She repeated the keywords intermittently, trying to find a flaw in her own reasoning.
Jiubaiyun felt like his language system was about to crash.
‘Who in the world taught this guy such an absurd logical viewpoint?!’
He took a deep breath, struggling to organize his words, trying to explain in the simplest way possible.
“This isn’t about husband and wife! First of all! I’m a man! A man! How can I be a wife?”
He pointed at himself, emphasizing this most basic fact.
The Palace Master’s gaze followed the direction of his finger, landing on his face—dusty but still handsome—then swept over his flat chest, and finally settled on his snow-white, fluffy fox tail, which was currently bristling with alertness.
She pouted her pink lips slightly, as if performing a complex logical operation.
After a moment, her pale gray eyes lit up again, as if she had found a new path to a solution.
“A man… a wife?”
She asked tentatively, then nodded vigorously, as if convincing herself.
Her logical core was clearly locked onto that tail, which held a fatal attraction for her.
“It’s okay! The tail looks good!”
As for gender?
What was that?
In the face of the tail, it was insignificant!
Jiubaiyun’s vision went dark, and he nearly fainted on the spot.
He felt that reasoning with this Palace Master was even harder than getting the Fox Demon Lord to eat chocolate!
But despite that, Jiubaiyun took another deep breath and then explained to the Palace Master:
“A man cannot be a wife!”
“Can’t be?”
As soon as Jiubaiyun’s words fell, the Palace Master was clearly stunned for a moment, a look of astonishment on her face.
But soon, she seemed to understand Jiubaiyun’s meaning, and then turned her gaze to Jiubaiyun’s crotch.
‘If that’s the case… removing this… would be fine, right?’
The Palace Master’s ethereal, childish words fell on Jiubaiyun’s ears like the whispers of a demon.
Jiubaiyun immediately understood the Palace Master’s meaning.
‘This joke is not funny at all!’
Jiubaiyun’s mouth twitched.
Seeing the Palace Master reach out to act, he quickly blocked her small hand and changed his wording.
“No! That’s not the point!”
Jiubaiyun was almost going crazy.
He tried to back away, but the Palace Master’s little hand clutching his leg prevented him from moving an inch.
“Husband and wife is… it’s based on mutual consent! It’s… a partnership! It can’t be established by a unilateral declaration! And! I! Don’t! Want! To!”
He practically shouted the last four words, his voice echoing conspicuously in the empty, dead ruins.
The hovering flock of Mountain Sparrows seemed to stir ever so slightly at the shout, but was immediately suppressed by an invisible force.
The Silent Feather Guard ahead, their gray-feathered bodies still silent as statues, had their three pairs of lowered pale gray eyes flicker almost imperceptibly.
“Consent?”
The Palace Master’s delicate little face was replaced by a deeper confusion.
She tilted her head a bit more, her silver-gray hair almost brushing against Jiubaiyun’s knees.
She seemed to be struggling to digest this brand-new concept, one that had never been incorporated into her system.
“Not willing?”
Jiubaiyun’s “I don’t want to” was like a stone thrown into a deep pond, stirring ripples in her non-human mind.
Her little hand was still clutching Jiubaiyun’s leg, her fingertips curling unconsciously, as if at a loss.
“Why… not willing?”
Her ethereal voice carried a hint of imperceptible grievance, like a child rejected by their favorite toy.
“The tail… is pretty… want to touch.”
Jiubaiyun felt his temples throbbing.
Reasoning with this Palace Master, whose thought process was so eccentric, was far too difficult!
He took a deep breath, trying to suppress his surging emotions and the stabbing pain at the base of his tail, and attempted to explain in more straightforward language.
“Because… it hurts!”
Jiubaiyun practically gritted his teeth as he said these two words, simultaneously shifting his body to avoid her burning gaze.
The injured tail twitched slightly from the movement.
“And… it’s very uncomfortable! It’s like… like having your palace smashed with stones! I don’t like it! I don’t want to!”
Jiubaiyun racked his brains to find a metaphor she could understand.
He pointed to the Pure Black Palace in the distance, which exuded an ominous aura.
This crude analogy seemed to finally touch her.
“Smash… the palace?”
The Palace Master’s little face instantly tightened, her pale gray eyes showing a clear displeasure for the first time.
Seeing her expression, Jiubaiyun finally relaxed a little.
It seemed that this palace was indeed very important to her.
The Palace Master, following the direction Jiubaiyun pointed, glanced at her palace, then quickly turned her head back, her gaze returning to the snow-white tail.
Her brows were slightly furrowed, as if she was struggling to weigh the unpleasantness of “smashing the palace with stones” against the desire to “touch the tail.”
After a moment of silence, the Palace Master’s pink lips pouted slightly, carrying a hint of dissatisfaction and reluctance.
The little hand that had been reaching for the tail finally, extremely slowly and with great reluctance, withdrew again and fell to her side.
“Oh…”
She uttered a short syllable, her ethereal voice carrying a more noticeable note of grievance and disappointment.
Her delicate face bore an expression of “I’m not happy, but I’ll reluctantly accept it.”
She no longer tried to reach for the tail, but the little hand clutching Jiubaiyun’s leg showed no sign of letting go, as if she had decided this was her “temporary perch.”
Seeing this, Jiubaiyun felt a sudden relief, his back soaked in cold sweat.
Temporarily… safe?
At least the tail crisis was resolved for now!
However, before he could fully catch his breath, the Palace Master’s pale gray eyes lit up again.
“Then?”
Her ethereal voice rang out again, carrying the solemnity of announcing a major decision.
“What do I have to do… to make you willing?”
She tilted her little face up, her pale gray pupils fixed unblinkingly on Jiubaiyun.
“Jiubaiyun… willing… needs… what?”
She called his name accurately, her voice full of pure curiosity.
At that moment, the Fox Demon Lord finally broke through Jiubaiyun’s mental block.
Hearing the Palace Master’s words, he burst out laughing in the Sea of Consciousness.
Pfft—cough!
Jiubaiyun looked down at those pure, stubborn pale gray eyes, feeling a headache coming on.
He opened his mouth, and after a long while, finally managed to squeeze out a dry sentence.
“This needs time… it needs… to take it slow.”
“For now… can you… let me go first?”
The Palace Master tilted her head, as if understanding the meaning of “take it slow.”
A moment later, she seemed to feel that although the answer was not clear enough, it was at least a “direction.”
“Oh… okay.”
Then, she responded, and the little hand clutching Jiubaiyun’s leg finally let go.