"I don't need to be thanked." Ling Yun felt that saving him was just basic humanity. A humanity everyone around him lacked.
"Well, you certainly have your reasons," Gu Xuebing said with a smile. "So what do you want from me? Recompense for saving a dead man?"
"I was initially here to seek succour before leaving, but now I think I'll take Gu Luofan up on that offer for tea."
"Hm, I see," she said. "You've come to the right place. Take a seat, I'll make you some tea."
"See." Gu Luofan tapped Ling Yun's shoulder and pointed to the poisonous herbs in his master's hands. "Don't take her tea."
"They grow up so fast." She laughed. "Before you go, did you get what I asked?"
Gu Luofan handed her the Happy Fun Lotus before escorting Ling Yun into his room.
It was a threadbare place that looked nothing like the opulent facade displayed outside. A comfy bed sat untouched in the corner of the room. There were no windows but it had seemed that a small hole was punched through the wall.
"I don't have much, sorry."
"It's okay."
"Stay here, beneficiary. I'll prepare the items required for our chat."
The door closed with a soft squeak; giving Ling Yun privacy to search through the belongings of Gu Luofan. He had thrown his bag onto the floor, but Ling Yun was not stupid enough to sort through the myriad of poisonous items residing within, thus he turned his attention to the envelope stamped onto a tiny wooden stable with a knife.
Curiously enough, the seal on top of the flap remained unbroken, but the dust gathered around the paper parcel told the age with which it had remained as such. Ling Yun felt an itch in his hands. It really hurt to see something so confidential laid out in the open.
Looking elsewhere, Ling Yun inspected the hole in the wall. He peeked inside and found a slight glimmer. Poking his pinky finger inside, his skin made contact with a smooth conical item.
He snagged it and inched it out slowly, revealing its identity as a tiny glass conical flask. The wooden cork was puckered tight preventing the leakage of whatever transparent liquid was contained. 'I don't know why I expected anything else from an alchemist.'
"It was a gift from my father's little 'pet'." Gu Luofan swiped the flask out of his hand.
Ling Yun was shocked, but kept his face calm. He had heard the door squeak when it closed, and had expected it to squeak once more when it was opened. Unfortunately, there were no squeaks when Gu Luofan appeared beside him. "I didn't know you still received gifts."
"Oh believe me," Gu Luofan chuckled. "It's definitely a present from everyone, except you, maybe."
Ling Yun felt like there might be more to that sentence than he let on. "What? What's wrong with me?"
"You're... Ugh." He shook his head. "Let's sweep things under the rug."
Tucking the bottle into his pouch, Gu Luofan sat down on the floor. Ling Yun finally noticed that a tray was set on the floor with two cups of tea and two loaves of buttered bread. He couldn't help but silently ruminate on how light breakfast was in here and at home.
'Is it traditional to eat light for breakfast?' There was no way his master and Gu Luofan were poor. The former can be judged by the rich dinner he had with her last night, and the latter can be judged just by the appearance of the house he lived in.
The room was filled with the sounds of chewing as the two ate. A few minutes passed until Ling Yun broke the silence. "Sooo, why are you Feng Tian's rival?"
"I'm the only genius he is not allowed to kill directly," Gu Luofan said. "Why do you think there only exist two 3 Star Pugilists in this sect under twenty? It's not a hard realm to reach as long as you have the passion."
The poor fork in Ling Yun's hand suddenly felt an intense pressure squeezing down on it. Ling Yun really wanted to beat this dense genius. "..Then why am I still a 1 Star Pugilist after thirteen years of living."
"You are the exception."
Ling Yun coughed out tea at his honesty. Wiping his mouth dry with his sleeve, he then asked another question. "Why can't Feng Tian touch you?"
"Because I'm the only thing keeping the Blood Moon Cult from wiping out your people." Gu Luofan stared deep into Ling Yun's eyes before continuing. "My sect sent me under my teacher's tutelage in exchange for my teacher's first disciple. They killed her disciple on the first day. In return, they hoped to see my corpse sent back disarrayed."
Ling Yun could guess the rest of the story.
Gu Luofan's sect - the Blood Moon Cult - wanted him to die so that they had a reason to start a war. Of course, the sect patriarch was not a vegetarian and saw through this scheme immediately.
The sect patriarch refusal to allow Gu Xuebing to murder Gu Luofan for revenge, thus resulted in her current journey to poison the sect patriarch to death.
Since the sect master himself had stated that no one was to harm or kill Gu Luofan, no one dared to disobey - except for Gu Xuebing as a result of being doted on too much. She gave face to her senior brother by not outright killing Gu Luofan, but instead seeked his demise through other means such as traps, ambushes and monsters.
Thinking back to that sentence about the world giving him a present, Ling Yun had also guessed that that potion was probably poison so that the Blood Moon Cult could accuse the Whistling Thorn Sect for poisoning Gu Luofan to death.
Sadly for them, their plans were sent awry the moment Gu Luofan decided he wanted to live. Ling Yun was amazed. His pseudo-immortal existence had devalued the miracle of life. It was only now that he could see how even the death of a single person could lead to the destruction of countless lives.