二

A soft breeze flowed inside the room as the light shone through a window, birds chirping at the window sill. Shen Yuan rolled over in his sleep and found himself resting on a nice bed, slowly opening his eyes and straining from the sun's glare. By this time, all of his senses had returned, and the aroma of vanilla filled his nostrils, providing a soothing feeling to his mind. He didn't bother to sit up, instead of turning his head left and right to assess his surroundings and gain a better understanding of his location. The bamboo door creaked open as a man of such grace and beauty entered, carrying a tray of congee and hot tea.

Since the incident a few days ago, when he, Shen Jiu, discovered the grapevine ball and opened it to see a face he had long forgotten, finally receiving all the lost emotions he once had flooded into his body, the Immortal Alliance Conference has been postponed in the middle of the disciples hunting and grouping. Even though he ordered that the Conference be postponed, those who were uninformed of the situation were left perplexed and with no clues as to why this was happening.

This behavior, as well as the decision taken by Shen Jiu, only contributed to ruining his already tarnished reputation further. He is confident that the other Peak Lords will not let him off the hook, and he is fully aware of this. Shen Jiu understands his rights and wrongs completely... And it seemed self-evident that this was the proper course of action... Of course, the others might continue the Immortal Alliance Conference without him, but because of his pride and arrogance, he wouldn't dare to let anyone have the victorious moment. He couldn't care less if it meant the other Peak Lords continued to smear his name... This was not the first time he had been humiliated in this manner.

Walking inside that room and seeing a face he hadn't seen in a long time gave him a nostalgic sense of the past... Yes, it was them two against the world back then. They had each other when they didn't have anybody else to rely on. Shen Jiu and Shen Yuan were brothers in arms.

Shen Jiu had been thinking to himself, How is my brother still alive? How did he...make it? He couldn't recollect all the facts of that particular incident, but he did recall that Qiu Haitang, the girl he and his brother adored and had developed a sibling-like bond with, blamed him for not just her family's death, but also his own brother's death. His Qi Deviation was one of the reasons he couldn't recall that period.

Those crushing words, which he can still hear tearing through him like fabric, haunt him to this day.

"You devil of a villain!" exclaims Qiu Haitang in his mind. "Was it enough to destroy my entire family?! You included A-Yuan in your heinous murder! What a heartless person you are!!"

The heat of the roaring flame in front of him blazed, ashes flew into the air, and yells of people in anguish reverberated in his ears, abhor sentences and scorn words after abhor phrases. Shen Jiu's eyes remained expressionless on that day. He lost all worldly feelings and connections as if his entire universe had just collapsed in front of him. It wasn't because of what he did to the Qiu family... rather, it was because of the thoughts and statements that suggested he murdered his own flesh and blood. He honestly believed what others afterward stated about him: that he was a murderer. A villain.

A scumbag villain.

No matter where he goes, no matter how hard he tries to forget the past, someone will always remind him of what he's done. Others will remind him of who he is and force him to recall what he has done. He would remain clean on the outside, but never on the inside, no matter how many times he washed his hands in the river, pond, or even bath to wash away the dirt of his past... This has shaped who he is now. Shen Jiu's history followed him about, sowing suspicion and animosity among his fellow martial brothers and sisters. He'd never be able to form the same bonds with them as he had with Shen Yuan... He tries, he tries desperately... but his attempts were futile, and all they see is the worst in him. This caused them to misunderstand their situation, spreading inaccurate information about him, and also baseless allegations, making Shen Jiu feel like a cornered animal and without any options but to lash out and fight off the offending predators.

Shen Jiu received no assistance from Yue Qingyuan... He not only failed to save him and his brother from the hellhole they were trapped in, with only one of them surviving, but he also failed to support him when the other peak lords began to exert pressure on him and demean him as if he had been a problem to them the entire time. As his years as a cultivator progressed toward becoming a Peak Lord, his reputation began to deteriorate, and his relationships with the other peak lords became shaky and strained. Despite the fact that he was the strategist among the others, no one has any faith in him...

In fact, the peak lords have been secretly discussing whether, after this year's Immortal Alliance Conference, they could finally vote to demote Shen Qingqiu from his title and return him to the streets, where they genuinely think he belongs, with the hope that this time they will have the support of all of them, including Yue Qingyuan, who has been on the defensive side of Shen Qingqiu's removal. All of that changed when they learned that the Immortal Alliance Conference had been postponed for another few years. Many of them were perplexed and questioned if Shen Qingqiu was to blame... Of course, a few days after that incident, they discovered that Shen Qingqiu had announced the event to be postponed, with the approval of not only Yue Qingyuan but also Mu Qingfang, the group's physician. Whatever the reason was, this infuriated quite a lot of them to a whole other level. 

Whatever the problem, Shen Qingqiu appears to have figured out what they were planning after the incident... When, in reality, he simply postponed the ceremony because he discovered that his twin brother had survived all this time in a grapevine, encased in a protective sphere, and in a coma for the last ten years, as Mu Qingfang had predicted. 

Shen Jiu did not hesitate to wait, and the instant he held his brother in his arms, breathing, warm, and alive, he took the situation into his own hands. He didn't return to meet with the other peak lords to talk about the situation... Instead, he had Yue Qingyuan do it while he and Mu Qingfang took care of Shen Yuan, which led to a slew of problems after they found him. Shen Yuan would flail around, his body convulsing, as Mu Qingfang attempted to find various cures to alleviate all of these problems...

Perhaps being freed from the vines that had enslaved him for so long had depleted his body of spiritual energy to the point where when he was released and a share of spiritual energy flowed inside him, his golden core could not accept such foreign energy, and for the past few days, Shen Yuan's body had rejected the energy flow time and time again, taking about five to eight days to try until his core was able to slowly accept the spiritual energy.

Shen Jiu has a lot of faith in his disciples, but they have no idea that their Shizun has a relative... especially one who looks precisely like him. He wasn't interested in or even willing to acknowledge that he had a living relative... He has no desire to pull him down to the lowest level of torment he is now in. For the time being, Shen Jiu had taken it upon himself to do the tasks himself for the benefit of his brother, which astonished Mu Qingfang, who was constantly visiting his peak to look after Shen Yuan.

The peak lords had never seen this side of Shen Jiu before, and they might never see it again. It's nice that Mu Qingfang gets to see Shen Qingqiu, the so-called sleazy villain, in this light... But, to begin with, was he a scum villain as everyone said to be? This was the point at which the physician began to reconsider his initial thoughts of Shen Jiu. He'd returned to his own peak to get a few more remedies in case Shen Yuan's body convulsed to a new level. Shen Jiu was left in charge of looking after his brother while he was away, and he has no complaints. In contrast, when he opened the door with a tray of congee and fresh herbal tea, it all tumbled to the floor as he saw his brother awake for the first time, staring back at him in silence, perplexed and puzzled.

Shen Yuan was still oblivious to what was going on... his memory was a little blurry at first, but as this gorgeous entered the room, his mind snapped back to reality. Shen Qingqiu, the famed scumbag villain, was in front of him! In this situation, he couldn't decide whether to laugh or cry... should he also be scared? Should he believe his life is in jeopardy? He should have been able to feel such emotions, but he couldn't. When he looked at Shen Qingqiu, all he could feel was... unification.

He had previously expressed a sense of something was missing, but now it felt complete. He found himself smiling like an idiot before he realized it.

"..Hi?.." That was all Shen Yuan murmured before he felt himself fall back to his pillow and all emotions burst forth. He was absolutely taken aback before his mind recognized that he was being tightly hugged by the person in front of him.

[Character binding complete] 

As a blue-green screen emerged alongside Shen Yuan, an Ai voice would say something as he turned his head to look at the screen that had formed out of nowhere and listed things like names, places, and dates.

[Heaven's Sky Clan, Qing Jing Peak Peak Master's twin, Shen Yuan. Weapon-]

Shen.... He began to think before his mind woke up fully this time, Twin..? TWIN?! I'VE BECOME THE SCUM VILLAIN'S TWIN?!?!?!