He just wants to find a replacement - Chapter 3
- Home
- He just wants to find a replacement
- Chapter 3 - A Couple are Birds of the Same Forest

Chapter 3: A Couple are Birds of the Same Forest
Gazing at the pale face of his deceased husband, he suddenly recalled their first meeting; the other person seemed to be lying silently before him then too.
It’s rather interesting. One person, with nowhere left to go, rescued the other from a desperate situation. Two destitute wanderers, bound for different ends of the earth, managed to widen a precarious single-plank bridge into a road they could walk together.
This was something Bai Lianhua would never have dared to imagine when he first rescued Li Daocheng.
At that time, Bai Lianhua had merely picked up Li Daocheng from the riverbank on a whim, shoved a pill from an unknown source into his mouth, put him to bed, and paid him no further mind.
That pill was scrounged from the corpse of some unknown Daoist friend. There’s no need to go into the details; since Bai Lianhua transmigrated to this cultivation world, he had done such things often and was long accustomed to it.
Bai Lianhua was born into this world through transmigration, and he had been struggling to survive since childhood, seeing all manner of foul things.
Having lived to his current age, the little bit of conscience he had before transmigrating was long gone.
He chose to save the man simply because his lifespan was nearing its end, and he wanted a companion to pass the time with.
Bai Lianhua actually held little hope for reviving Li Daocheng.
After all, the pill’s previous owner seemed somewhat sinister; otherwise, he wouldn’t have kept it until now without taking it.
Fortunately, this fellow had a strong life force and was indeed saved by the pill.
It seems this pill is truly effective, Bai Lianhua thought, and he tucked the remaining pills close to his body.
Seeing the man wake up, Bai Lianhua casually asked a few questions about cultivation world rumors, then didn’t stop him, letting Li Daocheng leave.
But with the sound of a fall, Li Daocheng ultimately couldn’t make it out of the thatched hut. Bai Lianhua had no choice but to accept this injured person.
However, accepting him didn’t mean Bai Lianhua trusted him.
There were too many stories of the farmer and the snake in the cultivation world; Bai Lianhua couldn’t afford to take any chances.
After Li Daocheng woke up, Bai Lianhua disguised himself as a mortal. He neither drove the person away nor did anything unnecessary, simply bringing him food day after day.
But even with such caution, Li Daocheng still saw through his disguise.
Bai Lianhua was quite unconvinced about this. He considered his disguising skills to be excellent; otherwise, he wouldn’t have survived so many years wandering the cultivation world.
Li Daocheng merely smiled at this, offering no explanation.
With his disguise seen through, Bai Lianhua naturally stopped the unnecessary act. Instead, he uncharacteristically decided to be frank.
After setting three ground rules with Li Daocheng and hearing that the man had no ill intentions toward him or the village, Bai Lianhua still didn’t completely let down his guard, only observing the other party in secret even more carefully.
Li Daocheng was quite strange. He was clearly smart enough to see through his disguise with a few glances, yet he was easily tricked out of his money pouch by the village ruffians.
Afterward, the man’s cheerful expression made Bai Lianhua feel inexplicably foolish.
He was also particularly friendly towards the villagers, completely lacking the overbearing manner of a sect disciple, and even had a strange willingness to grant every request.
It was genuinely strange. Who had ever seen a cultivator being summoned by a neighbor to run errands and busy himself?
He actually did things that even ordinary people might not bother with, and he did it enthusiastically.
Calling him an overly kind person was an understatement. In his terms from his previous life, he should be called a public servant.
Bai Lianhua couldn’t guess what Li Daocheng was thinking, but the closeness the man brought did make him drop a lot of his defenses.
Since he couldn’t find any major problems with Li Daocheng, Bai Lianhua stopped secretly following him and resumed his normal life.
He picked up his fishing basket, restarting his career as a professional fisherman, and cast his rod in a small stream quite far from the village.
Just as Bai Lianhua, wearing a bamboo hat and straw raincoat, sat dozing on a stool, a strange voice suddenly woke him up.
“Hey! You old thing, where is the nearest village around here?”
What old thing! He was only slightly over two hundred years old; he hadn’t even passed one-third of the average lifespan in the cultivation world!
Bai Lianhua originally wanted to teach this rude person a lesson, but then he caught a glimpse of a corner of a Daoist robe dangling by the person’s shoe.
He immediately lowered his voice and, following the person’s words, pretended to be an eighty-year-old man, tricking the person into going in the opposite direction of the village.
However, he was ultimately careless and was ambushed by the person, resulting in a large hole in his abdomen.
After swallowing a pill, he didn’t dare to stop for a moment, relying on his fishing rod to rush back to the village and warn the villagers to leave quickly.
Having done all this, he passed out.
When he opened his eyes again, the villagers hadn’t left, and Li Daocheng, that fool, hadn’t left either. He had even gone out to meet the enemy.
He had no choice but to drag his injured body, worriedly rushing towards Li Daocheng.
After all, that fool’s injuries hadn’t healed, and he had no strength to act tough.
But just as he was thinking this, everything he saw completely subverted his understanding.
With just one sword strike, the sky and earth seemed to be split by the sword light, and the cultivator who had come looking for trouble was already annihilated beneath the sword light.
Was this the man’s true strength?
While Bai Lianhua was still marveling, the swift decline of the situation that followed left him completely stunned.
Because Li Daocheng’s sword strike was too terrifying, the villagers viewed the two of them as monsters, and Bai Lianhua had successfully lost yet another place to settle down.
Why another?
In fact, before this, Bai Lianhua had already changed villages five times. He had thought he could stay here until he died, but he hadn’t expected Li Daocheng to mess everything up.
Just as he was still struggling with where to go next, Li Daocheng kindly extended an invitation.
Having witnessed the other party’s strength, Bai Lianhua was naturally very happy, but he still didn’t understand the reason for the invitation.
After all, his own power could be seen just by looking. For Bai Lianhua, this level of strength might be enough, but compared to Li Daocheng, it was completely underwhelming.
The cultivation world was not as peaceful as a mortal village. Taking a burden along was not a wise choice no matter how you looked at it.
After some probing, he finally grasped the intentions behind the fool.
He hadn’t expected this seemingly gentle and proper fool to harbor that kind of feeling for him.
Though not obvious, Bai Lianhua could indeed feel the faint liking the other party was radiating.
Watching Li Daocheng secretly try to please him, a feeling of satisfaction welled up in Bai Lianhua’s heart.
Perhaps he could utilize Li Daocheng to achieve something, such as acquiring more cultivation resources and breaking through that damned Golden Core threshold.
And the fact was that Li Daocheng was a very useful sword. Being with him, Bai Lianhua was successful in every secret realm inheritance he encountered.
Even the things he couldn’t access or compete for in the past were now within Bai Lianhua’s grasp.
Unfortunately, Bai Lianhua was out of luck. No matter where he went, he couldn’t find that sliver of opportunity to break through to the Golden Core stage.
Twenty years flew by. He went from intentionally utilizing Li Daocheng to getting used to having the fool by his side.
That slight hint of ulterior motive gradually faded away.
After twenty years of trying, with only a few years left until his lifespan limit, Bai Lianhua felt he should accept his fate.
If the heavens didn’t want him to live, what could he do?
But Li Daocheng refused to accept this fate. He stubbornly took Bai Lianhua and tried every possible method they could think of.
He even risked getting involved in the crooked paths and heretical ways that he usually abhorred the most.
Fortunately, after Bai Lianhua found out, he personally knocked some sense back into him.
Bai Lianhua had already accepted his fate, believing that he would be the only one to die, and he was quite satisfied with the outcome he had now. Why should he ruin Li Daocheng’s promising future?
A buy-one-get-one-free deal for the heavens—that was too much of a loss. Bai Lianhua was unwilling.
But faced with Li Daocheng’s sorrowful gaze, he finally softened and agreed to try one more time with him.
This was the first time Bai Lianhua realized that there could be someone in the world who cherished him more than he cherished himself.
So, when Li Daocheng invited him to form a contract, proposing to share their lives through a Dao Companion contract, Bai Lianhua did not refuse.
Whether they succeeded or not, he was, after all, indebted to the other person with a lifetime of sincerity.
However, fate plays tricks on people. Bai Lianhua was supposed to prolong his life through the shared-life method after forming the contract, but unexpectedly, one night of dual cultivation allowed him to break through the Golden Core barrier and successfully advance.
It turned out that Li Daocheng was the opportunity he had been longing for.
It turned out that the difficulties and dangers along the way were merely momentary hardships.
And after the rain and snow, the sky would clear.
If the story had ended there, it would have been a beautiful tale.
Unfortunately, things in the world can never fully go as one wishes.
At that time, the Immortal-Demon War broke out, and the immortal sects suffered continuous defeats. Li Daocheng was ordered in a time of crisis to lead the disciples of various sects to resist the demon cultivators.
Seeing the flames of war pushing towards the foot of the Flowing Cloud Sword Sect, Li Daocheng had no choice but to fight a decisive battle with the Demon Venerable. Bai Lianhua could only stand in front of him with his Golden Core cultivation.
Whether it was true affection or pretense, whatever Li Daocheng wanted, Bai Lianhua could give it to him this time, as long as he gave up his attachments and stayed away from the conflict.
Bai Lianhua was perfectly clear about what fighting the Demon Venerable to the death meant. If he failed to stop Li Daocheng here, the path ahead for the other party was certainly a one-way trip to death.
Only one thing surprised Bai Lianhua: his sincerity was so pale in the face of Li Daocheng’s great righteousness for the common people.
It wasn’t until the news of the man’s death came back from outside that the passionate fervor in Bai Lianhua’s heart was completely extinguished.
In the end, everyone has their own ambitions and their paths diverge. Li Daocheng chose to sacrifice himself for the sake of the world, and Bai Lianhua also had to give his all for the present moment.
A couple are birds of the same forest, but when disaster strikes, they fly off in separate directions.
Li Daocheng had already gone ahead for the sake of what he believed in, so Bai Lianhua had no reason to stay put for him anymore.
In this world, no one was ever going to wait for anyone forever.
A separation like this, where both move on and find their own happiness, is not bad at all.
Now, the Flowing Cloud Sword Sect is no longer a place for him to stay. It is time for him to make plans for himself.
It is time to leave this place of trouble.
Bai Lianhua looked at the well-behaved Jingbao beside him, silently making his decision.
Since they [the sect members] are unjust, he will not hesitate to be unrighteous.
He, Bai Lianhua, will not leave a single thing that belonged to Li Daocheng behind.
Thinking of this, Bai Lianhua squatted down and asked Jingbao, “Jingbao, your father was unkind, abandoning our father and son here. Now, A-Die is preparing to leave this place. Are you willing to come with A-Die?”
Faced with Bai Lianhua’s question, Jingbao didn’t hesitate for a moment, answering with a smile: “Jingbao listens to A-Die.”
At this, Bai Lianhua quietly curled the corner of his lips.