After being reborn, the villain comes with a spoiler tag.

The next day, Huo Yugang finished meditating and immediately sensed a familiar golden color within his spiritual senses.

He wasn't really cultivating; his soul was damaged, and the spiritual energy in Qiongshan was scarce. Cultivating here for a year was less effective than sleeping in the Changle Mountains for a single day.

However, the more than a thousand years of cultivation he had spent in his two lifetimes had made him accustomed to using meditation to replace sleep. This not only calmed his mind but also allowed him to quickly recover his depleted spiritual energy.

Unfortunately, it did not help much in healing the soul. After staying at the Qiongshan Sect for a year, Huo Yu's soul still showed no improvement.

Before even reaching the mountain gate, Huo Yu could see the figures standing in front of it from afar.

Yesterday, Huo Yu discovered that Long Yucheng had successfully absorbed a trace of spiritual energy. However, he did not expect that in just one day, Long Yucheng had already stepped into the first level of Qi Refining, thus officially entering the gate of cultivation.

However, after seeing the words "Heaven's Favorite," nothing that happened to Long Yucheng would surprise him anymore.

When Long Yucheng saw Huo Yu, he was first startled, then relieved, and then his expression became strange as if he had thought of something.

His expression shifted several times, but he didn't forget to introduce himself:

"Senior brother, I am a disciple sent by Deacon Huang from the outer sect. My name is Long Yucheng."

Huo Yu nodded slightly, signaling the other party to follow, and headed towards his cave.

Long Yucheng followed obediently, his mind filled with a myriad of thoughts.

When Long Yucheng first learned that someone had specifically requested him to be a handyman and had told him to wait at the mountain gate, his first reaction was:

"Could it be that Zhao Hu wasn't satisfied with just stealing my things, and now he's going to team up with Deacon Huang to lure me to a remote place to kill me and cover my tracks?"

Clutching the only item he had brought with him when he entered the sect—a dagger made of ordinary iron—Long Yucheng waited anxiously at the mountain gate for a long time. He finally breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that it was a white-robed inner disciple who had arrived, rather than Zhao Hu.

But the thought of becoming someone else's servant made him feel a bit complicated.

Before Long Yucheng could comfort himself with the thought that "this is an essential part of the process of enduring humiliation and accumulating strength for a comeback and a slap in the face," the two had already arrived at their destination.

The senior brother in front of me, dressed in flowing white robes and exuding an ethereal aura, who looked no ordinary inner disciple, raised his hand and opened the illusion array at the entrance of the cave. The stone wall in front of me disappeared, revealing the cave world behind it.

Long Yucheng was immediately shocked by Huo Yu's simple, empty cave dwelling, which didn't even have a door—if digging a room-sized hole in a rock could be called a cave dwelling.

After hesitating for a long time, he finally managed to squeeze out a sentence:

"May I ask how this senior brother is addressed?"

"Yu Bai."

a few days later.

In the empty, desolate stone chamber, Long Yucheng was suddenly startled, jolting awake from his dream. To his dismay, he discovered that he had unknowingly fallen asleep while meditating again, and his legs were completely numb.

He rubbed his legs, wincing in pain, while replaying the events of the past few days in his mind.

To be honest, compared to his time in the outer sect, Yu Bai's treatment here is worlds apart. In these seven days, he doesn't seem to have done a single errand for Yu Bai.

For the first few days, he would go to Yu Bai's cave early every morning to pay his respects and ask if there was anything that needed to be done. Although he had read extensively before his transmigration, there was no book that described how to serve as a servant for a cultivator. So he simply followed the example of servants in period dramas.

After a few days, Yu Bai got annoyed by his questions and told him to go cultivate on his own, and that he would be summoned if needed.

From then on, Long Yucheng devoted himself to rigorous training in his cave every day, waiting for Yu Bai's summons at any time.

Speaking of the cave dwelling—to be precise, it's just a cave, which Yu Bai dug for him himself.

On the day we first met, he hesitated for a long time before finally asking the question that concerned him most: Where should he stay? And how should he feed himself?

The way Yu Bai looked at him then seemed to suddenly remember that he still needed to eat and sleep. He then summoned his flying sword, dug an identical cave near his own cave dwelling, and threw him a bottle of fasting pills.

“About one pill every seven days,” Yu Bai said.

About.

Long Yucheng calculated that today was exactly the seventh day, but he decided to wait until he felt hungry before taking the fasting pill.

Long Yucheng finally understood. If his senior brother Yu were in modern society, he would be a typical academic geek, with only cultivation on his mind. He would never leave his house, lack common sense, and have mild social anxiety—specifically, poor language skills and underdeveloped facial expressions.

However, one thing is certain: although Yu Bai is aloof, he is a very good person at heart. Otherwise, why would he keep a lazy servant for no reason? It couldn't be to clean up his empty cave dwelling, could it?

As for having any designs on him, that's even more impossible. Long Yucheng is penniless at the moment, and all he has is a system that he can't afford to use, which can't be taken away by anyone. What could Yu Bai possibly want from him?

However, unlike Yu Bai, who could stay in the cave for seven days at a time, Long Yucheng wanted to go out. Long Yucheng really wanted to go out.

His experience before the transmigration told him: practice martial arts and you'll become a beggar; wander around and you'll become a great hero.

His cultivation level stagnated after breaking through to the first level of Qi Refining. He knew this was because his spiritual root was mediocre and he would have difficulty making any progress without external help—this was something he had read in cultivation novels.

Although the protagonist of a novel always encounters extraordinary events and never lacks spiritual herbs and elixirs, he still has to go out and explore. He spends all his time cultivating in his cave, so extraordinary events won't just come knocking on his door.

More importantly, he desperately needed a bed, or at least some warm bedding.

Perhaps after cultivating to the level of Yu Bai, one would no longer need external things like beds and bedding. At first, he also wanted to learn from his senior brother and treat sleeping on the ground as a way of cultivation.

After persisting for six days, Long Yucheng had to admit that his cultivation level was not yet sufficient to master such a difficult cultivation method.

The Qiongshan Sect not only set up illusion arrays around Qiongshan Mountain, but also set up arrays to regulate the climate, making the entire mountain like spring all year round.

Even so, lying directly on the cold bluestone ground still sent chills down his spine. Sleeping on the cold, hard stone every night greatly reduced Long Yucheng's sleep quality, causing him to often feel drowsy during his daytime cultivation.

Long Yucheng quickly put the request to go out for a stroll on his agenda.

On the other hand, Huo Yu was completely unaware that he had become a great philanthropist in Long Yucheng's eyes.

His current daily routine involves meditating while using a wisp of his divine sense to keep an eye on Long Yucheng's movements.

However, since bringing him back to his cave, Long Yucheng has spent his days either cultivating or sleeping, which has made things quite easy for him.

Calculating the time, the Nine Star Secret Realm will open in twenty-three days. Huo Yu has no intention of going to any secret realm and plans to leave the Qiongshan Sect with Long Yucheng. The problem is how to find a reasonable excuse to get him to come with him.

The easiest way would be to directly control Long Yucheng with his divine sense and turn him into his puppet.

However, Long Yucheng was originally a variable he used to fight against the Heavenly Dao. Once he was controlled by his divine sense, he could no longer be called a variable. Huo Yu dismissed the idea after only a moment's thought.

Another option is to form a soul contract with Long Yucheng, taking him as a servant and ensuring that he can never betray her for life.

Or, to put it more simply, place a restriction on him that will activate if he leaves Huo Yu too far away, forcing him to stay bound to Huo Yu.

However, both methods would directly alter Long Yucheng's original life trajectory, potentially affecting the role he played as a variable.

Before Huo Yu could make a decision, Long Yucheng took the initiative to come to him.

"Senior Brother Yu! I'd like to go outside the mountains to buy some supplies. I'll definitely be back before tonight!"

Although Huo Yu had told Long Yucheng on the first day that he could hear him even without him speaking so loudly, it was to no avail.

"can."

After receiving permission, Long Yucheng headed towards the outside of the mountain. The misty illusion array sensed his disciple's waist token and automatically parted to the sides, revealing a path.

Huo Yu concealed himself and followed closely behind.