Xue Qingqiu was so angry that her chest heaved. Xue Mu didn't dare look at that breathtaking scenery and lowered his head to drink his tea.
Everyone knew Sect Master was now thoroughly humiliated. Touching a nerve would be asking for death... Even if he stayed out of her way now and got through this safely, who knew whether she'd find some way to make his life difficult later...
The door opened, and Yue Xiaochan stood outside, holding a small child in her arms...
A five- or six-year-old child...
Xue Mu spat out all his tea. He stared, dumbfounded, at the doorway. In Yue Xiaochan's arms really was a little girl of five or six, with a chubby, round face, neat bangs, and long, straight black hair falling from the back of her head, past Yue Xiaochan's arm, all the way to the floor. At that moment, the child was fast asleep, mouth hanging wide open, nearly drooling...
Was this Yin Ye? The legendary martial aunt? The one in charge of the Star Moon Sect's formations, a master of divination, and the source of all chaos in Xiahou Di's eyes?
You could tell me she was Anya from a manga and I'd believe you...
But the eerie aura drifting from her in waves, the same aura of the deep night they'd felt just moments ago, still lingered around her, proving that this really was Yin Ye...
Yue Xiaochan also looked a little downcast. It was obvious Yin Ye's area-of-effect ability was affecting her heart, too. Once inside, she went straight to explaining. "Martial Aunt entered Remote Night Slumber as soon as she was taken into the Six Fan Gates, and she hasn't woken up since. Actually, nobody dares go within a mile of her cell. No one wants to be plunged into spontaneous sorrow every moment of every day, something even circulating your energy can't resist. Martial Aunt is a hot potato for Xiahou Di, and Xiahou Di still insists on holding on to her."
Xue Qingqiu froze. Her original gritted-teeth expression gradually softened. Falling into a deep slumber was a form of self-protection, sealing away her memories and mind so no one could use some soul-snatching technique to steal the sect's secrets. That "defense-breaking aura" was simply the passive power she radiated naturally once she stopped suppressing it. It was just that powerful; she wasn't doing it on purpose.
It could only be said that the timing had been unfortunate. There was no point blaming her.
Xue Qingqiu let out a quiet sigh. Was this what they called fate?
"Um..." Xue Mu finally couldn't help asking, "How could this child be Martial Aunt...?"
"When I was as old as Martial Aunt is now, she was as old as I am now. Now that I'm this old, she's this old."
Xue Mu's eyes spun at the tongue-twister. It took him a while to understand... Yin Ye's cultivation actually made her grow younger! Then how old was she this year? If she kept cultivating, would she turn into a baby—or a sperm cell?
"Yin Ye is twenty-four this year, not a child." Xue Qingqiu said coolly, "Put her on the bed. I'll break her slumber."
Yue Xiaochan casually tossed Yin Ye from a distance. The little girl hit the bed with a thud, bounced twice, and continued sleeping soundly, sprawled out. Xue Mu twitched...
Yue Xiaochan would never admit she'd meant to teach this sorrow-inducing stinking martial aunt a lesson. She stuck out her chin and explained, "We play like this all the time. Martial Aunt doesn't get hurt. She's really strong."
"..."
Xue Qingqiu rose and walked slowly to the bed. She flipped her palm, and suddenly a blaze of violet light flared. As her hand pressed down, the purple glow spread over Yin Ye's whole body, flickering on and off.
Xue Mu hadn't expected it to happen so quickly. He was just about to say a few words to Yue Xiaochan when a child's wail suddenly rang out from the bed. With veins bulging across his forehead, Xue Mu turned to look. Yin Ye's chubby little arms and legs kicked wildly on the bed as she bawled, "Senior Sister, they're bullying me!"
At the sound of her cries, the dark-night aura vanished without a trace. Clearly, once she regained consciousness, the child could control the aura her cultivation released. Xue Mu breathed a sigh of relief, suddenly feeling much lighter.
Xue Qingqiu's voice was full of helplessness. "All right, all right. I'll go beat up Xiahou Di in a bit."
"Oh..." Yin Ye stopped crying. Her nose twitched, and her big, bright eyes glistened with tears.
Xue Mu nearly melted from how cute she was. Had this little girl stepped right out of a two-dimensional world?
After a pause, Yin Ye spoke again, her voice weak. "Not Xiahou Di. The Mysterious Heaven Sect."
Veins popped on Xue Qingqiu's forehead, too. "Can't you say everything at once? Be more precise. How exactly did you end up in Xiahou Di's hands?"
Yin Ye started spacing out again, blinking those big eyes as though explaining things clearly were terribly difficult. After quite a while, she finally gestured as she spoke. "First there was Feng Lieyang of the Blazing Sun Sect. He killed someone from the Mysterious Heaven Sect, then Xin Yi pursued him. He hid here with us. I came south to gather Star-Forget Stones. I didn't want to bother with him... Star-Forget Stones are so pretty... Senior Sister, listen, they glitter like this... and they're this big!"
Her chubby little hand tried to show the size of an egg, then seemed to decide that wasn't big enough and spread wider, until it was the size of a duck egg.
Xue Qingqiu's expression was blank.
Yue Xiaochan smiled brightly.
Xue Mu was drowning in cuteness.
"Enough." Xue Qingqiu sighed. "Xin Yi came after you, too. You underestimated your own strength, and while you were fighting, Yin Ye attacked your mind and killed you. Then the Mysterious Heaven Sect came out in full force. You ran and bumped into Xiahou Di."
The little girl nodded vigorously. "That's more or less it. Senior Sister is amazing!"
"If we waited for you to explain it all, we'd be here for years!" Xue Qingqiu snapped, no longer in the mood to ask questions.
Xue Mu couldn't help saying, "Then Xiahou Di actually saved Yin Ye, though she realized her cultivation technique was unusual and decided to keep her."
"Hm?" The little girl seemed to notice only now that there was someone else in the room. She turned her head, blinking her big eyes, and met Xue Mu's gaze as he looked at her like an adorable little creature.
Their eyes met. Yin Ye froze, then her eyes gradually lit up. "Senior Sister, senior sister! This man's scent... it smells so, so, so good... like candied hawthorn and meat buns..."
Xue Qingqiu's heart gave a little jolt. "Are you paying attention?"
Yin Ye's eyes grew brighter and brighter. She looked at Xue Mu, nearly drooling. "He smells so good... I've never smelled a man this good before."
Xue Mu was completely at a loss and looked to Yue Xiaochan for help.
Yue Xiaochan smiled faintly. "Martial Aunt's cultivation is unlike anyone else's. She values a heart as clear and flawless as the moon, free of all worldly complications, and so she grows younger as she lives. But because of that, she has almost instinctive insight into the good and evil in people's hearts. Emotions give rise to qi, like the moon reflected in water, revealing every tiny detail. Most people are lucky if she finds them not unpleasant. There's only one reason she'd find someone this pleasant."
"What reason?"
"An utterly sincere kindness, straight from the heart." Yue Xiaochan turned to look at him. The haze so often in her eyes these past two days had largely cleared, and she was smiling brightly. "Even a trace of malice toward any of us, a hint of using us, or even a single negative opinion of us—no matter how deeply hidden—would keep your aura from smelling this good to Martial Aunt. She's practically drooling... Just how much do you like us?"
Yue Xiaochan smiled, her dimples sweet, but didn't continue. Instead, she turned away.
The master and her disciple met each other's eyes. Neither showed what she was feeling. Then they both turned in different directions without a word.
Xue Mu scratched his head, thinking, Does wanting to seduce you not count as using you?
But when he thought about it carefully, she might be right... Perhaps at first there had been some thought of using them. He'd once thought seducing Xue Qingqiu would be incredibly useful.
But as their relationship grew closer, Xue Qingqiu trusted him more and more, and thought more and more about his welfare. They called each other sister and brother more naturally by the day, and a thread of Yue Xiaochan's affection was tangled up in it all. By now, he truly didn't have that old desire to use them. Not at all. He'd long since started treating the Star Moon Sect's affairs as his own.
There was still desire between men and women, but the Star Moon Sect wasn't some white lotus sect. In their view, desire between men and women and the union of yin and yang were natural responses that could be openly discussed. As long as he wasn't playing with them or using them, then it couldn't be called malice. If anything, it meant he "liked them a lot."
Why did he also want Yue Xiaochan to leave? First, she was too young. He didn't consider himself a lolicon, and he really didn't want to get too intimate with a thirteen-year-old girl. It would make him feel like a pervert. Second, he was afraid that if he got in too deep, Yue Xiaochan might dump him over her cultivation, the sect, or some other complication. Now that would be tragic... That wasn't malice; it was because he was afraid he'd like her too much—because his kindness had gone overboard...
All in all, he truly meant these women well. He liked all of them, and the newcomer Yin Ye was adorable, too—so adorable he was drowning in cuteness.
If this so-called qi born from emotion hadn't been sensed by Yin Ye, he wouldn't even have figured out his own feelings yet. He could only say this world was utterly unscientific. This nose that could identify people by their aura was brighter than a demon-revealing mirror...
Yin Ye stared with wide eyes, looking left and right. Suddenly she clapped her hands and cried, "Aaaahhh..."
Xue Qingqiu had been silent all this time, but Yin Ye's cries made her snap, "What are you shrieking about?"
Yin Ye smiled adorably. "This man's aura toward Senior Sister is that, that kind of feeling! He wants to cultivate dual cultivation with you!"
Xue Qingqiu had only just been struck by that aura herself. Hearing this nearly made her spit blood. Furiously, she grabbed Yin Ye by the scruff of her neck and started to leave. "You're always half a beat behind, so how come you have so much nonsense to say now? Go eat. You've been captured so long and haven't had a bite. Aren't you hungry?"
"I'm not hungry. Wuwu... this man is so much fun! I haven't figured out the aura between him and Chan'er yet. It's so tangled and interesting! I want to see, ahhh..." Her little arms and legs kicked in the air. Xue Qingqiu smacked her on the forehead. "You're twenty-four, so quit pretending to be a little kid! Keep running your mouth and I'll beat you to death!"
Xue Mu stared in stunned silence as Xue Qingqiu carried Yin Ye away like a little chick. Somehow, this so-called Demon Sect had turned into a farmhouse courtyard: a hardworking homemaker, a young girl, and a bawling little rascal...
If they raised a few chickens in the courtyard, it would look even more like one...
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