A farewell kiss

It was a teasing line Zhao Changhe often used, one Luo Qi had long since grown used to hearing. Before, he had never known how much was a joke, how much was sincere, and how much was a wicked desire to see his eldest senior brother, stubbornly pretending to be a man, helplessly endure being taken advantage of.

But at this moment, Luo Qi knew he meant every word.

His gaze burned with an invasive fire, his powerful body blocking the way like Mount Tai bearing down from above. Luo Qi felt all his strength desert him, his martial arts vanishing without a trace. He stood there stupidly holding the Azure Dragon Seal, at a complete loss.

He knew why Zhao Changhe was acting this way.

They had said so much, yet neither had mentioned the thing looming right before them: Luo Qi had obtained the Azure Dragon Inheritance so that he could join the Four Symbols Cult.

And Zhao Changhe might not be able to follow-especially after accepting the Jade Pendant. Going together would no longer be appropriate.

What awaited them was a parting.

Sharing a bed and pillow, saving meals and buying wine, bickering like a married couple-all of it would be gone.

Panic suddenly stirred in Luo Qi too. He stopped cradling the Azure Dragon Seal and tossed it aside, wrapping his arms even more tightly around Zhao Changhe's waist instead, as though letting go again would mean losing him.

"All right..." he murmured. "Wait a moment. Let me remove my disguise and look like a woman, so you can play with me..."

Zhao Changhe might not even have heard him. He had already lowered his head and pressed a fierce kiss to his lips.

Luo Qi had no time to remove his disguise. Slowly, he closed his eyes, parted his pearly teeth, and yielded to Zhao Changhe's invasion.

He felt Zhao Changhe's hand brush across his throat, then rub all over his face. Within moments, his disguise had been wiped clean.

So he had known all along where the disguise was.

He wasn't gay after all... At a time like this, he only wanted Luo Qi to look completely like a woman, even though he could not actually see him during their fierce kiss.

This man... was actually quite domineering, just like his kiss: forceful, wild, biting at Luo Qi until it hurt a little, as though he meant to pour every frustration and grievance he had with the world, the martial world, and everything around him into this one kiss.

The desire he had suppressed for a month was finally unleashed.

Perhaps he had wanted this all along, but had buried that desire in his heart because there were too many other things he wanted to do.

The waterfall roared, drowning out the fierce panting of the pair inside the cave.

Unfortunately, their earlier conversation had truly lasted a little too long. At last, faint voices came from outside.

As though jolted awake, Zhao Changhe slowly drew away from Luo Qi's lips.

He had bitten those lips swollen, leaving tiny splits marked with blood. His own lips hurt a little too, tasting salty.

They stared at each other, breathing lightly, until the voices outside drew closer and closer. At last, Luo Qi lowered his head to straighten the clothes Zhao Changhe had kneaded into disarray, covering the pale skin he had tugged into view.

"Changhe..."

"Hm?"

"Do you regret wasting so much time earlier, even a little? Otherwise, I... might really have given myself to you."

Zhao Changhe pressed his lips together, unsure whether he regretted it.

Compared with sex, perhaps what he had learned earlier mattered more?

But only an idiot would say that.

Luo Qi continued, "Now that you've had a taste of a woman, will you finally grow up a little and stop being so foolish?"

Again, Zhao Changhe did not know how to answer, but he did feel he had grown up a little.

His first kiss with a woman, and he was immediately faced with parting.

The young virgin had even begun to understand a little about love.

He had once thought he and Luo Qi were rather like a married couple. Had that been love?

No. That had been the friendship of two people depending on each other to survive in a demonic den far from home. Only because Luo Qi was a woman had an indefinable romantic tension become mixed into it.

But there had still been a distance between that and love. They had helped and supported each other, yet no real sparks had flown.

That was why they could tacitly agree to keep up the pretense of being men, tacitly agree not to expose it, and remain brothers for convenience.

Instead, it was today, at the moment he threw his dagger to the ground, that the fuse of love had been lit.

He had yielded what he had pursued since childhood.

Zhao Changhe had yielded his hope of escaping the limitations of his cultivation method.

Between two men, perhaps that would still have been friendship. But between a man and a woman, it was love.

Unfortunately, it had barely begun before it came to an abrupt end.

Was the difference between a boy and a man merely these experiences?

Luo Qi lightly smoothed his disheveled hair, letting it spill down like flowing clouds. He already looked like a beauty who could topple a city. With a slightly languid smile, he said, "Actually, when you were biting at me, you looked the way you ought to... forceful, domineering. Women ought to be yours to take and handle as you please. I feel like that clueless straight-guy side of you might be gone for good."

Zhao Changhe countered, "Yours to take and handle as you please? What if that were you?"

Luo Qi considered it, then laughed despite himself. "You're right. Don't do to others what you wouldn't want done to yourself... So I'm not a good woman, and in the future, I'll be even more of a Demon Cult temptress... I'm glad your first glimpse of this martial world was Yue Hongling, chivalrous and righteous, rather than me, Luo Qi."

"...I praised Yue Hongling once, and you remembered it so well you can recite it now?"

"Can't I be jealous of her? The way I am now?"

Zhao Changhe shut his mouth.

Yet Luo Qi did not persist with that subject. Instead, he sighed softly. "After I leave, if you want to find a woman... promise me you'll only fool around. Don't trust anyone again, and don't expose your back to anyone again. The martial world is treacherous. I don't know whether the next woman you meet will throw away her dagger too."

Zhao Changhe scratched his head. Why does that make it sound as though your future self traveled back in time to give me the Eyes Behind the Head...?

"From here, ten thousand miles of rivers and passes lie ahead. Who knows when we'll meet again..." Luo Qi slowly walked outside, then suddenly looked back with a smile. "When we meet again in the martial world someday, I wonder what you'll call me?"

With his hair loose and his disguise wiped away, Luo Qi appeared beside the pool. The Mountain Stronghold bandits searching in this direction all stared dumbfounded.

Moonlight reflected beside the pool, an immortal beauty gliding over the water-when had these poor fellows ever seen such a beautiful woman?

Worse still, they recognized that face. Though there were slight differences, the features were clearly almost identical to those of the Boss Luo they knew. Even the clothes were Boss Luo's.

Brother and sister? No...

They stared woodenly at Zhao Changhe emerging from the cave and understood everything.

That was Luo Qi himself.

What damned male pet?!

Goddamn you, Boss Zhao! You've been hiding a beauty who could topple cities and kingdoms in your room to warm your bed! We were supposed to be suffering together in the Mountain Stronghold, and this is what you've been doing? Where's the basic trust between people?

What were you two doing in that cave just now? Huh? Look at the hickeys on Boss Luo's neck, the blood on his lips! What were you doing?

They beat their chests and stamped their feet. For a long while, not one of them realized that there had never been a cave behind this pool's waterfall before. Where had it come from?

Such was the devastating power of a beauty who could topple a kingdom.

Whoosh... A fragrant breeze swept past, and Vermilion Bird suddenly appeared among them, still wearing her fiery red Ritual Robe and the Half-Faced Firebird Mask.

"The Azure Dragon Seal..." She drew a deep breath, her gaze on Luo Qi filled with delighted surprise. "Jade bones and ice-pure skin, the four symbols inheritance-this is a fate bestowed by heaven. Young lady, what is your name?"

Luo Qi's understanding of the Four Symbols Cult had indeed been correct. With the Azure Dragon Seal in his possession and his body suffused with Azure Dragon Aura after Meridian Washing and Marrow Tempering, Vermilion Bird had no thoughts of some little hussy from nowhere consuming her treasure. Her overwhelming delight was written all over her.

Luo Qi glanced at Zhao Changhe and answered calmly, "Xia Chichi."

Vermilion Bird said, "Would you be willing to return to the Main Altar with me and take part in the Saintess Trial?"

Luo Qi bowed deeply. "I would."

Vermilion Bird glanced at Zhao Changhe, noticed the blood on both their lips, and smiled faintly. "Don't say I didn't warn you... If you wish to become the Saintess, the first thing you must abandon is romantic attachment."

Luo Qi fell silent for a moment, then said softly, "I know."

Vermilion Bird smiled. "Oh... You two look rather familiar. 'The killer: Zhao Changhe.'"

Zhao Changhe watched calmly, never speaking a word from beginning to end. Only now did he slowly say, "For the Vermilion Bird Venerable to remember a nobody like me-I'm truly overwhelmed by the honor."

"With the stir you've caused, you hardly count as a nobody anymore. Did the two of you discover this place together?"

"Yes."

"The four symbols fate did not fall to you, but you still deserve some credit. What do you ask in return?"

Zhao Changhe, too, remained silent for a long time. At last, he said, "Being allowed to join the Blood God Cult will be enough... As for the four symbols fate, there will be another day."