A Peaceful Reunion

It proved that Xiao Qing had been right. Both the scent traces she had caught and her instincts had been accurate. Still, she found nothing strange about it. Aside from a few exceptionally monogamous Spirit Beast races and certain matriarchal clans, most Spirit Beast races granted mating rights only to the strongest. As one of the foremost kings of the Star Dou Great Forest, Ye Qing having more than one partner was something she had understood long ago. Even so, she had been the first to come out—not only to show how much she had missed Ye Qing, but also to send a message: I was the first to arrive.

"Brother Qing! You're finally back!" After coming outside, Xiao Qing ran in the direction the scent was coming from. The moment she spotted Ye Qing, she leaped into the air and threw herself into his arms. With a snake's natural talent, she wrapped herself tightly around him and greedily breathed in his unique scent.

"I'm back, I'm back. It's only been a little over a year. Didn't we get through the previous few hundred years just fine?" Ye Qing had gradually grown accustomed to the time perception of long-lived species. To Spirit Beasts with extraordinarily long lives, a year was not much different from a day in human eyes.

"That's different. Are these two new sisters?"

Though she did not resist the idea and had long since noticed the unusual scents, Xiao Qing still whispered into Ye Qing's ear. But at that distance, the volume made no difference to the Ice Empress and Snow Empress. Xiao Qing's words reached their ears with perfect clarity. Snow Empress remained as expressionless as ever, though her cheeks seemed to flush slightly for an instant. Ice Empress, on the other hand, bristled.

"What nonsense are you spouting? Snow Empress and I would never have anything to do with this guy!"

"Then why are you blushing?"

"I... I'm simply full of vigor." Only after Xiao Qing pointed it out did Ye Qing realize that this proud little scorpion's face was now the same color as a boiled crab.

"Don't tell me you got heatstroke like Gang Zong?"

"Ah! How could I possibly be like that pig?!" Ice Empress jumped up, trying to use the Friendship Face-Breaking Fist, but Ye Qing pressed one hand atop her head, making it impossible for her to jump any higher. In truth, what had just appeared in her mind was an image of Ye Qing pinning her down and beating her. She had no idea why she had thought of that, which was why her expression had changed.

She had not realized it herself, but her attitude toward Ye Qing was entirely different from her attitude toward other Spirit Beasts. Her upbringing had been unusual to begin with. The freezing Extreme North was sparsely inhabited, and as Spirit Beasts accumulated years of cultivation, their intelligence gradually increased. As their intelligence grew, Spirit Beasts instinctively sought out others to learn from. Even someone as powerful as Di Tian had once traveled the entire planet and infiltrated human cities. Xiao Wu, Xiao Qing, and the other Spirit Beasts whose intelligence had improved were more or less learning from Ye Qing.

But Ice Empress's intelligence had developed incredibly quickly, while the Extreme North had very few highly cultivated Spirit Beasts. The only one stronger than her was Snow Empress, who had been born from heaven and earth. Snow Empress had taken far longer than Ice Empress to develop sentience.

In terms of leaps in thought, Snow Empress could not compare to Ice Empress at all. Thus, Ice Empress's personality was entirely shaped by who she had been in childhood—she never left herself a way out, and even if she slammed into a wall, she would never turn back. She believed that the strong ruled.

Yet compared to the other Super Spirit Beasts, she was like a child, the most immature among them. Her overly abundant emotions had made her think she was in love with Snow Empress. In truth, that had been inevitable. Back when the Titan Snow Demon King was still weak, the two of them were the only Super Spirit Beasts in the Extreme North. The strong naturally sought equals to communicate with; their relationship would either be bitterly hostile or intimately close. It was just that Snow Empress only saw her as a close friend.

Then Ye Qing appeared, the first male stronger than her. Although he had crushed her in battle several times and punished her afterward, she still never stopped provoking him. She did not know why. It seemed that whenever she saw Ye Qing, part of her rationality fell apart. Ye Qing's thinking was perfectly normal as well. Would you truly get angry because a beautiful, sweet-voiced, tsundere little girl kept punching you with fists that could not hurt you at all?

Of course not. Ye Qing even enjoyed seeing Ice Empress helplessly grit her teeth and rage impotently. Besides, she really did feel great to the touch.

"Brother Qing, this little sister is pretty interesting."

"You're the little sister! I have two hundred and ninety-nine thousand years of cultivation! You don't even have twenty-nine thousand years of cultivation. When I became an emperor, you hadn't even been born yet!"

"But I look older than you. You look about the same age as that little rabbit my family has had for several hundred years."

"My cultivation is higher than yours!"

"But I look older than you."

"I've lived far longer than you!"

"But I look older than you."

"..."

That sentence seemed to strike right at her weak point. Even Ice Empress herself did not understand why her body looked like this.

"Ahem, enough already. Don't hang your head, either. As they say, lolis have three great virtues... Forget it, never mind. I'll go find rooms for you all."

"Explain what a loli is." Her instincts and the past year of experience told her that Ye Qing's expression was definitely not a good one. As the saying went, the person who understood you best was not your friend, but your enemy. As Ye Qing's quarrelsome rival, she understood him even better.

"I was complimenting you. Legal ones like you were rare in the past."

"Legal? Looks like that author in your mouth still hasn't returned to normal."

"Brother Qing, my waist is no less supple."

"...Do you even know what I meant? Did you sneak into my study again? Tell me, what strange thing did you read this time?" Over the past year, if anything in that study was even remotely odd, Xiao Qing might have stumbled upon it. As he spoke, Ye Qing seemed to notice a book tucked around Xiao Qing's waist.

"Self-Cultivation of a Contrarian? There's even something like that? So that's where you learned what you just did?"

"It says that no matter what the other person says, as long as you keep clinging to the one point where you are guaranteed to win, you can become the victor... I think it makes a lot of sense."

But when Ye Qing returned to the Castle, he discovered that his home had changed greatly.

"Who are all these people...?" Ye Qing had thought bringing several people back this time was already unusual. He had not expected the number of people in the Castle to have increased as well.

"Uncle, Uncle, they're the little brothers I recognized. This one is Da Ming, and this one is Er Ming."

"Alright, I understand. But can someone explain who she is?" Ye Qing was no longer surprised by the two human boys Xiao Wu pointed at. His Castle seemed to have become some sort of job-change station. Any Spirit Beast that entered could gain the ability to undergo Shape Transformation, and their intelligence would improve as well. Looking at one boy with bronze skin and a short crew cut, and another with long teal-blue hair, along with Xiao Wu's name, they were most likely the Sky Azure Bull Python and the Titan Giant Ape. But the person who truly piqued Ye Qing's curiosity was someone else—a woman.