Say the Raunchiest Sweet Nothings, Be the Most Shameless Heroic Couple
The moment Shu Fu touched the epiphyllum, an intense radiance burst forth, bright as the rising sun. It gradually contracted to a single point, and within the curtain of light, the flower’s graceful outline shifted and transformed, condensing into a figure of immortal beauty.
“Fuer, sorry to keep you waiting.”
Jiang Xuesheng, who had vanished for an entire day, stood before her. His voice was warm and gentle, and with his palm turned upward, he took her hand with solemn tenderness, as though he were lifting a handful of precious pearls.
“…”
Shu Fu slapped his palm with the back of her hand. She hadn’t the heart to use any real force, so she merely offered the obligatory retort:
“You really do love fooling around. What a brat.”
She pressed her lips together to steady her emotions, then quickly swept her gaze around the room. Keeping a straight face, she lowered her voice and said, “Honestly, everyone’s watching. I’m going to count down three, two, one, and Master Jinghai will definitely shout, ‘This is outrageous! You’re defying all human decency!’”
“You—you two are simply outrageous! You’re defying all human decency!”
The moment she finished speaking—before she had even counted “three”—Master Jinghai exploded in anger.
“Do you realize that such conduct will turn the Jiuhua Sect into the laughingstock of the entire realm? This matter is of grave importance. The Sect Master must decide—”
Jiang Xuesheng smiled, his expression refined and amiable, and replied with a single word:
“Get lost.”
“…………”
Master Jinghai’s entire righteous, impassioned denunciation was lodged in his throat by that chilly little “get lost.” He could neither continue nor stop. His face, usually as pale and lofty as snow on a distant mountain, flushed bright red. He looked exactly like a crayfish fresh from the ice.
Shu Fu tugged at Jiang Xuesheng’s sleeve and said at a volume everyone could hear, “Master, don’t be like that. Master Jinghai didn’t even misuse any idioms this time. He’s really been trying his best.”
Jinghai the Crayfish took another arrow to the heart. His expression turned cold enough to skate on.
“And you still have the nerve to call him ‘Master’? Jiang Ruoshui, you’re so young, yet already so shameless. It’s clear that your very character is corrupt—”
Shu Fu thought, Wow. That sounds familiar.
When the original heroine had gone berserk and injured the vicious female supporting character, he seemed to have said almost exactly the same thing.
Jiang Xuesheng had suggested that Shu Fu formally leave his tutelage primarily to avoid gossip—to get past Master Jinghai’s objections and preserve a little peace and quiet for the physically and emotionally exhausted Master Qiu. There had originally been Master Huaigu as well, but he had already gone bald.
However, after speaking with the Sect Master, Jiang Xuesheng realized that Tianji Peak’s hostility toward Yaoguang Peak had been building for years. There had long been gossip circulating too: the whole peak was full of sour, spiteful busybodies who simply refused to go away.
Even if he was willing to take a step back and go through the formalities of taking Shu Fu on as an independent disciple, the Sour Rooster Peak would not let him off the hook—or, more accurately, it would not let the Sect Master off the hook. They would seize on this excuse and stir up as much trouble as possible.
So what was Jiang Xuesheng supposed to do?
Develop an underground relationship with Shu Fu and become a pair of secret lovers who could never see the light of day?
Of course not. Just imagining it was suffocating.
Therefore, Jiang Xuesheng’s answer was—
Drive his own car straight over everyone else and let them all go to hell!
Naturally, as the aloof master and pillar of righteousness who had joined the male lead in hunting down the female lead after she fell to demonic cultivation, Master Jinghai was rigid to a fault. Clearly, he was not the sort of man who could be dismissed with a single “get lost.”
Just like right now: even though the story had long since veered a hundred thousand miles off course, Master Jinghai still wouldn’t give up on killing the heroine. The laws of cause and effect kept driving him to doggedly oppose Shu Fu.
“Fine. Just fine.”
His face had turned livid. Laughing with fury, he took a threatening step forward. “Jiang Tan, I always thought you were merely arrogant and reckless, fond of flaunting your uniqueness. That was why you chose to consort with the likes of demons. I never imagined you would sink to such depths of your own accord…”
Jiang Xuesheng paid his accusations no mind. With a raised brow and a smile, he said, “The heart goes where it will; love follows where it must. Tell me, what principle of heaven or human morality could stand in the way of that?”
“Human morality, human morality… It ought to exist for the sake of people, not to crush the humanity we’re born with just to fit someone else’s definition of ‘morality.’ In the end, what counts as moral, and what doesn’t? And who gets to decide?”
“…But never mind. I’m not even human, after all. What’s the point of arguing with you about what ‘human morality’ means?”
Without waiting for Master Jinghai to respond, Jiang Xuesheng turned to Liu Ruyi, resplendent in a flowing robe and phoenix crown, looking every inch an empress (?). He rested a hand on Liu Ruyi’s shoulder and smiled warmly.
“Ruyi, I’ll leave things to you from here.”
“All right… Huh?”
Liu Ruyi had already started to answer before realizing something was off. He eyed him suspiciously. “Master, what are you leaving to me?”
“Yao Guang Peak,” Jiang Xuesheng replied candidly.
Liu Ruyi: “…What???”
“I know this is a little sudden, but I have no choice.”
Jiang Xuesheng sighed and gave Liu Ruyi’s shoulder a hearty pat. The other man nearly dropped to his knees. “Think about it. Once Fuer forms her core, she’ll have to travel the world and gain experience. I gave her the White Snow Phantom Orchid, so that means ‘where the rooster goes, the hen follows’… Not that we’re actually getting married. You know what I mean. In short, I’m going with her.”
“So we may as well settle everything once and for all. As of today, I’m passing the position of Peak Master of Yao Guang Peak on to you. I’ve already informed the sect leader. All the other Peak Masters have agreed; Jinghai is the only one who doesn’t know yet.”
“From now on, you’ll take care of the peak’s affairs, assist the sect leader, teach the new disciples, and handle everything else that comes with the job.”
Liu Ruyi: “??????”
What did he mean???
While I wasn’t looking, all you big shots went and arranged my whole life for me???
Do I get no say in this???
Liu Ruyi’s knees buckled. The phoenix crown suddenly felt unbearably heavy. A line of dialogue flashed through his mind:
—She was still too young then to know that every gift bestowed by fate had its price, marked in secret long before.
Shu Fu had mentioned it to him once, though he couldn’t remember who she’d been talking about. Whoever it was, the line certainly suited him.
Liu Ruyi had never imagined that Jiang Xuesheng had carefully prepared this “graduation gift,” proclaiming it to the world as he crowned him, only for it to turn out to be a devious scheme to saddle him with a pot labeled “corporate wage slave.”
What kind of graduation gift was this? It was a last meal before the execution!
Just look at her bargain-bin master: that beaming smile, that triumphant air, that breezy tone. Every bit of it said:
【Ruyi, congratulations on graduating! Starting today, you can begin working nine to nine, six days a week!】
Worst of all, there was another line after it:
【Your master and your junior sister are off on their honeymoon. Don’t miss us.】
…Oh, to hell with you!!!
Liu Ruyi seethed with indignation. For a moment, she was so dumbstruck she couldn’t speak. All she could do was glare at Jiang Xuesheng, silently asking, “Was I something you got free when you topped up your phone?” But he didn’t pick up on it in the slightest.
Jiang Xuesheng’s gaze was fixed entirely on Shu Fu, his eyes shimmering like rippling water. Not a trace of his attention strayed elsewhere. If before, his eyes had been “a river of stars suspended in the heavens,” now they were a spotlight on a stage, illuminating Shu Fu alone. What did he care if the world behind him went up in flames, or if Liu Ruyi struggled in despair in the icy darkness?
“Master, you’ve changed.”
Liu Ruyi said mournfully, “I knew you were cruel, but I never imagined that after falling in love, you could become even more poisonous. The bite of the green bamboo viper, the sting of the wasp—neither can compare to the venom in your heart.”
Jiang Xuesheng replied, “That’s all right. I’ll be in love for the rest of my life. You’ll get used to it eventually.”
Liu Ruyi: “...Get lost!”
Jiang Xuesheng was only too happy to oblige. He promptly and considerately “got lost.”
He reached out and drew Shu Fu to his side. A radiant shimmer swept over him, and the elegant, otherworldly figure of the immortal changed once more—
When the light faded, a beautiful white dragon, as if sculpted from ice and snow, appeared before everyone without a shred of hesitation.
Its flawless, luminous grace was like the clear moonlight, or a ghost orchid blooming quietly beneath the moon.
“You… transformed your primordial spirit into a dragon?!”
Master Jinghai cried out in shock. “Dragons are the foremost of all demons. Only a great demon of the Jiao clan can refine their primordial spirit into the shape of a dragon. Jiang Tan, what are you, really? You’re a great demon, yet you concealed your identity and infiltrated the Jiuhua Sect. What are your intentions?!”
【You’re mistaken.】
The white dragon did not speak, yet its words rang through everyone’s minds, deep and resonant as a great bell.
【I never meant to hide it. I simply couldn’t be bothered to tell irrelevant people. You didn’t know because, in my eyes, you weren’t worthy of knowing.】
“You…!! You duplicitous monster, still daring to run your mouth here!!”
Master Jinghai drew his sword in a fury, but Jiang Xuesheng was quicker. The dragon moved with astonishing speed and agility. In one swift motion, he scooped Shu Fu up in his claws and shot into the sky like a north wind laden with snow. His tail swept across the crowd, knocking a swath of Tianji Peak disciples off their feet and drawing a chorus of cries.
There was no silver saddle shining on a white horse here, but this white dragon truly did streak through the air like a shooting star.
Shu Fu reacted just as quickly. She sprang onto the dragon’s head, gripped his pair of jade-white horns, and laughed aloud:
“Sir, when did you learn to do this? ‘Transforming your primordial spirit into a dragon’—I never knew that was possible.”
Jiang Xuesheng chuckled. “I have plenty more tricks. We have a long future ahead of us; you’ll have time to discover them all.”
No sooner had the words left his lips than the white dragon rode the wind, soaring upward in a single sweeping ascent. Carrying Shu Fu, he pierced through the brilliant sea of clouds and sped toward the vast, boundless blue sky.
Then, above those dazzling, multicolored clouds, Shu Fu discovered in astonishment—
“…Demon King?”
Why was Wu Yao here?
And why was he in his original form as an azure flood dragon, spiraling through the sky like a game of Snake, circling round and round as he scattered spiritual power into the surrounding clouds?
No—wait.
If that was the case, then the sudden blessed rain that had fallen from the heavens that morning, followed by rainbows and skies full of rosy clouds, all building momentum for Jiang Xuesheng’s confession… could all of it have been—
“Jiang Tan!!!”
The instant the thought crossed Shu Fu’s mind, she heard Wu Yao cursing furiously as he continued circling through the air:
“Have you finished yet?! Exactly how much longer am I supposed to keep this up? I’m warning you—don’t think you can order the flood-dragon clan around just because you’re the Dragon Lord. I’m not afraid of you!”
Shu Fu: “……………………”
What peaceful, idyllic days? It turned out the Demon King had been carrying the burden all along.
She sternly condemned Jiang Xuesheng’s outrageous violation of flood-dragon ethics, then added:
“Sir, the celestial signs are perfect at the moment. I would like to form my golden core here. In truth, I broke through my bottleneck shortly after leaving the illusion realm, but I have never found a suitable opportunity.”
Jiang Xuesheng nodded. “Good. I had the same thought.” Then he turned to Wu Yao. “Keep going. You may stop after Fuer has formed her core.”
Wu Yao: “I’LL KILL YOU TWO DOGS!!!!”
…
And so, that day, everyone in the city witnessed thunder rumbling amid clouds as scarlet and blazing as fire. Lightning tore through the cloudbanks, while drifting wisps of vapor scattered in every direction like falling petals, rolling across the heavens into a breathtaking, dreamlike sea of flowers.
Unexpectedly, although Jiang Xuesheng’s actions were wildly unconventional, perhaps the spectacle was simply too awe-inspiring. When people spoke of it afterward, few criticized him. Instead, they sighed over the depth of his devotion: for the woman he loved, he had willingly cast aside his position as a Peak Master of the Jiuhua Sect, ready to roam the world at her side—her with a zither, him with a sword.
Heaven and earth as their matchmaker; mountains and rivers as their witnesses; the sun, moon, and stars as their wedding candles; rainbow light and radiant clouds as the bride’s ceremonial robes.
Such peerless, summit-level grandstanding—only he could pull it off.
As for Master Jinghai, who had rushed after them to demand an explanation, only to be struck squarely by the tribulation lightning alongside his disciple Qi Yuxuan…
Compared with an eighteen-year-old sword cultivator who had formed her core, and the breathtaking love story between her and Jiang Xuesheng, who would care about him?
