Qinglin's Service

"Young Master Xiao Han! Wh-what are you doing? Why are you so filthy... You look... you look like..."

The girl stared at Xiao Han, who reeked to high heaven. Pinching her nose and wearing a look of disgust, she looked at her young master, standing naked beside the latrine. She could guess what had happened, but she just couldn't bring herself to say it.

"Like I fell into a latrine, you mean?"

Xiao Han rolled his eyes and finished her sentence, then pulled his pants back up.

"Hmph! You... You know it, then."

The girl hurriedly shut the door and locked it to make sure no one else could come in. Then, as if she'd done this countless times before, she ran to the well in the courtyard, rolled up her sleeves, drew a bucket of water, and splashed it forcefully over Xiao Han.

It washed away most of the oils and impurities that had seeped through Xiao Han's pores during the marrow cleansing and bone refining, though plenty of "stubborn holdouts" still clung to him.

The pretty girl who had pushed the door open was Qinglin, the child of a snake-human and a human woman. In the original timeline, the people of the Snake-People Tribe had taken an interest in her and raised her with great care.

As for why she had appeared in the Xiao family, and how she had become Xiao Han's personal maid, that was a long story.

"Young Master, what are you doing? Why are you so filthy?" Qinglin drew another bucket of water, ran to her room to fetch the brush she used for bathing, then carried the bucket over to Xiao Han and scrubbed him as she always did.

Facing the girl's reproachful tone, Xiao Han smiled faintly. "Your young master came across a great opportunity today. All this filth is the result of that opportunity."

"Don't lie to Qinglin just because she's young, Young Master. Qinglin's never heard of any opportunity that makes you stink like this." Though her words were full of disgust, Qinglin wore a gentle smile as she carefully scrubbed the dirt from Xiao Han.

"Heh, you really are an ignorant little girl. Thanks to the spiritual treasure I happened upon today, my entire body has undergone a cleansing of the meridians and marrow. My future path of cultivation will be smooth sailing."

Xiao Han stretched, his body still uncomfortable after the marrow cleansing and bone refining. His pants slipped down again, leaving him face-to-face with Qinglin, who had crouched to clean his lower half.

"Uh... Your pants fell down."

"Ah—Young Master Xiao Han, down there..."

Xiao Han saw that his pants had fallen and was about to bend his knee and reach down to pull them up. But the next moment, Qinglin's soft hand caught his.

"Qinglin, what are you..."

Xiao Han froze, only to see Qinglin looking at him with a determined gaze.

"Young Master Xiao Han, Qinglin isn't a child anymore. Let me do it." Though terribly embarrassed, Qinglin had received some training as a maid in the Xiao family.

Xiao Han had always treated her with great care and had never forced her to do anything she didn't want to. But Qinglin knew all too well that being a personal maid came with certain intimate duties.

What's more, when she had helped Xiao Han bathe and change before, he had always worn a pair of shorts to cover that part of him. But Qinglin knew that a personal maid was supposed to wash even that area!

Xiao Han had never let Qinglin touch him there before. Now that she finally had the chance, how could she let him get away?

The girl's small hand trembled as she picked up the soft brush.

Xiao Han knew that this world was different from the one he'd come from, and its customs were more like those of ancient China. But he'd never been able to accept letting a little girl wash him down there. They simply saw things differently: in Qinglin's eyes, as his maid, his refusals were a sign that he was keeping her at a distance.

So every time Xiao Han refused, Qinglin felt disappointed and hurt.

Now that she'd seen him by accident, and was so determined about it, Xiao Han finally let go of his misgivings. Fine. Let her do as she wishes.

As he stood in the courtyard and let his adorable little maid scrub him clean, Xiao Han's thoughts drifted back to a year ago...

A year ago, when Xiao Han was thirteen and had just reached the eighth stage of Dou Qi, he'd asked to travel with the family caravan. His uncle Xiao Zhan had agreed to the request from this rising star of the family and let him join a caravan heading to Stone Desert City, in the great Tagor Desert.

After a long journey, Xiao Han finally saw his cousins Xiao Ding and Xiao Li in Stone Desert City. He hadn't seen them in two years.

After Xiao Yan lost his cultivation, Xiao Han had been one of the few members of the Xiao family who continued to treat him as warmly as before. So Xiao Ding and Xiao Li, Xiao Yan's older brothers, had a great deal of affection for Xiao Han.

When the three cousins met, Xiao Han first told the brothers about Xiao Yan's difficult situation in the family, the family members who mocked him, and even the way some of them bullied him. Xiao Ding and Xiao Li were furious yet helpless, and could only ask Xiao Han to look after their third brother.

After all, as a rising star of the family, Xiao Han had earned the trust of many members of the Xiao family and held considerable influence among the younger generation.

That night, while Xiao Han was out for a stroll, he happened upon a ragged little girl who had accidentally bumped into a member of the Sand-Iron Mercenary Corps out on patrol and was being beaten and scolded. She was Qinglin.

Xiao Han had heard that near the Tagor Desert, human women were sometimes violated by snake-people. Ordinarily, such things went...

When humans and snake-people had relations, the women generally didn't get pregnant. But nothing was absolute; there was always a tiny chance that a woman who had been with a snake-person would conceive and give birth...

The mercenaries on the desert's edge all bore deep, lasting grudges against the snake-people. Whenever they thought of the filthy snake-person blood flowing through the little girl before them, they couldn't help showing their disgust.

There was almost nothing that could suppress this feeling. It was the revulsion born of the long-standing hostility between humans and snake-people.

Qinglin, who carried the blood of both humans and snake-people, suffered the discrimination and disgust of both sides. She was an utterly innocent girl.

People like Qinglin were regarded as a curse by both humans and snake-people. She had managed to live this long, but aside from enduring more scorn and ridicule, she seemed to have gained nothing else...

Seeing Qinglin kneeling on the ground, clutching her little head, her face full of fear and helplessness, stirred Xiao Han's compassion.

So, using his status as the younger brother of the Sand-Iron Mercenary Corps' leader, he stepped in and saved Qinglin. He took her to buy a few sets of clothes, then brought her back to the mercenary corps and let her wash up on her own.

After Qinglin had washed and changed into a brand-new blue gauze dress, and tidied herself up a little, she went from a dirty little beggar to a pretty, adorable little girl who made people want to cherish her.

Then Xiao Han asked the kitchen staff to prepare a few portions of food, including roasted meat, and bring them to his room so the timid little girl could eat her fill.

Qinglin, who had always been discriminated against, beaten, scolded, and despised by everyone, could never have dreamed that she would have a day like this.

She had never felt such warmth or been treated with such gentle kindness. After finishing two portions of carefully roasted desert meat, she couldn't help bursting into tears.

Am I dreaming? If this is a dream, I hope I never wake up.

"If you have nowhere else to go, why not become my personal maid?"

After Qinglin had finally eaten her fill, Xiao Han asked her to stay by his side as his personal maid. The little girl, who had never dared to hope for much, opened her eyes wide in disbelief.

"Someone as lowly as me, a half-human, half-snake monster... can become Young Master Xiao Han's maid?"

Faced with Qinglin's pitiful self-doubt, Xiao Han gently rubbed her little head. "Lowly? No bloodline is lowly. It's just that humans and the Snake-People Tribe can't let go of their feud, so they've burdened an innocent girl with all their resentment.

"If anyone openly discriminates against you or bullies you from now on, I'll kill them.

"As for status, no one is born lowly or noble."

"Qinglin, don't pay too much attention to what other people think. Just remember: you don't live for anyone else. You live for yourself!"

"Thank you, Young Master Xiao Han..."

Hearing his words, Qinglin stood frozen, tears welling in her eyes.

Then, after kneeling and kowtowing three times, she lifted her head and looked at the handsome young man before her.

This is the person I'll serve for the rest of my life.

A strange light flickered across Qinglin's delicate, pretty face, and the corners of her lips curved up. She was still only a budding beauty, but it was already clear she would become breathtakingly beautiful.

She gave a delicate sniff, and three tiny green dots silently appeared in the emerald-green pupils of her eyes.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

What strange, bewitching eyes!

The moment his gaze met Qinglin's, Xiao Han's mind went blank for an instant.

As if something had jolted him, Xiao Han lost focus for a brief moment, despite his powerful soul, when he met those strange, green eyes.

They're already this extraordinary before they've even been activated. Is this the power of the Dou Qi Continent's number-one strange eyes, the Three Jade-Green Snake Flowers Eyes?

After experiencing the power of the Three Jade-Green Snake Flowers Eyes firsthand, Xiao Han secretly rejoiced.

He had helped the poor little girl partly out of genuine compassion, but more than that, he had wanted to recruit this adorable girl, who would one day reach the Dou Saint level, as one of his own.

Now that he'd achieved his goal, Xiao Han had no desire to stay in the Tagor Desert any longer.

As for why he didn't go check out the Azure Lotus Core Flame?

Come on! A man had to know his limits. As an amateur with just eight stages of Dou Qi, he'd better not go looking to get himself killed.

And so Xiao Han brought Qinglin back to the Xiao family.

Far from the Tagor Desert, the people of Wutan City didn't have the deep, bitter hatred for the snake-people that the desert mercenaries did. So even after learning that Qinglin was of mixed human and snake-person blood, they felt no rejection or distance toward her.

On the contrary, with her pretty, charming face, Qinglin became quite popular in the Xiao family and even throughout Wutan City. After all, an adorable little girl as beautiful as her was loved wherever she went.

But no matter how much the handsome young men around her tried to win her favor, Qinglin's heart still belonged to the Young Master Xiao Han who had saved her when she was being beaten.

There's only room for one person in the most important place in my heart...