Long Aotian’s Beautiful Butler Has Run Away chapter 67

Chapter 67: Headlong Plunge

Rong Xie didn’t think much of it and said frankly, “It’s already very good that you could clean it like this. I was actually startled when I first came in.”

“Is… is that so?” Shen Yan said hesitantly. “Oh, I mean, you worked too hard before. You don’t need to do these things in the future. I—we will do them. Do you think… that’s okay?”

Rong Xie looked at Shen Yan strangely. For some reason, he always felt that Shen Yan was distracted, speaking to someone else, dithering with every sentence. This was very abnormal.

“It’s good that you have this intention, of course, but…” Rong Xie hesitated, feeling he should still point out Shen Yan’s sloppy work. Although it might cause Shen Yan some frustration, it would make him steadier in his work later. He turned around and pointed to the extra tuft of weeds at the blind corner between the steps and the flowers. “When trimming the lawn, you can’t just trim the front and ignore the places that are inconvenient or invisible. After all, the garden is for us to live in, not for others to see.”

“Mn… mn-hm.” Shen Yan agreed repeatedly.

“Also, the trimmed weeds can’t just be piled in the warehouse. If they catch fire, it would be disastrous. Besides, the warehouse door isn’t closed tightly. What if they blow out later? It looks like you trimmed the lawn on a whim and didn’t know what to do after finishing.” Rong Xie muttered as he walked. Reaching the warehouse door, he reached out and pushed it open. A warehouse full of weeds fluttered in the wind. Rong Xie was startled. “Woah!”

Shen Yan hurriedly took a step forward and slammed the door shut with a snap, preventing the tragedy of grass leaves spraying out just in time.

“How much… lawn did you trim?” Rong Xie asked in surprise.

“Um… well, we trimmed everywhere there was grass, inside and out.” Shen Yan bit the bullet and said. He muttered in a low voice, “It’s even worse inside.”

It was this sentence that made his body suddenly straighten up, as if an invisible hand had yanked his collar from behind.

Rong Xie happened to turn around and didn’t see Shen Yan’s strange movement. He walked quickly under the eaves and waved for Shen Yan. “Come look. Spiderwebs appear most easily in this corner between the eaves and the wall. Although spiderwebs don’t hinder our daily life, they are a reflection of a mental state after all. If the house is full of spiderwebs, how lazy must the owner be? And these mud spots…”

Shen Yan followed. Whatever Rong Xie said, he agreed with “mn-hm.”

Rong Xie sighed and looked at him apologetically. “When I recruited you, I didn’t expect to leave so soon. I haven’t had time to teach you many things. I can’t blame you…”

“Brother Rong.” Shen Yan’s eyes darkened. Just as he was about to say something, a lightning-fast golden light shot out from the middle gate, arriving between the two in a flash.

Shen Bingsi impatiently grabbed Rong Xie’s shoulders and blurted out, “Why are you leaving again!”

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Rong Xie was stunned. He didn’t expect to see Shen Bingsi so soon.

Shen Bingsi’s impatient temper was as usual. His handsome brows were tightly furrowed, and a pair of starry eyes with distinct black and white stared intently at Rong Xie. Although he was angry, he was still very good-looking. Having looked at him for so long since childhood, why couldn’t he get tired of looking?

Rong Xie got slightly distracted, his gaze landing on Shen Bingsi’s face, unwilling to look away for a long time.

Shen Bingsi’s impatient mood seemed to be interrupted by something. His brows relaxed, his breath softened, and the hands gripping Rong Xie’s shoulders turned into a loose hold. He looked away. “That’s right. You were the one who wanted to recruit Attendant Boys back then, and now you’re the one leaving them behind. Such a big Huanxue Villa, and they know nothing. Can you rest assured leaving it to them? With their lazy nature, there will be spiderwebs everywhere and weeds all over the ground within three months. Can you bear to see the villa you put so much effort into renovating be ruined like this?”

Shen Yan hesitated to speak beside them.

Rong Xie indeed hesitated. In the end, what he worried about most was this Huanxue Villa. The people in the Villa knew to eat when hungry and bathe when dirty, but the Villa couldn’t speak; he could only gamble on whether the people in the Villa would be diligent.

Shen Bingsi looked at Rong Xie anxiously. For the past ten days or so, he had been in this state. The “Blade of Severing Heavens” only solved the surface problem; it couldn’t solve the waves of anxiety surging from the bottom of his heart. This had exceeded Shen Bingsi’s control over emotions. In the Heartless Path’s mental cultivation method, the most basic rule was that emotions were like waves, coming and going quickly. Even if they came blotting out the sky and sun, as long as I remained immovable as a mountain, the waves would pass on their own.

However, doubt, anxiety, and all kinds of tormenting emotions didn’t pass. Instead, they became more intense with the passage of time. Shen Bingsi couldn’t sit still in the meditation room and had to come out and walk around the courtyard.

Walking around, Shen Bingsi discovered problems.

The Villa was clearly still the same Villa, yet everything looked wrong. The grass on the ground grew messily, the window paper became tattered, the long benches under the corridor were covered in dust, and the low trees in the courtyard became unspeakably strange, as if infected with some disease, leaves falling off one by one, leaving only withered branches. Countless small insects always flew in the air, rushing straight at people’s faces.

How was this a place for people to live? It was clearly a desolate village inn abandoned for a long time, a place Shen Bingsi would only go to when executing Sky Mirror missions!

Shen Bingsi waved his hand irritably. The small insects instantly turned into powder, but soon, the empty space was filled by new small insects.

Shen Bingsi released his protective spiritual energy, killing wherever he went, until all the small insects in the back courtyard were killed, and the low tree branches were also shaved to the ground. The situation in the courtyard was horrible to look at…

As a last resort, Shen Bingsi had to go to the front courtyard. The three little ones were eating quietly. Seeing him come, they all turned their heads holding their bowls, cheeks still moving.

“…Which of you has a Wood Spirit Root? Come with me!” Shen Bingsi asked impatiently.

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“…” Fang Renji silently put down his rice bowl and walked toward Shen Bingsi with his head hanging low.

Shen Yan and Long Shaoye looked at each other, both revealing a look of grief for their kind.

However, they didn’t grieve for long. Not long after, the two of them were also grabbed.

Under Shen Bingsi’s lead, the three little ones weeded and pruned, spending an afternoon renovating the bedroom courtyard.

However, besides the bedroom courtyard, there were other courtyards. The back courtyard was so big, and after finishing it, there was the front courtyard. He simply didn’t know how Rong Xie managed so much alone before.

Long Shaoye straightened his waist and sighed just this one sentence, only to be stared at by Shen Bingsi for a long time. For the rest of the time, he felt thorns in his back and dared not slack off in his work.

Finally, before the sun set, the bedroom courtyard was tidied up.

Shen Bingsi scrutinized it for a while, wondering what he was thinking. The three little ones waited tremblingly for him to speak. After a long while, they heard Shen Bingsi muttering to himself: “So the grass doesn’t grow flat by itself, and flower branches need pruning to prevent insects. Strange, where were the cut grass and branches put before? How come I’ve never seen them?”

Shen Yan and Long Shaoye exchanged a surprised look. Did the Grand Villa Master actually think Huanxue Villa was self-cleaning? He really hadn’t worried about these miscellaneous chores at all—or rather, Rong Xie hadn’t let him worry about these things at all.

“Never mind,” Shen Bingsi snapped his fingers. “Just go to the warehouse.”

Before Shen Yan and Long Shaoye could express their opinions, the weeds and withered branches piled in the corner disappeared with a poof. Brilliant golden light passed through the courtyard and house, disappearing into an empty room in the front courtyard. The door sprang open with a snap, the golden light landed, and the trash poured in all at once.

“Just like this. In case he comes back and asks, there’s an explanation.” Shen Bingsi was very satisfied with his disposal method. He had experienced making Rong Xie angry by littering. Facts proved that many things he saw as trash were daily necessities and treasures in Rong Xie’s eyes, like these weeds and withered branches… He didn’t know what they could be used for, but finding a place to put them away was definitely right!

Shen Yan and Long Shaoye looked at each other in dismay. They knew there was a ready-made disposal method for weeds, which was taking them to the pasture to feed the cattle and sheep, and withered branches could be thrown into the kitchen as firewood, but they dared not say it.

Shen Bingsi successfully organized a courtyard and felt he had mastered the secret of managing the Villa. Driving the three little ones to the front courtyard, he organized the back courtyard himself.

The Sheng Xie Sword flashed with golden light, weaving back and forth on the grass leaves like a swimming dragon. Leaf tips higher than a certain limit were cut off in unison, then wrapped by the sword wind into balls and rolled to the corners where they belonged.

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Shen Bingsi sat on the steps, hands propping up his upper lip, gazing deeply at the ancient divine sword swishing and cutting grass. Moonlight spilled into the courtyard, illuminating this bizarre scene.

His best friend once said that tidying the courtyard and room was like tidying one’s own heart.

Shen Bingsi didn’t know before. Only after trying it himself did he understand the gold content of this sentence.

When trimming the lawn, his heart would strangely quiet down. Watching the grass leaves become more regular and closer to the appearance in his impression with his simple operations, his anxiety was miraculously alleviated, and his thoughts became clearer bit by bit.

He discovered the crux of the problem.

Compared to the matter of Rong Xie liking him, he couldn’t stand Rong Xie leaving him even more.

When he found out Rong Xie liked him, he just felt very shocked and didn’t understand why his perfectly fine best friend had drilled into a dead end, becoming like those ordinary infatuated men and resentful women, insisting on using such a stupid and narrow emotion as “like” to describe their more noble and broad friendship.

At that time, he just didn’t understand, and was a little annoyed, a little angry from embarrassment at being backstabbed by the person he valued most, but definitely not as painful as in the Shen Family Manor’s back garden.

Pain, it was pain. When Rong Xie resolutely said that it wasn’t the Shen family forcing him to move his registration out, but that he wanted to move out himself, that he wanted to leave Huanxue Villa and move to Lanyuan… When he said those words, Shen Bingsi felt like he had been stabbed.

That feeling was very familiar—unable to move, strength draining rapidly, panic inciting anger, inciting the urge to crush everything.

In the Heartless Path tests set by the sect, Shen Bingsi had experienced that feeling countless times. Even the most heart-piercing memories were brought out and used repeatedly… But the incident in the garden was real.

Rong Xie really wanted to go, really wanted to leave him behind.

He threw their vow to be best friends for life to the back of his mind. Just because of that stupid thought, he wanted to leave him, and even sold the Lightning White Orchid he gave him!

Was he… so impatient to leave him?

He even quietly operated everything while he was in seclusion. If he hadn’t been called out by the Sky Mirror midway, he might have faced an empty Huanxue Villa after coming out of seclusion.

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Was this… what Rong Xie called “like”?

“Like” was truly a terrible thing. Hurtful words that couldn’t be said and hurtful things that couldn’t be done when being friends could all be said and done once it became “like.” Why “like”! Why must there be such a terrible emotion as “like” in the world!

Shen Bingsi said a lot of indiscriminate words, then ran away without looking back. Only he knew he didn’t run because of anger, but because he didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know how to face the possibility that Rong Xie would leave him. He could only run.

Flying on a sword when the Dao Heart was unstable had a direct result: before he flew a hundred miles, the Sheng Xie Sword took a headlong plunge downward, drawing a sharp turning arc never seen before, and planted itself straight up and down into the grass, smashing a big crater into the hillside.

Fortunately, Shen Bingsi’s protective spiritual power was still there. When he crawled out of the crater, his face was just a bit paler, his appearance a bit more wretched—simply put, looking like a ghost—and the small animals in the mountains scattered in fear of him.

…

It was also possible that those mountain mice scattering in all directions and night sparrows flying around in confusion were scared away by the sound of him grabbing the turf and howling like a ghost.

Anyway, returning to Huanxue Villa before dawn the next day, Shen Bingsi reverted to that extremely cool Heartless Path Adjudicator appearance. No one knew what had happened in the wilderness a thousand miles away.