Qi Yanxuan patiently explained to him, “This is called a ring. The letters inside are QX the Q stands for you, and the X stands for me.”
Qi Yanxuan picked up the ring in the Shihuai Bird design, took Shen Yanqing’s left hand, and slipped it onto his middle finger. Then he extended his own left hand, his eyes signaling for the other to put one on him as well.
Seeing this, Shen Yanqing took the ring in the blue eucalyptus design from the box and slid it onto Qi Yanxuan’s left middle finger.
Qi Yanxuan clasped Shen Yanqing’s hand and said with a solemn expression, “The designs on this pair of rings are the blue eucalyptus and the Shihuai Bird, and together they carry a special meaning.”
Shen Yanqing stared unblinkingly at Qi Yanxuan. “What meaning?”
“The blue eucalyptus has met the Shihuai Bird, it loves nothing in all the world but you!”
“The reason for this meaning is that the blue eucalyptus is an extremely domineering tree. Its poison keeps every blade of grass around it from growing, leaving nothing but itself.”
“The blue eucalyptus allows no other living creature to come near yet it permits only the Shihuai Bird to perch upon its branches.”
“The blue eucalyptus gives its tenderness to one person alone. A-Qing! My tenderness is reserved for you alone!”
At the sight of Qi Yanxuan’s earnest, tender gaze, Shen Yanqing’s heart pounded wildly, so worked up it felt ready to leap right out of his chest. He pulled the man into his arms.
Qi Yanxuan wrapped his arms tightly around the other’s lean, firm waist. “A-Qing, once you’re wearing my ring, you’re mine! No backing out now!”
“Mm! I won’t back out!” How could he ever regret this? He couldn’t be happier.
He also wanted to be with Qi Yanxuan for a long, long time gifting a hairpin symbolized the wish to tie one’s hair together with another, to become joined partners from that day forward, loving and trusting each other without a shadow of doubt. But since their lives hadn’t yet settled down, he kept those words unspoken.
Time slipped by unnoticed, and evening arrived once more.
That night, the two were inside the tent when Qi Yanxuan took out a pair of wristwatches from his space. Earlier that day, when they’d been unable to tell the time in the dense forest, he had thought of the watches stored away in his spatial warehouse.
He took the one with the black band and fastened it onto Shen Yanqing’s left wrist, then put the brown one on himself.
With their hands clasped together, ring and wristwatch everything betrayed Qi Yanxuan’s little schemes. He was, bit by bit, marking this man as his own.
Shen Yanqing touched the watch and looked at Qi Yanxuan in confusion. “What is this?”
Qi Yanxuan explained, “This is a wristwatch. It’s used for telling time. It also has a built-in compass you can use to find your bearings. Turn on this luminous mode, and you can read it even at night.”
“Come! I’ll teach you how to read the time.” With that, he launched into a lesson on modern timekeeping.
The night passed quietly.
……
The next day
The heavy fog finally dispersed. While no one was paying attention, Qi Yanxuan quietly summoned back the Bloodthirsty Vine. The vine affectionately nuzzled its master before slipping into Qi Yanxuan’s body.
The group pressed onward once more in high spirits.
They soon came upon a place where the grass was thick and the forest deep. The wild grass had grown up to their knees, its blades damp and beaded with dew from the previous day’s fog, with leeches clinging to the leaves in twos and threes.
Shen Yanshan called the group to a halt and announced, “There are lots of leeches in the grassland ahead! Mash up some garlic and rub the juice on your trouser legs, it’ll keep the leeches away!”
While his father was still speaking, Shen Yanqing had already taken out the garlic and mashed it. He crouched down and applied the juice to Qi Yanxuan’s trouser legs, tending to his own only after he had finished with the other man’s.
Seeing that Shen Yanqing was even helping Qi Yanxuan apply the garlic juice, one of the women teased, “Yanqing and Yanxuan are so close! More attentive than most men are to their own wives!” As she said this, she even shot a glance at the man beside her.
Hearing his wife’s words, how could the man not understand? He hurried over to apply the juice for his wife first, sending everyone into hearty laughter!
When the laughter subsided, Shen Dafu chimed in, “That’s right! Even blood brothers in other families aren’t necessarily as close as those two!”
Seeing his son apply the juice for Qi Yanxuan, Shen Yanshan thought he’d wait for his son to do the same for him, but instead, a jar of garlic juice was shoved into his hands.
Shen Yanshan stared blankly at the jar in his hand since when were there two kinds of treatment? Left with no choice, he had to apply it himself. As he rubbed it on, he kept grumbling inwardly: This son of mine just can’t be a caring little cotton-padded jacket. Only with A-Xuan does he ever have patience. If only A-Xuan were a girl! Then this unwanted son of mine wouldn’t have to stay a bachelor.
Once everyone had finished applying the garlic juice, the pungent smell was enough to sting the eyes. They walked into the grassland, and Qi Yanxuan activated his wood-element ability to perceive their surroundings.
Wood-element abilities were like a fish in water in a forest, the plants served as his eyes, and nothing that happened within his perception range could escape his senses.
With his level-seven wood-element ability, he could easily sense the entire mountain range. While this range might be dangerous to others, it was nothing to him, nothing but ordinary wild beasts, so he didn’t deliberately steer clear of them. If they did run into one, it would simply make an extra meat dish for the table.
When he released his ability, he saw that this grassland stretched on for dozens of li. Not wanting to keep coming into contact with these disgusting bugs, he activated his ability to control the wild grass five li away. The grass instantly withered, and the leeches clinging to it were drained of their life force, shriveling up in an instant.
After the group passed through the grassland uneventfully, Qi Yanxuan leaned close to Shen Yanqing’s ear. “A-Qing, I need to go relieve myself.”
Shen Yanqing told everyone to rest where they were and made to accompany Qi Yanxuan.
Qi Yanxuan hastily stopped him. He wasn’t actually going to use the toilet, the moment he’d released his ability earlier, he had sensed a thousand-year-old wild ginseng ten li away. If he hadn’t known about it, that would have been one thing, but now that he knew, how could he possibly pass it up? Bringing Shen Yanqing along would waste too much time; with his ability, he could go and return quickly on his own.
If it had been a younger one that he already had in his space, he wouldn’t have bothered, but thousand-year ginseng wasn’t something he had much of in stock.
Seeing how insistent he was, Shen Yanqing guessed that he might have something to take care of, so he didn’t press the matter and rested with the others.
The moment everyone sat down, they began checking their legs for leeches. Their pant legs had all been tied tight, and with the garlic juice applied as a barrier through the fabric, no one had their blood sucked, though a few leeches had inevitably slipped into their shoes.
For a while, the whole group was busy shaking out their shoes. The smell of garlic juice combined with the smell of foot sweat nearly made people throw up.
Meanwhile, on Qi Yanxuan’s side,
Once he was out of the group’s line of sight, Qi Yanxuan activated the lightning-element ability within his body, transforming into a streak of lightning flashing through the dense forest. The ten-li distance was crossed in an instant, and he came to a stop before a plant topped with little red berries.
Activating his wood-element ability, he controlled the ginseng plant and drew it up out of the ground, took out a box, packed the ginseng inside, and stored it in his space.
The whole thing had taken less than a minute naturally, he couldn’t head back that quickly.
Qi Yanxuan set about ransacking the forest. Anything of use was swept into his space without exception.
A quarter of an hour later, he stopped his plundering, transformed into a bolt of lightning, and returned the way he had come. He took a dozen pears out of his spatial storage, cradled them in his clothes, and left the forest.
Back at the camp, he handed the pears to Shen Yanqing, and the group continued on their way.
Three days later.
While they were traveling, panicked shouts rang out from behind.