Chapter 23: Well-Prepared

“Senior Brother…”

An Xiaoxiao’s voice was still soft and sweet, but it lacked a bit of warmth.

“During your days away from the mountain, did you meet anyone interesting?”

Lin Yue’s heart sank.

“No, just those merchants in Qingshui Town. That old coot Mo Feng forced me to go collect rent. Ran into a few stubborn ones, almost got into a fight.”

“Is that so?”

An Xiaoxiao slowly straightened up.

She extended a finger as white as a scallion and lightly brushed it against Lin Yue’s collar.

“But… Senior Brother, why is there a faint scent of jasmine on you?”

She brought her finger to the tip of her nose, sniffed gently, her eyes becoming extremely dreamy.

“This jasmine scent… it carries a hint of moisture, a trace of an extremely pure… maiden’s aura. Senior Brother, while collecting rent, whose pure and chaste bed did you end up in?”

Holy crap.

Is she part bloodhound?!

Lin Yue roared internally.

Chen Yao’s courtyard was full of jasmine plants.

Last night during the demon extermination, the two of them had been so close together; it was inevitable some scent would rub off.

“Ahem, Junior Sister, you’ve misunderstood.”

Lin Yue’s expression remained unchanged, his heart steady, drawing upon the professional composure of a director reciting lines.

“There’s a Chen Family Villa in town that’s owed the sect three years of tribute. That place is haunted by a demon, a fully-formed Shadow Ghost has taken root there. For the great cause of our sect, I ventured into the tiger’s den and fought that Shadow Ghost for three hundred rounds. The courtyard happens to have a patch of jasmine; the scent got on me during the fight.”

“Oh~~ It got on you during the fight, huh.”

An Xiaoxiao nodded with sudden understanding and sat back down.

Lin Yue had just started to relax.

“Then… whose scent is this?”

An Xiaoxiao suddenly reached out and grabbed Lin Yue’s left sleeve.

Her strength was astonishing.

Lin Yue felt his wrist clamped as if by an iron vise.

An Xiaoxiao lowered her head, pressed her cheek against the sleeve, and took a deep breath.

This time, when she raised her head, the black pupils in her eyes instantly dilated, almost filling the entire sockets.

It was a pure, undisguised, morbid possessiveness.

“Such a cold fragrance.”

She said softly, a cruel curve lifting the corner of her mouth.

“Like a sword just drawn from ice and snow. Aloof, untouched by worldly dust. Senior Brother, this scent… it’s not even found among the outer disciples. How did someone like you, just collecting rent in a town, get stained with the scent of… an inner sect prodigy?”

Lin Yue’s cold sweat finally broke out.

Chu Wanning.

This morning, walking in the rain, from such a distance, could this girl really have picked up a residual scent?

‘This Senior Sister Chu is so inconsiderate, putting perfume in her sword aura!’ Lin Yue cursed inwardly.

The room was dead silent.

Only the soup in the clay pot continued to bubble “gurgle gurgle,” as if mocking Lin Yue’s predicament.

An Xiaoxiao didn’t get angry.

She didn’t even raise her voice.

She just looked at Lin Yue quietly like that, her fingers gently playing with his sleeve, once, twice.

“Xiaoxiao…” Lin Yue decided to take the initiative, projecting his “steady and reliable” persona.

He turned his hand and grasped An Xiaoxiao’s wrist, his tone sincere and serious.

“Senior Brother won’t hide it from you. This fragrance… it really is Senior Sister Chu Wanning’s.”

An Xiaoxiao’s eyes instantly turned frosty.

Her other hand had already quietly moved toward the small pocket of her pink apron.

It bulged, who knew what kind of weapon was hidden inside.

“But you don’t know, Senior Brother, for your sake, how much grievance I’ve endured!”

Lin Yue suddenly let out a pained, heartfelt sigh.

An Xiaoxiao was stunned: “For… me?”

“Yes!” Lin Yue’s words were earnest, a master actor taking over.

“This morning in Qingshui Town, Senior Sister Chu was leading a patrol. She took one look at this iron pillar on my back and insisted it was some kind of peerless divine weapon, demanding to buy it by force!”

Lin Yue pointed at the broken iron rod behind the door.

“You know, even though this iron pillar is shabby, it was handed to me by you personally!”

“Even if I, Lin Yue, were to die poor, even if I were beaten to death by an inner disciple, how could I betray my junior sister’s affection? I resisted with my life, argued with Senior Sister Chu on principle! Senior Sister Chu, ashamed into anger, used her icy sword aura to suppress me. This cold fragrance on my sleeve is the evidence left by being grazed by her sword aura!”

Lin Yue spoke with great emotion.

At the most intense part, he even slapped his thigh fiercely.

An Xiaoxiao listened, stunned and bewildered.

She looked at the dark, unremarkable iron rod behind the door, then at Lin Yue’s face, full of righteous indignation.

The darkness in her eyes gradually receded, returning to that watery pink glow.

“Senior Brother… are you telling the truth?”

“Truer than pearls!”

Lin Yue patted his chest.

“What is Chu Wanning? Even if she looks like an ice sculpture, in my heart, she can’t compare to a single strand of your hair, Junior Sister. Her sword aura may be cold, but it’s no colder than my determination to protect this iron pillar!”

“Pfft.”

An Xiaoxiao suddenly covered her mouth and laughed.

She laughed so hard she trembled, tears almost coming to her eyes.

“Senior Brother, you’re really funny.”

She withdrew her hand and gently tapped Lin Yue’s forehead.

“Senior Sister Chu is the top genius of the inner sect; why would she try to steal a broken iron rod from you? But… Senior Brother’s mouth is getting sweeter and sweeter. Xiaoxiao likes that.”

Was the crisis averted?

Just as Lin Yue was about to wipe his sweat, he heard An Xiaoxiao add nonchalantly:

“Since Senior Brother cares about Xiaoxiao so much, you definitely won’t disappoint Xiaoxiao’s heartfelt efforts with this bowl of soup, right?”

She pushed the bowl of red soup that had corroded the tabletop closer to Lin Yue.

“Drink it all. Not a single drop left. Otherwise, Xiaoxiao will be very, very, very sad…”

She said “very sad” three times in a row.

With each utterance, the surrounding air grew a degree colder.

Lin Yue looked at the bowl of soup.

Drink it, and he’d be a puppet controlled by gu worms from now on.

Don’t drink it, and this broken hut might become his morgue today.

‘System! Ledger! Think of something fast! You can’t just watch the future Demon Emperor be poisoned to death by a bowl of soup, can you?’

Lin Yue desperately cried for help in his sea of consciousness.

The ledger slowly floated up a line of text:

“To untie the bell, you need the one who tied it. Have you forgotten the Profound Magnetic Gravity Field your iron pillar just acquired?”

Lin Yue’s eyes lit up.

Right!

“Alright! How could I not drink the soup my junior sister personally made!”

Lin Yue lifted the soup bowl with grand, heroic flair.

Then, he stood up and walked to the door.

“However, before drinking, I want to make a vow to this iron pillar that witnessed our bond!”

An Xiaoxiao tilted her head, looking at him puzzled.

Lin Yue held the bowl in one hand and with the other, smack, slapped the black iron heavy sword.

At that very moment, he secretly activated the Profound Magnetic Array inside the heavy sword.

“Hummm—”

A faint but extremely precise suction force emanated from the heavy sword, traveling directly along Lin Yue’s arm and locking onto the bowl of soup.

Visible to the naked eye, extremely fine threads of red bloody aura floated up from the soup bowl, all being sucked into the black iron heavy sword.

The originally red, almost black soup instantly lightened in color, finally turning into a clear, translucent, plain boiled meat broth.

“I, Lin Yue, swear that I will never let my junior sister suffer the slightest grievance in the future! Bottoms up!”

Lin Yue threw his head back and drained the bowl of now “essence”-drained clear broth in one go.

“Ha! Good soup! Junior Sister’s cooking is peerless in the world!”

Lin Yue wiped his mouth and showed the empty bowl to An Xiaoxiao.