Little Kitty

After leaving the training ground, Lu Menge was unusually silent the whole way. Tang Wulin clutched the bag containing his new clothes and followed carefully behind her, occasionally sneaking glances at Gu Yue. Gu Yue shook her head at him—meaning, "Don't talk. Just follow." Tang Wulin obediently kept quiet.

When they reached the ginkgo-lined path by the back gate of Eastsea Academy, Lu Menge suddenly stopped. She looked at Tang Wulin, then at Gu Yue, held it in for a long while, and said only two words: "Dismissed."

As though granted a pardon, Tang Wulin bowed, hugged the clothing bag, and dashed back to the dormitory. Gu Yue did not leave. She leaned against a ginkgo tree with her arms folded, an exceptionally rare emotion in her violet eyes—if Lu Menge had not misread it, that expression was called schadenfreude.

Lu Menge stopped and turned around. Her amber fox-like eyes, usually full of teasing laziness, held only a long-suppressed, sullen irritation. "What are you laughing at?"

"Nothing." Gu Yue's face remained expressionless, her lips utterly still. "You saw wrong."

Lu Menge took a deep breath, swallowed the ten thousand retorts that had reached her lips, and started walking again. The rhythm of her low-heeled ankle boots against the stone path had lost its usual languor, replaced by an indescribable resentment. Gu Yue followed at an unhurried pace, her steps composed. She was in an especially good mood today. Not because her Soul Power had recovered—not because Di Tian's secret letter had arrived, nor for any of those reasons she had never cared about. It was simply because—Lu Menge had actually been stumped. And not by some ancient deity or Titled Douluo, but by a human teacher with a Heavenfrost Sword Martial Soul. In the most unexpected way possible, she had been asked, "Have you ever been kept by someone?"

Gu Yue replayed that sentence over and over in her mind, wanting to laugh more each time. Of course, she did not laugh aloud. She maintained the dignity of the Silver Dragon King. Yet she deliberately walked shoulder to shoulder with Lu Menge—normally, she would have preferred to stay three paces away from her, but today she wanted Lu Menge to see her expression clearly.

Naturally, Lu Menge saw it. Gu Yue's violet eyes were normally filled with nothing but indifference, yet today they were actually shining. She abruptly stopped and turned around. Gu Yue stopped as well, tilting her head as she looked at Lu Menge, her gaze plainly spelling out a single line: Yes, I am enjoying your misfortune.

"You're feeling good?" Lu Menge narrowed her fox eyes slightly.

Gu Yue did not deny it, nor did she hesitate. "Very good."

"You're this happy because I got stumped?"

"Mhm." Gu Yue raised her chin slightly. The wind swept her silver hair behind her shoulders, revealing the pale line of her neck and the corner of her lips that she could not suppress no matter how hard she tried. She recalled what had happened before. "Last time in the Star Dou Great Forest—you sent the Little White Tiger to scare me. Then the one who pinned me over her lap and spanked me—was you. Before coming to Eastsea Academy, the one who hauled me and all my belongings out of the Stone Palace—was still you. And on the first day of school, you spanked me in public." She raised her head and looked straight at Lu Menge.

Lu Menge blinked her fox eyes.

"Today, seeing someone avenge me—I feel very good. Good enough that I want to preserve this day in the Dragon Clan Memory Legacy."

Lu Menge was silent for quite a while. Then she reached out and flicked Gu Yue's forehead with a loud flick. Gu Yue covered her forehead and glared at Lu Menge with violet eyes, but the gesture of covering her forehead carried no intimidation whatsoever.

"Now that you've vented, give me an idea." Lu Menge shoved both hands into her sweater pockets, her expression unusually serious. "I have to explain this clearly to him."

"How will you explain it?" Gu Yue lowered the hand covering her forehead, her tone returning to its usual chill. "Tell him you're a Nine-Headed White Tiger who has lived for hundreds of millions of years, and that your Soul Rings grew on their own? Aren't you afraid of scaring him to death?"

"I can't. But I also can't let him keep thinking I'm some pitiful little thing being supported by someone else."

"You could have ignored him and let him keep that mistaken impression to the end. He'd still bring you late-night snacks and buy you milk tea. The more you explain, the worse it'll get."

Lu Menge fell silent for a moment, her voice unusually low. "No." When he had asked that question at the training ground, there had been no contempt and no mockery. There had only been that concern he had desperately tried to restrain but still could not hide. It meant he had taken even the ugliest possibility into his own heart.

Gu Yue shifted her gaze from Lu Menge's face to the tips of the ginkgo branches. Light filtered through the yellow leaves and scattered across her silver hair. A tiny voice spoke in her heart—ever since she had awakened as the Silver Dragon King, she had been wary of every human. Yet this White Tiger before her was the greatest loophole in humanity's understanding. She said she felt very good, but what she did not say was that when she saw Lu Menge frozen in place by a single sentence from Wu Changkong at the training ground today—she had seen, in those amber eyes, a loneliness and bitterness that crossed endless years.

"How do you want to explain it?" Gu Yue finally asked.

"Martial Soul Avatar," Lu Menge said.

Gu Yue raised her eyes.

"I won't fully transform—just a partial transformation. Tiger ears, tiger tail, tiger claws—I'll let him see whether I really was piled up with supplements bought by someone else. I don't need to reveal all my cultivation. At least he'll know I truly cultivated through my own efforts." Her tail lifted slightly, though she did not notice it herself.

Gu Yue studied her seriously. Tiger ears—fluffy white tiger ears emerging from either side of her head. A tiger tail, thick and extending from her tailbone, its tip marked by the ancient rune Gu Yue had once seen under moonlight. Tiger claws—no, she would have to keep those restrained. Otherwise, one swipe on Wu Changkong's shoulder could freeze him into an occupational injury. All those elements, paired with a lazy, seductive face with a beauty mark like a tear, a criminally voluptuous figure, and fox eyes that always seemed to be saying, "You owe me money."

"After partially transforming, what expression are you planning to use while explaining it to him?" Gu Yue asked.

"That depends on him," Lu Menge said casually. "If he doesn't believe me, I'll be nicer. If he still asks whether I'm being kept, I'll be less nice. In any case, I'll show him my strength first."

Gu Yue imagined the complete scene. Lu Menge standing before Wu Changkong with a pair of snowy white tiger ears atop her head, her tail swaying back and forth. She would lift her chin, put on what she thought was a fierce expression, and reveal a hint of fang. Then Wu Changkong would lower his head and look at this fluffy woman, her tail wagging from side to side and her ears twitching—what would his reaction be? Would he believe she was strong?

Gu Yue spoke. "With your face, you'd look like a little kitty trying to seduce Teacher Wu."

The ginkgo path went silent for an entire breath. The wind stopped, the ginkgo leaves ceased drifting, and even the kitchen exhaust fan behind the distant cafeteria seemed to fall quiet. Lu Menge stood before Gu Yue, the pupils in her fox eyes contracting for an instant. It was not anger. She had been struck.

"Sedu... ce?"

Gu Yue analyzed calmly, "Your hair is down, with slightly curled ends. Your lipstick shade leans cool, but the texture is glossy. Your lashes have been lengthened—you never used to apply mascara. Are you sure you're going to show off your muscles rather than something else?"

Lu Menge instinctively touched her eyelashes, while the temperature at the roots of her ears rose uncontrollably. "That's because I was taking you to the Spirit Pagoda today—a formal occasion requires proper attention to one's appearance—"

"The last time you went to the Spirit Pagoda, you wore a low-cut camisole."

Lu Menge was speechless. Her expression at that moment made Gu Yue increasingly satisfied—the pinnacle of being stumped. No tiger roar, no restraints, merely being rendered speechless by a few casually delivered remarks.

Gu Yue strode forward with perfect justification. As she passed Lu Menge, she paused, the golden ginkgo leaves reflected in her violet eyes. "Aren't you going to seduce him anymore?"

Lu Menge took a deep breath and tossed her loose hair behind her. "I am—but I'm not seducing him. I'm going to tell him that I'm very strong, that I don't need protection, and that I especially don't need to be kept."

Gu Yue gave a mild "Mhm." Then, just as Lu Menge took her first step, she said softly, "Then lower your heels a little more—flats make you look shorter, so it'll be easier for him to lower his head and look at you."

Lu Menge looked down. She was wearing flat ankle boots today. Slowly, she clenched her fists. The next second, she flashed an incomparably brilliant smile. "Gu Yue, for hot pot tonight, you're having clear broth."

"Why?"

"Because you said 'seduce.'"

The wind blew Gu Yue's silver hair across half her face, leaving only one faintly shining violet eye visible, but the corner of her lips lifted ever so slightly. Since Lu Menge had known her, this was the first time Gu Yue had smiled so obviously while awake. It was not because she was smug, but because the woman who toyed with everyone in the palm of her hand had been struck in the heart by every one of her cutting remarks today.

"Let's go." Gu Yue stepped forward first.

Lu Menge followed behind her, unconsciously touching the tips of her hair as she rehearsed her partial transformation entrance once more in her mind. She had to show Wu Changkong—what the White Tiger True Form truly was. What little kitty—little kitty. Those three words were like lint stuck in her mind, impossible to shake off. She walked side by side with Gu Yue toward the Spirit Pagoda, her pace still lazy and casual, but she knew it herself—never in her life had she wanted so badly to prove that she was strong.