Tenderness Before Parting, Plotting Against Bibi Dong

"You... what are you doing?!" Qian Renxue was both embarrassed and anxious. Her small fists pounded his shoulder as she said in a low voice, "There are so many people waiting for me outside! The convoy is ready!"

"Mm... you could at least... wash up first!" Catching the faint scent on him, she protested with flushed cheeks.

Zhao Linchuan ignored her protest. He merely lowered his head and deeply kissed her still-chattering lips, pouring all the sorrow and reluctance of parting into that scorching, lingering kiss.

After a long time, their lips finally parted.

Qian Renxue sat up, panting, and tidied up her rumpled combat outfit. Half embarrassed and half angry, she glared at Zhao Linchuan, her beautiful eyes nearly spitting fire.

"Zhao Linchuan! Why are you always like this?! You only know how to start a fire, but never how to put it out?!" She grabbed a pillow at her side and threw it at him irritably.

Zhao Linchuan neither dodged nor avoided it, allowing the pillow to strike him as he watched her vent with a faint smile.

Once her breathing had calmed somewhat, he dropped his teasing expression and said seriously, "Xue'er, you once said that your mother... hated you deeply?"

The anger on Qian Renxue's face vanished instantly, replaced by profound loneliness and confusion.

She slowly nodded and said in a low voice, "Mm... ever since I was little, the way she looked at me was always cold and... disgusted."

"I don't know why Mother treated me that way."

"She wishes she could kill me, but... but she seems very good to another woman." She meant Hu Liena.

Zhao Linchuan took her hand and looked at her calmly. "Xue'er, remember this: there is no love without reason in this world, and of course, there is no hatred without reason either."

"Especially a mother's hatred toward her own biological daughter. There must be an extremely deep reason hidden behind it."

He guided her thoughts. "Something unknown must have happened between you."

"Or rather, your family must have gone through an enormous upheaval around the time you were born."

Seeing the thoughtful look in Qian Renxue's eyes, he continued patiently, "After you return this time, find an opportunity to ask the elder in your family who knows the past best. For instance... your grandfather."

"Ask him what exactly happened back then."

"Why does your mother treat you this way?"

"Untying this knot may be crucial for both you and your mother."

Qian Renxue fell into thought and silently committed his words to heart.

Seeing that he had laid enough groundwork, Zhao Linchuan abruptly changed the subject, as though mentioning it casually. "Oh, right. Speaking of which, when I was younger, I seemed to have heard a rumor about your family..."

"What rumor?" Qian Renxue's attention was immediately drawn in.

"It was nothing much." Zhao Linchuan put on a relaxed act and deftly wove what he knew of Bibi Dong and Yu Xiaogang's old history into a hearsay version of the story, telling it to Qian Renxue. He even added his own comment at the end. "..."

"...Don't you think that sounds ridiculous? The dignified Saintess of Spirit Hall, held in such high status and blessed with peerless talent—how could she possibly fall for trash like Yu Xiaogang, someone with neither strength nor responsibility, who only knew how to prattle on about theories?"

"This rumor is far too absurd."

Qian Renxue immediately raised her brows in agreement. "Exactly! Where did you hear that nonsense? It's utterly ridiculous!"

Zhao Linchuan did not answer where he had heard it. Instead, he followed his own train of thought and continued in a speculative tone, "Still, nothing is absolute."

"If... and I mean if, there were truly a one-in-ten-thousand chance that such an absurd thing happened, could it be that... someone cast some vicious illusion-type Soul Skill on the Pope back then?"

"Or perhaps they used some special drug to control her mind?"

He looked at Qian Renxue and offered what seemed like a reasonable suggestion.

"How about this, Xue'er? Just in case, when you return this time, find an opportunity to secretly invite your grandfather to observe your mother's current condition with you?"

"If she truly is under some difficult-to-detect illusion or mental control, then with your grandfather's cultivation, he might be able to spot some clue. Perhaps... he might even find a way to free her from it?"

After hearing this, Qian Renxue remained silent for a long time, the expression on her face shifting constantly.

After a long time, she finally lifted her eyes. Her sharp, complicated gaze fixed tightly on Zhao Linchuan as she asked, word by word, "Linchuan... do you know something?"

"About my mother... and that Yu Xiaogang?"

At that moment, Zhao Linchuan stood up and gave a long stretch. He resumed his carefree, cynical manner and evasively said,

"I told you already, they're just hearsay rumors. You can't take them seriously."

"Xue'er, hurry up. So many people are waiting for you outside. Don't keep your clansmen waiting too long."

Qian Renxue lowered her head and looked at the faint stains Zhao Linchuan had rubbed onto her combat outfit. Blushing with anger, she gritted her teeth. "How am I supposed to go out and face people looking like this?!"

Without giving him a chance to refuse, she grabbed Zhao Linchuan's hand and dragged him toward the bathroom inside the room. "You're coming with me too! I'm going to properly check whether there really is something wrong with your body!"

"Every time, you only know how to light the fire, then leave me to deal with it!"

"Xue'er, there really are a lot of people waiting for you outside..." Zhao Linchuan tried to remind her.

"I don't care!" Qian Renxue now displayed the stubbornness and domineering nature of Spirit Hall's Young Master. "You have to come! The next time we meet... who knows when that will be..."

By the end, Qian Renxue's voice carried both a choked sob and forcefulness.

The bathroom door closed. Soon after, the patter of water began, concealing the warmth and ambiguity steadily rising within.

Time quietly passed amid the misty water vapor. No one knew how long it had been...

Much later, Qian Renxue knelt on the soft carpet spread across the bathroom floor. She looked up at Zhao Linchuan, her Purple Eyes hazy with tears as she let out muffled whimpers. "Mmm... mmm!!"

After quite a while, she finally pushed him away, panting delicately as she scolded him, "You bastard! Are you trying to kill your own woman?!"

"Wait... what are you... doing... My Soul Power is already exhausted..."