"Alright." Zhen Yuan said.
"Alright?" Shen Xu was prepared for a long fight and couldn't react when the person readily agreed.
"You can swear."
"Okay, good."
At that, Shen Xu took a moment to arrange his thoughts. He had to make sure not to include his specific alchemy mastery in the oath wording. Otherwise, lightning would descend from the heavens and obliterate him.
"I am ready when you are." Zhen Yuan urged.
Unknowingly, his lips twitched with amusement, and he couldn't wait to hear how the young double would phrase his oath.
After thinking about it for a while, Shen Xu puffed his chest and looked at Zhen Yuan with eyes full of innocence.
"I swear by the heavens that I am an alchemist who can cook and brew wine. If my words are untrue, let lightning descend from the heavens and obliterate my soul." He swore.
"Is that it?"
"Did I forget something?"
Zhen Yuan looked at the person and didn't demolish his stage.
'Forget it. It's enough that he is an alchemist.' He thought and sighed.
"My name is Zhen Yuan." He said.
"Mine is Shen Xu."
After introducing themselves, the two looked at each other. They blatantly took in the other's features, and neither was embarrassed by their bold behaviour.
"Shall we get married right away?" Shen Xu suddenly asked.
As long as he wasn't married, he felt uneasy.
He worried the book plot would react quickly and forcibly bring the protagonist to his location.
If that happened, his heart would be hooked, and he would never have a chance to turn over.
When he thought of that, Shen Xu's heart filled with urgency.
He wanted to get married as soon as possible and never give the protagonist a chance to attract him.
"If we marry, we must marry for a lifetime." Zhen Yuan said.
Although he didn't love the person in front of him, he didn't want to enter a marriage with one foot out.
In his mind, the beginning of their marriage didn't matter. What mattered was how he and Shen Xu would treat each other in the future.
If they exchanged sincerity for sincerity, their marriage would last, and love would grow naturally.
"A lifetime…" Shen Xu shuddered.
He was afraid.
In his previous life, a lifetime was a few decades at most.
However, things were different in the book world.
If they cultivated well and encountered no accidents, a lifetime was the lifespan of heaven and earth.
A lifetime was unimaginably long, and the thought of spending it with one person was scary.
It wasn't because he was promiscuous and wanted multiple partners, it was because he didn't know the person in front of him.
He didn't love him, and committing to a lifetime under such circumstances was extremely scary.
"I…" He started but couldn't continue.
The look in Zhen Yuan's eyes told him that the other would not compromise.
'What do I do?' Shen Xu panicked.
His hands trembled, and his heart beat faster.
"I…"
Zhen Yuan sighed, and his eyes softened.
"I am not willing to do anything with half a heart. If I can't do it with all my heart, I would rather not do it." He said.
Shen Xu panicked a little more when he heard that.
In his previous life, cooking was the only thing he had ever done with all his heart. He excelled in it and was named one of the world's best chefs at a young age.
"You can think about it while your injuries heal." Zhen Yuan said and placed something on the bed.
Shen Xu did not say anything and did not look up until he heard the door close behind Zhen Yuan.
'He is scary.' He thought and sighed.
Shen Xu was used to cruising through life.
He had many friends and a lot of things he liked. However, he wasn't attached to anyone or anything.
What Zhen Yuan suggested was a never-ending attachment.
Even with the threat of the book plot and the protagonist, Shen Xu couldn't carelessly take such a big leap of faith.
With a sigh, he looked at what Zhen Yuan placed beside him.
'Pouch?' He wondered and then remembered that this kind of pouch was called a storage bag.
From the original owner's memories, he learned how to use the storage bag, and quickly checked the contents.
"Two top-grade healing pills and one thousand spirit stones. He wants my clothes as compensation, but he still gave me a lot of resources." Shen Xu muttered, and a smile curled his lips.
'I will heal my injuries first and then think about things.'
With that, Shen Xu sat cross-legged and closed his eyes.
He used his consciousness to check his injuries and was relieved when he saw that most had already healed.
After taking one more healing pill, the remaining injuries would heal completely.
Without delay, Shen Xu swallowed the healing pill and began to refine it using the method in his memory.
This refining lasted two hours, and Shen Xu sighed in relief when he examined his body.
'I am finally healed.' He thought happily.
He was just about to open his eyes when he noticed something floating in his sea of consciousness.
'What's that?' He wondered and focused on the item.
When he looked closely, he saw the thing was a red pearl.
'Why is it here?' Shen Xu was flabbergasted.
When he was young, Shen Xu liked following his mother as she planted vegetables in their backyard.
At one of those times, his mother dug out a red pearl from the ground and seeing that he liked it, she gave it to him.
This was the last thing she gave him before her death, and Shen Xu cherished it. Even after he grew up, he carried it with him and only put it down when he went to shower.
Unexpectedly, it entered his sea of consciousness and followed him to transmigrate into the book!
With a thought, his consciousness touched the red pearl, and Shen Xu disappeared from Zhen Yuan's hut.
"Is my red pearl the legendary space?" He muttered excitedly.
Now that he thought about it, even cannon fodder characters received a golden finger when they transmigrated into a book.
Although his character was only a stepping stone for the protagonist, he was the kind of stepping stone that survived to the last page of the book.
It made sense to receive a portable space as a golden finger.
When he thought that he now had a space, Shen Xu laughed out loud. He laughed for a long time before he calmed down.
"I have to study the space first." He mumbled and began to look around.
At a glance, the space was the kind of legendary planting space read about in novels.
It had one thousand acres of red soil, a lake of spiritual water, and the necessary bamboo hut.
The hut had two floors and a total of eight rooms.
Other than the bedroom, sitting room, kitchen, and bathroom, it had an alchemy room, library, training room, and storage room.
In the alchemy room, there was a pill furnace placed at the centre of the room and a shelf with thousands of empty pill bottles.
Unfortunately, there was no pill fire, but Shen Xu wasn't too disappointed. He was already satisfied with the pill furnace and bottles.
After leaving the alchemy room, Shen Xu entered the storage room.
This room had shelves on every wall, and each shelf had hundreds of jade boxes.
"Could it be pills?" Shen Xu wondered and walked to the nearest shelf.
He took one of the jade boxes and opened it.
"Seeds." He exclaimed when he saw what was inside.
In his current situation, Shen Xu needed seeds more than he wanted pills.
With these seeds, he could grow spirit grass and practice alchemy before Zhen Yuan discovered that he didn't know how to refine pills.
"The heavens sent me a pillow just when I was about to fall asleep." He muttered happily.
He looked at a few more boxes and saw that all contained seeds.
Unfortunately, Shen Xu was a beginner and didn't know what kind of herbs would grow from the seeds.
"I need to learn more about herbs and seeds." He mumbled as he left the storage room.
The original Shen Xu knew some herbs, but not many. The reason was not because he wasn't diligent but because he wasn't allowed to learn.
From the original owner's memories, Shen Xu knew that the original owner was an adopted child.
His adoptive parent was his maternal aunt, and the aunt treated him very well.
Unfortunately, the aunt and her husband were short-lived, and the rest of the family could not tolerate the original owner.
'It's a mess.' Shen Xu thought and sighed.
The book did not explore the original owner's background, so Shen Xu was at a loss about his true origins.
However, he thought this was for the best.
In this way, he didn't need to feel guilty when he faced the parents of the original owner.
The only thing that worried him was that his actions would change the plot, and he would one day have to face the parents of the original owner.