Maternal Aunt, He's Still Just a Child

After calming everyone down, Fourth Prince Chu Xuan'an finally left with a thick list in hand. Before departing, he shot Chu Xuanao a vicious glare.

Chu Xuanao merely wore an innocent expression.

"Sanniang, let's go."

With a wave of his hand, Chu Xuanao took Ghost Servant and the others and headed back to the mansion.

"Farewell, Your Highness."

Shen Sanniang and the others hurriedly saw them off.

Your Highness, please leave quickly!

Bitterness welled up in Shen Sanniang's heart. After all this commotion, Flower Gazing Pavilion truly could not endure it any longer. What was she, Shen Sanniang, supposed to do with these two princes?

Though one was not particularly favored, his status was there for all to see, and he had the Divine Kingdom at his back. There was no need to mention his foundation.

The other's mother consort was likewise from one of Jiangzhou's four great families. She had to show him respect on the surface, didn't she?

And he was a deeply favored prince as well, someone who had run wild and lawless since childhood.

When he first came to Flower Gazing Pavilion at eleven, not long after he had been taken away, Li Yi, the chief eunuch of the palace, had personally come to speak with Shen Sanniang.

What he represented went without saying. Who could she possibly reason with?

Let alone smashing Lijing Pavilion—even if these two smashed every pavilion in Flower Gazing Pavilion, Shen Sanniang would still have to keep smiling.

"Your Highness, are you all right?"

The moment they returned to the mansion, Qiuyue Shuangxue, Xiao Dezi, and the others noticed several wounds on Menban's body.

They hurriedly gathered around Chu Xuanao.

"Qiuyue, take several stalks of precious medicine, then fetch two bottles of secret medicine for Ghost Servant and Menban. They both fought others and are wounded.

"I'm fine. Don't worry."

"Yes."

After saying that, Qiuyue headed for the little treasury. Chu Xuanao was indeed unhurt, yet Shuangxue, that little girl, still supported him as they walked.

No sooner had he sat down than his Maternal Grandfather Bai Yi and Maternal Aunt Bai Feiyu entered.

Bai Yi spoke first:

"What happened? Yue Shan is covered in external injuries— even Ghost Servant was wounded."

Bai Yi knew Ghost Servant's strength well. These past days, he had not been idle either. Aside from training and instructing the people of Prince An's Mansion, he had sparred with several Ascension Realm experts.

With Ghost Servant's speed, no one beneath the Celestial Phenomenon Realm could stand shoulder to shoulder with him.

His leg techniques were peerless. In sparring alone, Bai Yi was no match for him. His moves and speed were simply too bizarre; one could not keep up with them at all.

For someone who had lost both arms to train to such a level, Bai Yi greatly admired him.

"At Flower Gazing Pavilion, I ran into my fourth brother. A Peak Ascension Realm expert from the Divine Kingdom made a move. As for Menban, he fought Black Chicken, a retainer of Prince An's Mansion.

"But they lost. Black Chicken is already dead."

As he spoke, Chu Xuanao took out the palm-sized cross-shaped weapon and Black Chicken's one-meter-long Spicy Pickled Chicken Claws.

Bai Yi's gaze fell upon that little cross. His tone carried a hint of teasing as he said:

"A spirit weapon. This style doesn't look like something from our side. The Divine Kingdom's people really came to deliver treasures."

It was no wonder Bai Yi thought so. Last time they had delivered money; this time they had delivered a weapon. Truly... well.

As for Ghost Servant and Yue Shan's injuries, they were minor. Not to mention that compared to this spirit weapon, even compared to that Famous Weapon, they had made a profit. Value-wise, it was more than worth it.

(It was like someone cutting your arm, putting on a bandage, then giving you a hundred million.)

Hearing his Maternal Grandfather say this, Chu Xuanao laughed as well.

"Maternal Grandfather, that's not wrong. Hahaha."

"Little Ao, can you control that little brat? Hurry up and send him far away."

With a resentful look on her face, Bai Feiyu began complaining to Chu Xuanao.

Seeing the resentment on his Maternal Aunt Bai Feiyu's face, Chu Xuanao nearly laughed.

Even his Maternal Aunt could look like this?

He recalled that when he was young, his Maternal Aunt had stayed in the palace for over two years. That period had been rather miserable for Chu Xuanao.

Because his Maternal Aunt had been bored in the palace back then, and aside from keeping his mother consort company, she took delight in teasing him every day. Her tricks were endless.

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Relying on her martial arts, she would carry him drifting this way and that. She would even find deserted places and toss him around for fun.

She had even roped in his mother consort. He was like a shuttlecock, flying back and forth.

His mother consort and Maternal Aunt would use true qi to isolate and wrap around him. As he flew through the air, he felt nothing at all.

They thought he knew nothing, but in truth, as he drifted through the air, he knew everything.

He could only occasionally use his crying to awaken their maternal instincts.

Sometimes his Maternal Aunt would even flick his little thing. He had only been two then.

Everyone knew that when children were very young, the adults, relatives, and friends in the family liked to amuse themselves by teasing them.

If he had been a real child, that would have been one thing—innocent of the world, knowing nothing, carefree and untroubled.

But he was not.

When he had first crossed over, he had stayed in a tiny room for several months before being born. He was not sure exactly how long; back then, he had loved sleeping too much.

He slept from dawn to dusk, with very little time spent awake.

He had been Reincarnated as a Fetus, carrying the life experience of nineteen years from his previous life.

He knew everything. His Maternal Aunt's antics had left him so embarrassed he had nearly been unable to face anyone.

There had been two people who loved pranking him most when he was little. One was his Maternal Aunt.

The other was his Imperial Father. Fine, look at him if you wanted to—but why did he have to pinch his little chick every single time?

So he used his high-pressure new pump to teach his Imperial Father a lesson.

He sprayed his Imperial Father right in the face.

As long as his Imperial Father dared to make a move, he dared to spray him. And who knew what was wrong with his Imperial Father? The more he got sprayed, the more fired up he became, as if the two of them had locked horns.

It went on nonstop for several months. Sometimes, right after he sprayed him, his Imperial Father would wash up and come right back out.

Pinching his little chick, he would stare at him with a smug expression, as though he were saying, "Out of stock now, aren't you?"

When he was born, his Imperial Father had not named him right away. It was only several months later, after he sprayed his Imperial Father in the face again, that his Imperial Father slowly uttered the character, "Ao."

That was how the name Chu Xuanao came to be.

[The naming of ancient princes was generally a matter of great significance. They were not necessarily named immediately after birth; there were precedents for this. For instance, Ming Taizong—also known as Emperor Chengzu—Zhu Di, was not formally named by Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang until he was seven years old.]

Xuan, meanwhile, was his generation character. By their generation, it had reached the Xuan character.

Just as his Imperial Father belonged to the Tian generation, these generations were now [Wen, Wu, Tian, Xuan].

That was generally the sequence, though there were exceptions. For example, his aunt and second elder sister possessed peerless talent and were known as the imperial clan's Unparalleled Twin Prides—heavenly prodigies, and delicate maidens besides.

The old ancestor had personally emerged from seclusion to bestow a name upon his Second Imperial Sister. It had not even been his Imperial Father's turn to name her.

He did not even rank high enough.

"Did you hear me? What are you laughing at?"

Seeing Chu Xuanao spacing out and grinning foolishly to himself, Bai Feiyu bristled like a startled kitten, her face full of embarrassed anger.

Chu Xuanao came back to himself and smiled at his Maternal Aunt.

"Maternal Aunt, he's still a child."

Bai Feiyu looked as though she were about to jump up, speaking with great exaggeration.

"A child? He's already a Great Grandmaster, and he's still a child? Then you, at the peak of the Innate Realm, want me to hold you like when you were little?"

Bai Feiyu was close to breaking down over that little brat.

Chu Xuanao knew very well that the little brat his Maternal Aunt referred to was Unparalleled.

After Unparalleled arrived at the prince's residence, he remained there, usually studying the sword path—reading this world's swordsmanship manuals in the residence's library, or sparring and practicing swordsmanship with the expert guards in the residence.

Naturally, to spar over the sword path, one had to seek out swordsmanship experts.

His Maternal Aunt was also a sword cultivator, with strength in the Manifestation Realm. Most of the time, Unparalleled practiced his swordsmanship with her.

As for why he did not seek out Menban, who was also a sword cultivator and even stronger—

Well, Unparalleled had gone looking for Menban too. But after Menban brought out the Mount Tai Sword and demonstrated a few moves, Unparalleled turned around and left.

When chatting with Chu Xuanao about Menban's sword, Unparalleled had also worn a look of utter disdain.

He bluntly declared that it was no proper sword art at all, utterly devoid of the bearing of the sword. It relied purely on brute force. And what Stacked Mountain Sword Art? It was clearly a sword-smashing art.

Besides that, the only swordsmanship expert left in his residence was Duan Tianya. But Chu Xuanao was about to depart for his fief, and Dragon Guard Manor's focus naturally had to shift more toward You Province. Its expansion and operations could not do without Zhu Wushi and the others, so they were seldom at the residence in ordinary times.

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