"Get lost. Who said anything about having a good time with you?" Ning Zhongze flushed at Li Hao's outrageous words, though deep down, she was a little excited.
"I-I'm busy. I have to put Xiaoyun to bed. He's still little, and he can't sleep if I'm not there." Lin Shiyin immediately leaped away and ran off, escaping the reach of Li Hao's hands.
"Long Xiaoyun has Feifei with him. It'll be fine. If he doesn't behave, I'll have Li Hei hang him up until he does." Li Hao opened his arms, but ended up wrapping them around Ning Zhongze and Yi Lin instead.
"You two this afternoon..." Ning Zhongze's gaze kept darting between Lin Shiyin and Li Hao. Those two had definitely been up to something.
"No, nothing happened between us!" Lin Shiyin hurriedly jumped in to clear her name.
"The stars are so bright tonight, and the moon is as pale as Shiyin's belly... Heh, I let that slip." Li Hao awkwardly rubbed the back of his head.
"You..." Lin Shiyin was dumbfounded. Li Hao had definitely done that on purpose.
"Little sister Shiyin, we've all been through this before. There's no need to be embarrassed," Ning Zhongze said with a playful smile.
As expected, big sisters were the best. They knew how to treat a man right. Li Hao gave Ning Zhongze a mental thumbs-up.
"No, Xiaoyun is shy around strangers..."
"Mother, I want to go to sleep." Before Lin Shiyin could finish, Long Xiaoyun came running over. He'd been through too much today: he'd been robbed, beaten, and gravely wounded, nearly dying.
If he hadn't been such a little brat, he would probably have fallen apart long ago.
An ordinary person wouldn't be able to eat, play, and sleep like he could right now. It was unbelievable.
"There are tents over there. Just pick one and sleep in it," Li Hao said sternly.
That brat was always causing trouble. One of these days, when Lin Shiyin wasn't around, Li Hao would have to teach him a proper lesson.
"No, I want to sleep with my mother. I want to go home! There are so many mosquitoes out here in the middle of nowhere!" Long Xiaoyun started making a fuss.
"Are there mosquitoes?" Li Hao wondered. How come he hadn't seen a single one?
"What are you looking at? Once martial artists reach the Houtian Realm, their inner power protects them, and mosquitoes can't pierce their skin. Once they reach the Xiantian Realm, their bodies are protected by astral energy. A mosquito would be killed by the backlash the moment it touched them. How could any mosquitoes get near you?" Ning Zhongze said crossly.
She'd realized that Li Hao was just a grown-up child: willful, unpredictable, and lecherous to a fault. He was even harder to manage than a brat.
"So martial arts has perks like that too. No wonder those great heroes like staying in the wilderness, in caves, or up in trees and such. Tian Boguang abducted women and didn't stay at inns either; he went straight into the deep mountains and forests." After hearing Ning Zhongze's explanation, Li Hao finally understood. What she said made perfect sense to him.
"Young Master, Xiaoyun is still young. Please don't say things like that in front of him." Lin Shiyin looked a little embarrassed.
She wanted to take Long Xiaoyun to sleep in a tent, but it was pitch-black all around, and the tents were surrounded by rough-looking men. In short, she was afraid someone might sneak into her tent while she slept.
If it were Li Hao, she could reluctantly accept it. But if it were someone else... She didn't even want to think about it.
"It's fine. Children need proper guidance. When you roam the martial world, you're bound to get hurt sooner or later. You can eat anything in the martial world, but you can't afford to take a loss. If he's taught well, you'll be able to trust him when he ventures out into the world." Li Hao immediately went into mentor mode.
"If you let Li Hao teach Long Xiaoyun, in ten years the martial world will have another menace," Ning Zhongze said irritably.
Lin Shiyin deeply agreed with Ning Zhongze. Li Hao's way of dealing with people was far too unconventional. He did whatever he pleased and had no idea how to keep a low profile.
Take the Four Evils, for example. It would've been perfectly fine to hand Yue Laosan's body over to Duan Yanqing, but Li Hao had to charge him for it. Now he'd thoroughly antagonized the three remaining evildoers.
Speaking of the three remaining evildoers, would Yun Zhonghe sneak into her tent tonight? From Li Hao's conversation with Duan Yanqing, that great villain Duan Yanqing didn't seem like a good person either.
No, she absolutely couldn't sleep in a tent tonight. It was too dangerous.
"I want to go home! I want my own big bed! I want my blanket made of ice-silk! I want my jade pillow! I..."
"Thump!" Before he could finish, Li Hao flicked his hand. A cloud of white powder appeared around Long Xiaoyun's nose, and the boy promptly toppled face-first onto the ground.
"Xiaoyun! Xiaoyun, what's wrong?" Lin Shiyin was startled. She quickly picked him up, shaking him and calling his name.
"What did you do to him? He's just a child. Don't go too far," Ning Zhongze warned, rolling her eyes.
Li Hao was getting more and more unreliable. He'd even go after a child.
"Li Hao!" Lin Shiyin was truly angry this time. She didn't call him "Young Master" but used his name instead. It was probably the last bit of defiance she had left.
"What's the rush? I only gave him a little knockout powder. Don't worry, this is the finest knockout powder available. It improves the quality of your sleep and has no toxic side effects. It's an essential remedy for people with depression and insomnia. A dose of this knockout powder is worth at least ten taels of gold in the martial world." Li Hao pouted.
Did these women think he was some irredeemable demon? They didn't trust him at all.
"I know Li Hao's knockout powder. It really is top-notch, and it shouldn't have any effect on a child's health," Ning Zhongze said in his defense.
Knockout powder was really just a mixture of Chinese medicinal herbs, blended according to the principles of Traditional Chinese Medicine to produce a powder with sedative and anesthetic effects.
Aside from making people fall quickly into a deep, unconscious sleep, it didn't have much effect. And sprinkling a little water on the face of someone who'd inhaled knockout powder would wake them up.
"I..." Lin Shiyin wanted to curse, but she came from a scholarly family and had no idea how. She knew very few curse words.
"Alright, alright. Put him in a tent and have Li Hei look after him. There's only so much room in the carriage; there's no way that many people could sleep in it.
"Besides, Yun Zhonghe is probably nearby. I wouldn't feel comfortable letting you sleep outside." After saying this, Li Hao called Li Hei over and carried Long Xiaoyun away.
"Ladies, the night is young, and a moment of passion is worth a thousand gold. Let's head back to the carriage and turn in early!" After Li Hei carried Long Xiaoyun away, Li Hao gave the women a lecherous grin.
"You... You all go on ahead. It's a lovely night, and the stars are beautiful. I want to admire them for a while," Lin Shiyin said, her face bright red, flatly refusing.
Although Lin Shiyin and Li Hao had already done everything there was to do, and had almost no secrets from each other, she was still deeply reluctant to do something like this as a married woman who had read the Admonitions for Women.
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