Soul Fusion (1)

In Thirteenth Young Master Ye's room, after an unusual stretch of silence, someone finally broke the stillness first.

"Young Master, you're finally awake! I was so worried about you!" Tiger Girl's voice was full of delight, yet carried a trace of sobbing she had never shown before.

"Who are you?" Thirteenth Young Master stared at the four women holding him, utterly confused. At that moment, he seemed not to recognize these women who were so important to him.

"..."

"Young Master, don't you recognize us anymore?"

"Son, don't you remember?"

The four women immediately began questioning him and wanted to summon the royal physicians who lived there, to see what was going on and why Thirteenth Young Master seemed to have lost his memory. Could the electric shock have caused something to go wrong with his memory?

"You..."

Thirteenth Young Master looked at the four women, and felt a current course through his mind. Fragments of memories flashed across his brain...

"Ah!" Thirteenth Young Master clutched his head and let out a heart-rending cry of agony before fainting once more.

"Young Master, Young Master..."

"Son..."

"Little brother..."

"Ye Lang..."

The four voices rang out at once as they rushed toward him again.

Before long, the royal physicians arrived. After learning what had happened, they immediately began treating Thirteenth Young Master and tried to wake him.

This time, Thirteenth Young Master responded to the royal physicians' efforts. He slowly woke up and opened his eyes again. There was still a trace of confusion in his gaze, but it quickly vanished.

"You..." Thirteenth Young Master looked at Tiger Girl and the others.

"Young Master, don't force yourself to remember right now. If you don't remember us, then you don't. It's all right; you can remember slowly later," Tiger Girl immediately said, afraid that he would faint again and suffer that pain once more.

"You silly girl. How could I possibly forget you? I was just a little muddled earlier." Thirteenth Young Master smiled faintly, his tone very gentle. He still spoke as slowly as ever, but this time, that slowness felt different from before.

And not only that—Thirteenth Young Master himself seemed to feel a little different now.

"Then you remember us? You haven't lost your memory?" Tiger Girl asked on everyone's behalf.

"Of course I haven't lost my memory. You are my darling Tiger Girl. She is my eternally youthful, invincible mom. She is my sister who never acts properly. And she is the beautiful and gentle Seventh Princess." Thirteenth Young Master smiled as he pointed them out one by one.

At this moment, no one seemed to notice that the way Thirteenth Young Master addressed Seventh Princess had completely changed. He no longer called her his wife as he had before.

Everyone was too happy that Thirteenth Young Master had not lost his memory. For the moment, they overlooked everything else.

"That's wonderful! You scared me to death. I was so afraid you'd forget me, Young Master." Tiger Girl hugged Thirteenth Young Master, a trace of fear still lingering in her voice.

"What a silly girl. Even if I forgot everyone else, I still wouldn't forget you." Thirteenth Young Master said with a smile, though those words stung the other three women present.

"What did you say?!" Ye Lanyu and the other two immediately demanded, especially Ye Lanyu and Long Anqi, each of whom twisted one of Thirteenth Young Master's ears.

"You little bastard! You little rascal! I gave birth to you for nothing! I cherished you for nothing!" The two roared in unison, one on each side.

"Um, I was wrong! What I meant was, even if I forgot who I was, I still wouldn't forget any of you," Thirteenth Young Master hurriedly said.

"Hmph, we'll spare you!" the two said in unison again, then gently hugged Thirteenth Young Master. No one knew how they managed it—how could a thirteen-year-old boy be hugged by so many people at once?

"Ye Lang, do you still remember why you were going home?" After seeing that everyone had more or less calmed down, Seventh Princess asked curiously. It was also what everyone wanted to know.

"Uh, it was something stupid. I wanted to go back and tell Tiger Girl that I would be spending the night in your palace that day because there was a thunderstorm," Thirteenth Young Master said somewhat embarrassedly.

"..."

Silence fell. The people present did not know whether to laugh or cry. Since he could go back, there had been no need for him to stay there overnight. Only he could come up with such a foolish thing.

After a while, Tiger Girl asked, "Young Master, were you afraid I'd worry?" She could sense what lay behind it. After all, she had been with Thirteenth Young Master for so many years and understood fairly well what he was thinking.

"Yes." Thirteenth Young Master nodded and admitted it.

"Young Master... you really are stupid!" Though Tiger Girl said that, her heart was filled with boundless warmth. All the hardship she had endured before suddenly seemed not worth mentioning.

"Yes, I am stupid. I've probably done many foolish things in this life, but this foolish thing was the right one. Otherwise, I wouldn't have been struck by lightning, and I wouldn't have..." Thirteenth Young Master said with a smile, but he did not continue at the end.

Ye Lanyu said irritably, "You're happy about being struck by lightning? You really are an idiot... Huh, that's not right. Little brother, why do the things you're saying today sound so strange? They feel completely different from before."

"Yeah, I thought it felt strange too. There's something indescribable about what Little Lang says now. But what exactly is that feeling?" Long Anqi chimed in, equally puzzled.

"Mhm, I feel the same way," Seventh Princess said.

If it had been anyone else, they might not have noticed the change in Thirteenth Young Master. But these women who cared about him—even if they did not react at first—they would eventually notice that something was off.

"That's just your imagination. It has to be," Thirteenth Young Master said.

Tiger Girl looked at Thirteenth Young Master, then simply said, "Young Master has become smarter!"

That was right—this was the feeling. He used to love saying foolish things, but nothing he said today carried that foolish air. And would a fool say that he had done foolish things before?

"Little brother, did being struck by lightning knock some sense into you?" Ye Lanyu asked in great confusion as she felt Thirteenth Young Master's forehead.

"..." Thirteenth Young Master fell silent. What Ye Lanyu had said was indeed very close to the truth.

Thirteenth Young Master was Ye Lang, the lucky fellow who had discovered a treasury of martial arts in his despair, only to be terribly unlucky enough to be struck by a once-in-a-century meteor. He had been reduced to ashes on Earth, yet perhaps because of the powerful "last wish" he had held before death, he had truly become a powerful and influential prodigal son, forever squandering and forever ruining the family fortune.

Votes, votes...