife,” I said solemnly as I walked into the bathroom connected to my room and activated the water-heating arrays, “lust is a sin.”

“Yeah,” she chuckled, leaving the bathroom door open and flopping onto the bed with a clear view of me through the entrance, “and you look like the type of guy who thinks women shouldn’t wear makeup.”

I didn’t bother correcting her small vices.

“Has anything interesting happened while I was away?” I asked, raising my voice slightly so it wouldn’t be drowned out by the sound of the water.

“How would I know?” she yawned, getting comfortable and hugging my sheets. “I stayed inside the arrays around the house most of the time. Jiang Yeming brought me whatever I needed. Oh, and she’s been hanging out with Wu Yan; they get along splendidly. Other than that, everyone close to you kept a low profile while you were gone.”

“Sorry about that,” I said quietly. “It must’ve been troublesome. I also haven’t been much of a good husband since our marriage. But now that the sword hanging over our necks is gone, I’ll try to do better.”

“Why does it sound like something a man who cheated on his wife would say?” Fu Yating asked.

What the hell kind of assumption was that?

Her cultivation might not have changed while I was gone, but her imagination had clearly improved.

“Well…” she stared at me like I was a piece of meat, and I could feel her gaze even from the other room. “It shouldn’t have been so bad, since there were no rumors of you gallivanting with other women.”

Oh. I knew what she was doing now. She was trying to pull my thoughts away from heavier worries, in her own way. After all, even if I had been messing around, she had already admitted she stayed inside the arrays the entire time and wouldn’t have known either way.

I smiled at her effort.

Not long after, I finished showering and walked back into the room, drying my hair and not bothering to cover myself. We were husband and wife now; there was no reason to.

Still… the way she was staring at me was really something. That glint in her eyes made me deeply uncomfortable, and oddly tempted to cover up anyway.

She looked like a shameless local pervert about to catcall a passerby.

“Well, I’ll still try to be better from now on,” I said. “Do you want to come with me when I go meet Song Song?”

“No thanks,” she replied immediately.

“Can you please stop looking at me like that?” I asked.

“The answer is still no.”

“Perhaps we should go outside, get some fresh air,” I suggested, teasing her. “That might help get rid of those lustful thoughts.”

“Oh, I know a way to deal with lustful thoughts,” she shot back.

“You don’t get rid of a gluttonous wolf by feeding it more,” I said.

Despite that, I walked toward her anyway.

She chuckled, and the sound alone was enough to make my thoughts boil.

…

Some time later, the bed was a disaster. So was the table where I usually studied, and several books had ended up on the floor. My clothes were in no better shape.

As I ironed my robes, Fu Yating fixed her messy hair and rinsed her mouth.

“So,” I asked again, “do you want to come meet Song Song or not?”

She rubbed her flat stomach and shook her head.

“No. It wouldn’t be good if I wandered around too much right now.”

What was that supposed to mean?

I didn’t dwell on it.

“I’m going to see Song Song,” I said. “I’ve been hearing some things about her.”

“Yeah,” Fu Yating replied. “She hasn’t even been coming around for meals.”

I nodded and then set off to meet my friend.