Qiu Yunru thought about this hard.

  An illness caused by a demon who had been offended long ago, affecting only the male heads of the family. If this was the case, then it wasn't so much an illness, as a curse.

  "Does it progress over time?" He asked, worried.

  Even if it wasn't terminal, if the illness grew worse over the course of this kid's life, that could pose problems. What if it grew worse quickly and then steadied out? If he took a huge dip in health now, his training would be greatly delayed, or even wholly prevented!

  Li Chenyuan shook his head. "It...doesn't get worse. I've always been like this. But..."

  "...What is it, Li-shidi?"

  Li Chenyuan looked increasingly uncomfortable. "All of the male heads of the Li household have died young for other reasons..."

  "All of them?"

  "Yes, for the past seven generations. None of their deaths have been related to the illness, but rather...they have been killed by their closest companions--usually their sworn brothers."

  All of them, for seven whole generations, centuries upon centuries, being killed by their sworn brothers?! It lined up with what had happened to Li Chenyuan's father, but Qiu Yunru hadn't thought to read so far back into this family's history.

  What a mess!

  "...Is this a part of the curse?"

  "I don't know," Li Chenyuan confessed. "My uncle destroyed the family texts on the illness and claimed he could beat it out of me."

  That bastard, Li Fengguang!

  Wasn't this the sort of logic a person who really just wanted to beat a child used in order to feel okay beating them? If he had really cared, he would have taken this kid to see a shaman or a cultivator!

  "...At what age does death normally occur?"

  "...Around thirty or earlier. Some in their mid-twenties."

  Qiu Yunru paced back and forth, deep in thought.

  This kid was seventeen now, almost eighteen. That meant he might only have seven years to live.

  Qiu Yunru felt a little guilty. Because this kid was already so far along in cultivation, he shouldn't have to worry about him dying before getting a golden core. But it wouldn't exactly make him a good person to leave the issue there and call it OK, would it?

  Plus, if he was going to train with and mentor this kid for a year, he would need to show that he cared in order to establish trust. So it simply wouldn't do to not try a little to find a solution, even if he wasn't going to crawl to the ends of the earth to save this kid.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  "All right," He said, turning to Li Chenyuan. "Let's look for a cure for you. I'll start researching tonight."

  Li Chenyuan's face went white again. "...Are you going to go and tell someone?"

  Qiu Yunru sighed. "No, I won't. But why is it that you're afraid of telling someone else?"

  A bead of sweat slid down Li Chenyuan's neck. He seemed to almost be sick again. "If Shizun finds out...if Shizun finds out, he might expel me. Though I don't know the nature of the curse, it still involves demons and that is unacceptable to a righteous sect. Also, I don't want anyone to know that I experience this kind of weakness. It makes me look...feeble."

  Ah--so it was both a fear of being an outcast, and some kind of fragile masculinity, was it? He didn't want to be seen as having any kind of weakness, for fear of being viewed as a pitiful creature and not a complete man.

  This was something Qiu Yunru had struggled a lot with in his past life in his younger years. He had used to try his hardest to hide any signs of illness. When he was feeling faint, he would lay his head on his desk and pretend to be sleeping, getting in trouble with the teacher until they realized he had truly passed out. When he had a migraine in gym class, he would act like there was nothing wrong at all until his ears began to rang and he could no longer see. When he was tired, he would rub under his eyes until they were red and rosy rather than purple.

  Eventually, however, he learned that hiding this kind of thing takes more energy than just allowing oneself to be sick. He received a few concussions from fainting during sports practices after refusing to sit down; he found himself crying in the bathroom after pretending his head didn't hurt for so long. It is scary to admit to being weak, but doing so is better for one's health than pretending to be strong.

  Qiu Yunru patted Li Chenyuan's back gently.

  "You really don't need to worry about being seen that way. In any case, if someone looks down on you because you have a weakness, they're a piece of shit."

  This was the first time he had cursed out loud to anyone at the sect. He immediately felt a little awkward and coughed into his fist, moving on quickly.

  "Anyways, let's begin some research. I also have a few connections at Fan Yao Peak because of the ingredients I deliver to them, so I might be able to help you. However...if you really do feel much worse eventually, we should tell someone."

  Li Chenyuan nodded. His expression was stoic, but his eyes shone in the sunlight. "Yes, shixiong."

  ______

  Late night, as Qiu Yunru sat alone in the library among piles of tomes and scrolls, he realized that the game menu had been rather quiet recently.

  Curiously, he opened the game menu and scrolled around.

  His had increased without notifications. Looking now, this was his standing:

  Cultivation Points: 1278

  Martial Points: 934

  Reputation Points: 687

  Now that he thought about it, the last time he had gotten a points notification had to be over a month ago! His points had been steadily increasing with each practice session, but he hadn't gotten one annoying REQUIRED LEVEL notice at practice at all for weeks now!

  "Hey," He muttered, poking around with the buttons. "What's going on here?"

  If only it was one of those Systems that spoke back to him! This whole game was based on AI--couldn't the world spare one AI braincell to respond to his prompts? Ah...

  As usual, there was no response. However, he found a notification he must have missed in his backlog:

  ANNOUNCEMENT! Minor game menu update! From now on, point increases will not be noted unless they are greater than 500 points at a time! We hope to allow for more ~relationship development~ by removing distractions. Good luck! ^.^

  Qiu Yunru stared at this for a moment, utterly dumbfounded.

  Relationship development? Surely it couldn't be referring to a romantic relationship. After all, those kinds of things were strictly coded out of the game!

  Was it that the game was telling him he had no friends and needed to get some?

  Either way, what an utterly useless announcement!

  Grumpily, Qiu Yunru closed it and massaged his temples. Of course he was the kind of person who would experience this as his second life. What exactly had he done in the past to deserve such an incompetent overseer?!