If someone had told Shi Lianfeng when he’d first entered the Qiuhai Mountain Sect that his biggest hope for escaping a prison where he was locked inside his own mind was his shixiong that held a lot of unnecessary hate towards him, he’d smile politely and divert the topic, because he knew his shixiong hated him a lot. He didn’t get why Ling-shixiong despised him out of all the disciples on Anlue Peak, but he was in no position to question any of his shixiong’s actions, being as severely outranked as he was.

Yet now he stood, almost hypocritically in his ridiculous shadow mind-prison, awaiting the next flicker of what he knew was his Ling-shixiong’s qi almost eagerly. If he had been anyone else, and was less of a good-natured person, he’d have already been laughing and mocking himself. Stomping hard on an errant sliver of shadow and grinding down in it with his boot, Shi Lianfeng clutched the hilt of his useless, qi-less training sword.

If only he’d trained harder and longer, maybe he’d have his own spiritual sword by now, and he’d have broken free already.

-

Over the last three days after Ling Luoying had returned with the three ingredients MiSi had basically tricked him into getting, he’d been slaving away in one of the less-visited alchemy rooms on Anlue Peak.

Grinding the petals of the Thousand Ruby Lotus into paste was easily one of the most stressful things he’d ever done, not to mention trying to mix it in with the Fire Scorpion venom without poisoning himself. After almost failing every single perilous thing, he still had to separate the mixture in half and turn half into pills! Ling Luoying had long lost count of the amount of times MiSi had warned him to be careful and not ruin everything.

After burning a batch of pills (listen, he’d barely been in this world for half a month, and so much had gone on he didn’t have any time to train at all!) and making another batch too mushy, MiSi was so exasperated it was ready to do the job for him. [One more chance! If this doesn’t work you better pray the protagonist has resistance to Fire Scorpion venom!] MiSi shrieked, buzzing around Ling Luoying’s face like a glowbug on drugs.

“I’m working on it! Don’t make me even more stressed than I already am!” Ling Luoying hissed, rubbing his temples.

Nudging the paste into the alchemy furnace, Ling Luoying sprinkled the crushed leaves of the Thousand Ruby Lotus around the flames. [Host! Host! Host! Don’t forget to put the Everfrost Glowberry in before you put in the Emberclover!] MiSi reminded Ling Luoying.

“I know. I won’t make that mistake again…” Ling Luoying sighed, glancing mournfully at the sad crisp of pills that were lying pitifully in the corner of a see-through box.

[Add in the Emberclover to the left of the Everfrost Glowberry. Your left, not mine! And then put the root in on top of the paste.] MiSi buzzed around the alchemy furnace like a frenzied teacher, throwing out instructions left right and center.

Ling Luoying fumbled, throwing in as many ingredients as possible.

Funnelling as much spiritual energy into the furnace as he could, he tensely navigated all the ingredients together and solidified them together, imagining the perfect pill that could wake Shi Lianfeng up.

[Host, you did it!]

MiSi’s clapping jolted Ling Luoying from his concentrated stupor, and his eyes landed on a large, dusty red and perfectly shaped pill at the center of the furnace. He grabbed it carefully, putting it on a spare pillholder he found and placed it on a shelf with a bunch of other healing pills before collapsing to the floor with a relieved sigh. “If I knew I was going to be ever doing this, I would’ve read more of these xianxia and wuxia novels back in my world.” He groaned.

[Please do not break the fourth wall of this world or alert others of the existence of transmigration, Host.] MiSi lectured, smacking Ling Luoying on the back of the head.

[Besides, it’s not time to rest easy yet. The pill might not work.]

“We won’t know until we try!” Ling Luoying exclaimed, leaping up and grabbing the pill from the shelf.

He opened Shi Lianfeng’s mouth and dropped the pill in, patting him on the head. “Alrighty, after the pill dissolves he’ll wake up!” He said happily, sitting back in a chair and observing eagerly.

“MiSi, it’s not working.” Ling Luoying said flatly, poking at Shi Lianfeng’s unresponsive face.

[It will take a while. There are no miracle-medicines, even in stallion novels.] MiSi replied, tiny face flushed from the heat of the furnace and a disappointed expression fixated on its face.

“What if he doesn’t wake up? I spent three days making this, so you better get up, stupid protagonist.” Ling Luoying threatened, lightly slapping Shi Lianfeng’s face.

[Stop abusing the protagonist, Host. It won’t make anything happen.]

“You never know.” He shrugged, relenting his poking and slapping.

[Wait… Host, did you even use the right pill?] MiSi asked, catching a glimpse of a signature red colour on the shelf.

It wasn’t hard to spot, being the only pill that was such a distinctive shade. [Host…] MiSi sighed with so much disappointment it was practically a physical entity.

“Then… which pill did I take?” Ling Luoying asked nervously, turning around slowly to stare at the shelf.

[Luckily, it was only a qi refining pill. A low-grade one, so you won’t need to compensate anyone.] MiSi observed.

“Alright, I’ll give Shi Lianfeng the right pill this time.” Ling Luoying groaned, standing up and reaching for the right pill this time.

[Hold on, Host, stay back! I detect some abnormalities in the protagonist’s mental state. The protagonist may be waking up soon, Host. Please be prepared.] MiSi yapped, flying straight into Ling Luoying’s face.

“Really? This isn’t a prank, right? I haven’t even fed him the pill yet.” Ling Luoying asked suspiciously, pulling the pixie off his face and holding it by the back of the neck.

[MiSi would never lie to the Host… much.]

“You better not.”

[After feeding the protagonist those failed pills and that qi refining pill, you better pray he’s not permanently damaged.]

“That can happen!?”

-

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It was still so dark. His Ling-shixiong had made one other attempt to reach out to him, but then everything had gone silent. The shadows seemed to swallow everything around them, Shi Lianfeng’s hope included. “Let me out!” He yelled, stabbing into the unrelenting darkness around him.

“Ling-shixiong, help me!” He screamed, aware that his Ling-shixiong couldn’t hear him.

He wanted to try anyway, even if it was futile. Even if it wasn’t going to work. Even if he was going to be trapped in here forever, he still wanted to try and reach out to the shixiong that despised him so much, but also not really.

Yet, Ling-shixiong was the only one to reach out to him and think that maybe something was wrong.

Shi Lianfeng tossed his useless, dull training sword to the ground, the flimsy blade shattering without a sound. He hated this so much. He hated that he was too weak to get his own sword. He hated that he was too weak to find his own way out of this stupid place. He hated that he was too weak and got injured in the Guiyin Caves. He hated that his shixiong might get punished because of him. He hated that he still had to rely on other people to solve problems he’d made.

“Why?” He asked himself with gritted teeth. “Why can’t I do it?”

Shi Lianfeng knelt, gathering the shards that were once a sword, clenching his fists. The shards dug into his palms and tore through his flesh, but the pain was merely a whisper in the back of his mind.

Crimson blood slowly dripped down his hands in trickling rivulets, lingering for a moment at his fingertips before gently falling to the floor.

With a gentle splash.

It was the first sound other than his own voice and ragged breaths that Shi Lianfeng had heard for who knows how long.

As more and more of his blood flowed to the floor, Shi Lianfeng started to realise it was forming a shape. “What spell is this?” He murmured to himself.

His blood formed an unfamiliar circle around his kneeling figure, as if somehow knowing by itself where to go and what shapes to form. He’d never seen anything like it in any of the books on Anlue Peak’s vast library, nor had his shixiongs, shijies or shizun ever taught him about it. “What are you?” Shi Lianfeng brushed a hand against the rapidly drying blood of the spell.

With a belligerent sound of wind, the spell lit up weakly, traveling from his fingertips. A blinding red light followed, so bright even the shadows couldn’t fight to swallow.

Shi Lianfeng yanked his hand back with a shout of surprise, but found that he couldn’t. As his matted hair and mangled robes were tossed around by the wind, he felt a gross, sticky something creep up his index finger. “Ling-shixiong!” Shi Lianfeng gasped, desperately trying to pull his finger away.

Shading his eyes from the unrelenting glare, Shi Lianfeng glimpsed a pulsing, blood red matter slowly sliding up his finger. Gritting his teeth, he forcefully stood up and wrenched his finger away, hearing a hard crack.

He clutched his hand to his chest, on guard as he backed out of the circle. With a roar, the blood red monster-like creature reared up. Now Shi Lianfeng really regretted breaking his sword, even if it was dull.

As the creature latched onto him, he hoped his Ling-shixiong would manage to save him.

-

“Hey, MiSi, you said he was gonna wake up soon. Nothing’s happening.”

[Host needs to learn to be more patient.]

Ling Luoying sighed. Ever since MiSi had announced that there were abnormalities exuding from the protagonist, Ling Luoying had been waiting eagerly. When nothing had happened for ten minutes, Ling Luoying started getting nervous. “Are you sure I can’t use the pill?”

[For the fifth time, if Host uses the pill now, it may disrupt the protagonist’s natural recovery.] MiSi looked just about ready to boot Ling Luoying back to his original world, so he shut up and sat in his chair tensely, eyes trained on Shi Lianfeng’s immobile body.

“Waiting… waiting… waiting… hey, if you can hear me, wake up already.” Ling Luoying groaned, walking over to the bed and tugging gently on a strand of Shi Lianfeng’s hair.

“Ling-shixiong, perhaps it may be wise to head back to Anlue Peak for now? Shi-shidi doesn’t seem to show any signs of waking up any time soon.” He heard Ci Luoyang murmur from the doorway.

Ling Luoying shook his head. “He’ll wake up soon. I can feel it.”

He was absolutely bullshitting here, but it wasn’t like Ci Luoying could see through his lie. Besides, MiSi had said that Shi Lianfeng was going to wake up soon, so his little lie would be fine. “Very well. I will alert my shizun that you will stay here temporarily.” Ci Luoyang whispered, leaving quietly.

-

“Come on, it’s been so long. Shizun’s almost about to come back. Don’t you think you should hurry and wake up so you can greet him?”

His Ling-shixiong’s voice was the first thing Shi Lianfeng heard when he came back to consciousness. He frowned. There was an uncomfortably bright light that was visible even through his closed eyes.

It took Shi Lianfeng a moment to register that he was able to move again. He pried his eyelids open and almost went blind from the blinding light outside the open window. Sunlight was really bright after so long in the darkness. “Ling-shixiong.” He croaked out, throat dry from a week of disuse.

His Ling-shixiong was by his side in a flash, Ci-shixiong by his side. “Shi-shidi, are you okay? What exactly occurred when you were unresponsive?” Ci Luoyang wasted no time in interrogating him.

“Gentle with the questions, Head Disciple Ci.” Zheng Pingxi’s amused voice drifted in from the corridor, and the man entered the room soon after, carrying a tray with four teacups and a teapot.

Steaming tea was poured into a cup and handed to Shi Lianfeng, who had been propped up into a sitting position by Ling Luoying. He took careful sips, aware of the three pairs of eyes watching him intently.

“What do you remember?” Zheng Pingxi asked seriously once everyone (mainly Ling Luoying and Shi Lianfeng) had settled down into a calmer state.

Shi Lianfeng thought carefully about how he should answer the question. On one hand, answering truthfully might lead to an investigation about the strange shadow realm he was trapped in. On the other hand, doing so might result in an investigation about how he received the injuries in the first place, which might lead to Ling-shixiong, his saviour (and also the one that made him go into the Guiyin Caves in the first place, Shi Lianfeng conveniently forgot) getting punished.

-

Ling Luoying saw the struggle in Shi Lianfeng’s eyes, so he decided to take away some of his stress. “I found Shi-shidi in the Guiyin Caves.”

He didn’t elaborate further afterwards. He hoped that Zheng-shishu wouldn’t focus too much on those ‘little’ details for now and focus on trying to figure out what he and MiSi already knew was the protagonist’s little training area thing. If they could get that information from the reluctant protagonist, that was.

As he’d expected, Zheng Pingxi brushed away his sentence and focused more on Shi Lianfeng. “Shi-shizi, please answer these questions for the safety of you and the sect.” Zheng Pingxi said again, gentler than the first time.

Shi Lianfeng swept a glance at Ling Luoying. After seeing the latter with a calm face, he took a deep breath and started explaining.

The more he elaborated on his prison and the more he discussed his theories of what could’ve caused it (Anlue Peak’s library wasn’t just decoration, disciples spent a depressing amount of time studying different demons and beasts in there), the worse Zheng Pingxi and Ci Luoying’s expressions became.

“Shi-shizi, I’m afraid I must have you pause your recounts here.” Zheng Pingxi said after Ling Luoying recounted a particularly gruesome encounter he had with a group of shadows.

“Head Disciple Ci, please head to Zhuzheng Peak and arrange for a Peak Lords meeting.”

Ling Luoying immediately perked up to attention. Zhuzheng Peak? As in, the most famous peak of the Qiuhai Mountain Sect, and the peak led by the Sect Leader Mo Pingchu, who was rumoured to have fought against a Demon Lord at the age of twenty and won?

Out of all of the characters in ‘Racing Against Divinity’, Mo Pingchu was probably the character Ling Luoying felt the most affectionate towards. When his old friends Ming Yu and Rong Yao had first discovered this, the two could hardly believe their ears. They had always imagined Ling Luoying to have a stronger sense of affection towards intellectuals like the Anlue Peak Lord, Yan Pingxie.

Ling Luoying had his reasons though. Firstly, Mo Pingchu had the strength and ability to protect the people he cherished, something Ling Luoying deeply wished he could also do. Secondly, and probably a very selfish reason for liking Mo Pingchu, was because of his impressive physique. There wasn’t anything Mo Pingchu couldn’t do in the physical field. There were no weapons Mo Pingchu couldn’t wield. There were no enemies that Mo Pingchu couldn’t take down, with the exception of the overpowered protagonist, of course.

Such a strong character could’ve been the protagonist of his own novel. Unfortunately, he was just a supporting cannon fodder character whose only purpose was to make the protagonist look stronger by getting beaten up in every way possible.

The best part about all of this? Head Disciples were to attend Peak Lord meetings, so they could understand the role and burden they would have to face once their shizuns ascended. Soon, when his shizun came back to the sect, the Peak Lord meeting would be held, and Ling Luoying would get to meet the man himself!

He couldn’t possibly be more excited!

However, just as Ling Luoying was about to burst from the excitement, Zheng Pingxi’s grave voice entered his ears again. “Ling-shizi, I would like you to give a statement about Shi-shizi, as it is strictly prohibited for sect members other than the Head Disciple and Peak Lords to sit in upon a meeting unless there are special circumstances.”

Ling Luoying wilted immediately.

He was banking on Zheng Pingxi deeming this case important enough to allow Shi Lianfeng to give a personal statement. All Ling Luoying had to do was nod, maybe add a few words here and there and look serious. Now though, he was going to be barraged with multitudes of questions from some of the strongest powerhouses in the continent!

Ling Luoying shivered. He had a sudden ominous feeling that the Peak Lord meeting wasn’t going to go well at all.