Chapter 119: Master of Deception
Mo Cunzhi abruptly withdrew his hand, suddenly hesitant to touch his little junior brother. His stiff fingers betrayed his uncertainty.
Yu Le almost burst into laughter at Mo Cunzhi’s barely controlled shock, his body trembling slightly as he suppressed his amusement.
‘Who would’ve thought Senior Brother could show such an expression?’
He took a deep breath and, as if troubled, lowered his head. “I didn’t dare let the other senior brothers know. I secretly went down the mountain to consult a physician. They all said I’m pregnant, but I don’t know what to do, so I came to you.”
“You…” Mo Cunzhi took a long time to find his voice, his tone low and hoarse as he asked, “What do you want to do?”
“I want to keep it,” Yu Le said slowly, his tone filled with sorrow. “When I was young, my family was destroyed, and I was the only one left. Master brought me to Wuyue Immortal Sect, but I’ve always wanted a blood relative.”
Though his words seemed to speak about himself, in truth, he was referring to Mo Cunzhi.
Yu Le had read the villain’s life story from the system. Mo Cunzhi’s entire life was a tragedy.
At first, he was controlled by his master, then later by demonic energy. He committed countless evil deeds, his temperament completely changed, and he fell into darkness.
But when you carefully analyzed this person, all he ever sought throughout his life was the most ordinary love and acceptance.
He sought it from his master, whom he viewed as a father; from his junior sister, who had accompanied him since childhood; from the only friend who showed him kindness; and from his uncle, Chang Que, his only blood relative.
Yet, no one saved him. He was always doubted, always abandoned.
For someone like Mo Cunzhi, who appeared cold and ruthless on the outside, his heart was full of vulnerabilities.
Surely, he deeply longed for familial bonds.
This was one of the reasons why Yu Le chose to pretend to be pregnant.
Of course, he could have used guilt to make Mo Cunzhi back down, but guilt was easily worn down, and Yu Le didn’t believe it would last long enough to be of use.
However, once there was a deeper bond between them, things would be different.
“Senior Brother, what about you? Do you want this child?” Yu Le asked, fully aware of the answer.
Sure enough, after a moment of silence, Mo Cunzhi replied, “I will take responsibility.”
Yu Le’s lips curled into a subtle smile.
He lifted his head to meet Mo Cunzhi’s gaze directly. “Senior Brother, can I stay at Hanya Peak? We can just say that you’re guiding me in my cultivation during this time.”
“I don’t want anyone to know about the pregnancy.” Yu Le showed a hesitant and frustrated expression, muttering, “After all, a man being pregnant is unheard of. I don’t want to become some sort of strange rumor.”
The way he muttered, like a child, made him appear very young, and it reminded Mo Cunzhi of his age, making him feel even more uneasy.
Making concessions became the natural course of action.
He could understand his junior brother’s thoughts, but… “You don’t even want to tell Junior Brother Meng Qing? He’s an alchemist. If something happens later, he might be able to help you.”
“I’ll tell him if something really happens later, but for now, I don’t want to,” Yu Le replied, looking rather embarrassed, before asking curiously, “Senior Brother, aren’t you afraid of people finding out?”
“Once it’s done, it must be faced,” Mo Cunzhi answered.
This man was always like this—responsible for his every word and action, stubborn and tenacious, refusing to be defeated by pain or negative emotions.
Yet the more a person was like this, the more fate seemed to enjoy burdening them with suffering until they were completely crushed.
‘I’ll help you avoid the calamities of fate, and in exchange, from now on, your calamity will be me,’ Yu Le thought to himself.
However, seeing Mo Cunzhi’s calm demeanor made him uncomfortable, and he suddenly wanted to disrupt that composure.
So Yu Le suddenly leaned closer to Mo Cunzhi, speaking with a mysterious tone, “Senior Brother, there’s something else I need to tell you.”
Mo Cunzhi’s heart skipped a beat. Seeing his junior brother like this gave him a sense of foreboding.
“…What is it?”
Mo Cunzhi’s unconscious wariness was caught by Yu Le, whose eyes showed a hint of amusement. He had to lower his gaze, pretending to be embarrassed as he said:
“Since I’m a man, the way I carry a child is different from an ordinary woman. I’m nurturing the fetus with the yin energy in my body, but during the pregnancy, I’ll also need frequent supplementation of yang energy. So, I’ll have to trouble you, Senior Brother.”
Mo Cunzhi: “…”
“Isn’t there any other way?” That night with his junior brother had been an accident, and he had no desire to repeat it again and again.
“If there were another way, I wouldn’t want to do this either,” Yu Le replied helplessly.
For him, this was simply a convenient way to absorb demonic energy to refine the demon core inside him. It was part of his cultivation.
But seeing Mo Cunzhi so hesitant and unwilling made Yu Le all the more willing.
He watched with amusement as his senior brother’s expression showed clear struggle, enjoying the scene for a long while.
Finally, he heard Mo Cunzhi say, “I will cooperate.”
…
Yu Le moved into Mo Cunzhi’s residence at Hanya Peak.
This place had nothing but snow and black stone. Standing on the edge of the cliff, one truly got the sense that “On a hundred hills, there’s no bird in flight. On a thousand paths, there’s no footprint in sight.”
The peak had a small courtyard, covered in ice and snow, silent and desolate, which only added to the empty, cold feeling.
After Mo Cunzhi left, Yu Le entered the courtyard and claimed his senior brother’s bed.
There was only one room with a bed, and it was sparsely decorated. There were few belongings, making Yu Le feel like it wasn’t even a place someone actually lived.
He took out the things he needed from his storage bag, filling the room, which was permeated with Mo Cunzhi’s presence. Then he walked outside with his hands behind his back to survey Hanya Peak.
As expected, the place was filled with complex formations, layer upon layer, and most importantly, they concealed demonic energy.
These formations were undoubtedly placed by the sect leader, who was aware of Mo Cunzhi’s true identity.
This was another reason why Yu Le had to fake the pregnancy.
He needed a safe place where the demonic energy could be hidden.
Within the Wuyue Immortal Sect, was there any place more suitable than Mo Cunzhi’s Hanya Peak?
Even if demonic energy accidentally leaked out during his cultivation, the sect leader would likely find a way to cover it up.
After taking in the monotony of the peak’s landscape, Yu Le returned indoors.
If there was one downside to this place, it was the cold. The biting wind here felt like blades carving into the bone, and even cultivators could feel its piercing chill.
He sat inside, sipping a cup of hot tea, and thought of Senior Brother, who had fled in embarrassment.
Right now, he was probably in the library, searching for records, trying to confirm whether what he had said was true or not.
Too bad for him—there would be no flaws in his lie.
In families with the ancient phoenix bloodline, there were indeed quite a few men with yin constitutions. The historical records vaguely described these men’s bodies as “similar to women.”
Since their constitutions were “like women,” it wasn’t impossible for them to conceive.
These family records were a secret, of course, known only to him as the sole surviving descendant.
Moreover, the “fetal appearance” in his abdomen was completely convincing, without a single flaw.
This wasn’t the kind of false pregnancy pulse that could be faked with pills and easily exposed upon a simple examination.
Right now, there truly was a “fetus” in his abdomen.
The demonic clan’s strange medicine, the “Bloodborn Fetus,” resembled a fetal membrane, wrapping around flesh and blood, absorbing blood and demonic energy, and capable of nurturing a rare medicinal treasure called the Blood Pearl.
It was an extremely obscure and peculiar medicine, known to few.
Yu Le used its lifelike characteristics, cutting off a piece of his own flesh and wrapping it with his demon core inside the Bloodborn Fetus, allowing it to absorb the flesh and in return nourish the demon core.
This way, the demon core that once belonged to Chang Que would gradually absorb his flesh, becoming attuned to him and able to be successfully integrated into his heart.
Additionally, with the demon core hidden inside, even a cultivator at the Ninth Tribulation stage wouldn’t be able to detect its presence. They would only be able to see a mass of flesh in his abdomen that appeared to be nurturing something.
Yu Le’s original master, Qin Haoran, was also a Ninth Tribulation stage cultivator. Even if he came out of seclusion and summoned his disciples, Yu Le wasn’t afraid of being found out.
If even a Ninth Tribulation cultivator couldn’t detect anything unusual, how could his poor senior brother possibly discover something was wrong?
…
Yu Le had guessed correctly. After leaving Hanya Peak, Mo Cunzhi indeed went to the library to research the phoenix bloodline and later visited the immortal marketplace near the Wuyue Immortal Sect to inquire about Yu Le’s whereabouts.
Yu Le had visited the medicine shop of the Pill Pavilion, so Mo Cunzhi followed suit.
The shop’s apothecary still remembered him and said, “That young man with the straw hat had a strange pulse. He was clearly a man, but there was a sign of pregnancy. I’ve been a doctor for many years, and I’ve never seen such a thing. Perhaps my medical skills are lacking.”
Next, he went to the Pill Pavilion itself. The young steward behind the counter, upon seeing his Punishment Hall token, respectfully recalled:
“There was indeed a young man wearing a straw hat. He lingered here for quite a while before asking me if there was any pill that could conceal the pulse of pregnancy, to prevent others from noticing it.”
“I told him there was no such pill, but there were pills that could simulate pregnancy. He shook his head and left.”
“Simulate pregnancy pills?” Mo Cunzhi asked.
The steward replied, “That’s a low-level pill. After consuming it, it creates the appearance of a pregnancy pulse, but it’s easy to distinguish. Just checking the abdomen would reveal the truth.”
Mo Cunzhi, recalling his own examination, dismissed his doubts.
He went to another pharmacy and gathered more information.
The apothecary there laughed and said that a young man had come by, asking some silly questions about what precautions to take during a woman’s pregnancy.
“Looking at his young age, I’d guess he accidentally got a woman pregnant, and that’s why he seemed so gloomy, hesitant, and afraid.”
As Mo Cunzhi listened to these words, he could almost picture the fear and helplessness in his junior brother’s heart.
Noticing his unusual state and fearing to confide in anyone, Yu Rui had secretly sought out people to ask for advice. He wanted to hide it but was filled with anxiety.
As for his junior brother, Mo Cunzhi had barely registered his presence before. They had no interactions until that time when Yu Rui had trespassed into the forbidden area behind the mountain and was punished by the Punishment Hall. Only then did the once vague image of this junior brother begin to leave an impression on Mo Cunzhi.
Sly, unruly, vengeful—though he had his minor flaws, they were typical of youthful impetuousness.
Mo Cunzhi’s thoughts drifted back to the time when his junior brother had deliberately stirred trouble in front of his junior sister and later had intentionally provoked him in the Meishou Mountain secret realm.
This junior brother clearly disliked him in many ways. He probably never expected that they would end up in this kind of relationship.
Now that things had come to this, his junior brother was likely feeling even more uneasy and fearful.
Mo Cunzhi pressed his lips together and walked into a spiritual food shop he had never entered before.
He had noticed his junior brother seemed to enjoy these different kinds of spiritual food during their time at Linzhou Immortal Market.
*
Meanwhile, Yu Le sat on Hanya Peak, thinking that his senior brother should be returning soon. He opened the door and sat in the courtyard, preparing his emotions. In just a blink, tears began to fall.
After rubbing his eyes, they turned red as well.
When Mo Cunzhi returned to the peak, the sight that greeted him was his junior brother, who had previously seemed somewhat composed, now secretly weeping in the courtyard, his face even paler and more pitiful than before.
Mo Cunzhi hesitated, unsure if he should approach, but fortunately, his junior brother soon stopped crying. Only then did Mo Cunzhi step forward and place the food he had brought in front of him.
“Eat this… and then get some proper rest.”
Mo Cunzhi’s voice was always cold and firm, and this sentence was his attempt to soften his tone as much as possible. Yet in the frigid wind, it still sounded chilly.
Hearing his junior brother’s muffled response, Mo Cunzhi stood there for a moment, feeling awkward, before saying stiffly, “You rest. I’ll be cultivating on the peak.”
As Mo Cunzhi was about to leave, his junior brother called out from behind him, “Senior Brother.”
Mo Cunzhi turned around and saw Yu Le fiddling with the packed food container. “This place is different from my Wutong Courtyard. The room is cold, and besides the sound of the wind, there’s nothing else. Senior Brother, could you stay with me inside the house?”
Mo Cunzhi didn’t respond with words, but his actions made his answer clear. He picked up the food container in front of Yu Le and headed inside.
Yu Le watched his back, narrowing his eyes with a smile: Feeling guilty?
‘Keep feeling guilty, my dear senior brother.’
Mo Cunzhi sat awkwardly on a chair and noticed that the room had suddenly been filled with many of his junior brother’s belongings. At a glance, it no longer looked like his own room.
The bed was covered with a thick, plush mat that appeared soft and warm.
When Yu Le lay down on that bed, Mo Cunzhi immediately stood, ready to leave.
But Yu Le wasn’t going to let him go so easily and deliberately said, “Senior Brother, why don’t you lie down too?”
Mo Cunzhi remembered what Yu Le had said about the balance of yin and yang and the need to replenish yang energy. His body stiffened.
Still, he had promised to cooperate and take responsibility. After closing his eyes briefly, he walked to the bed and lay down next to Yu Le.
Yu Le covered half of his face, hiding the mischievous smile at the corner of his mouth.
Even a wooden board might not lie as straight as his senior brother did next to him.
Mo Cunzhi stared up at the ceiling when he suddenly felt movement beside him. His junior brother had scooted closer and was now resting his head on Mo Cunzhi’s chest.
Yu Le listened to his senior brother’s frantic heartbeat. So, he’s not as calm as he seems.
Satisfied, he smiled. Exactly. This is what I want—clashing, chaotic emotions.
Demons cultivated through the Seven Emotions and Six Desires, and the stronger the emotions, the faster the demon core would produce demonic energy.
For this reason alone, he would never let his senior brother have any peace.
