Chapter 143: Gentle Moments After the Dust Settles

Shen Yan was awakened by a faint medicinal fragrance.

His eyelids felt as heavy as if weighed down by two bricks of code. It took some effort before he managed to open them a crack. Morning light slanted in through the bamboo blinds, falling warmly on the tip of his nose, like the light of a progress bar loading during a system restart.

There was movement nearby.

Not an alarm, nor a virus-scanning notification tone, but a little girl snoring softly, smacking her lips even in her dreams: “Candied hawthorn… dip it in more sugar…”

He turned his head to see Yu Xiaotang sprawled over the edge of the bed, her twin ponytails askew on either side of her head. In her hand, she clutched half a piece of strawberry-flavored talisman paper, with dried sugar stains at the corners of her mouth. She slept like a little fox that had just stolen offerings.

To the left, Pei Yue was sitting before a small stove, stirring medicine. The celadon pot bubbled softly as she lowered her head, strands of her hair brushing the edge of the pot. The silver needle on her wrist glinted—he recognized that needle; it was the same one she had used to prick his temple last time, saying it would “refresh and clear the mind.”

By the window sat Ye Zhao, the Frost Soul Sword resting across her knees. She was polishing the hilt unhurriedly with a coarse cloth. Sunlight fell on her profile, and the shadow cast by her eyelashes trembled slightly, as if running a silent program. The hilt now bore fine lines, and when he squinted, he realized it was a string of binary code. Translated, it read something like “********,” which flowed quite smoothly when read aloud.

Where was Luo Li?

Just as he was about to turn his head, he felt his wrist tighten.

Looking down, he saw a fluffy purple-red tail coiling around the back of his hand. The grip wasn’t tight, but it was secure, as if she had fitted him with a biological bracelet. She herself was curled up on a low stool, her head nodding as she dozed, her ears twitching from time to time, likely monitoring the sound frequencies throughout the medicine hut.

Shen Yan tried to move his fingers.

The moment he moved, Luo Li’s ears shot up, her tail tightened instantly, and she opened her eyes abruptly: “Awake?”

Her voice was as hoarse as if she hadn’t cleared her cache in three days.

Her exclamation shattered the silence.

Pei Yue immediately set down the medicine spoon and turned to check his pulse. Her fingertips, cool to the touch, pressed against his wrist, and she frowned. “Your pulse is weak and unsteady, your qi and blood haven’t recovered. Don’t move around.”

Ye Zhao sheathed her sword and walked over, standing still as her gaze swept over him from head to toe. Only after confirming everything was fine did she give a slight nod.

Yu Xiaotang rubbed her eyes and sat up straight, grinning groggily. “Brother Shen, you’ve finally booted up! I was waiting so long I almost blue-screened!”

Shen Yan smiled too.

He raised his hand, first touching the back of Pei Yue’s hand, then brushing against Ye Zhao’s sleeve, and finally pinching Yu Xiaotang’s cheek, wiping away half the sugar residue at the corner of her mouth.

“Everyone’s alive?” he asked.

“Duh,” Yu Xiaotang rolled her eyes. “You practically reinstalled the heavens. If we’d died, wouldn’t the system have reported an error?”

As soon as she finished speaking, a line of green text suddenly popped up before his eyes:

【Stable environment detected. Recommend unlocking ‘Reverse Decompilation Divine Skill.’】

Shen Yan stared at the text for two seconds, then raised his hand and gently swiped through the air as if closing a popup window.

The green text flickered and disappeared.

He didn’t look at the terminal again, nor did he retrieve any data stream. Instead, he slowly propped himself up and, under the gaze of the four, pulled their hands over one by one, stacking them in his palm.

Five hands piled together, warmth mingling as it passed between them.

“This function…” he said, looking at the exhaustion and brightness in their eyes, “won’t be needed for now.”

The air fell silent for a moment.

Then Pei Yue smiled, her eyes slightly moist, turning back to stir the medicine as she muttered, “The medicine’s about to burn.”

Ye Zhao turned her face away, pretending to adjust her sword tassel, but the tips of her ears were flushed red enough to drip blood.

Luo Li loosened her tail slightly, then quietly tightened it again, wrapping his hand even more securely.

Yu Xiaotang directly threw herself forward, hugging his arm: “That’s great! Does this mean we won’t have to fight by writing code every day from now on? Can we go to the night market for skewers? I heard a new squid stall opened on East Street, and the owner sprinkles thirteen kinds of seasoning!”

Shen Yan staggered from her impact, nearly falling back onto the bed.

“Let me catch up on my sleep first, alright?” He rubbed his forehead. “That last operation was more exhausting than pulling seventy-two consecutive hours of overtime to revise requirements.”

“Then sleep,” Yu Xiaotang patted him. “I’ll keep watch for you! I promise no one will disturb you!”

As she spoke, she really pulled out a new Talisman Paper and started drawing. But as soon as the brush tip touched the paper, her head drooped, and she fell asleep right on his shoulder. The Talisman Paper drifted down to cover her face, bearing a crookedly written character for “peace.”

Pei Yue returned with a bowl of medicine, blew on it, and held it to his lips: “Drink it while it’s hot. I added three new ingredients to the Guiyuan Decoction; it can nourish your Spirit Soul.”

Shen Yan took a couple of sips from her hand, frowning at the bitterness, then she popped a candied fruit into his mouth.

“You’re always like this,” he said with the candy in his mouth. “Every time I blow up a furnace or suffer Qi Deviation, you use this trick to shut me up.”

“As long as it works,” Pei Yue said softly. “Otherwise, you’d just say ‘this line of Code should run,’ and then send yourself off again.”

Ye Zhao sneered from the side: “Last time he said his Sword Control Script could automatically avoid obstacles, and he ended up crashing straight into the female cultivators’ bathing pool.”

“That was a problem with the testing environment!” Shen Yan argued. “Who knew someone had tampered with the boundary detection Logic there!”

“Oh?” Ye Zhao raised an eyebrow. “So you admit that trespassing into the Forbidden Land was because of a ‘boundary detection Logic issue’?”

“I didn’t… I wasn’t… That really was an accident!”

Listening to them, Luo Li chuckled, her tail accidentally sweeping over and knocking the medicine spoon to the floor.

As Pei Yue went to pick it up, Luo Li rested her head on Shen Yan’s shoulder and said softly, “Back when I was in the Demon Clan, I never dared to sleep this soundly. I was afraid someone might take the chance to cut off my tail or slip poison into my tea.”

“And now?”

“Now…” She narrowed her vertical pupils. “With you here, I dare to dream. I dream of my mother roasting chestnuts for me when I was little, of a kitten chasing its tail in the snow, and of… us going to see the sea together.”

Shen Yan was taken aback.

He looked down at her and saw no wariness in her eyes, only a rare softness.

“The sea…” he murmured. “Once I can stand and walk without floating, I’ll definitely take you. I heard there are lighthouses by the sea, just like the signal towers in server rooms, flashing on and off at night, exactly like a heartbeat frequency.”

Yu Xiaotang chimed in from her dream: “I want to draw a giant Talisman Array on the beach! Draw a moving crab spirit! Make it help me collect seashells!”

Pei Yue shook her head with a smile. “You’re always so playful.”

“This is called innovative application!” Yu Xiaotang mumbled. “Talisman Dao + mechanics + Demon Power = invincible combo skill!”

Ye Zhao suddenly spoke up: “Once you can walk, I want to go to the Sword Tomb.”

“What for?”

“To officially carve that string of code you engraved on the sword hilt into the Sect’s monument,” she paused. “And also… to add your name to the roster of chief Disciples.”

Shen Yan froze.

He knew what that meant—the Sword Sect’s thousand-year tradition forbade men of other surnames from entering the registry. She was about to make an exception for him.

“Is it worth it?” he asked softly.

“It is,” she looked at him. “When you refactored the Heavenly Dao, you never asked if it was worth it. Now that I’m doing this little thing, do you get to refuse?”

The room fell quiet for a moment.

The medicine pot still bubbled, its fragrance filling the air.

Shen Yan gazed at the rising sun outside the window and suddenly felt that what felt more real than any System upgrade or Permission inheritance was the warmth in his palm at this moment, the sound of breathing beside his ear, Yu Xiaotang mumbling about hunger in her sleep, the rhythm of Pei Yue gently stirring the medicine spoon, Ye Zhao’s poorly concealed concern, and Luo Li’s tail wrapped around him, unwilling to let go.

He slowly closed his eyes.

“Shall we… go back to sleep for a while longer?”

No one objected.

Yu Xiaotang was already snoring softly, Luo Li curled up against him, Pei Yue hummed a children’s rhyme about medicine, and Ye Zhao leaned against the wall with her eyes closed to rest, but her fingers remained on her sword hilt, as if guarding a stable program that was running.

Sunlight filled the Medicine Hut, dust motes slowly swirling in the beams of light, resembling a smoothly running loop function.

Shen Yan’s fingers twitched, quietly tightening around their hands.

Footsteps sounded outside the door, growing closer.

The doorframe darkened as someone stood at the entrance, holding a food box, and asked softly:

“Is Young Master Shen awake? I brought…”

(End of Chapter)