"Are you sure?" She lifted her head, the flickering lamplight reflected in her dark eyes. "You're giving it to me?"
"Absolutely."
Zhao Linchuan looked at Yan Lingji and spoke earnestly:
"You're my wife. As husband and wife, we should face everything together."
"Once we become Titled Douluo, we'll gain a great many more years to live. I hope we can stay together for a long, long time."
His gaze fell on the deep darkness outside the window, and a rare softness crept into his voice.
"Not have one of us suddenly grow old one day, leaving the other behind to grieve."
Yan Lingji's lashes trembled slightly, and her voice quavered.
"I..."
She tried her hardest to keep the tears from falling. Ever since Zhao Linchuan had rescued her from that dungeon, she had never shed a single tear in front of him.
She didn't want him to think she was weak.
But now, that aching bitterness rose from her nose to her eyes, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't hold it back.
She gently set the Soul Bone and God-Bestowed Soul Ring on the coffee table, then turned sideways and leaned against Zhao Linchuan's shoulder, her voice soft.
"Give me a child... will you?"
Insects began chirping outside, and moonlight squeezed through the cracks in the window.
They spent the night in silence.
At dawn the next morning, a rooster crowed outside the tavern.
Zhao Linchuan and the two women came downstairs one after another and sat at a window-side table in the corner.
The landlady recognized them and bustled over with steaming buns and rice porridge, adding two extra plates of side dishes.
Bibi Dong took a bite of her bun, cheeks puffed out, and spoke indistinctly.
"Linchuan, after Ling Ji gets her Soul Ring, can we not hurry back just yet?"
She swallowed her mouthful and looked at Zhao Linchuan with shining eyes, her voice full of anticipation.
"Teacher said the competition won't start for another two months. Can we travel around a little more?"
"Of course." Zhao Linchuan lifted his bowl and took a sip of porridge, going along with her suggestion. "Even if you hadn't asked, I wasn't planning to head back just yet."
"Wonderful!" Bibi Dong cried happily, nearly dropping the bun in her chopsticks.
She hurriedly caught it, then pressed on. "Where are we going next? Are we going to keep fighting for justice?"
Her voice held the excitement of a child talking about a beloved toy.
They had spent the past few days sweeping up Fallen Soul Masters all over the place. It had been a little bloody, but that feeling of righting wrongs and repaying grudges was certainly more fun than being cooped up in Spirit Hall cultivating.
"Let's put fighting for justice aside for now." Zhao Linchuan set down his porridge bowl, glanced at the two women, and lowered his voice. "In a couple of days, I'll take you tomb-robbing."
"Tomb-robbing?"
The two women spoke at once, but their reactions couldn't have been more different.
Bibi Dong's eyes lit up. Her chopsticks hovered in midair, and she forgot all about her bun as she asked eagerly, "Whose tomb are we robbing?"
Yan Lingji looked at Zhao Linchuan strangely, her brows knitting slightly. "Are we that short on money?"
As she spoke, she set down her chopsticks and pulled the six hairpins from her bun one by one. Her dark hair spilled down like a waterfall, falling over her shoulders.
She also took off the jade bangle on her wrist and pushed all the jewelry in front of Zhao Linchuan.
"If we're short on money, sell these to tide us over."
Zhao Linchuan looked at the pile of jewelry in front of him, not sure whether to laugh or cry.
"Oh, my dear wife." He sighed, stood up, and walked around the corner of the table to stand behind Yan Lingji.
He picked up the hairpins and put them back in one by one. Yan Lingji stayed still, letting him arrange her hair.
Once he had fixed her bun, Zhao Linchuan returned to his seat, took Yan Lingji's hand, and slipped the bangle back onto her wrist.
"I am short on money, but I'm not so short that I need this little bit from you."
He picked up his bowl again and took a sip of porridge before continuing.
"I'm planning to dig up the ancestral graves of the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect."
"They're the richest sect on the continent. Their burial goods must be beyond counting."
"They're just lying there anyway. I'll borrow them for a while."
"You certainly have an interesting definition of borrowing," Yan Lingji said, her tone strange as she raised an eyebrow. "What if they don't agree?"
"That's why I'm doing it first and asking later."
Zhao Linchuan smiled, utterly unconcerned.
"Besides, the owners of the tombs haven't objected, have they?"
Yan Lingji shot him a glance and let the subject drop, turning instead to ask, "Is there anything I can do to help?"
"Well..." Zhao Linchuan thought for a moment, then suddenly grinned. "When the time comes, give me a hundred children to grow our family. That would be the greatest help of all."
"A hundred?!"
Yan Lingji snatched her hand back and cried out.
Her voice was so loud that the customers at the nearby tables all turned to look.
"A hundred...!" She hurriedly lowered her voice and leaned closer, her face caught between exasperation and laughter. "Are you trying to kill me?!"
She counted on her fingers, entirely serious.
"Even if I did nothing but stay home and have children for you nonstop, a hundred children would take more than eighty years!"
"And that's not even counting the time you'd spend sowing the seeds in between..."
Only when she reached those last few words did she realize what she had said. Her cheeks flared red, and she swallowed the rest of the sentence.
Zhao Linchuan couldn't help laughing.
"What are you laughing at?" Yan Lingji was embarrassed and annoyed. She reached over and pinched his arm.
"I'm laughing at how carefully you calculated it."
"Of course I have to calculate it carefully, so some scoundrel doesn't swindle me!"
The two of them traded barbs back and forth. Their voices were neither loud nor soft, but each sounded more self-righteous than the other.
Across from them, Bibi Dong sat with half a bun in her hand, watching the scene. Suddenly, the meat bun in her hand didn't taste so good anymore.
She took a bite, chewed, swallowed, and took another bite. It was the same bun as before, with delicious meat filling and soft, fluffy dough, but somehow she couldn't taste much of anything.
And though she hadn't even finished one bun, she inexplicably felt as if she were already stuffed.
After breakfast, the three of them set off for Sunset Forest.
At the forest's edge, ancient trees towered into the sky, their branches and leaves blocking out the sun. Only scattered patches of light fell through the gaps.
The air was thick with the smell of decaying leaves and damp soil. Now and then, birds fluttered up, scattering a few dead leaves.
Zhao Linchuan walked at the front. After feeling his way along a winding path, he led the two women into a secluded gorge.
After they passed through a narrow crack in the rocks, barely wide enough for one person, the view suddenly opened up before them.
A valley like a hidden paradise spread out below. At its center lay a spring, half milky white and half vermilion, the two colors sharply divided and never mixing. Steaming heat rose from the surface, shrouding the surrounding air in a hazy mist.
This was the Ice and Fire Yin-Yang Well, the number-one must-visit spot on the Douluo Continent!
Before you continue