Lu Hao roughly knew where the problem lay. Even though Yuanyuan was just a small beast, it still possessed a sense of possessiveness. He said very earnestly, “Yuanyuan, those are different.”
“How are they different?”
“A lover and a contracted beast are fundamentally different.” No matter which aspect you looked at.
Fang Jing cared about his pride. Especially in front of Lu Hao, he was even less willing to voice the embarrassing things he had done. Therefore, he stubbornly insisted, “They’re the same. Your friends all said that a wife can accompany you for a lifetime, and so can I. Your wife will care about you, and so will I. Your wife will accompany you to sleep every day, and so can I. Your wife will offer you warm words of comfort, and so will I. Your wife sleeping with you is only natural, and so am I. Your wife living with you is reasonable and legal, and so am I. Look, there are so many similarities. What she can do, I can do too. What she can do, I can also do. I am the same as your wife, so why do you need to have another wife? At night, you can’t chop yourself in half, giving one half to her and one half to me. Even if you could, I wouldn’t want that. Clearly, we always slept together before, and we slept so comfortably.”
Lu Hao: ” ”
If these words hadn’t come out of a small beast’s mouth, they would indeed sound quite like a scumbag’s.
At that moment, Lu Hao felt inexplicably mentally exhausted.
Good grief, he actually had to explain to his own contracted beast that sleeping with a wife sometimes meant more than just the literal meaning of the word.
Yet, facing a small beast, no matter how he explained it or how tactfully he phrased it, Lu Hao felt like a complete pervert.
It would be a different story if the other party were a human toddler.
Otherwise, his Yuanyuan would probably never know that the things he said, which seemed identical on the surface, actually had a massive difference underneath.
With a faint sigh, Lu Hao found that the number of times he was sighing right now exceeded the total number of times he had sighed in his twenty-two years of life.
After pondering over and over again, Lu Hao cleared his throat and repeated, “Yuanyuan, those are different.”
Fang Jing’s retorting question remained the same, “How are they different?”
Some people had high intelligence quotients but worrying emotional quotients. Others were praised as peerless prodigies, but that didn’t mean they were omniscient.
Back in the cultivation world, Fang Jing was only two hundred years old. Out of those two hundred years, over a hundred years were spent in secluded cultivation. The remaining time was either spent going out on trials with his master and senior brothers or practicing sword forms in various ways. Truly, no one had ever taught him those bedchamber matters.
He only knew that men could be together with men, as that existed in the cultivation world.
Therefore, he asked quite naturally and stubbornly, “How on earth are they different? I think they are all the same. It’s just you who insists on thinking they’re different.”
Lu Hao: ” ”
So, in the end, this was still his fault?
With a brain capacity nearing total meltdown, Lu Hao asked, “Yuanyuan, do you know what a married couple, meaning a male and female pair of mates sleeping together, or rather, have you ever seen other wild beasts during rutting season? What do they usually do to members of the opposite sex of the same species?”
“How would I know?” Fang Jing pouted, looking particularly displeased as he said, “When that bunch of beasts goes into rut, they just howl and chirp every which way. It’s annoying to death, and they make so much noise that I can’t sleep well, so I chased them all away. But I know they mate and then give birth to little babies.”
“Right, so when a married couple sleeps at night, they aren’t just purely sleeping under the same blanket. They also do other very intimate things.” Lu Hao felt an inexplicable wave of relief. At least his Yuanyuan understood a little bit; he didn’t need to explain it any deeper.
“But humans and beasts are different. Can’t it be done without? Besides, it doesn’t have to be limited to the opposite sex. Why can’t I do it? As long as you want, I can let you sleep with me too.”
Anyway, they were already dao companions. With his mouth running faster than his brain, Fang Jing didn’t feel like there was anything wrong with what he said at all.
What kind of outrageous and shocking words were these?
Shocked beyond measure, Lu Hao: ” ”
You of course can’t. You can’t even count as the same sex.
If I even dared to sleep with you, what would that make me?
Worse than an animal or lower than a beast?
Not knowing what else to say, Lu Hao sighed yet again. Having reached this point, he finally found the root cause. “Is Yuanyuan upset and angry because you’re worried that once I have a wife and children, I’ll put them ahead of you and stop pampering you?”
This sounded quite a bit like fighting for favor.
Even though that was precisely what he thought in his heart, it didn’t mean Fang Jing had the nerve to actually say it out loud.
To Lu Hao, his silence was tantamount to tacit agreement.
“Yuanyuan, have you forgotten? I said before that I will stay with you forever, always protect you, and raise you for the rest of my life. These promises aren’t just things I said to coax you or to sound nice. The things you’re worried about won’t happen. You can trust me on this.”
“A person can like many, many things and love many people. He can love his parents, love his siblings, love his wife and daughter. These loves and likes don’t conflict with each other.”
“But…”
But we already have a dao companion contract bound between us!
Yet these words were things Fang Jing simply couldn’t blurt out.
He just stared blankly at Lu Hao for a long time. Finally, as if he had figured something out, or perhaps out of compromise, he asked Lu Hao, “Will you really treat me well for a lifetime?”
“I will, Yuanyuan. I will treat you well for a lifetime. There is no doubt about these words. You can trust me.”
Fang Jing understood one principle: for the mistakes he made, no one else had the responsibility or obligation to pay the price and bear the consequences for him.
Since he was the one who made a mistake, where would he even find the face to stay angry?
First, he ruined his poop-scooper’s contract, and because he wasn’t familiar with the process, he messed up the contract himself. Yet, in turn, he blamed his poop-scooper for wanting to be with someone else?
That was an extremely unreasonable and lawless behavior.
If he were to encounter someone like that, he usually wouldn’t waste words and would just finish them off with a single sword stroke.
In the cultivation world, a dao companion contract was fundamentally an unbreakable form of bondage. Since an unfamiliar Fang Jing didn’t know how to undo it, the existence of this contract, aside from allowing them to sense each other’s presence day-to-day and sharing life and death, did not prevent the other half from sleeping with someone else.
With a mild and nonchalant tone, Fang Jing brought the past up again, as if doing so made him look like he didn’t care as much. “However, you also said that if we both fell into the water, you would save her first.”
Lu Hao, who didn’t even remember saying any such thing: ” ”
Even twisting words shouldn’t be done quite like that.
Lu Hao turned his head away, facing backward, and chuckled softly a few times. Once he had finished laughing, he turned back to look at the little fellow glaring angrily at him. Unable to help himself, he tapped the tip of Fang Jing’s black nose with his fingertip. “Is Yuanyuan sure I said it like that?”
Fang Jing: ” ”
It seemed that indeed wasn’t how he had said it.
Even knowing he had misunderstood, some people were simply stubborn and spoke with absolute self-righteousness. “You didn’t say it like that, but that was clearly what you meant. Your friends all said it that way, and you didn’t refute it either. Not refuting it means you agreed, right?”
Listening to these ambiguous statements, a laughing-and-crying Lu Hao truly felt as though he were dating a jealous, overthinking little boyfriend who needed constant coaxing.
Lu Hao tentatively touched Fang Jing with his index finger. The latter immediately jumped away in anger, his eyes wide with a mix of cuteness and foolishness, yet speaking in a very fierce tone. “Don’t touch me! I’m not letting you touch me anymore.”
Pfft.
Lu Hao really couldn’t help laughing again. Smiling, he said, “Yuanyuan, that’s not what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean?”
“I meant that between you and Liya, I would definitely choose you.”
“Why?” Isn’t she your future wife?
Fang Jing was somewhat pleased. It seemed he still held quite a bit of importance in his poop-scooper’s heart.
Lu Hao: “…Because she knows how to swim.”
Fang Jing was angered all over again. He looked at Lu Hao, looking deep in thought, and finally let out a hum as if he had made some sort of decision. Unhappy, he hugged his own tail, rested his chin on it, and curled his entire body into a ball, leaving only the white, fluffy top of his head and his back exposed.
This wounded appearance made Lu Hao’s heart ache with sympathy. “Is Yuanyuan angry again?”
“I’m not angry anymore. What is your name?” Fang Jing asked in a muffled voice with his head buried.
Having calmed down, Fang Jing figured it out himself. He simply didn’t have the qualification or the standing to make his poop-scooper play such a boring multiple-choice game.
Although he still felt very uncomfortable inside, he had no way to brazenly and unreservedly confess his mistake with the contract and his other relationship with Lu Hao, laying it all out in front of Lu Hao.
He didn’t mind offspring, but what about Lu Hao?
He didn’t mind if his partner was a man, but what about Lu Hao?
Furthermore, right now he wasn’t even human. Even when he gathered enough strength to transform into a human, in Lu Hao’s eyes, he still wouldn’t be human.
Would Lu Hao mind that?
Therefore, he couldn’t say it!
Some words, once spoken, could never be taken back. Their relationship might become even worse because of it, and maybe Lu Hao would even get so angry he’d want to kill him.
Not knowing whether Fang Jing was still angry or not, Lu Hao answered every question he was asked. “My name is Lu Hao. The Lu from land, and the Hao from the vast sky. What about you, Yuanyuan? Do you have a name? Can you tell me?”
“Fang Jing.”
Fang Jing’s voice wasn’t loud, requiring Lu Hao to listen closely. “Fang Jing? Which two characters are they?”
“The Fang from square and upright, and the Jing from standing tall and clear.”
With both a given name and a surname, it was now certain that Fang Jing came from a high-intelligence race other than humans and merfolk.
The swirling emotions that he had managed to suppress down with great difficulty surged back up, forcing Lu Hao to put on a facade of calm. “Yuan, Fang Jing, can I call you Jingjing or Xiaojing?”
“Huh?” Seeming surprised and puzzled, Fang Jing finally deigned to raise his head and glance at Lu Hao. “Why are you not calling me Yuanyuan anymore?”
Lu Hao choked slightly. “Because you already have a name. If I give you another nickname, it wouldn’t be appropriate.”
Giving him such a thoughtless and ubiquitous name like Yuanyuan, he still cared about his dignity, after all.
Fang Jing tilted his head, watching Lu Hao without blinking. “Then do I not need to call you poop-scooper anymore? Can I call you Haohao? Actually, you can keep calling me Yuanyuan; I’m already used to hearing it.”
Lu Hao: “…Sure, as long as you like.”
Calling someone Haohao felt way too embarrassing. Growing up, no one had ever addressed him with such intimacy, yet Lu Hao couldn’t refuse those earnest eyes of Fang Jing.
“Yuanyuan, are you hungry? You only ate a few mouthfuls of noodles at lunch. You must be starving right now.”
It would have been fine if Lu Hao hadn’t mentioned it, but the moment he did, Fang Jing felt wronged all over again.
Fang Jing slouched back down, a thin mist of water welling up in those big eyes of his. His little appearance looked as pitiful as possible. He muttered a disgruntled mhmm, as if he had learned to behave or had suddenly matured, realizing that times had changed.
“Yuanyuan, can you not be like this?”
Seeing Fang Jing looking so listless, enveloped in an aura of dejection, and no longer as vibrant and playful as before, coaxing him and chirping endlessly, made Lu Hao feel uncomfortable inside.
“Yuanyuan, can you look at me?”
“No.” Fang Jing simply didn’t want to look at Lu Hao. Even though he had verbally claimed he wasn’t angry, he was still so sad.
Lu Hao liked too many people, and he loved too many people as well. Yet for him, the one he liked, relied on, and cared about the most was only this single person.
He had originally thought he found someone to accompany each other, only to find out in the end that he was his only one, while he himself was merely one of many.
Knowing that Fang Jing was still angry and putting on a refusal-to-communicate stance, Lu Hao thought about going to get some food. Perhaps when the little fellow saw something tasty and his mood improved, he would be willing to talk to him.
Thinking along those lines, Lu Hao picked up the bracelet Fang Jing had discarded in the corner, placed it by his side, and then left the room.
Lu Hao had planned it out well. When he pushed a small cart back into the room with the food, Fang Jing only ate a single bowl of stewed meat before stopping.
This appetite was less than a tenth of his usual amount.
Facing so many delicacies, under normal circumstances, Fang Jing would have already been chirping, happily hopping back and forth, and obediently waiting for Lu Hao to feed him.
Yet for the very first time in his life, Fang Jing had zero appetite. After eating a little bit, he hopped back to the windowsill, refusing to say a single word to Lu Hao who sat watching him the entire time. Curling his small body up, he lowered his head, covered his head with his tail, and actually shrunk himself into a ball.
Lu Hao: ” ”
Lu Hao silently cleaned up the remaining food. After pushing out the dishes Fang Jing had left behind, he returned, quietly sitting down on the floor right beside Fang Jing.
“Yuanyuan, what on earth will it take for you to talk to me?”
The only response Lu Hao received was Fang Jing’s steady and even breathing.
The little fellow fell asleep the moment he decided to, completely ignoring Lu Hao’s worries.