Chapter 18

"For the last time it wasn't me!"

Duan Cai hung up his phone as he finished repeatedly telling people all morning that he was inside of his study all night long doing research on things. If he really wanted to of course he could naturally survive walking off a tall building. A sky scraper could not kill Duan Cai if he really wanted to jump off of the thing without a care in the world, but naturally he had no interest in showing off his abilities to the world when he wanted to remain low key as much as possible due to him being in a mortal body. He was prepared to live his life out on earth and he was in no rush to get pushed to the edge to die as a mortal any time soon. There was only one person he could think of that could do something like that besides him, but he could not comprehend why the man would pull such a shameless act without a second thought.

"Leon! I'm heading out today!" Duan Cai declared without waiting for a response from him as he charged past Leon and out of the mansion.

"Boss, I'll get the car." Leon quickly rushed to catch up with Duan Cai.

Duan Cai was not in the mood to argue with him over something so simple so he left him to get the car and pull it around to the gate to pick him up. As soon as the car parked beside him he quickly opened the door and climbed into the back while looking through his phone. There was many people that had messaged and called him since he woke up this morning to figure out what was going on with the mysterious jumper. It was clear that the vast population of cultivators assumed it was him showing off.

"Head to my house." Duan Cai said without even glancing up at Leon.

"Sir, did something happen?" Leon was not sure he heard correctly because Duan Cai never goes to his family unless he is required to do so for something.

"Checking in with ones family is something a son is suppose to do.. is it not?" Duan Cai asked as he tilted his head slightly while glancing up at Leon to verify that he gathered that information correctly. From what information he could gather about mortals they naturally checked on each other after a certain amount of time. Duan Cai could gather from his memories that even the delinquent of son still at least stopped to check on his mother every so often in between his wandering the streets.

"No, I have just never heard you willingly mention them without a reason in doing so. It's practically a taboo topic around the mansion because everyone is paranoid about the topic since you never mention them." Leon sighed slightly as he wondered if Duan Cai was hiding something about his family that caused him to want to see them today. It was not his business to ask and he was not going to take the risk of upsetting him over prying where he was not welcome.

"It's not like that so rid your face of that look of concern." Duan Cai pulled his hat down over his face to avoid looking at Leon.

Duan Cai did have his body's old memories of the family, but things were still vague in different areas. He had spent some time with them during his fall to earth when he had woke in the hospital and the mother had cried happily to see her son pull through the car accident. It was hard to endure a stranger, especially a mortal, crying while hugging him when she thought he was her son. A part of him wanted to scream at her to let him go because he didn't know her personally. If it was not for the human memories inside of his mind at the time he could not manage to even speak a word to her to try and pry her off due to the fact that he knew he had just stolen the corpse of her real son. They shared the same name, but they were different people from different worlds. The only thing the original Duan Cai left behind was some memories and his corpse that he had taken hold of at the moment of his passing.

A slight painful feeling started to well up in his chest as he remembered the moment in his mind. He could not place what the feeling was, but he did not care for it. Was it remorse? Was it guilt? The sudden memories and thoughts were making him feel sick. Duan Cai wondered what he should do to make the feeling go away. This sudden painful and sick feeling was something that he was not familiar with in his ten thousand years of living as a god in the other realm he had never felt such a sickening feeling before.

"I swear that damn kid cursed me.. the fuck.." He whispered to himself as he clenched his hand over his heart.

The more time he spent in his mortal body the more he felt like the body was trying to morph him into a form that was no longer himself. Some of the things he felt were mortal emotions and they were something that he would never had felt in the past. As a god he held no emotions. It was like he was an emotionless bot that did his job and moved forward until the end when he fell.

"We're almost there, sir." Leon glanced up in the mirror to check on him.

"Very well, stop just a few houses down. I would rather you not let me out at the house. I already have enough attention on me as things are so I do not want to have more follow up questions about why you're dropping me off. I can manage on foot."

Duan Cai tilted his hat back up as he prepared for Leon to stop the car and let him out. Leon did not refute the request because he knew that his boss certainly was not ready to announce to his family that he was a powerful figure. There was certainly his own reasons why he wanted to leave them in the dark and Leon was not going to pry for them at his own risk.