19 He smiles.

It was nearing midnight when Tai Yang fell into a deep slumber. He'd changed, drunk the milk, eating the oatmeal cookies, and this time, he took his medication once he was already snuggled up under the lavishly comfortable bedding.

Once his breathing became even, Li Jun who had been feigning sleep himself popped his head up. 

'That mysterious Mushroom is definitely asleep now.' Slowly, he slipped his foot out and stepped onto the ground. 'If he blasted Ji Ru, and Ji Ru couldn't react, would I not be able to either?' he wondered.

There was only one way to find out, and he made his way to the cage. "Open. Seal" He said, sealing the cage once he was inside too. 

'I've got to get to the bottom of this.' He thought, now standing next to Tai Yang's bed. His amber eyes flicked from Tai Yang's face to the bump of his covered feet. 

If he didn't know any better, he'd have thought he'd accidentally put the wrong look-alike in the cage. 'He looks utterly harmless. How could he have let out something so dangerous?'

Tai Yang let out a small sound and turned with a contorted expression. 

'Aha. The trauma. Definitely a traumatized fellow. Perhaps that's why he stutters. Hmm, but the other Tai Yang, did he have trauma too? He also stuttered. I barely remember much about him at all.' Li Jun crossed his arms behind his back and went around the circular nest-bed.

'Well, I should figure out why he's traumatized, if I want to understand all of this.' 

And so, the handsome prince rolled up his sleeves and set his hands on his hips. 'I haven't cultivated the *Second Sight* technique, but *Clairvoyance* is just as useful. I won't even need to touch him. I'll try that instead.'

"Deep-dwelling thoughts, I command thee, reveal yourself. Do not resist, Clairvoyance."

As a four-type Cultivator, Li Jun had mastered more than the required number of techniques in his search for Immortality. In addition, it meant that he had more than one color of Aura. You'd have to be a four type or above to have more than one color of Aura, which meant that either Tai Yang was some sort of mutant, or he was actually a four type or above, like himself. 

'We need to get a move on testing him.' Li Jun thought as his purple aura formed a lilac flame around his hand. He pointed his fingers towards Tai Yang's sleeping face.

'You better not burn me. I'll execute you, seriously.' He thought as he clenched his fist and finally flicked his fingers outward. The flame turned into a cloud of glittering purple and flew to surround Tai Yang's head.

There was no explosion. Li Jun who has jumped a few feet back blinked a few times.

'Oh? No defense mechanism against that?' He thought. Then he frowned. 'But I'm getting no imagery from his mind.' Li Jun said, tentatively moving closer to the bed. When he was next to it, he leaning his head slightly down to squint at Tai Yang.

'Perhaps it won't wo-'

Before he could think, or react to the bright green Aura forming around Tai Yang's head, he felt a devastating electrical sort of burn, sizzling away at the skin of his face and every part of his upper body that had been facing Tai Yang. He was thrown violently upward onto the tapered top of the cage, and he hit it hard. Then he started to fall down. Through the pain, he did as much as he could manage, shouting for Levitators to catch him before he hit the ground. 

He breathed rapidly, not being able to see. His eyes had been burned out. He could smell his charred skin smoking. Unlike Ji Ru, he did not hold his grunts of pain in. It was beyond agonizing; he could hardly breathe, let alone keep his composure. Just like Ji Ru, he'd been frozen. He was unable to react because of it.

For a few minutes, he suffered as his body quickly started to heal, courtesy of his immortality. When he got his eyes back, he glanced over at the mirror near the bed that Tai Yang was still sound asleep. 

The sound that escaped him would have woken the Kingdom had his room not been soundproofed. There in the mirror was a man with no eyelids, or skin upon his muscles. The clothing on his torso was singed off, along with most of the hair atop his head. 

While his hair and skin were growing back as the seconds ticked by, it didn't stop Li Jun from hastily grabbing the sleeping man by the collar. He shook him violently. 

"YOU DARED TO BURN ME AND YOU'RE STILL SLEEPING?!" Li Jun shouted as the skin on his scalp healed and his face looked like it had ten minutes prior. 

  "WAKE UP THIS INSTANT, YOU DIABOLICAL FUNGUS!!!"

In response, Tai Yang simply opened and closed his mouth a few times. Since Li Jun was holding him up by the collar while he was still unconscious, his head lolled back and forth. His neck was craned backward too, leaving it, and his adam's apply fully exposed.

Li Jun blinked. His hair was fully restored to its previous length and dangled down the sides of Tai Yang's face. 'Can't let this one be asleep around Wu Ji. Nobody knows what that pervert would do if he had this view. And unfortunately, he looks like Xiao Xia, so I can't refute the fact that he's quite pretty. Wu Ji would probably jump him. That creep.' Li Jun gingerly lowered Tai Yang's head back onto the pillow. 

'I guess that wasn't necessarily your fault.' Li Jun thought about the burning he'd just experienced with a heavy sigh. With Tai Yang under the effects of the Sleeping sedative, he couldn't have purposely used that technique. 

'What was that technique actually?' He hadn't seen it before. With another sigh of resolve, Li Jun moved a little away to sit at the foot of the bed. Suddenly, a thought occurred to him. 'Is it to protect your brain from spells, or to protect all of you from it?'

He stood up and went back to sit by Tai Yang's face. "Heat Patches." Two glowing, white ovular disks appeared in his palms. He drew back the cover and comforter and poked his finger's on different parts of Tai Yang's body. 

'Ha. How ironic. You have cold feet.' He thought as he located the least toasty regions of the man. He stuck the warm discs under Tai Yang's feet and took off running up the stairs. After a minute of hearing no explosions, he tentatively made his way nearer to the man once again. 

"Guess, that spell is too harmless." He thought, but it did tell him that Tai Yang's body didn't have a problem having magic used on it. Picking up the patches, he placed them on different regions of Tai Yang's body. Still, there was no violent outburst. 'Ji Ru must have figured out this much too, but he probably didn't hurt him, because he'd take too long to heal as a mortal.'

"That confirms it." He said. 'Perhaps it only responds negatively to dangerous spells.' He hummed. 'But Ji Ru and I don't have bad intentions when we try to look into his mind, those spells are harmless.' He paused his musing to stare at Tai Yang's head. 'Unless looking into his mind isn't harmless to him.'

His eyes widened. 'Maybe he doesn't want anyone seeing his memories! MAYBE HE DOES KNOW SOMETHING!' Li Jun stood up quickly and went to Tai Yang's head. 'I'll try another spell that involves his mind. One that doesn't try to look into his memories.'

"Sweet dreams." Li Jun said, clicking his ring finger and thumb together. A silvery-white and lilac haze appeared above Tai Yang's head, raining soft sparkles onto his handsome face. Tai Yang's brows suddenly looked much more relaxed. But there was no explosion, Li Jun noted.

'I hear you're supposed to let these nightmares play out, but I have my own theories to test here. No hard feelings.' Li Jun said. Tai Yang let out a contented sigh and started smiling. Li Jun blinked a few times, slightly astonished at that expression. He hadn't seen Tai Yang smile even once in the last day that he was there. He didn't even smile at Xiao Xia. 

'How cute.' He thought. Then realizing what he thought, his eyes widened.

Turning slightly pink, Li Jun looked away, crossing his arms. 'What a ridiculous Mushroom. Smiling in his sleep, like an idiot. What's he dreaming about any way to have an expression like that?'

Against his better judgment, Li Jun looked back at Tai Yang. Unbeknownst to him, Tai Yang had shifted quite a bit in his sleep as Li Jun thought. This was because of the warm patches on his neck making him sweat. Unconsciously, he wriggled till the front of his robes were practically opened. 

Upon seeing the very erotic scene with a tossed blanket and comforter, Tai Yang's hair splayed across the pillows, a very open set of robes, one slender hand on the exposed skin courtesy of the villainous robes, a knee turned to the side along with Tai Yang's-elegantly-smiling-Xiao-Xia-like face tangled carelessly in his hair, Li Jun gasped in horror. 

His face burned as he hastily grabbed Tai Yang's robes and yanked them shut. 

"Have you no shame, exposing yourself like this?!"

'Wait, he's unconscious...' Li Jun thought. He glanced aside at the mirror and saw that he too had the front of his robes open, or singed off rather. 'And I'm openly exposed too...' He was quiet for a minute.

"STILL! THE AUDACITY!" Li Jun snapped, taking the warm patches off Tai Yang's neck, and dissolving them into the air. "And with Xiao Xia's face! The utter nerve of him! HMPH! Execution! When I marry Xiao Xia, it's going to be straight to the guillotine for you! Mischievous Mushroom!" Li Jun said, quickly forcing Tai Yang's limbs into a more dignified state. Finally, he grabbed the blanket and comforter to cover him. With a final huff, he marched out of the cage, sealed it, and jumped into his bed, red-faced all the while. "Weirdo." He said, shutting his eyes.