Chapter 159
Translator-Rhapsodite
Editor- Koneko, Proofreader- Spring Flower
In Wei Fuyuan’s opinion, “this was Gods and Demons at work”, to be more specific, an accident arising from many causes.
If Li Ershao had not come to the rescue of those mountain people, Wei Fuyuan would not have met Bei Quan in his previous life.
From the moment he saw that person, Wei Fuyuan knew that the other person was Bei Quan.
There was no reason for this feeling, it was just simple intuition.
Li Ershao led his troops to clean up the battlefield, and at the same time, gathered the village people who were being chased all into one place.
The leader was a boy who looked about fifteen or sixteen years old: him being the “Bei Quan” of the previous life.
The boy was dressed in the attire of mountain people from another ethnic group, probably because he had been living in the mountains for a long time, and his skin had been tanned into a healthy wheat color.
He was shorter in stature, only coming up to Li Ershao’s ears. His physique was thin, but his muscles were firm and lean with well-defined blocks, just like a young leopard that had suddenly grown up.
Plus, the boy had a handsome face.
As Wei Fuyuan borrowed Li Ershao’s eyes, he couldn’t stop staring, so he had a good look at the young man in front of him.
In his previous life, Bei Quan had a rounded face, with a little bit of baby fat. His looks were not as fair and delicate as in his current life, but he was obviously more strikingly handsome and heroic.
Before being rescued by Li Ershao and his men, the young man fought and fled with the villagers without rest. He was exhausted, covered in blood, and could no longer distinguish whether it came from the enemy or was his own.
He held a crescent-shaped machete in his hand, the blade was already curled, with the cloth that was wrapped around the handle soaked in blood, turning into a terrifying red-black color.
Even in such a miserable state, “Bei Quan” still stood upright when facing Li Ershao, his eyes shining like two obsidian stones in the sunlight.
——So beautiful.
Wei Fuyuan looked greedily at “Bei Quan” and said to himself.
——I really want to hug him.
Of course, Li Ershao in his previous life was not the Wei Fuyuan in his current life, so he did not fall in love at first sight, nor did he make the rude decision of hugging him.
Li Ershao just had his men pat the person in front of him and carefully interrogated the other party’s origin.
The young man told Li Ershao that his name was “Feng Yu”.
Wei Fuyuan was not sure if these were the correct characters, but the young man could not write Chinese characters, so he can only guess with a rough idea based on his pronunciation.
Feng Yu claimed that they were members of the Anu ethnic group and were mountain people who were living nearby.
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇtOriginally, there were probably more than four hundred people in the village, who relied on hunting and gathering for a living. Occasionally, they would cross mountains and go to Han Chinese villages and towns within a hundred miles to buy some necessities.
Li Ershao had never met the Anu people before, but based on Feng Yu’s description and his familiarity with the nearby terrain, he could probably guess which area of the mountains they were residing in.
“So, why are the officials chasing you?” Li Ershao asked.
Feng Yu couldn’t fully explain the situation. He only knew that the imperial court had been suppressing bandits and rebelling in this area recently, and their village had been well implicated. They were charged with harboring rebels and disobeying the court by the officers and soldiers. To serve as an example, they wanted to slaughter the entire village thoroughly.
“Oh, it doesn’t matter if you are a rebel or not,” Li Ershao sneered. “It’s just another case of killing the innocent to claim credit.”
When the Li family suffered a great change, Li Ershao was about the same age as Feng Yu, and like him, he didn’t know why disaster struck overnight and his family was destroyed.
In the following ten years, Li Ershao’s strength and influence gradually increased with age. Finally, after leading his troops to attack the county town, he asked the truth from the corrupt officials who had looted his own home that year.
It turned out that their family’s horse team had blocked the path of a certain royal relative, so they were falsely accused of smuggling weapons, colluding with the enemy and rebelling. They were executed and exiled, with their ancestral heritage and family fortune falling into the hands of their enemies.
Feng Yu stopped talking halfway through his sentence and widened his eyes to stare at Li Ershao in disbelief.
Bei Quan usually appeared confident and at ease in front of Wei Fuyuan.
This shocked, angry, and bewildered look was the first time within two lifetimes.
After the young man stared at Li Ershao, he digested the meaning of the words “killing the innocent and taking credit,” he suddenly let out a hysterical shout, then squatted down with his head in his arms, crying uncontrollably.
They clearly hadn’t done anything wrong.
They were clearly innocent.
But, some people want to use their family’s lives in exchange for their “rebellious” achievements. Feng Yu was the youngest son of the Anu tribe chief.
Two days ago, in order to give the elderly, women, and children time to escape, the chief ordered more than fifty young men to stay behind and let the underage Feng Yu lead the rest of the people to hide in the mountains.
During the two-day escape of the Anu tribe, none of the young men who stayed behind caught up with them. They were chased by the government troops who were “suppressing” the bandits.
They fled all the way down the mountain path into the river valley.
If it weren’t for Li Ershao’s timely rescue with his troops, the Anu tribe would have disappeared from the world within half an hour.
After Li Ershao found out the identity of the Anu tribe, he let Feng Yu lead the people away. He didn’t even ask for any reward for saving their lives.
Before leaving, Feng Yu knelt in front of Li Ershao and knocked his head three times with his fist heavily, leaving a bruise that oozed blood on his forehead.
“For saving my entire tribe, I will spend three lifetimes to repay this kindness!”
The young man finished speaking and disappeared into the mountains with his people. In the following decade, Li Ershao killed many people, but he also saved many.
Later, he finally died on the battlefield, never seeing Feng Yu again. But Li Ershao always remembered Feng Yu. Every time he killed or saved someone, Li Ershao would think of the young man he had saved with his own hands and let go unconditionally.
Occasionally, he would savor the promise of ‘repaying the kindness in three lifetimes’ and feel amused and vaguely warm.
Someone had been so grateful to him.
This was an important reliance for Li Ershao to not lose his way for more than twenty years as a bandit. He knew he was not a good person, but he still tried to do good deeds and accumulate virtue.
On the day of his death in battle, Li Ershao was hit by an arrow and fell off his horse.
He once again remembered Feng Yu’s promise.
——I’m going to die.
——It seems that you can only repay me in the next life.
———————-
When Wei Fuyuan woke up from the Pool of all beings, his first reaction was to go and find Bei Quan.
“Hey, did you finish seeing your past life?”
Bei Quan was sitting by the pool and had built a castle with small pieces of red crystal rock.
He smiled slightly at Wei Fuyuan and mentioned something very heart-wrenching, “It seems that you weren’t very long-lived in your past life.”
Wei Fuyuan wiped the water off his face, climbed up the shore with both hands and feet. Without saying a word, he hugged Bei Quan tightly.
“…Hey!”
Bei Quan reached out and touched Wei Fuyuan’s soaked shirt, feeling slightly helpless. “At least let me use a cleaning spell to dry you off…”
But, Wei Fuyuan completely ignored Bei Quan’s protests.
He restrained Bei Quan’s body with one hand, while the other held the back of his head, lowering it down to bite his lover’s lips, kissing him fiercely.
Bei Quan didn’t know what Wei Fuyuan had experienced in his ‘past life’ and why he suddenly became so excited, so he just went along with it, letting his lover kiss him as much as he wanted.
The two played around by the pool for a long time.
When Wei Fuyuan finally let go of Bei Quan, he realized that he had already pressed the other down to the ground, making? their clothes loose and messy.
“Although I don’t think anyone will pass by…” Bei Quan smiled and pinched Wei Fuyuan’s earlobe.
“Isn’t it a bit inappropriate to do this here?”
——That was definitely not okay!
Wei Fuyuan quickly pulled Bei Quan up and helped straighten his clothes.
“…How long have I been ‘asleep’?”
Wei Fuyuan wanted to change the subject, so he looked at the stone castle that Bei Quan had built and asked his lover.
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏm“Well, not long actually,” Bei Quan smiled.
“If we count one day as twenty-four hours, then it’s been about three days.”
“What?!”
Wei Fuyuan quickly looked down at his watch and was shocked to find that the date had actually been pushed back three days.
“How is this possible?! It didn’t take this long when we ‘shared consciousness’ before!”
Bei Quan replied with a smile,
“You just lived another lifetime.”
Wei Fuyuan looked at Bei Quan’s face and compared it to Feng Yu. His heart was filled with tenderness.
Sure enough, this was a destined relationship from a past life. Whether it was Feng Yu or Bei Quan, they were both people who made Wei Fuyuan’s heart beat faster.
Wei Fuyuan asked quietly, ”Do you want to know…what kind of person I was in my past life?”
Bei Quan smiled and replied, “If you’re willing to tell me.”
Wei Fuyuan then briefly talked about Li Ershao’s past life, only mentioning the important parts whilst skipping over the fact that Feng Yu was Bei Quan in his past life.
He also didn’t mention Feng Yu’s promise to Li Ershao of “repaying him in his next three lives.”
“I see.”
Bei Quan said, as he seemed to have realized something. “No wonder you have such strong merit power in this life.”
Wei Fuyuan was puzzled.
“But, I killed many people in my past life,” he said.
Although the saying goes ‘killing one person is a crime, killing ten thousand is a sin,’ Wei Fuyuan felt that in his past life, he was at most a bandit leader who was falsely appointed as a general. It couldn’t be since he dared to kill, that he was credited with great merits by the netherworld, could it?
He was far from being a king or a marquis. He couldn’t believe that he was able to accumulate great merit power, just because he dared to kill.
“No, it’s because you’ve saved many people, especially the people of the Anu tribe,” Bei Quan explained to Wei Fuyuan.
“You prevented the Anu tribe from being wiped out. This relates to the survival of a whole tribe, which naturally means a great merit power.”
Wei Fuyuan slowly nodded in understanding.
He was secretly glad that he saved Feng Yu and the people of the Anu tribe in his past life, but at the same time, he felt a sense of regret. He knew that Feng Yu did not live for very long.
Also, although he died on the battlefield, Feng Yu’s body did not rot, so he could not be reincarnated normally.
He lived alone for more than 650 years until he became ‘Bei Quan’ by mistake.
“By the way…”
Wei Fuyuan thought of another question: “What about you?”
He looked at the sparkling Pool of All beings, then back at his lover, “Don’t you want to see your past life?”