A Token of Love

Xiao Xun'er's head buzzed, and then her heart erupted into turmoil.

What on earth was Brother Xiao Long saying?!

How could he say something like that so bluntly?!

What did he mean, something she treasured?!

The heat in her cheeks was completely beyond her control, burning from her ears all the way down to the base of her neck. Even the tip of her nose felt hot.

Xiao Xun'er stammered, "Brother Xiao Long... I... I haven't come of age yet..."

The moment she said it, she worried Xiao Long might think she was rejecting him.

She hurriedly waved her hands and explained, "It's not that I'm unwilling... it's just that I..."

The more she spoke, the more tangled her words became, her secret little thoughts turning over and over in her heart.

When she was four, not long after she first arrived at the Xiao Clan, the Golden Emperor Burning Heaven Flame had flared up in a backlash. The pain sent her rolling around on her bed, her whole body burning like a live coal.

Back then, Xiao Long had used some method she couldn't understand and pressed his hand against her back.

A cool stream of energy had flowed into her meridians, forcibly suppressing the savage flames inside her.

From then on, whenever the backlash struck, Xiao Long always found a way to suppress it for her. Year after year, he had never complained, nor had he ever asked why she suffered from such a strange affliction.

Even then, she had thought there couldn't possibly be anyone in this world better than Brother Xiao Long.

But this was far too sudden!

She was both flustered and delighted. Flustered because this had come so quickly that she wasn't ready, and delighted because Brother Xiao Long had finally caught on.

But she hadn't come of age yet!

And her father still knew nothing about any of this!

If she gave herself to him just like that, her father would probably slap Brother Xiao Long to death.

Watching Xiao Xun'er practically steam across from him, Xiao Long tilted his head and scratched the back of it, his expression innocent. "Huh?

What do you mean, coming of age? What do you mean, unwilling...

I... it's hard to explain.

There's a rather unusual experiment I want to try, and I might need something you treasure, uh, to represent the feelings between us..."

Xiao Xun'er froze.

She blinked twice, then twice more, and the heat that had surged to the top of her head slowly receded a little.

So it wasn't what she had imagined?

"So it wasn't what I thought?"

Xiao Xun'er's face turned snowy white again, with even a trace of almost imperceptible disappointment.

Xiao Long was speechless. Girl, what exactly are you thinking about?

And another thing!

What are you disappointed about?!

But Xiao Xun'er quickly came to her senses.

"Represent the feelings between us"... wasn't that pretty much the same thing?

Her little face, which had only just regained some of its pale complexion, flushed crimson again.

Xiao Xun'er lowered her head and pinched the hem of her clothes, her voice as faint as a mosquito's hum. "Brother Xiao Long... is... is this a token of love?"

Xiao Long scratched his cheek too and considered it.

I suppose you could call it that?

It wasn't that he was trying to be a creep. That was simply how the bittersweet tree worked.

Put plainly, the bittersweet tree used love as its guide and an object as its proof.

For anyone else, it required two people who loved each other, a token as proof, and a vow.

But for him, the tree's master, things were different.

As long as he obtained a token of love from a woman with whom he had an emotional entanglement, the bond between them would grow stronger and stronger.

Once that token of love had hung on the tree long enough, it would transform into a "bond-renewing item." And each time one transformed, his cultivation speed would rise another notch.

He still didn't know exactly how much it would increase, but the bittersweet tree's own source power would also flow back into him.

But that raised a problem.

After carefully taking stock, he realized there were currently only two or three women with whom he had any such entanglement.

Another one was too far away, and their relationship hadn't reached that stage yet anyway.

Surely he couldn't go looking for Nalan Yanran?

He had just lambasted that girl today for having every vice under the sun. Turning around and asking her for a token of love afterward-that picture was too beautiful for him to dare imagine.

The closest to him, and the safest choice, was Xiao Xun'er.

Xiao Long sighed and laid it out plainly. "Anyway... I need you to give me something you value, and then I'll use it to take care of something.

This is pretty important to me. It's related to my cultivation."

After a moment's thought, he added, "If it puts you in a difficult position, then forget-"

"It doesn't!"

Xiao Xun'er answered so quickly that even she was startled.

"Wait here for me!"

Standing in the courtyard, Xiao Long watched the door bang open and then bang shut. What's gotten into her today? She's rushing around like a whirlwind.

Before long, Xiao Xun'er came back out, clutching something in her hand.

She walked up to Xiao Long and opened her palm. Resting there was a small jade pendant, green all over and shaped like a leaf, with a red cord threaded through it.

"I've worn this since I was little."

She held out the pendant, her voice quiet. "My mother left it to me. It's the only thing she left."

Xiao Long reached out and took it. The jade pendant still carried the warmth of her palm and felt smooth and warm in his hand.

He lowered his head to examine it. One glance was enough to tell him it was no ordinary object. A faint, gentle glow flowed over its surface, and it felt like warm jade.

"Your mother left this to you, and you're giving it to me?"

"Didn't you say it had to represent our feelings..."

Xiao Xun'er turned her face away, the tips of her ears so red they looked ready to drip blood.

"I... this is what I treasure most."

Xiao Long held the jade pendant in his palm and suddenly felt as though it were burning hot.

Sifting through his memories of the original story, Xiao Long suddenly noticed something-it really didn't seem to have mentioned Xiao Xun'er's mother.

He remembered that people of Gu Yuan's generation had been contemporaries of Xiao Xuan. Xun'er had probably been sealed away when she was born, and her mother might have long since passed away. If her mother had left her this pendant, then it was likely a keepsake of the deceased.

Xiao Long took the jade pendant and casually tucked it inside his robes.

"Don't worry. I won't lose it," he said.

In fact, the moment the pendant touched his chest, it was transferred beneath the bittersweet tree in his mind.

The tree's pink blossoms danced through the air, curling around the pendant as though alive and hanging it from a branch.

At the same time, Xiao Long felt his sensitivity to Dou Qi sharpen a little. He could sense the free-floating Dou Qi around him more clearly than before.

When he focused his attention on it, he saw that pink light had already begun filling the pendant, slowly seeping inward from its edges.

Xiao Long was delighted.

Not bad at all, this speed.

After all, ours is a bond built over more than ten years as childhood sweethearts!

Bittersweet tree, this one jade pendant carries a full ten years of childhood love. Can you withstand it?

Fortunately, this bittersweet tree was different from the one in Fox Spirit Matchmaker.

In the original version, the human had to reincarnate before the bond could be renewed. What a hassle-who would want to die once just to renew a romantic bond?

Making people die at the drop of a hat-who could take that?

Luckily, his tree had mutated, so he could use it directly.

Just then, the maid who had previously come looking for him and Xiao Xun'er arrived in Xiao Xun'er's courtyard.

Xiao Long frowned. "Don't tell me that pink-haired girl is back again?"

He really was afraid of her now.

"Uh, no... this time it's White-Haired Sister..."