Man I kinda wish I can add songs in certain songs in different areas without it being too disruptive, or is it not? Hm
-h.e.l.li
Ever since the birthday banquet, Song Shan thought that he was able to peek into some of Qin Yao’s thoughts, so he would always report to Qin Yao about Gu Yan’s situation, whether intentionally or unintentionally. Qin Yao did not reproach him for this behaviour either, so he just figured he guessed right. From then on, he paid extra attention to any news regarding Gu Yan. So, after learning that w.a.n.g Duo went to look for trouble with Gu Yan, Song Shan immediately reported to Qin Yao.
When he heard about this matter, Qin Yao was furious. He had heard about that unruly brat from the w.a.n.g family before, but this was the first time his fist itched so much at the mention of that child. But after considering the fact that Gu Yan had already given him a lesson, he decided to put these thoughts to rest.
Qin Yao knew what Song Shan was thinking as well, but strangely, he had never refused any news Song Shan could offer him. Perhaps he really did want to know deep in his heart.
He wanted to know whether Gu Yan was doing well, what he has been up to…….He knew that perhaps this had come out of some selfish reasons that he wished to see something come out from Gu Yan, to satisfy something of his desires, to allow him some comfort of his festering heart. But he could not control himself.
Something had already sprouted within his heart, and was growing uncontrollably.
But he did not wish for this to be discovered.
Take for example now, he had clearly come on purpose to see Gu Yan, but instead, he said:
“What a coincidence, we meet again.”
Gu Yan looked at Qin Yao, and suddenly revealed a smile. A profound tinge seems to be swirling within his black eyes:”Indeed.”
Such a poor cover-up, did this human fall in love with him? But he had no intentions of exposing him, this was amusing. He was the only clear-headed observer here, was he not?
Because a heartless demon would only watch as the others fall, and they would remain indifferent.
“What brought you here?”Gu Yan c.o.c.ked his head slightly to the side as he looked at him with a curious light in his eyes.
“I just happened to have some business here.”Qin Yao’s performance was calm and steady as if this really was just an accidental encounter.
Gu Yan nodded:”Oh, then I shall be leaving first.”
“……”
Qin Yao watched Gu Yan’s back as he left, and after a moment, he let out a soft chuff of defeat. He had also started to turn strange, he should’ve been content after seeing that Gu Yan was doing fine, but just a few words of greeting wasn’t enough for him.
He shook his head and prepared to leave, but Gu Yan suddenly turned back to speak with him:”Oh, that’s right, are you free right now?”
Then……
Then Qin Yao left with Gu Yan. The two walked for a bit and sat down at a cafe nearby.
Gu Yan stirred the coffee place in front of him, and after a moment, he raised his head to ask:”Actually, there’s something I’ve always wanted to ask you.”A look of anxiety appeared within his eyes, but he also seemed hesitant.
Qin Yao straightened his posture,”What is it?”
“When me and my mother got into danger that time in Haiyun City, we could’ve been dead if you didn’t come out to save us.”Gu Yan gradually began,”I was really down at that time, and I didn’t want to get into trouble, so I never asked you.”
“But recently……”Gu Yan lowered his eyes and revealed a soft look,”When I returned home recently, I found that both my parents have always loved me a lot, they just didn’t know how to express it. We had a lot of misunderstandings in the past……I cherish my life right now a lot. Every time I recall what happened, I would often be woken up from my dreams……Please don’t laugh at me, I’m a little afraid.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t let any harm come to you.”Qin Yao’s voice was firm.
“Mm……”Gu Yan hummed in acknowledgement, but his smile seemed forced, as if nothing Qin Yao could say would be able to comfort him, he just did not rebuke him out of politeness,”I know you must be someone with some mysterious capabilities that allowed you to kill those monsters……But, you have our own things to do, right? Protecting us is not your duty.”
Qin Yao paused for a moment,”Did you wear the amulet I gave you?”
Gu Yan pressed his hand lightly on his chest, and smiled:”I’m not a fool, I know that you meant nothing but good for me, so I’ve always been wearing it.”
“That’s good.”Qin Yao smiled.
Gu Yan leaned forward and focused on Qin Yao’s eyes,”But you know……This alone can’t put me at ease. I have family, friends, and so many other people I care about, I don’t want anything to happen to any of them……I just want to know, are you able to protect this whole world?”
Qin Yao was silent for a moment, he knew that he would not be able to dismiss Gu Yan easily.
“I can.”Qin Yao responded without any reluctance, his confidence was clearly presented on his face.
“They’re just some monsters who came from a different world, everything will be fine if I kill them all.”Qin Yao responded to him bluntly,”There aren’t many of them, and it’s not easy for them to come to this world either, so you don’t have to worry too much.”
“Really?”But Gu Yan seemed as if he did not believe him that much. A small shred of disbelief was visible within his eyes,”Did those monsters……really come from a different world?”
“Mm, you could say that.”Qin Yao was clearly unwilling to go any deeper.
Gu Yan blinked,”So, are there many others like you just like what we see in those movies, quietly fighting the monsters to protect the world?”
Qin Yao could not help himself from laughing,”I guess you could look at it that way.”
“Really? You guys are like superheroes.”Gu Yan’s eyes brightened up,”Are there many of you? Why have I never met any before? Are they all as amazing as you?”
“Well, no.”Qin Yao said,”There aren’t many of them.”
“Oh?”Gu Yan looked at him curiously.
“They are generally not as powerful as I am.”Said Qin Yao with a straight face.
“……”Gu Yan was stunned for a moment,”Don’t you know how to be modest?”
“I’m just speaking the truth.”Qin Yao looked helpless.
Gu Yan waved his hand and put on a look as if he was saying ‘alright, you’re the most amazing’,”So turns out our Mr. Qin is a great expert. Oh, that’s right, how do you usually notice those monsters? Will they hide their ident.i.ties?”
“Yes, they look no different from humans when they’re disguising themselves, so you have to be careful.”Qin Yao told him seriously.
“If they’re no different from us, how would I find out?”Gu Yan raised a brow,”Or would you have any ways of differentiating these monsters from humans?”After saying that, he stared at Qin Yao with enthusiastic eyes, showing his interest in the topic.
Qin Yao paused for a moment,”Actually, they are not that hard to distinguish.”
Gu Yan put on an eager stance.
“Monsters are by nature different from humans, they are just pretending, they can’t live exactly like a human. Humans are their prey, and you come always find some differences in the way they act. And besides that, most of them possess very low amounts of intelligence and can’t control their urge to kill, it’s easy for them to be discovered.”Qin Yao continued,”Even if some of them conceal themselves better than the others, as long as they get into contact often with humans, small changes in their behaviour would eventually be noticed by those close to them. When you put all of this information together, and after a quick process of elimination from everything we know, you can still achieve very high accuracy in finding them this way.”
Gu Yan put on a look of amazement and looked at Qin Yao:”So unless they avoided humans completely and isolated themselves, these monsters won’t ever be able to escape your eyes?”
Qin Yao nodded, and in his heart he thought ‘I suspected you a lot too in the past’.
His intuition had always been very accurate, and this was the only time he had ever been wrong.
“Alright, I got it.”Gu Yan seems to have finally let this go,”Then, can you tell me about your heroic deeds? Don’t worry……I won’t tell anyone.”
…………………………
Both Gu Yan and Qin Yao chatted for a very long time before they finally went home.
Even though Qin Yao spoke very carefully, and did not reveal too much information, Gu Yan was still able to get a lot out of it. The goods news was, the number of human cultivators in this world was very limited, and those at Qin Yao’s level were even rarer. No wonder he always looked so peerless and lonely. The bad news was, the humans’ information network was even more powerful than he imagined. It was generally very difficult to avoid the eyes of the police if a demon was to live in human society. The best way to do about this was to lie low and change their appearance, as well as reducing the amount they interacted with humans as much as possible. They should temporarily stay down just for the sake of being able to stand proudly in this world in the future.
On that night, Gu Yan sent both Tong Tong and the plague demon back to Haiyun City, and gave them all proper orders.
The capital has always been a place ripe with mythical energies, and was not suitable for demons to move around in. But things were different in Haiyun City. After such a long time, he was gradually able to build up a foundation, and his preparations were also just about done. The h.e.l.lhound had been left behind in Haiyun City, so sending Tong Tong back this time was also to check if there was any progress, and to warn the other demons to be careful in their movements, it would not be good for them to be caught right at the critical moment.
After this was done, Gu Yan also prepared to return.
The next day, Xu Ming came over to apologize to Gu Yan, saying that he should not have talked to him in such a way. He had only done that because he had been too tense at that time……
Gu Yan had always been too lazy to even bicker with Xu Ming, since this human barely had enough brain cells to begin with. He was a very straightforward guy that did not do things with bad intentions, but he did not have much tact either. With someone of his character, he could handle some pretty general stuff, but he would not ever leave him with anything important. Fortunately, he had several other demons under his control now. They could continue on looking for other demons, so he should not have any lack of subordinates for now.
As for Xu Ming, this human would just be kept next to him as a mascot. With him, getting about in human society was more convenient.
During this time, Gu Yan attended one of the product launch conferences for the car he endorsed, then, he familiarized himself with the script before he quickly entered the shooting for the new movie.
Since the preliminary preparations had already been going on for a long time, they could start soon after Director Zou finalized the candidates.
Gu Yan was clearly having an easier time with his character this time around, and he had pretty much been acting out his true nature. His character was the great antagonist of this entire novel, the demon lord. He was both fierce and ruthless, for him, human lives were no different from the weeds on the ground. The story of the novel was very long, and it told a tale of how some gra.s.sroots teenager became the world’s number one sword cultivator, and finally defeated the villain to protect the world. Between that, side plots of friendship, love, and family could be found……sprinkling in several millions of words in here and there. But the movie would last only two hours. So, they had to shorten and condense the story. Considering how popular Gu Yan was right now, they added more scenes with the demon lord, so he still had a pretty big role in this movie.
There was no need for Gu Yan to do much of anything else either, his character only required him to look cool and handsome. This may sound easy, but it was actually pretty hard. Firstly, he had to have a high face value, and with that, he needed an impressive bearing. Gu Yan had both of these, and was simply a natural for this role. Playing the role of a demon lord was as easy to him as breathing, but in truth, he was even scarier in real life. At least this demon lord was still a human, and did not eat humans, right?
Gu Yan continued on his acting while he controlled the movements of his subordinates within Haiyun City with his phone. All in all, his days pa.s.sed by very pleasantly.
As Tong Tong cooperated with the h.e.l.lhound, they eventually found quite a lot of demons that have yet to be found out by the humans, and gathered them all up, reducing the frequency of their activities. The construction of the demonic array at the mountain villa was also going smoothly. As for the other demonic lands, he had things planned for them as well. After all, they were just there for support, it was not much trouble for him to arrange things in those areas.
Gu Yan was very satisfied with everything so far. After the shooting was done today, he left the studio and prepared to return to the hotel, only to find w.a.n.g Duo waiting in front of his car.
He had just taken a slow drag from his newly lit cigarette when he noticed that Gu Yan had come out. He spoke to him directly:”How about we try it out?”
Try? Gu Yan’s brows slowly knitted into a frown, and he scoffed.
Has he not cleaned this brat up enough? For him to dare to come looking for trouble. He had to make it clear that he had never once been afraid of a challenge that comes knocking at his door!