After The Death Escape and Ascension, The Male Protagonist of Long Aotian Went Crazy - Chapter 23

“Ah, why are you crying again?”

Shi Hua had no experience in coaxing people and instantly felt at a complete loss.

If Wei Shizhou knew that it was she who had reported him, he probably wouldn’t be speaking to her so patiently right now.

Originally, it should have been Qin Xiyan who came over to comfort him.

She didn’t know if her showing up would affect things, but with the system absent, she couldn’t just leave Wei Shizhou alone—yet at that time she couldn’t find anyone else.

“Shut up!”

Wei Shizhou, face streaked with tears, barked fiercely at her—but with no intimidation at all.

After falling silent for a while, he rubbed at his eyes, grabbed the pastries she had brought, opened his mouth wide, and stuffed one in. Two bites finished it off.

He hadn’t eaten for an entire day. After forming his Foundation, he hadn’t gained the ability to forgo food, and he still kept the habit of eating.

He liked the taste of food going down his throat, liked savoring different flavors.

After swallowing three pieces in a row, he began to feel a little sick of them.

Shi Hua thoughtfully handed him some tea.

Wei Shizhou drained it in a gulp.

Then came a long silence.

Shi Hua shifted her posture, leaning against a rock, staring at the raging snowstorm outside the barrier, waiting for him to sort out his emotions and speak.

After a long time, Wei Shizhou pursed his lips in grievance, his eyes looking as if tears were about to fall again—or maybe that was why he couldn’t see anything clearly.

His voice was very, very soft, like a small beast curling up to lick its wounds alone, whimpering with hurt.

“…They insulted my mother first.”

Shi Hua’s fingers trembled slightly, and she turned her head a little to look at him.

The boy’s reddened eyes brimmed with tears, which he forced not to spill. Resting his chin lightly on his knees, he curled himself up tightly.

Tears clung to his lashes, trembling with each flutter.

He lowered his head, biting his lip hard, keeping himself from crying aloud.

Shi Hua suddenly remembered: at this time, the male lead was only eighteen years old. Compared with those who had lived hundreds, even thousands of years, he was still just a tender child.

A child who couldn’t hide his grievances.

When Wei Shizhou was still mortal, his first eighteen years hadn’t been happy.

His mother died of illness when he was five. Two years later, his father remarried. On the day the stepmother entered the household, his father made him call her “mother.” He stubbornly refused, and only after being kicked did he reluctantly mutter it.

The Wei family was wealthy, and after his mother’s death, many eyed his father, coveting the position of Wei family’s mistress.

Seven-year-old Wei Shizhou believed this new mother was the same—after the family’s fortune. He harbored strong hostility toward her.

But this mother seemed… different from the rumors outside.

She was kind to him, never scolded or tattled to his father, and managed the household flawlessly. She was, in fact, a very competent stepmother.

People outside all said she was wonderful—even treating her stepson with affection.

Hearing this made Wei Shizhou uncomfortable. Though she was good to him, he always felt something was off.

He couldn’t bring himself to get close to her.

Until a year later, when his little brother was born—suddenly he understood.

The brother’s birth lifted his father completely out of grief. On the child’s first birthday, his father threw a grand banquet. Wei Shizhou stood in a corner, stubbornly refusing to acknowledge him as his brother.

He was still the Wei family’s eldest young master; no one dared disrespect him.

But his stepmother now devoted most of her attention to the younger son, offering Wei Shizhou only occasional concern about his studies.

At that moment, Wei Shizhou realized that no matter how kind she was, he was not her own child. She could never love him without reservation.

His father also gradually neglected him.

The entire household rejoiced in the second young master.

Wei Shizhou grew sick of it all, began skipping classes and mixing with loafers, wasting his days away, no different from street ruffians.

His father was unaware at first.

When he found out, he was furious and wanted to punish him severely—but his stepmother rushed in and took the blow for him.

Nine-year-old Wei Shizhou, unable to hide his feelings, shoved her away, his eyes red with tears as he screamed: “I don’t want you to care! I don’t want any of you! I want my mother, I want my mother, wuwuwu!”

This was the first time in four years he had mentioned his mother.

His father fell silent, staring at his son’s face that so resembled his late wife. His heart filled with bitterness—guilt, perhaps regret. From then on, he stopped controlling him, letting him mix with bad crowds, though secretly assigning guards to protect him.

To Wei Shizhou, this house without his mother was no longer home.

Everyone adored the younger son, but not the arrogant, unruly eldest.

“Brother, let’s play!”

His five-year-old brother, clutching a ball, invited fourteen-year-old Wei Shizhou with a happy grin.

Wei Shizhou hated him. The word “brother” made him explode. He struck the ball aside and glared viciously.

“I’m not your brother. Don’t call me that. I have no brother!”

The boy didn’t understand, only knowing that this was his brother.

Feeling rejected, he burst into tears, toddling forward on short legs, clutching at Wei Shizhou as he wailed.

“Brother, please don’t hate me! Don’t, wuwuwu!”

The little one was so small, barely reaching his thigh.

When the boy lunged at him, Wei Shizhou froze, overcome by a turmoil he couldn’t name. He wasn’t even sure what he had done, until he heard his brother crash to the ground and sob harder.

The crying brought their parents running.

His father immediately wanted to scold him, but his stepmother stopped him.

Wei Shizhou, watching them fuss over the boy, felt only emptiness inside.

Perhaps leaving was the right choice.

For the next five years, he secretly investigated the immortal sects, using his identity as the Wei family’s eldest son to gather information, determined to follow the destined path.

When his father learned of his wish to cultivate, he was the first to object, hoping he’d stay to inherit the family business.

Wei Shizhou looked at him coolly: “If I stay, no one will be happy. If I inherit, then what about your other son? Father, if it were Mother, she would support me.”

It was the second time he’d invoked his late mother. His father relented, aging suddenly before his eyes.

Knowing his son was determined, he spent lavishly, buying spirit artifacts and nearly half depleting the family fortune.

Wei Shizhou, seeing the storage ring packed full, felt a complicated swirl of emotions.

Perhaps aware of his neglect over the years, his father showered him with concern during those last days, his stepmother personally packed his belongings, and his clumsy little brother trailed after him, bumping into him now and then.

At that time, Wei Shizhou was eighteen, his brother nine.

The three of them saw him off at the docks. Standing at the boat’s edge, he looked back at them—not with sorrow, but with relief.

This family no longer belonged to him.

On the Cold Cliff, the blizzard never ceased.

Everywhere was nothing but swirling snow.

The barrier thudded under the storm’s impact, yet remained firm, enclosing the two of them.

Wei Shizhou’s emotions had calmed, though the redness lingered at his eyes.

His hoarse voice rang firm:

“I don’t resent anyone in the Wei family. Everything was my choice. I don’t regret hitting them—my mother is my bottom line. I won’t allow anyone to insult her!”

After recounting his eighteen years, he felt a weight lift.

He had suppressed it all for so long, with no one to tell, no one to understand. Perhaps this wasn’t the best time—but in front of Jiang Qingwu, he felt the urge to confide.

Maybe it was selfishness, hoping that the girl he liked would look on him with a little more favor.

Shi Hua stayed silent.

She had lived for ten thousand years. Mortal emotions burned too fiercely for her; she could no longer empathize.

She couldn’t even summon words of comfort.

After a long pause, she looked into his calm eyes and asked seriously: “Do you still want to go back?”

“…I don’t know.”

Wei Shizhou lowered his gaze. Half a pastry remained in his hand, the sweetness teasing his tongue, tempting him to finish it.

But he set it aside.

“I’ve already stepped onto the path of cultivation. The mortal world and I are separated.”

He didn’t answer directly.

He truly didn’t know. The storybook he’d found at fourteen had described things in detail. At first, he thought it was a prank, but as events matched one after another, he realized something was wrong.

Even when he tried to rebel, to live as a delinquent, he was still pushed onto the path of cultivation.

Standing at the foot of Xuanyin Immortal Sect, he swore his life would be his own—not dictated by a few lines in a script.

He had no obsession with cultivation. If he had one obsession, it was breaking free of fate’s control.

“Cultivation… then why did you choose it in the first place?”

Shi Hua saw no desire for immortality in his eyes.

Wei Shizhou’s voice stayed calm: “Not everything needs a reason. Sometimes you just do it.”

Because of the so-called plot, because of the so-called ‘male lead.’

He slowly bent his knee, his limbs stiff with cold, his face too frozen to even smile.

“Well, others cultivate for fame or power, but I’m different. I don’t care about any of that.”

He wanted freedom, a future not bound by anyone.

Shi Hua thought deeply. She felt she understood the male lead a little more.

Unlike the story’s broad strokes, the boy before her was vivid, with his own will—not just words on a page.

But what difference did that make before her?

“And you, Jiang Qingwu? Why do you cultivate?”

“…Why cultivate?”

Shi Hua froze, suddenly lost.

She couldn’t answer.

After countless years, the passionate girl who had once bowed under Chenxu Immortal Lord’s tutelage—her brilliance dazzling—was now the venerable Su Yu Immortal Lord, burdened with responsibilities. She could no longer remember why she had started.

Shi Hua pressed her lips together. “I don’t remember.”

Wei Shizhou stared. Jiang Qingwu, who had come from the past and seemed his age, didn’t remember why?

Unbelievable.

It had only been a few years.

“Such an important thing, and you don’t remember? Jiang Qingwu, you really are hard to figure out.”

One’s intention in cultivating couldn’t determine all, but it revealed how far a person might walk on this path.

Those without a pure heart could easily be destroyed by a single wrong thought.

“…Is it that important?”

Hadn’t her master said something similar?

After her master’s fall, she and her junior bore the future of the cultivation world. Devoting herself entirely, she’d long forgotten her own beginning—only holding onto one thing: reviving the cultivation world.

She tried to recall, but beyond her master’s faint voice, there was nothing.

“Hua’er, a cultivator cannot lose their original heart. Once it fades, inner demons will arise.”

The gentle voice lingered in her mind.

She could no longer picture Chenxu Immortal Lord’s face, only her voice echoing again and again.

Earnest, unceasing teaching.

“I…”

Just as Shi Hua opened her mouth, another unfamiliar voice from her blurred past suddenly rang out.

“You’ll take a very powerful master someday.”

A boy’s playful tone, tinged with laughter, with a faint trace of pink across his unseen face.

Without thinking, Shi Hua corrected herself: “…It seems someone once told me I’d take a powerful master. And then… I did.”

“What did you just say?!”

With a thud, Wei Shizhou banged his head against the rock.

Clutching his head, he stared at her, eyes wide with shock and delight.

That was something from within the Two Rites Floating Life Array—words he himself had said to little Shi Hua. Could Jiang Qingwu from the past really have a memory of it?

Wei Shizhou scrambled over on hands and knees, practically pressing his face to hers.

“You—you still remember what else?”

Do you remember teasing someone?

Do you remember saying you’d come find him, forbidding him from liking other girls?

The sudden closeness startled Shi Hua. Instinctively, she opened her mouth: “I…”