Wanting to kiss his junior brother

Lou Yunxiao froze for a moment.

Zhuang Yusheng had already jumped off the platform and approached Ning Ke with a mournful face. "A Ke, look, I lost to your senior brother. I'm in such a sorry state. Couldn't you comfort me a little, too?"

Seeing his disheveled hair and bleeding fingers, Ning Ke had to admit he looked rather pitiful and couldn't help laughing.

"What if I don't comfort you? Will you cry?" he asked.

"..." Zhuang Yusheng was momentarily dazed by Ning Ke's smiling face and stopped caring whether he embarrassed himself.

Shamelessly, he declared, "Yes! If you don't comfort me, I'll cry! I really will!"

Ning Ke laughed even harder.

In the end, he reached out and patted Zhuang Yusheng's head, too. "Be good, kiddo. No crying."

Then he took a bottle of pills from his Storage Ring and handed it to the youth. "Here, use these. They'll help replenish your depleted spiritual energy faster."

Zhuang Yusheng accepted the medicine in a daze.

His eyes instantly shone like stars.

A Ke gave me pills!

A Ke even patted my head!

A Ke comforted me!

But the next instant, he felt an eerie chill at his back.

He shifted aside, revealing Lou Yunxiao, who had also come over.

The youth's white disciple robes were stained with blood, and he looked scarcely less battered than Zhuang Yusheng. His thin lips were pressed into an almost straight line, without a trace of a smile on his face.

Ning Ke instinctively sensed something was wrong.

"Senior brother..."

Lou Yunxiao ignored him, returning to his seat and taking two Qi-Recovery Pills without a word.

Watching from the side, Zhuang Yusheng's lips curved slightly before he quickly hid his smile. After thanking Ning Ke, he returned to his own seat.

He had the nerve to get jealous but not the guts to say it.

Zhuang Yusheng looked down on Lou Yunxiao for that.

Ning Ke's seat was right beside Lou Yunxiao's.

From his angle, he could see sword wounds on Lou Yunxiao's arms, waist, and abdomen. They weren't particularly deep, but they were bleeding heavily enough to look alarming.

"Senior brother?"

He tried calling to him again.

Lou Yunxiao immediately turned his head the other way.

"..."

Ning Ke leaned closer, bringing his face beside Lou Yunxiao's, and called again, "Senior brother?"

Lou Yunxiao turned his body and twisted farther away.

"...Senior brother, a person's neck can only turn to the side, not all the way backward. Keep twisting, and you'll look just like that village idiot with the crooked neck at the entrance to Ning Family Village."

"!" At those words, Lou Yunxiao immediately turned back.

He really did seem afraid of becoming like that village idiot, who drooled all day and called everyone he met Dad.

But he hadn't expected his sudden turn to bring him face-to-face with Ning Ke, who was still leaning close.

Their noses touched.

Their lips almost brushed.

It was as though they had suddenly returned to that night at the Fragrant Condensation Courtyard.

Lou Yunxiao's heart pounded.

He couldn't help recalling Day and Night with the Daoist Supreme, the book he had only read a few pages of.

When Ning Ke had first given him the book, he had intended to study it carefully, but after just a few pages, the explicit images had shocked him.

He hadn't opened it again since.

Now those images were vivid in his mind.

His cheeks warmed uncontrollably.

A kiss-

In that book, when two people faced each other like this...

They were about to kiss.

He wanted to...

Kiss his junior brother.

The air grew hazy with intimacy.

Lou Yunxiao's Adam's apple gently bobbed.

Then he noticed that the presence so close to his face had vanished.

Ning Ke had pulled away.

"You won your match, senior brother. Cheer up." Ning Ke placed two bottles of pills in Lou Yunxiao's hands. "These are for external injuries. They're much better than the ones I gave Fellow Daoist Zhuang."

"I'm only nice to Fellow Daoist Zhuang because I see him as a friend. Don't let it bother you too much."

Although he spoke so calmly, he was secretly pinching his own thigh.

Damn it!

Why had he just felt the urge to kiss him?!

Lou Yunxiao was written as a straight man in the book!

His role this time was just a lovesick simp who liked Lou Yunxiao!

If he got too bold and made Lou Yunxiao dislike him, carrying out this mission would become much harder!

Xiao Yuan asked dryly within Ning Ke's consciousness, [Host, shouldn't you be worrying about whether you're still straight?]

[Would a straight man want to kiss another man?]

Ning Ke: ...! Straight men like beautiful people, too, don't they? Haha. Food and sex are human nature, after all.

[...]

Xiao Yuan sighed. He could only hope his host wouldn't fall too deeply. Otherwise, he feared Ning Ke wouldn't have the heart to carry out the difficult missions ahead.

While Ning Ke wrestled with his confusion...

Lou Yunxiao kept his head lowered.

His fingers clenched tightly.

How could he have developed such an absurd desire to kiss his junior brother?

No.

Actually, that wasn't all.

He didn't just want to kiss him.

Lou Yunxiao's Adam's apple bobbed.

He had imagined things that went further, but he had been forcing himself to forget them.

He was the senior brother his junior brother trusted. He absolutely couldn't do those things.

He was afraid... afraid of frightening A Ke.

While the two were lost in their own thoughts, the ranking matches were nearly finished.

The top five had been decided. Next came the top three and the champion.

Ning Xiaoxiao narrowly defeated the young monk Wugou, placing fourth.

The young monk had never used his staff, even when he lost, and placed fifth.

Lou Yunxiao drew a bye, advancing straight to the top three.

Ning Ke went up for another match, and his opponent turned out to be Zhuang Yusheng.

"How did I end up drawing A Ke..." Zhuang Yusheng scratched his head.

His expression was rueful.

Ning Ke noticed the dark circles beneath his eyes. He clearly hadn't fully recovered yet.

So he suggested, "How about we compete at drawing talismans?"

"Like you and my junior sister did in Nantong City that day. We can compare our speed."

"Huh? A Ke, are you joking?" Zhuang Yusheng stared at him. "You're a sword cultivator! I'm practically half a talisman cultivator, and I spend plenty of time studying talisman drawing. Wouldn't competing against me in this put you at a disadvantage?"

Ning Ke smiled. "We'll only know after we try."

"All right, then. Let's draw a hundred talismans. Whoever finishes first wins?"

"No problem."

As the match began, Ning Ke held his talisman brush and gathered his energy. Without using any talisman paper, he began drawing in midair!

Once again, his actions made all the sect leaders in the stands sit up straight.

Hong Yao's voice rang with shock. "My Yusheng spent five years training diligently before he could draw talismans with condensed energy! How has this boy attained such mastery after barely more than half a year in the Sword Sect?!"

The others all turned toward Gao Ze.

"This disciple brought his own riches when he joined the Sword Sect, and now he keeps displaying such abilities. Could he be a scion of some great secluded clan?"

Wei Qinghai proposed this possibility, and the others found it plausible.

Gao Ze rubbed his nose. "I told you earlier that I didn't teach him, but you wouldn't believe me."

"..." The other three refused to acknowledge him.

If anyone asked why, there was only one word!

Jealousy!

Unaware that the sect leaders had already decided he was a great clan's scion, Ning Ke's eyes shone as his hand moved swiftly, completing each talisman inscription in a single stroke.

He reproduced the Runes from the wooden plaque one after another. A closer look revealed certain connections between them.

As the number of Runes increased, their power built layer upon layer, making the spectators around them unconsciously hold their breath.

Meanwhile, Zhuang Yusheng hadn't expected Ning Ke to be so proficient in talismans.

Seeing this, his first reaction wasn't frustration, but excitement.

On the path of cultivation, the greatest fear was finding no worthy opponent.

Among the younger generation, Lou Yunxiao stood above him. Now he also had A Ke as an opponent in talisman drawing.

Both could spur him onward!

A closer look revealed that the Runes he drew were connected as well, faintly forming a chain of talismans.

It circled his body.

A few breaths later, Ning Ke and Zhuang Yusheng finished almost simultaneously.

Both raised their brows. Ning Ke's hundred talismans instantly merged into one, forming a portion of that five-meter talisman!

Even as only a portion, it possessed tremendous power and hurtled toward Zhuang Yusheng!

Zhuang Yusheng swept his hand, sending his talisman chain forward to bind Ning Ke's talisman and constrict it with all its might.

After several breaths of resistance, the chain shattered, leaving only Ning Ke's talisman in the arena.

The outcome was decided.