Bachelor [EN]: Chapter 24

Lin Zidong was confident in his proposal. He couldn’t imagine anyone refusing the path to immortality.

Who could resist the allure of eternal life? After all, hadn’t he secured Master Wen’s cooperation with similar promises?

He was certain this fellow would also fall for his sweet talk and soon be under his control.

However, Lin Zidong was quickly disappointed. Han Li’s expression remained unchanged, as if the story held no interest for him.

“Helping each other is something I’ll need to consider. I still have some questions. Can you explain them?”

Han Li stared at the light sphere floating before him, his eyes clear and unwavering.

“If I answer your questions, will you join me?”

“That depends on your answers.”

“Very well. Ask me anything.”

Lin Zidong answered readily. Han Li didn’t speak immediately, gazing at the ceiling of the stone chamber, seemingly pondering how to phrase his question. This made Lin Zidong’s heart race.

“Is it a problem that I swallowed Master Wen’s primordial spirit [a person’s soul or life force] and a part of yours? Why do I have a headache, and my mind is filled with all sorts of things since I woke up? What went wrong?”

Han Li asked what had been worrying him since he woke up.

“Haha! You were worried about that? There’s no need to be. It’s nothing to worry about. The things injected into your head will slowly disappear within a year or two.”

“You say they’ll all disappear without a trace? I can’t believe that!”

Han Li looked at him with distrust.

“Well, almost all of it will disappear.”

Lin Zidong quickly added an explanation, fearing he might arouse suspicion.

“The memories, experiences, and emotions within cannot be touched. If you try to take them, you could become an idiot, develop a split personality, or even overload your brain and die. It’s possible to swallow another’s primordial spirit or have it temporarily exist in your mind, but making it your own is a futile endeavor. If it were possible, everyone would take others’ primordial spirits, immediately gaining their experiences, memories, and magical power, and the world would fall into chaos. The only thing you can use from a swallowed primordial spirit is a bit of its original power. This can make your own primordial spirit a little stronger, but it will disappear in a few days.”

Hearing this explanation, Han Li was able to let go of his last worry. Lin Zidong, seeing Han Li nod in response to his explanation, realized that he believed him.

“My friend, shouldn’t we discuss our future cooperation now?”

“Of course. I’ve been looking forward to cooperating with a cultivator.”

Han Li smiled brightly, revealing his white teeth.

“Really?”

“Absolutely.”

Han Li’s voice was very clear as he answered immediately. Then, with a smile, he took something out of his pocket and continued to speak to Lin Zidong in a friendly tone.

“Since we’ve decided to cooperate, there’s something we need to do before discussing the specifics.”

Lin Zidong looked at the cylinder in Han Li’s hand, puzzled, but a familiar sight gave him an ominous feeling.

“That’s right, it’s poison!”

Before Han Li could finish his sentence, he pressed his thumb on the cylinder, activating it. Immediately, a black liquid spurted out, emitting a foul odor as it flew towards its target.

“Ugh!”

A miserable scream came from the light sphere. The light sphere, covered in black liquid, was almost completely extinguished.

“What? You’re ambushing me with poison?”

Lin Zidong shouted sharply, his voice weakened. Han Li ignored him and took out a shining sword from a hidden belt on his upper abdomen.

This sword was about the thickness of a finger and a foot and a half long, with a flexible yet strong blade—a ‘Jade Belt Short Sword.’

This was the last short sword Han Li had made at the smithy with a large sum of money, and it was also the most expensive. However, it wasn’t a type he could handle skillfully, so he hadn’t used it until now. As Han Li drew the short sword, his expression was grim. The smile from before had completely vanished.

He looked at Lin Zidong’s trembling primordial spirit with disgust and, without a word, lunged to cut it down, using the flexible sword like a wood-chopping axe.

* * *

Lin Zidong’s primordial spirit began to flounder like a fly with clipped wings. He tried to escape, but the black liquid hindered him, and now the sword light was chasing him. Each time the eerie light cut into him, the light sphere lost a bit of its glow.

He was in despair. Because the opponent was hacking at him with a sharp sword, his primordial spirit had become too weak to use any power. Even his magical power was being consumed little by little, and what was even more fatal was that the sword was preventing him from using any magic.

“Why, why are you trying to kill me…?”

Lin Zidong cried out in a hoarse voice, looking at Han Li. He was filled with disbelief. But Han Li increased the speed of his sword swings, answering his question instead.

Soon, Lin Zidong’s voice gradually faded until it was just a buzzing sound, and his movements ceased.

Even so, Han Li didn’t stop, slashing at the primordial spirit, which had weakened to the size of a candle flame, a dozen more times.

However, no matter how much he swung the short sword, he couldn’t extinguish the last remaining green light. Only after putting the flexible sword back on his body did he answer coldly.

“I have no intention of working with someone who swears on their parents’ lives. Do you think I’d believe the words of a treacherous person like you and end up like Master Wen?”

Han Li, looking at Lin Zidong with a cold gaze, opened the door of the stone chamber without hesitation. As the door opened, dazzling sunlight poured onto Lin Zidong’s primordial spirit.

Then, with a ‘pop’ sound, the green light vanished, turning into blue smoke that fluttered and disappeared into the air. Lin Zidong had now disappeared from the world without a trace.

The idea that primordial spirits might be weak to sunlight was something he had deduced from Master Wen’s actions.

Perhaps if this guess hadn’t been correct, he would have always been uneasy about Lin Zidong’s existence, whom he couldn’t kill with swords and poison.

The reason the primordial spirit disappeared so quickly was because of Han Li’s Seven-Poison Water.

The poison in the cylinder was a poison he had prepared to use on Master Wen, with the addition of Earth Mushroom Flower. This poisonous herb affected not only ordinary people but also cultivators, which was why Lin Zidong was annihilated without even being able to use a single spell.

* * *

Now, he was finally free from the life of constant fear, with a knife to his throat, never knowing when he might lose his life.

Returning to the stone chamber, Han Li quietly calmed himself. Then, suddenly, he kicked off the ground with a loud shout, expressing his heartfelt joy.

“I’m free!”

“I am free!”

“I…”

Han Li’s loud cheers were cut off as if they had been sliced away. He had noticed the giant, Tie Nu, standing outside the stone chamber. Realizing the giant’s presence, Han Li’s heart sank.

His shoulders still felt sore from being pressed down by him. The giant seemed completely uninterested in what was happening inside the stone chamber. He was only waiting outside the stone chamber for Master Wen’s orders.

Han Li was troubled about what to do. The giant was clearly a very dull-witted man. He only followed orders blindly.

But for Han Li, this kind of person was the most difficult to deal with. He wasn’t the type of person you could persuade with words.

Moreover, once a bloody fight started, he wouldn’t be a match for him. The only thing that could deal with him, the Seven-Poison Water, was now completely empty.

Han Li paced around the stone chamber, racking his brain, but he couldn’t think of a way to subdue him. After a while, Han Li’s gaze fell on Master Wen’s corpse, and a thought flashed through his mind.

‘Maybe I can use the corpse to move the giant!’

Han Li turned his head to look at the giant outside the door, then began to examine Master Wen’s corpse in detail.

* * *

Surprisingly, Master Wen’s body was full of various items, most of which were terrifyingly lethal just by looking at them.

Poison-coated hidden darts called sleeve arrows, sand infused with snake venom, and a dozen sharp, rotating throwing stars…

The more items he piled up, the more he realized how lucky he had been in his duel with Master Wen. If the opponent hadn’t planned to capture him alive, he would have been on his way to the afterlife a dozen times over.

He took out all the items and began to examine the suspicious ones in detail.

“This medicine bottle has a foul smell; it seems like some kind of antidote.”

“This strange weapon looks like a wheel; it doesn’t look like something that can control the giant, so I’ll put it aside for now.”

“This sachet…”

As he moved the items around, he was examining them with interest when a sachet embroidered with flowers on silk caught his eye.

It was not a problem for an ordinary person to carry such a sachet, but it was not an ordinary item for Master Wen to carry. When he touched the sachet, he felt the texture of paper. He quickly opened the sachet and found several pieces of paper.

Upon closer inspection, it was Master Wen’s handwriting, and unexpectedly, it was a will left for him.

Han Li scanned it with a heavy heart, and after reading the entire letter, he sighed towards the sky with a worried face.

It was clear that although Master Wen had conspired with Lin Zidong, he had always been wary of him in his heart. Therefore, he had checked several times before performing any magic to make sure it wouldn’t harm him, and he had left this will for Han Li as a last resort, fearing betrayal from the treacherous Lin Zidong.

Han Li began to pace around the stone chamber with his hands behind his back. His face was extremely dark, flushed and then pale, unable to hide his complex feelings.

If Yeo Bi-woo had seen this, he might have burst into laughter and rolled on the floor.

What Master Wen had left him was about the Corpse Worm Pill. The antidote to the Corpse Worm Pill contained poison, and that rare poison could only be cured with the Nanyang Jade, which had been passed down in his family.

No other elixir could ever cure that poison. He had used that poison on Han Li to prepare for the worst-case scenario.

Master Wen had prepared a deal with Han Li to take care of his descendants in case he failed.

This was largely due to Master Wen being blinded by the pipe dream of becoming an immortal. The deal Master Wen proposed was simple. He wrote that he hoped Han Li would visit his family within a year, or at the latest, two years.

This was because he was worried that the poison in his body would flare up after two years, and secondly, because of his wife, daughter, and enormous wealth that awaited him.

Master Wen had prepared everything in case he couldn’t return home. However, if there were no men in the family for a long time, people would start to target his wife and daughter or approach them to take advantage of their wealth.

So, he wanted Han Li to protect his wife and children and help them live ordinary lives.

And to repay Han Li for his help, Master Wen had arranged for him to marry his daughter. As a dowry for the marriage, he intended to give him half of his wealth and the Nanyang Jade.

Before leaving home, Master Wen had entrusted the jade to his wife, telling her to use it as a dowry when their daughter got married.

If Han Li wanted to save his life, he had to marry Master Wen’s daughter, even if he didn’t want to.

# 26