The Difference Between Ye Qing and Xu Xian

As spring turned to autumn, time always passed quickly, especially for creatures with long lives like Spirit Beasts. Ye Qing's Castle had gained a tiny bit more liveliness. During this time, the Nine-Section Jade he had named Xiao Qing came to understand what kind of being the Castle's master was. She had also come into contact with a realm she would never have reached in all her life—the Core Area of the Star Dou Great Forest.

It was now the depths of winter, and the Star Dou Great Forest was blanketed in white snow. Xiao Qing was resting in the quarters Ye Qing had prepared for her, still in human form. Thirty years had passed since she had stumbled into this place. By now, she roughly understood Ye Qing's preferences. She knew that he preferred her human appearance, so she simply maintained that form.

The hour hand of the clock Ye Qing had made slowly turned. Just as it was about to point at four, a paw appeared above Xiao Qing's head.

"Wake up!"

"Lord Ye Qing, Lord Qing Di, Brother Qing~ My true form is a snake. It's winter now. Snake Spirit Beasts are supposed to hibernate."

"Cut it out. What happened to your twenty thousand years of cultivation? You even absorbed that kind of energy. Hibernation has long had nothing to do with you. Besides, didn't you get through the previous twenty-nine winters just fine? It's time for morning training. After nearly thirty years, you still haven't made it a habit?"

"But the snow outside is so heavy. I don't want to go today." As she spoke, Xiao Qing shrank back under the covers.

"Get up." As Ye Qing spoke, he withdrew his paw and grabbed the blanket with his fleshy pads. Yet beneath the covers, where he could not see, a smile appeared at the corner of Xiao Qing's lips.

"You—" Ye Qing's words abruptly stopped after he lifted the blanket. Even his snow-white fur took on a pink tint, and he immediately turned around.

"Where are your clothes?! You're shouting about how cold it is, yet you didn't even put on any clothes!"

"Lord Qing Di, those clothes are made from Soul Power to begin with. We're Spirit Beasts, so it makes no difference whether we have them or not." As she spoke, Xiao Qing hugged Ye Qing from behind. In human form, she stood around 1.6 meters tall, while Ye Qing was less than a meter tall when standing upright. As a result, Ye Qing's ears experienced a different kind of sensation.

"You! Put your clothes on!"

Seeing Ye Qing like this, Xiao Qing stopped teasing him and formed clothes over her body again.

"My lord, you really are strange. When I'm in snake form, you don't mind even if I coil around you, and you even grab me and take me to morning training. But when I'm human, you react so strongly just from a touch. And Lord Qing Di, you're a Spirit Beast. Why do you view the bodies of humans like this?"

"How can that be the same?! Don't you know perfectly well what you used to touch my ears?"

"But I don't mind. If you want it, my lord, I can do it in either human form or snake form."

"Go, go, go. It's time, hurry up. If you don't want to move, turn into a snake like usual."

As she spoke, Xiao Qing transformed back into a Nine-Section Jade and coiled around Ye Qing's arm again. However, a trace of disappointment could be seen in her snake eyes.

Ye Qing's face was equally helpless. Over the years, he had stopped being completely ignorant about Spirit Beasts. There were quite a few cases of Spirit Beasts from different species falling in love. He could also tell what Xiao Qing had been deliberately or unintentionally expressing to him these past few years. After all, he was not some dense blockhead. Moreover, Xiao Qing was already over forty years old. Whether by human standards or Spirit Beast standards, she was an adult, and her cultivation had reached twenty thousand years.

But no matter what, Ye Qing could not accept anything happening before this body transformed into human form. Therefore, he straightforwardly pretended not to understand Xiao Qing's advances, because he knew Xiao Qing did not care about that sort of thing. Unfortunately, even if he wanted to be Xu Xian, he could not cross that line. This was his bottom line.

He admitted that, at first, he had only let Xiao Qing stay because he wanted one more permanent living creature besides the system. But he also admitted that he now had some different feelings toward her. Especially after Xiao Qing quickly discovered that he liked her human form, she had maintained it whenever possible. She had even suffered quite a bit to adapt to the habits of a human body. Yet after so many years, he still had not encountered the key figure mentioned by the system.

For some reason, Ye Qing felt that there was something wrong with his ears today. That earlier sensation seemed to still linger there. Thinking back on it now, Xiao Qing's human appearance was comparable to those impossibly perfect anime girls. Both her delicate features and her smooth, long blue-black hair suited his tastes perfectly.

The winter sun always rose late. Over the years, Ye Qing had also discovered the characteristics of this system. After completing its grand infrastructure project and maxing out all kinds of secondary professions, Self-Discipline No. 3 seemed to have transformed into Dorm Manager No. 3. As long as he did not stay cooped up in the Castle during the day or slack off outside, it would not interfere with whatever he did. Since Ye Qing was somewhat distracted today, he wandered to the outskirts of the forest.

From here, he could already see scattered soul-hunting teams appearing along the outer edge. Beyond that lay the human world. It was not that Ye Qing did not want to go; he simply did not want to cause trouble.

With his seven hundred thousand years of cultivation, he could basically run rampant as long as a level ninety-nine Peerless Douluo did not appear. Peerless Douluo were still exceedingly rare in this era, and aside from those who guided Deities, they essentially did not exist.

Ye Qing simply did not want to create needless slaughter. After all, he was still a Spirit Beast. If some fool set their sights on him and wanted to turn him into a Spirit Ring, that would be interesting. However, after looking at Xiao Qing and considering the rewards the system had issued based on this world, he came up with another idea.

"Xiao Qing, turn into a human. I want to test something."

"Here? It's not like I can't, but my lord, could we go home before doing it?"

"What are you thinking about? I have a task for you. Remember to make your clothes thicker, like those humans over there." As he spoke, Ye Qing pointed at a group of people heading into the forest.

After Xiao Qing transformed into a girl dressed for winter, a mysterious energy flowed from Ye Qing's paw into her body.

"Circulate your Soul Power and see."

After Xiao Qing circulated her Soul Power as Ye Qing instructed, five Spirit Rings—yellow, yellow, purple, purple, and black—actually appeared behind her.

"My lord, this is?" Xiao Qing looked at the Spirit Rings behind her in confusion.

"Just some camouflage, the kind even a Titled Douluo can't see through. You have more than twenty thousand years of cultivation. By human standards, you should be around level fifty-nine, a Spirit King." This was the reward Self-Discipline No. 3 had created based on actual circumstances: an ability that allowed Spirit Beasts to imitate human Spirit Masters. However, it was rather useless to Ye Qing.

Because it came with many restrictions. For example, only Spirit Beasts that had learned Shape Transformation could use it, which alone annoyed Ye Qing. It also matched a Spirit Beast's years of cultivation to a human level, while the simulated Spirit Rings had no Spirit Skills. They merely imitated the optimal arrangement for humans and would not produce attention-grabbing odd combinations, such as a hundred-thousand-year first Spirit Ring or every Spirit Ring being yellow.

"Then what do you want me to do, my lord?"

"I want you to go..."

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