"Fooling around? I wasn't fooling around!" Ning Ke laughed goofily. "Those ladies were so pretty, and they said such nice things... I really liked them..."
Ning Ke was a straight man.
His reaction was perfectly normal.
Lou Yunxiao pressed his lips together.
He knew, of course, that not everyone was as reserved as he was, with nothing but cultivation on their mind.
His junior brother had always been free-spirited. It was only natural for him to behave this way.
It was just...
For some reason, he disliked seeing Ning Ke so close to these people.
Whenever he thought of Ning Ke taking his hand, then gently holding someone else's, or saying those same soft, tender words to someone else...
A wave of displeasure rose in his chest, again and again.
"Oh, young immortal, just because you don't like us doesn't mean you can stop this young immortal from liking us!"
The lady who had fed Ning Ke grapes stepped forward to pull him away, only for a wall of ice to suddenly appear before her. Its freezing chill made her hunch her shoulders. Then Lou Yunxiao spoke from behind it. "Please, all of you, leave."
He released the pressure of his Golden Core cultivation. The women, who had barely entered Qi Refining, dared not speak again. They exchanged glances, then had no choice but to leave, closing the door behind them.
Only then did Lou Yunxiao withdraw the ice wall, unable to suppress his remorse.
He had actually used his cultivation to frighten these ordinary people for his own selfish desires.
He was behaving far too unlike himself.
"Ladies?" Ning Ke's eyes were clouded with drunkenness as he mumbled, "Where did all the ladies go?"
"They left." Lou Yunxiao collected himself and told him, "We should leave too."
But Ning Ke followed the sound of his voice and suddenly grabbed the front of his robes. Gazing at his face, he smiled. "Senior brother, I just realized you're even prettier than those ladies..."
He tugged off the silk ribbon covering Lou Yunxiao's eyes.
Revealing the eyes that had turned gray-blue from blindness, he leaned closer and actually kissed the corner of Lou Yunxiao's eye. He laughed foolishly. "Your eyes are pretty too... They're pretty even without the ribbon..."
Lou Yunxiao, who should have been angry over the ribbon, froze.
He let Ning Ke cling to his shoulders, warm breath brushing the side of his neck.
The silk ribbon wound around Ning Ke's hand gave off a faint glow.
Ning Ke straightened, bringing his face close to Lou Yunxiao's again.
The tips of their noses brushed.
"Senior brother, if you were a woman, I'd really want to marry you."
"You're so pretty, and you're such a chaste man. It's like no one can ever move your heart... Oh, no, that's not right. There's still that lady in your heart..."
He suddenly laughed, catching Lou Yunxiao's chin with his other hand as he murmured dreamily, "I just wonder which of us matters more to you, me or that lady?"
His lips nearly touched Lou Yunxiao's.
But in the end, they did not.
Drunkenness swept over him, and he slumped into Lou Yunxiao's arms. The ribbon in his hand lost its glow as his demonic power stopped spilling out.
Lou Yunxiao caught him, holding him within his embrace.
His heart, however, was beating far, far faster than usual.
Even the demonic energy and spiritual energy that were normally balanced throughout his body showed faint signs of disorder.
Reason told him to calm down, to let go.
Yet for the first time, he defied his reason. He tightened his arms, cupping the back of Ning Ke's neck with one hand and letting him rest fully against his body. That familiar cool fragrance filled his nose.
As though possessed, he buried his face against Ning Ke's neck and shoulder, pressing close with greedy longing.
So warm.
This was his junior brother, the junior brother who could only be this close to him.
Don't smile at anyone else like that. Don't be that close to anyone else.
Only to him.
Only he could hold him like this.
Lou Yunxiao did not know what sort of feelings these were.
But he knew clearly that he had never felt this way toward that lady.
He regarded her as his benefactor and had developed a vague, innocent affection for her.
But it was nothing like what he felt for his junior brother... nothing this selfish.
So selfish that he did not want to let anyone else have him...
Ning Ke was woken by sex noises. Those cries of "ah, ah, ah" made his scalp tingle even more than the videos saved on his computer!
Startled, he snapped his eyes open.
He discovered that the sounds came from the room next door. The walls were too thin to block them out completely.
"Why are they already at it this early in the morning?" After grumbling, he turned his head and saw Lou Yunxiao lying beside him, his eyes already open.
Those gray-blue eyes were fixed on him.
!!
Ning Ke was instantly so embarrassed he wanted to curl his toes into the floor. He asked Lou Yunxiao, "S-senior brother, did you hear that too?"
"Haha, if I'd known, I wouldn't have drunk so much yesterday. That's the one bad thing about spending the night here. Don't mind it, okay?"
He figured that someone as proper as Lou Yunxiao would surely be unhappy about having to stay overnight at a brothel because of him, then hearing this sort of thing the next morning.
But strangely enough, Lou Yunxiao showed neither embarrassment nor a blush.
He simply asked, "A Ke, do you remember what you did last night?"
"...?" Ning Ke could drink, but he could not afford to get drunk.
Once he got drunk, he blacked out and forgot absolutely everything.
And clearly, he had blacked out last night. All he remembered was having a wonderful time with those gentle ladies, who had told him plenty of interesting stories about Zhongdu City.
And then?
What else had he done?
[Then you kissed Lou Yunxiao.] Xiao Yuan arrived belatedly and gave two dry chuckles. [You even told him he was prettier than all those women, shamelessly declared you wanted to marry the male lead, said he was a chaste man, and asked him who mattered more to him-you or the pretty lady.]
Ning Ke: ??? No, I didn't-let me explain my way out of this.
Ning Ke wore a solemn expression. Some monster must have possessed me!
[...Tsk.]
Xiao Yuan said nothing else. That single sound was enough to make the attitude clear.
The corner of Ning Ke's mouth twitched. He thought that, in any case, this conveniently helped maintain his lovesick persona. He worked to compose himself and began playing dumb with Lou Yunxiao. "Senior brother, I tend to forget things when I drink too much. Did I do anything bad yesterday?"
He had already braced himself for Lou Yunxiao's interrogation, but after waiting and waiting, all he heard was one reply.
"No." Lou Yunxiao sat up and said, "You merely acted drunk and frightened those girls away. Seeing how drunk you were, I decided we should stay here overnight."
Hearing this shocked Ning Ke even more than learning from Xiao Yuan that he had kissed Lou Yunxiao.
As far as he remembered, Lou Yunxiao would absolutely, absolutely never lie.
Why had he started lying now?
Still, this did spare them both some embarrassment, so Ning Ke breathed a sigh of relief.
"As long as I didn't do anything bad."
"But you took my ribbon." Lou Yunxiao pointed at Ning Ke's hand and said, "Sorry for the trouble, junior brother, but please tie it back on for me."
Before you continue