Fang Jueqian widened his eyes.
The smile vanished as quickly as it had appeared.
Su Nisheng raised an eyebrow:
“Are you happy to see me?”
“Yes, very happy!” Fang Jueqian nodded vigorously, the smile on his face still lingering.
“How happy?”
“I do not know how to describe it, but anyway, extremely happy, happy beyond words!”
As he spoke, Fang Jueqian could not help breaking into a big smile once again. “Right, Husband, when did you get back? I had not heard anything about it beforehand.”
“Just now.” Su Nisheng tossed a strip of meat to a stray cat that was meowing around him, yet when the cat tried to rub against him, he dismissively used a gust of air to push it away.
Fang Jueqian watched and swallowed a small mouthful of saliva, cautiously maintaining the distance between himself and the Daoist Lord at a safe margin of several paces. Then, remembering something, he hurriedly said:
“Right, Husband, I have not even thanked you for letting me move. This new dwelling is truly wonderful.”
At the mere mention of this, Fang Jueqian could not stop praising its many fine points.
Su Nisheng silently waited for him to finish before asking coldly:
“Tenth layer of Qi Refining?”
The smile on Fang Jueqian’s face vanished in a second, and his footing suddenly felt a bit unsteady.
Yet after taking a stealthy peek at Su Nisheng’s expression, his survival instincts kicked in, and he forced a smile back onto his face:
“Yes, Husband, I reached it the day before yesterday. You have such great vision. No, I mean you are both discerning and formidable, seeing right through it at a glance.”
Su Nisheng: “Too low.”
How was this low? He had only broken through to the ninth layer of Qi Refining not long ago, and everyone in Class Wu acknowledged his hard work and diligence.
Fang Jueqian had grievances he dared not voice, and could only rack his brains to find excuses for his recent laziness. Yet this proved somewhat difficult, and in the end, he could only cautiously pull out that supposedly infallible excuse:
“Well, my health has not been very good recently, so there is still plenty of room for improvement in my cultivation. I believe that once this period passes, I will be fine. Yes, that is how it is!”
Having said that, he even nodded to himself to increase the persuasiveness of his words.
Su Nisheng glanced at him, the corner of his mouth twitching:
“Useless.”
Fang Jueqian hung his head in dejection: “I am sorry, Husband, I am useless and have failed your high expectations.” He stole another peek at him. “But isn’t our target set a bit too high? I am not questioning Husband’s judgment; I am just questioning myself.”
While Fang Jueqian was deep in thought, pondering how to tactfully express the sentiment of wanting to be a lazy slacker, his shoulder was brushed by clothes stirred up by the wind. The Daoist Lord had already walked past him and was heading toward a certain spot.
Had the Daoist Lord been angered and walked away by him?
Fang Jueqian reacted half a beat too late, and just as he began to feel a sense of lingering fear, a voice came from ahead:
“Keep up.”
“Huh?”
“Go get your physical discomfort treated.”
Fang Jueqian froze, and seeing that the man was about to walk out of reach, he trotted along behind him, speaking in a tentative, lingering tone:
“Husband, I have not had a chance to bathe yet.”
Several dust-clearing talismans and body-cleansing talismans fell right into his face.
“Ouch.”
Fang Jueqian gathered those talismans and clutched them to his chest. Seeing that he had fallen behind the Daoist Lord by a few paces once more, he hurriedly caught up, continuing to brainstorm as they walked:
“Husband, you just got back. Do you want to freshen up and change your clothes?”
The person in front stopped, and Fang Jueqian nearly slammed straight into Su Nisheng’s back.
Su Nisheng’s voice was icy: “Are you disgusted with me?”
“No! Absolutely not!” Fang Jueqian hastened to assure him: “I was just, just caring about Husband!”
“Then what are you afraid of?” The youth turned to look at him, his pupils deep and his voice clear: “Haven’t things always been like this before?”
Fang Jueqian drew in a sharp breath, feeling an urge to back away. But the moment he retreated two steps, his lower back hit the chilly stone railing, jolting him back to his senses.
Indeed, his attitude was quite problematic.
Yet after a careful mental review, Fang Jueqian felt that this fundamentally was not his fault.
It was clearly all the Daoist Lord’s fault.
Even though the Daoist Lord had stated he was not a cut-sleeve, he treated him so well and did all sorts of intimate things with him. Moreover, he was a transmigrator occupying someone else’s Daoist companion’s body. If he spoke up, he worried for his little life; if he kept quiet, morality and conscience tortured him every waking moment.
Such a tangled web of relationships made things extremely difficult to handle.
And besides.
Fang Jueqian swallowed hard, stealing a glance at the Daoist Lord. While once again struck dumb by the Daoist Lord’s unearthly looks and demeanor, a question slowly arose in his mind:
Could there be pure friendship between a straight man and a gay man?
Fang Jueqian was not sure, but looking at Daoist Lord Lingxiao, the man seemed to believe it was entirely possible.
Having finished his internal musings, Fang Jueqian felt a bit panicked. Resting both hands on the stone railing behind him, he frantically searched for an excuse:
“Well, you see, um. Right, Husband, why are there cats on this mountaintop? That truly is a resilient little cat.”
The Daoist Lord took a step toward him, his body blocking Fang Jueqian’s path completely, his expression as stern as frost and snow:
“I only want to hear the truth.”
“The truth is.”
Fang Jueqian tried hard to think for a good while, but ultimately succumbed to the youth’s gaze. He pulled the jade token that he had worn around his neck all these days out from his collar. The cool jade token had long since been warmed by his body temperature.
“Actually, I feel this thing works quite well too, it is quite useful anyway. Since there are other ways to get through the heat period, there is no need to trouble Husband to sacrifice himself.”
Su Nisheng frowned, the atmospheric pressure dropping even lower:
“You are saying I am not even as good as a jade token?”
“Absolutely not! Husband is much better than a jade token! But. Ah, Husband, let me tell you a story. Once upon a time, there was a monkey who loved eating peaches very much, but he was assigned to guard the finest peach orchard in the entire world.
“When the monkey looked at these most wonderful peaches in the world, he could not help drooling. Ah, he wanted to eat them so badly! But after all, he was the monkey guarding the orchard, so how could he neglect his duty and eat the peaches? Even though the peaches were fragrant and delicious, they did not want to be eaten by him.
“Yet when all is said and done, he was still just a monkey, wild and untamed. If the monkey ever got carried away one day, or accidentally had a drink of wine and took a few bites out of a peach, that would be a huge tragedy for both the monkey and the peach. The peach would lose its purity, and the monkey might end up crushed under a mountain for several centuries.”
“Therefore.” Fang Jueqian anxiously observed the Daoist Lord’s expression. For him, this speech definitely crossed the line of propriety.
“To prevent such a tragedy from happening, it is best not to let this monkey guard the peach orchard in the first place. But.”
Seeing that the Daoist Lord’s expression was turning unkind, Fang Jueqian quickly added:
“The monkey still likes peaches very much, and genuinely thinks it is wonderful that peaches exist in this world, juicy, fragrant, sweet, and loved by everyone! So there is no need for the distance between them to be too far. If the monkey can just catch a glimpse of the peach every now and then to satisfy his cravings, that would truly be the best thing ever.”
Wait, what was he even saying?
Fang Jueqian instantly regretted it the moment the words left his mouth, wishing he could turn around and dive headfirst into the pond behind him.
Unfortunately, the water was too cold.
Fang Jueqian could only dejectedly dismiss that thought.
Su Nisheng smiled. He stepped forward again, completely trapping Fang Jueqian in front of him:
“Are you saying you are the monkey and I am the peach?”
Ah, the Daoist Lord’s focus was a bit off too.
Fang Jueqian leaned back slightly, while reluctantly appreciating the rare smile of the handsome youth, and said cautiously:
“This is just a story, I made up the example on the spot, it is not important at all! It could also be that Husband is the monkey and I am the peach!”
If so, then he must be the boneless peach that would bounce down from the branch and offer itself up the very second it laid eyes on the Great Sage.
Wow, what a long attributive clause!
“You have quite some nerve.” Su Nisheng commented, then added, “It seems you have been having a rather comfortable time lately.”
Before Fang Jueqian could humbly decline this evaluation and embellish his recent experiences, the jade token hanging around his neck turned into sparkling debris in the blink of an eye, showering all over him.
“My jade token!”
Fang Jueqian was dumbfounded!
He grabbed at the air a few times trying to salvage it, but quickly reacted that it was futile. He could only look at the Daoist Lord with a tearful expression, and after holding back for a long time, he finally failed to contain it, softly expressing his grievance:
“Husband, how can you do this. This is such a waste.” You are also too petty.
Su Nisheng smiled once again.
“It is not a waste, because it was about to become useless anyway.”
He lowered his head, leaned close to his ear, his voice as gentle and patient as a lover’s murmur:
“Moreover, a jade token cannot help you detox. The love poison in you these past few days has only been temporarily sealed away. Take a guess at what happens when it flares up.”