“The weather today is truly wonderful, perfect for admiring flowers and teasing birds…”
A handsome young master was leisurely strolling along a path within the valley.
He possessed a tall, upright stature, dressed in a brocade robe with gold-threaded edges, a green jade belt embedded with jewels around his waist, and satin boots with white cloud patterns.
His red hair was tied high with a green jade hairpin, complementing a face as clear as jade and exquisite features that were three parts more radiant than even a great beauty.
He carried a small yellow bird in a cage, carelessly whistling.
Anyone who saw him would surely praise him in their heart: ‘Hah! What a romantic and handsome playboy!’
“Young Master, the Sect Master requests your presence!”
“Sister Liu?”
Hua Yan watched the woman in green flying toward him on a flute. Her body stiffened slightly before she immediately beamed and went to meet her.
“Oh my, what wind blew you here, Sister Liu?”
Without waiting for a response, his expression sharpened, and he said solemnly, “Sister Liu, I really didn’t do it this time! Grandmother must be wrongly accusing an innocent man!”
“Stop talking! The person has already come to the door. If it isn’t you, who else could it be?”
‘Wait, that’s not right. I only just picked up a Gold-winged Magpie outside. Did the owner find it already? They even managed to alarm Grandmother? When did this bird become so precious?’
Hua Yan was suspicious. He lifted the birdcage and stared into the eyes of the Gold-winged Magpie.
The magpie also looked up at him, its beady green eyes meeting his beautiful golden ones in a silent exchange.
“Oh, my dear Young Master, you still have time to tease the bird! Come with me quickly!”
As Protector Liu spoke, she grabbed his hand to lead him away.
“Hey, hey, Sister Liu, don’t be in such a hurry! If someone has come, then let them come, but we can’t leave this magpie behind!”
……
“Wow, Great-Grandmother, you’re so amazing!”
“Hahaha, of course!”
Inside the hall, Hua Xiangrong clapped her small hands, excitedly watching as Hua Yuheng used her spiritual power to manifest a bird.
It flipped and moved through the air, performing various difficult maneuvers.
The great-grandmother and great-granddaughter were huddled together, creating a picture of perfect harmony.
[“Host, why are you so skilled at acting like a child?”]
099’s voice sounded in Hua Xiangrong’s mind.
‘Heh, 099, before you chose me as your Host, didn’t you investigate my background?’
Hua Xiangrong picked up a piece of pastry from the table and took a small bite, responding smilingly in her mind: ‘In my past life, I was an acting major. Playing a child—how hard could that be?’
‘Besides, with you helping me block the detection of my mental fluctuations and my own acting skills, let alone Great-Grandmother, the Valley Master of the Demon Cult, even a true immortal wouldn’t be able to see through my disguise. Furthermore, who would suspect a child connected to them by blood?’
099 was momentarily stunned, and the data flow within its body lagged because of these words.
[“No, if you have this level of skill, why didn’t you choose to transmigrate as someone close to the female lead?! Wouldn’t that be much better than appearing out of nowhere as the daughter of the female lead and the villain??!”]
‘Oh, didn’t I already explain it to you? By transmigrating as their daughter and bringing them together, the world’s crisis will be much easier to solve.’
‘Besides, I’m not the type of person who is decisive, cautious, and able to immerse myself in bitter cultivation. If you put me next to the female lead and made me grow with her, it definitely wouldn’t work.’
‘It’s better to leave everything to others; I only need to interfere a little bit!’
[“No, I think you just want to ship the couple, don’t you?”] 099 blurted out.
“Ahem!”
Hua Xiangrong coughed twice and quickly picked up a cup of Glazed Flower Tea with honey and took a sip.
The sweet taste of the tea carried an indescribably mellow charm, sliding down her throat and permeating her entire body.
‘Mmm! I must say, the pastries and tea in this cultivation world taste really good!’
[“Host, don’t change the subject!”]
‘Oh, 099! I haven’t even blamed you for turning me into a girl, yet you have so much to say!’
Hua Xiangrong put down the teacup and feigned impatience.
‘Then tell me, I clearly requested to be the child of Hua Yan and Yun Xuechang. How did it happen that you defaulted to making me a little girl with pink hair? You even changed my gender!’
[“Host, did you fail your nine-year compulsory education?”] 099 retorted unwillingly.
‘How is that possible! I was an acting department genius with a 600 score on the college entrance exam!’
[“Then you should know that according to genetics, when two women have a child, they can only logically give birth to a girl, right?”]
‘? Wait…’
Hua Xiangrong, who was nibbling on a pastry, suddenly froze.
‘099, do you mean—in this world, two girls can really have a child?!’
[“Of course. After all, this book is set in a cultivation world. In places like cultivation worlds, magic worlds, and mid-to-late stage technological worlds, same-sex reproduction is common. This world is naturally no exception.”]
099 explained scientifically, but then it suddenly realized something, and its voice rose sharply: [“Wait, Host, did you really push me to transmigrate you as the daughter of the female lead and female villain without even reading that part of the script?!”]
But at this moment, Hua Xiangrong could no longer hear 099’s words.
Her hand holding the pastry was frozen in mid-air, and her whole person seemed to have stopped, but her heart was already beating like drums, with a whole field of brilliant fireworks exploding:
‘Wahahaha! 099, I really love you to death! This place is simply a yuri paradise! Hahahahahaha!’
Just as 099 was about to denounce its Host, Protector Liu, who had been gone from the hall for a long time, happened to walk in, followed by a red-haired man carrying a birdcage.
“Oh, Grandmother, whose child is this? She’s born so cute.”
As soon as Hua Yan entered the hall, she caught sight of the little pink-haired girl in his grandmother’s arms and couldn’t help but ask curiously.
“Hmph! You still have the face to ask? Kneel down!”
Seeing his careless attitude, Hua Yuheng’s anger flared up, and she exerted a direct pressure on him.
‘I just picked up a bird. Is it really that serious?’
Hua Yan’s mind was filled with confusion, but years of experience in getting into trouble and being punished made him not hesitate.
He immediately set the birdcage aside and knelt down with a thud.
‘Hmph, that’s more like it.’
Seeing her only grandson kneel so quickly, the fire in Hua Yuheng’s heart dissipated by two parts.
But when she looked down at the large, innocent eyes of Hua Xiangrong blinking in her arms, the flame surged up again.
‘No! I almost let this brat fool me again! When has he ever not admitted his mistakes quickly and obediently, only to forget them the moment he turns around? I won’t fall for your tricks today!’
‘I have to get justice for little Rongrong’s mother today!’
“Hua Yan,” she said, her voice sinking, “do you know what mistake you’ve made?”
‘Wait… Great-Grandmother called him… Hua Yan?!’
Hearing this, Hua Xiangrong’s internal world instantly collapsed.
‘099! Explain this to me! Why does Great-Grandmother call this man “Hua Yan”! Am I not the female villain’s child?! What’s going on?!’
[“Uh… this, this…”] 099’s data flow became disordered for a moment.
[“It shouldn’t be. I… I clearly followed the operating manual strictly. Theoretically, it’s impossible to make a mistake… How could Hua Yan be a man?”]
Sensing the Host’s somewhat crumbling emotions, 099 hurried to comfort her: [“Host, stay calm! Let’s observe first! After all… after all, Hua Yan is a major villain who only appears in the mid-to-late part of the book. Maybe… maybe this person is a woman dressed as a man?”]
‘Aaaaah—I’ll believe you one more time! If he really is a man, 099, you’re dead!’
Regardless of the intense internal dialogue between Hua Xiangrong and 099, Hua Yan, who was kneeling in the hall, heard his grandmother’s words and felt the pressure that hadn’t diminished at all.
He couldn’t help but be stunned.
‘No way, it was completely useless? Is Grandmother really this angry this time?’
‘Could it be… it’s not because of this bird…?’
Hua Yan glanced at the Gold-winged Magpie again. Adhering to the experience that “if you’re wrong, admit it quickly,” he immediately said loudly:
“Grandmother, I really know I was wrong!”
“Oh? Where did you go wrong?”
Hua Yuheng put down the child in her arms, slowly stood up, and asked in a low voice.
“I was wrong to pick up this bird by the roadside! Who knew whose spiritual pet it was!”
Seeing his grandmother’s increasingly dark expression, Hua Yan thought to himself, ‘As expected, it’s more than just that,’ and quickly continued to admit his mistakes:
“I was also wrong. I shouldn’t have secretly plucked the branches of the Green Jade Willow in Sister Liu’s courtyard this month!”
“What?! So those branches were plucked by you, Young Master? I thought they were gnawed by Elder Sun’s spiritual beast!”
Hearing the exclamation of Protector Liu beside him and feeling the increasingly heavy pressure on his body, Hua Yan sighed, ‘This is bad,’ and continued to confess like beans spilling from a bamboo tube:
“I was wrong. Last month, I stole the Thousand-year Ginseng Spirit purchased by the pharmacy!”
Hua Yuheng’s hand slowly reached for the ruler on the table.
“I was wrong. The month before last, I hit the Saintess of the Shiyin Sect!”
Hua Yuheng stroked the ruler and walked down from the hall step by step.
“I, I was wrong. Three months ago, I quietly stole a jar of the Glazed Flower Tea you just prepared!”
“I really didn’t expect that you, kid, could cause so much trouble.”
One of Hua Yuheng’s hands rested on Hua Yan’s shoulder, a fake smile on her face.
“Unfortunately, it’s still not right.”
“That… that’s still not it?”
Hua Yan looked at the ruler that had beaten him since he was a child, swallowed his saliva, and asked in a trembling voice, “That, Grandmother, before you beat me, can you let me understand? What… what kind of trouble did I cause this time?”
“You still have the face to ask?! Can’t you see your daughter?!”
A sudden, invisible force struck, and Hua Yan’s body was instantly out of control. He was hoisted horizontally in mid-air with his face toward the ground.
At the same time, the ruler in Hua Yuheng’s hand landed solidly on his buttocks with a loud thwack!
“Aaaah! Daughter? What daughter?!”
Hua Yan felt a burning pain in his buttocks, and tears instantly welled up in his eyes.
“You still dare to play dumb with me! Isn’t the one in the hall right there?!”
Thwack! Another heavy blow.
Hua Yan screamed, looked up with tearful eyes, and gazed at the little girl with pink hair and a pink dress holding fruit behind the table.
“That’s not right, Grandmother! I’ve never even had a Dao Companion! Where would a daughter come from?!”
“Is that so? Then why don’t you try the Bloodline Secret Art of our valley yourself?”
Hua Yuheng stopped her movements and spoke gloomily from the side.
Hua Yan was stunned, then immediately followed her instructions and activated the bloodline detection technique toward the little girl in the hall—
The feedback from the secret art told him clearly: she was his daughter, without a shadow of a doubt.
“Impossible! I’m still a virgin… big man! How could I have a daughter!”
“You’re asking me? Who should I ask?!”
Thwack! Accompanied by a scream, another ruler hit Hua Yan’s buttocks hard.
“Rongrong, tell this heartless man, what is your mother’s name!”
Hua Yuheng looked up angrily and shouted at Hua Xiangrong, who was nibbling on fruit in the hall.
“Mm!”
Seeing this, Hua Xiangrong put down the fruit and nodded vigorously.
“My mother’s name is Yun Xuechang!”
‘Wait, Yun Xuechang?!’
Hearing this name, Hua Yan even forgot the severe pain in his buttocks and suddenly looked up.
“You said your mother is that woman, Yun Xuechang?!”
And his violent reaction, in the eyes of Hua Yuheng who was holding the ruler, was undoubtedly an admission of his crime.
Thwack!
“You brat, you still dare to say you don’t know her mother!”
“Wait! Grandmother, let me explain! Ouch!”
Thwack!
“Abandoning your wife and daughter, inconstant in love! You could even do such a thing! Let you explain? If I listen to a single word of your nonsense today, I won’t be named Hua!”
“No! Grandmother! It’s not like that! Ouch!”
Thwack!
“How dare you say it’s not! You’re a grown man. If you didn’t bully that woman, could it be that she bullied you?!”
“Yes! That’s exactly what happened! Grandmother, you’re finally willing to listen to me—ouch!”
Thwack!
“I’m still listening to you! Then why don’t you say that you are a woman and that Rongrong’s mother took liberties with you!”
“Yes! She was the one who bullied me back then!”
With a muffled bang, a burst of green smoke suddenly rose around Hua Yan.
When the green smoke dissipated and everyone looked again, the red-haired man was no longer there.
Only a young woman who looked nine parts similar to him remained, wrapped in a brocade robe that was clearly more than one size too large, crying like a pear blossom in the rain.
“Yes! She was the one who turned me into this at the Yin-Yang Platform of the Hehuan Sect! Boohoo… clearly… clearly, she was the one who bullied me!”
Hua Yan’s beautiful golden eyes had cried until they were as red as lanterns, and snot and tears were all over that pitiful face, making her look truly wretched and lovely.