Tired Little Yue was fast asleep...
She was sleeping so comfortably that her whole face was flushed with an adorable rosy hue, and she was wrapped tightly under the covers, warm, dry, soft... well, the bed itself wasn't really soft at all.
But... Brother Ying's body was firm and fleshy, and sleeping curled up against his chest felt incredibly nice...
Even in her dream, Wu Guanyue curled her lips into a smile, giddy with happiness. She reached out a hand loosely, trying to wrap it around that strong, sturdy waist... only to grab at empty air.
Wu Guanyue jolted wide awake right away.
Bright daylight was already streaming in. The door of the small cottage was shut tight, and outside she could hear Wuyun and Pudie chasing and playing noisily. The room still carried that faint, blushing, shy scent, but she was all alone.
Wu Guanyue: O-O
She huddled under the covers, eyes wide open, deep in thought about who knew what.
The door creaked open, and Wenren Ying stepped inside, wearing only his inner tunic.
"Little Yue, not going back to sleep?"
As he walked in, he spotted Wu Guanyue deep in her own thoughts. Her hair was all messy and frizzy from tossing in her sleep, making her look fluffy... so utterly endearing.
Wenren Ying suddenly got the silly urge to take a little nibble out of her.
His Little Yue blinked, seeming to snap back to her senses. She slowly turned her head to look at him... then suddenly broke into a grin, drawing out her voice in a coquettish, sugary lilt: "Brother Ying~~~ hold me~~~"
Wenren Ying couldn't help but burst into a warm smile too.
He took off his inner tunic, which was soaked through with the cold wind outside, leaned down, and fished Wu Guanyue right out of the bedding, pulling her straight into his arms. She wasn't wearing a stitch of clothing, so the whole scene instantly took on that soft, charged, intimate vibe.
Wenren Ying pulled the quilt over and wrapped it around Wu Guanyue.
The two new lovers, who had just spent their first night together, were far too smitten to settle down. They doted on each other for ages, the whole room filled with Wu Guanyue's soft, coquettish murmurs and Wenren Ying's low, gentle voice.
Wu Guanyue rested her head on his shoulder and asked, "Brother Ying, has all the medicinal effect from that day worn off?"
Wenren Ying stroked her face and said, "Thanks to you, Little Yue, it's all..."
His words got stuck halfway. He suddenly realized that line sounded awfully like he was teasing her shamelessly, way more than just a little mischievous.
The room went quiet for a moment, the two of them staring at each other, both looking a little flustered.
After a long while, Wu Guanyue giggled shyly, tucking her face into the crook of Wenren Ying's neck, her voice tiny and soft: "I had a really nice time too..."
It was true... well, at first, when Brother Ying looked like he was completely under the spell of the medicine, she'd been a little scared. But he'd been so restrained from the very start, never once making her feel uncomfortable.
This kind of thing was a joy for two people, after all, taking pleasure in each other's bodies, drawing the sweetest, happiest sensations from one another.
Wu Guanyue thought back to some awkward, flustering memories, her face burning up as she hid it against Wenren Ying's chest, refusing to come out.
And Wenren Ying's heartbeat was thundering like a drum, all stirred up by her frank, sweet confession of affection.
Wu Guanyue thought that falling in love really did make people a little silly, a little giddy and trivial... right now, for example, she could just stay pressed up against Brother Ying, listening to the beat of his heart, for ages and not get bored.
Then she heard her Brother Ying's voice speak.
"Little Yue... I'll take good care of you, always."
His voice was still low and deep, but it carried a clumsy, earnest solemnity. As he said the words, his arms around her tightened unconsciously, as if to prove how sincere he was right then, as if he wanted to tuck her right into his own chest.
Wu Guanyue: O-O
Her eyes went wide.
It was such a plain, simple line... so plain it was almost old-fashioned... but, but...
But she was so, so happy.
Wu Guanyue threw her arms tight around Wenren Ying!
The two stayed tangled up in each other, lost in their little bubble of affection.
Who knows how much time passed before they ended up lying back down on the bed again.
This time, though, they didn't do anything improper. They just nestled close together quietly, savoring their sweet, private time alone.
Wu Guanyue was playing with Wenren Ying's hand.
His hand was big, his fingers long, the pads of his fingers rough with thick calluses. Years of holding a blade had made his knuckles a little thick, making his hand look strong and steady.
She swung his hand back and forth as she asked, "Brother Ying, Brother Ying, I want to know more about you! Tell me everything~"
She wanted to know everything about him, his present and his past.
Wenren Ying was clearly a man with a whole story behind him... but he had no reservations about sharing his past with Wu Guanyue. He was, after all, a very traditional, upright man — he'd always believed that husband and wife were of one heart, one whole.
Wenren Ying asked, "What is it you want to hear? I thought I already told you everything..."
When the Blood Demon Ancestor showed up, he'd told her all about his past... well, he'd skipped over most of the gory tales of hunting down and killing the blood poison demonic cultivators, of course.
Wu Guanyue said very seriously, "I want to know if you ever had any romantic entanglements before!"
Wenren Ying: "…………"
A long string of ellipses seemed to pop up over his head.
Wenren Ying: "...Of course not."
Wu Guanyue tilted her head. "Really? But Brother Ying, you're so handsome, and you're so kind and chivalrous... I don't believe no girls ever liked you. And you must have saved so many people, right?"
Wenren Ying was dazed for a second by her praise before he said, "Saving people and getting close to them are two different things... Besides, I was always on guard that a blood poison demonic cultivator might disguise themselves as a weak woman to try and kill me..."
Wu Guanyue narrowed her eyes. "But I was a weak little girl who couldn't even fight back, wasn't I? You didn't seem all that on guard around me..."
Wenren Ying: "…………"
...No, he thought, there's probably no other "weak little girl" running around scattering magical fertilizer everywhere.
Wu Guanyue: "...Brother Ying, what are you being quiet for?"
Wenren Ying: "…………"
The corners of his mouth twitched, and he quickly changed the subject. "I was just thinking... how did I ever get so lucky, to be loved by a girl as bright, lively, and beautiful as you, Little Yue..."
To his surprise, Wu Guanyue's mood suddenly dropped, her shoulders slumping.
Wenren Ying: "...Little Yue?"
What had gotten into her all of a sudden?
Of course it was because... there was still a secret weighing heavy on Wu Guanyue's heart.
Wenren Ying had laid every single part of his life out in the open for her, but deep down, she was still hiding a huge, enormous secret.
She wasn't that lively, pretty girl she seemed to be. She was just... just a poor thing stuck in a hospital bed, too ashamed to let anyone see her useless legs.
But she couldn't keep this secret from him forever.
This is not how people are supposed to get along with each other. Of course she had no need to grab a loudspeaker and shout on the streets that Wu Guanyue was actually a disabled person who could not walk... But Wenren Ying was unquestionably the person she cared about and treasured most in this world, and she truly, genuinely wanted to be with him forever.
If that was the case, this hidden landmine simply could not be left buried.
Wu Guanyue took a deep, deep breath.
She said to him solemnly, "Brother Ying, there's something I need to tell you."
The hand Wenren Ying was resting on the curve of her waist tightened involuntarily.
He said, "Alright, go on."
Wu Guanyue parted her lips, and out it all spilled, in a rush of nonstop words.
From the real state of her body in her original world, to how she had arrived in this world, to the mysterious grandfather and the game... Every single thing she knew, she told Wenren Ying in thorough detail. Once she got the first few words out, the rest of the story poured out naturally without any effort.
"To sum it all up, that's what happened. I'm so sorry, Brother Ying, I didn't mean to keep it from you, but... but now you can take all the time you want to think about whether you still want to be with me!" she finished very seriously.
Wenren Ying looked at her intently.
Wu Guanyue had finished speaking, her lips pressed tightly together... Anyone could see how nervous she was. Her whole body was tensed up, too.
The moment she chose to lay out every last part of the truth clearly to Wenren Ying, she had already placed the entire decision in his hands. Right now, she was waiting anxiously and uneasily, waiting for his final call.
Wenren Ying suddenly let out a long sigh, and said, "Little Yue, do I look like that kind of scumbag who would abandon someone after getting what he wants?"
He had already said he would take good care of her, he had already claimed her... so he would never go back on his word. Little Yue had already suffered more than enough in the first half of her life, how could he bear to make her hurt even more?
Wenren Ying said in a solemn, earnest tone, "Little Yue, there are indeed three thousand worlds between heaven and earth, and these worlds do occasionally intersect with one another... For you to be able to come over from that other world..."
Wu Guanyue let out a soft cry of "Eep!"
She threw herself straight into his arms, hugging him tightly in excitement, calling his name over and over...
Wenren Ying was knocked so hard his vision swam for a second. He let out a helpless little laugh, and reached up to stroke Wu Guanyue's hair.
"There, there... It's alright, Little Yue. I'm not going anywhere. Even if you hit me, even if you chase me away, I will never leave you..."
Wu Guanyue let out soft, whimpering, coquettish sounds against his chest.
The corners of Wenren Ying's lips curved up into a smile.
Little Yue... Little Yue trusted him so much that she was willing to tell him the deepest, most well-hidden secret she had kept locked away. This was a wonderful thing. And this secret also answered so many questions he had been wondering about before, like why Little Yue could suddenly leave her body with all three souls and seven spirits.
Little Yue said she came from another world.
That certainly sounded incredibly strange on the surface, but Wenren Ying had read in the ancient records of the Xuantian Sect before that the three thousand worlds did occasionally cross paths, and it was not unheard of for a living soul to get lost in a foreign world during those brief moments of intersection.
Little Yue had lost the use of her legs in her original world, according to her, ever since she turned five, and no doctor had ever been able to find a cause.
If his guess was right... then it was very likely that Little Yue had stumbled into one of those spacetime intersections when she was five years old. She must have encountered something back then that caused one of her three souls to get stuck behind in this world.
And her inability to walk was precisely because her physical body back home was missing that single wisp of living soul.
And that stray wisp of soul left in this world had been collected by Wu Guizhen, placed inside this Donghua Spirit Puppet, and used as a catalyst to summon the rest of her soul over to this side.
Which meant... right now, Little Yue was more or less... more or less like a key that connected two different worlds.
A key.
That word made Wenren Ying's heart jolt sharply. His sharp instincts caught the faint, unmistakable scent of a conspiracy.
