The Overpowered Protagonist Doesn't Want to Work Hard Anymore

[Lazy cat bottom x Tsundere puppy top]

Xie Yanqiu had spent decades cultivating, only to be ambushed and killed on the eve of his ascension, his entire cultivation handed over to someone else.

Only as he closed his eyes did he learn that he was the chosen hero of a power-fantasy cultivation novel, destined to overcome countless trials, level up, and reach the pinnacle of life.

When he opened his eyes again, he had returned to the age of sixteen. Having suffered enough from cultivation, all he wanted in this new life was to lie flat and be a lazy fish.

To avoid the sect’s entrance selection, Xie Yanqiu deliberately ran into his nemesis from his previous life and tripped in front of him, grabbing his leg and refusing to let go.

“Pei Zhaolin, your leg ran into me. You’d better take responsibility.”

The youth in white frowned and struggled. “Trying to scam me? Dream on.”

But the tips of his ears had turned red.

*

After a whole lot of pestering, Xie Yanqiu moved in. On his very first day, he claimed the only bed in Pei Zhaolin’s immortal residence.

Pei Zhaolin slept on the floor beside him, sulking. “Watch out. I might climb into bed and assassinate you while you’re asleep.”

But in the middle of the night, he got up several times to tuck in the blankets around him.

Strange things often happened in the immortal residence after that.

Xie Yanqiu lounged beneath the covered walkway, directing Pei Zhaolin as he practiced his sword. The youth worked up a sweat while Xie Yanqiu munched on candied hawthorn and hummed a tune.

Xie Yanqiu drank, played around, and squandered spirit stones. When he lost them all, he simply curled up in Pei Zhaolin’s arms, using him as a pillow, then casually tried to swipe his new purse.

Pei Zhaolin called Xie Yanqiu “rotten wood, lazy cat, bad guy,” yet used magic to shield his swing from the rain on stormy nights, worried that he’d wake up and be unable to play.

Despite lying around without a care, Xie Yanqiu’s cultivation kept soaring.

Spirit energy flowed into his meridians as he munched on candied hawthorn. He grasped the secrets of a sword art while dozing over a book. He advanced one minor stage a month, and one major stage in half a year.

It drove Pei Zhaolin, who studied and practiced diligently, up the wall. He pinched Xie Yanqiu’s cheek and kept shouting that it wasn’t fair.

*

Xie Yanqiu had planned to stay a lazy fish forever, clinging to his good friend Pei Zhaolin and living a comfortable life.

But one day, as he reached beneath his pillow for spirit stones to go have fun, he found a shard: it was from the sword he had carried at his side in his previous life, the one destroyed by heavenly tribulation.

Pei Zhaolin had been reborn too! He remembered everything.

Terrified, Xie Yanqiu bundled up his bedding and fled in the middle of the night, only to have a sword block his way as he chewed on a cold steamed bun.

Pei Zhaolin grabbed his wrist and pinned him against a rock, his eyes dark and inscrutable. “Why are you running? When you said you liked me before, weren’t you afraid I was your nemesis?”

Xie Yanqiu stiffened his neck. “I... I was only trying to placate you. Scamming you so I could freeload was perfectly reasonable. It wasn’t because I liked you!”

“It’s fine if you don’t like me.”

“Want to freeload?” Pei Zhaolin smiled. “Then do it for the rest of your life.”

*

To outsiders, Pei Zhaolin and Xie Yanqiu were natural enemies, destined to fight to the death. Their years of childhood friendship seemed never to have existed.

But when Xie Yanqiu died unexpectedly, Pei Zhaolin spent decades exhausting himself to avenge him. Then, in front of Xie Yanqiu’s memorial tomb, he silently cut his own throat.

Only Pei Zhaolin knew how many years he had loved him. From the moment they first met, he had been captivated, and one glance had lasted a lifetime.

*

In his previous life, he spent his whole life chasing the moon, only to catch a fragment of its shattered light. In this life, before he could even go looking for it, the moon came running straight into his hands, radiant and lovely.

Reading Guide:

① Both are devoted only to each other, and their love is mutual. No swapping or reversing the pairing.

② A slice-of-life cultivation story, mostly about the top and bottom being affectionate with each other.

Theme: One lifetime is only enough to love one person