“Aaaah!
Little Haohao got force-kissed!!”
After a long moment, their lips parted.
Huo Yuhao and Wang Qiuer were simultaneously startled alert by the scream.
Wang Qiuer’s face still bore lingering blushes and tear tracks.
She glared somewhat crossly toward the direction of the voice.
A flash of dignity belonging to the Emperor Auspicious Beast glinted in her golden eyes.
Behind a tree, Tianmeng shivered in fright and instantly pulled her head back, leaving only a single leaf swaying gently.
Huo Yuhao, on the other hand, was full of helplessness and embarrassment.
Holding Wang Qiuer’s shoulders, he helped her sit up slowly, then pulled himself up from the soft sea of flowers and brushed the grass bits off his clothes.
The atmosphere instantly grew somewhat subtle.
Wang Qiuer didn’t glance at that mood-spoiling “big worm” again.
All her attention returned to the person in front of her, the one she had missed across two lifetimes.
She reached out, her fingertips trembling slightly as they caressed Huo Yuhao’s cheek.
From his eyebrows to the bridge of his nose, and down to his lips.
As if trying to carve his features deeply into her soul once again.
“Huo Yuhao…”
Her voice still carried a hint of hoarseness from weeping, yet it was filled with the precious tenderness of regaining what had been lost.
“I’m here.” Huo Yuhao cupped her slightly cool hand and held it against his cheek, warming it with his own body heat.
“Is it really you this time?” Wang Qiuer’s eyes reddened again.
“It’s not a dream, right?”
Looking at her cautious, anxious state—so afraid of gaining only to lose—Huo Yuhao’s heart felt as if pierced by a needle, aching with a bitter pang.
He knew how immense a shadow the previous life’s ending had cast over her.
He squeezed her hand back tightly, pulled her into his arms, and held her close once more.
This embrace lacked the frenzy from before, carrying only boundless tenderness and reassurance.
“It’s me.
I’m back.”
He whispered softly into her ear, “I’m sorry, Qiuer.
In our past life, I let you suffer so much grievance.
I promise that in this life, I will never let you be hurt again.”
“No, it wasn’t your fault!”
Wang Qiuer shook her head vigorously in his embrace, burying her face into the crook of his neck.
Her muffled voice sounded out, “It was me…
I was too foolish.
If I had told you everything earlier, would the ending…
have been different?”
“There are no ‘ifs’ anymore.”
Huo Yuhao gently patted her back.
“Aren’t we together right now?
That’s enough.”
“Mhm…”
Wang Qiuer murmured in response, her arms tightening around him even more.
“This time, I will never, ever let go of you again!
No matter what happens, I want to stay by your side!”
“Alright.”
Huo Yuhao smiled—a smile of pure relief and joy bubbling up from deep inside.
“I won’t let go either.”
The two held each other in quiet embrace, sharing affections that crossed two lifetimes.
At this moment, it felt as if only the two of them remained in the entire world.
However, Wang Qiuer’s senses were exceptionally sharp.
She soon noticed that aside from the big worm… The source of this chapter is g.com.
…there was another, far more powerful aura nearby, quietly watching them.
She slowly raised her head from Huo Yuhao’s chest and looked in the direction of that aura.
With just a single glance, her body stiffened.
Under a large tree nearby stood an extraordinarily beautiful woman dressed in a long black dress, her long hair silver.
She stood there silently.
Her purple eyes were as calm as an abyss, concealing any hint of emotion.
And from inside the woman’s sleeve, an ice-blue little head was poking out, sneakily peering over.
It was her…
Sovereign?!
Countless question marks flashed through Wang Qiuer’s mind instantly.
Why was the Sovereign here?
Why was she staying together with a human youth?
And how had that million-year big lazy worm gotten mixed up with the Sovereign too?
And…
turned into a girl?!
Countless pieces of information crashed together and reassembled rapidly in Wang Qiuer’s mind.
As the Emperor Auspicious Beast, she possessed an innate intuition toward the flows of fate.
She looked at Gu Yuena standing there expressionlessly, then back at Huo Yuhao in her arms, who wore a helpless face.
A ridiculous yet utterly logical realization instantly surfaced in her heart.
She suddenly understood.
She understood everything.
Those golden eyes of hers, which had just been tender as water from emotion, instantly took on a trace of subtle resentment.
She turned her head and looked at Huo Yuhao, her eyes practically saying: *Well, well, Huo Yuhao.
You were so dense in our past life, but in this life you’ve enlightened early—and gotten quite greedy, haven’t you!*
Huo Yuhao’s scalp tingled under her gaze; for a moment, he had no idea how to explain.
Just then, behind the tree, Tianmeng was covering her mouth with her two tiny paws, narrating the scene in a hushed tone.
“Oh no, oh no, oh no…
Is this what Elder Yi called…
the legendary jealousy battleground?”
Her tiny body shivered slightly with excitement.
“A golden one, a silver one…
both are so pretty, and so terrifying…”
“But it doesn’t matter!”
She quickly pumped herself up again.
“Later on, once I trick—ahem, invite Bingbing over, the two of us combined definitely won’t be afraid of them!
Bingbing has Ultimate Ice, after all!”
While she was muttering enthusiastically, Gu Yuena over there had already moved.
She withdrew her aloof gaze, stepped forward, and walked at an unhurried pace toward Huo Yuhao and Wang Qiuer.
Her footsteps were very light, stepping onto the golden sea of flowers without making a sound.
Yet with every step she drew closer, the invisible pressure in the air increased by a notch.
Wang Qiuer instinctively straightened her body up out of Huo Yuhao’s embrace.
Although her heart held a reverence for Gu Yuena originating from her bloodline, on a certain matter, she would not yield an inch.
Caught in the middle, Huo Yuhao felt cold sweat breaking out across his back.
He watched helplessly as Gu Yuena walked over and stood on his other side.
Then, Gu Yuena slowly reached out her hand, ignoring Wang Qiuer’s watchful and slightly resentful glare.
And ignoring Huo Yuhao’s stiff expression, she naturally took hold of Huo Yuhao’s other hand.
Huo Yuhao: “…”
He felt like a wooden mannequin right now, left hand held by Wang Qiuer, right hand held by Gu Yuena, completely unable to move.
The hand Wang Qiuer held tightened instinctively.
The hand Gu Yuena held squeezed back without backing down in the slightest.
Two exquisite young women—one radiant and fiery as the sun, the other aloof and noble as the moon—stood with Huo Yuhao between them, engaging in a silent standoff.
Their gazes met in midair.
There were no sparks, no murderous intent, yet they reached an implicit understanding that no outsider could comprehend.
Coexistence was acceptable.
However, giving up was out of the question.
In the end, Wang Qiuer was the first to look away.
She did, after all, know Gu Yuena’s true identity.
She bowed her head slightly toward Gu Yuena and transmitted her soul power voice, audible only to the two of them: [Greetings, Sovereign.]
The look in Gu Yuena’s eyes softened a fraction as well, and she replied via voice transmission: [No need for ceremony.
I respect your choice.]
A war without visible gunpowder had arrived silently and dissipated just as quietly.
Leaving only Huo Yuhao in the middle, feeling the vastly different yet equally soft touches coming from both sides, his heart a storm of mixed emotions.
He took a deep, deep breath.
“Um…
shouldn’t we head back now?”
He attempted to break the eerie calm.
“Tang Ya and Nannan must be getting anxious waiting for us.”
When Huo Yuhao’s figure reappeared in the firelight of the camp, the anxiously waiting Tang Ya and Jiang Nannan simultaneously let out a sigh of relief.
“Benefactor!
You’re back!” Tang Ya immediately stepped forward to greet him.
However, her sentence got stuck in her throat halfway through.
Jiang Nannan froze where she stood, her mouth slowly opening into a round “O.”
What were they seeing?
They saw Huo Yuhao walking out from the dark forest.
On his left, he was holding hands with Gu Yuena, the silver-haired girl cool as a fairy whom they were already quite familiar with.
And on his right, he was actually holding hands with another extraordinarily beautiful girl whom they had never seen before, possessing a head of radiant long golden hair and beauty like a sun goddess!
These two girls, completely different in style yet equally breathtaking, “flanked” Huo Yuhao on either side.
Both wore strange expressions on their faces—calmness laced with a faint hint of rivalry.
The corner of Tang Ya’s eye began twitching uncontrollably.
Jiang Nannan blinked forcefully, wondering if she was hallucinating from exhaustion.
Feeling the bewildered gazes directed at him from both women ahead, Huo Yuhao felt for the first time what it meant to sit on pins and needles.
He cleared his throat and gave an extremely simple introduction in as calm a tone as possible.
“Ahem…
this is Wang Qiuer.”
He pointed at the golden-haired girl beside him.
“From now on…
she’ll be traveling with us.”
The camp fell into complete silence.
Save for the crackling of the campfire.
Only after a long moment did Tang Ya stiffly turn her head, leaning into Jiang Nannan’s ear to ask in an extremely hushed, sleepwalking tone:
“Nannan…
could this one…
also be Benefactor’s ‘savior’?”
Jiang Nannan looked at the girl named Wang Qiuer, who was staring at Huo Yuhao as if she wished she could crush him directly into her own body, and gave a slow, solemn nod.
She felt that this team seemed to be developing in a direction that was getting stranger and harder to comprehend by the day.
And the core of the team was their benefactor, who was only seven and a half years old.
His image in their hearts was becoming increasingly profound and…
mysterious?