Joy of This Place, Happy and Forgetting Bibi

The two Soul Masters on the Soul Fighting platform were locked in a fierce struggle. The dull thuds of fists and feet colliding and the cheers from the audience rose and fell, but the atmosphere in the private box had quietly changed.

Deng Tianxin didn't know when he had started feeling sleepy.

Probably after those two women had finally settled down, his taut nerves relaxed, and drowsiness came crashing over him.

His little head bobbed lower and lower, and his body tilted involuntarily to the side, coming to rest against Tang Yuehua's arm.

Tang Yuehua paused in surprise and looked down. The little fellow's eyes were already closed, his long lashes resting quietly against his eyelids. Faint red marks from where he'd been pinched still lingered on his plump cheeks.

She shifted her posture slightly, letting Deng Tianxin rest his head against her chest.

As if sensing something in his sleep, Deng Tianxin unconsciously clutched her lapel with his little hand and burrowed his face a little deeper into her embrace. A muffled murmur slipped from his throat.

It sounded as though he was calling someone's name, but it was too indistinct to make out.

Tang Yuehua's little face turned bright red. This was the first time anyone had buried their head in her embrace.

Then she sensed something was wrong. The Soul Power in her body suddenly began to seethe.

Tang Yuehua couldn't help feeling excited. Ever since awakening her Martial Soul, her Soul Power had remained at level 9, and no matter what method she tried, she couldn't cultivate.

(The original work never said whether level 9 Soul Power was Innate Soul Power or something else. Online searches say it was Innate Soul Power at level 9, but she couldn't cultivate. The author will go with that setting.)

Now that she could see a chance to cultivate, how could she not be excited?

She could become a Soul Master. She wouldn't have to be useless anymore.

No one had ever called her useless to her face, but she understood better than anyone what those looks meant.

She was the young lady of the Clear Sky Sect's direct line. Both her older brothers were peerless talents: her eldest brother was as steady as a mountain, her second brother as fierce as a tiger. Only she, their little sister, wasn't even qualified to become a Soul Master.

She had long since learned to hide the inferiority in her heart behind an elegant smile and graceful words. But in the dead of night, her resentment still churned in her chest.

She envied Tang Hao—envied that others called him a genius, envied the respect in their eyes when they looked at him.

Amid all that envy, she realized she had started to fall for her own brother.

Not ordinary affection, but the kind between a man and a woman.

She knew that kind of love was forbidden, but she couldn't help herself.

But now, this pool of stagnant water had come alive.

All because this little boy was sleeping in her arms.

Tang Yuehua drew a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down.

She lifted her eyes and glanced around the private box.

At some point, Tang Hao had walked over to the floor-to-ceiling window. He stood with his arms crossed, watching the match on the Soul Fighting platform, completely unaware of what was happening over here.

Tang Xiao and Ning Fengzhi were talking quietly, apparently discussing the battle below. They hadn't noticed anything unusual about her either.

The only one who had noticed was Liu Erlong. She turned her head and glanced at Tang Yuehua. Her gaze fell on Deng Tianxin's little hand clutching Tang Yuehua's lapel, and the corner of her mouth twitched, but she said nothing.

Liu Erlong could tell from Tang Yuehua's reaction what had happened. For the past few days, whenever she held Deng Tianxin as he slept at night, the Soul Power in her body had surged like boiling water, and she had cultivated much faster than usual.

Now, seeing Tang Yuehua's look of surprise and delight, she felt a strange pang of discomfort, as if someone had discovered a treasure she'd worked so hard to find.

But she didn't point it out. She knew Tang Yuehua's circumstances.

She had been born into the greatest sect under heaven, and both her older brothers were among the leading figures in the Soul Master World. Yet she herself could barely cultivate at all.

That must have been hard to bear.

Whatever. Let her hold him for a while.

Liu Erlong looked away and turned her attention back to the Soul Fighting platform, though the corner of her eye kept drifting toward Deng Tianxin.

"Thank you." Tang Yuehua lowered her head and whispered beside Deng Tianxin's ear.

Her voice was soft and gentle, as if she were afraid of waking him—or of shattering this hard-won dream.

Whether or not he could hear her, she had to say it.

Deng Tianxin had no idea what he meant to her. Perhaps after waking, he would still be the mischievous child who talked nonsense all the time.

But to her, this little fellow resting in her arms had, from this moment on, become the most important person in her life.

In the blink of an eye, half a month passed.

During this time, Deng Tianxin felt that his days were even more comfortable than they had been back at Spirit Hall.

It was all thanks to how wonderfully Tang Yuehua and Liu Erlong took care of him.

During the day, Tang Yuehua and Liu Erlong took him all over the place, and at mealtimes, they fed him.

He couldn't help exclaiming, "Joy of This Place—Happy and Forgetting Bibi!"

The only thing he couldn't figure out was why these two women kept fighting over who got to sleep with him.

He knew exactly why Bibi Dong wanted to sleep with him: she wanted to use him as a body pillow.

But what were Tang Yuehua and Liu Erlong after?

Deng Tianxin lay on his stomach on the bed in a luxurious hotel in Heaven Dou City. He propped his plump cheeks on his little hands and kicked his short legs as he racked his brains for an answer.

Over the past half month, the two women had practically become different people when it came to fighting over who got him at night.

Liu Erlong still had the same temper, but when it came to competing for him, she had become stubborn in a way even she herself hadn't noticed.

Tang Yuehua appeared gentle and dignified, but at night, a nearly pleading look would appear in her clear eyes. She would simply watch him in silence, making it impossible for him to say no.

Before he knew it, they had settled into taking turns, one night each.

Deng Tianxin sighed, rolled over, and lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling.

His little body had truly been made to bear far too much weight that it shouldn't have had to.

But honestly, sleeping in their arms was pretty comfortable.

Tang Yuehua always carried a faint scent of sweet osmanthus. She held him as gently as if he were a fragile porcelain figurine, putting him completely at ease.

Liu Erlong's embrace was warmer, like being held by a furnace. Though she sometimes squeezed him so hard he could barely breathe, there was something nice about the feeling of being firmly protected.

The only thing that bothered him was that every morning when he woke up, both women's eyes were frighteningly bright. Their cheeks were an unnatural shade of red, and their breathing was a little ragged, as if they were restraining something.

"Forget it. I won't think about it." Deng Tianxin rolled over and buried his face in the pillow. "As long as they're good to me, that's all that matters."

There was good news, too: the fragments inside Tang Yuehua and Liu Erlong had started to stir.

Deng Tianxin felt that, if things continued like this, it shouldn't take more than a few months—or perhaps a few years—to obtain the fragments inside them.