"Hisss—"
Luo Fanchen swallowed hard. He'd guessed Su Jiu'er might come — but never in death would he have guessed she'd come in THIS heavy.
The vixen had thrown out her usual cold-beauty styling for something at the absolute far end of devastating.
Adorable fox ears. Bewitching features.
A flame-red bodycon skirt rendered every curve in merciless detail, fair shoulders bare and gleaming. Where the hem swayed, long flawless legs flashed — wrapped, no less, in stockings thin as cicada wings. Black silk on the left leg. White silk on the right.
Her feet were laced into strappy heels, the slender ribbons winding up her calves; each step set the little bells at her ankles chiming.
And that same Su Jiu'er stood staring lasers at the man sitting on the bed, shaken to her core. "What did you just DO in this room?"
"Nothing? I was just trying out some cultivation." Luo Fanchen was baffled. Shouldn't HE be the one reacting violently right now? Why was she more worked up than he was?
"'Just trying out some cultivation'?" Her voice came faster.
"SWISH!"
Perfume hit him like weather. His vision blurred once and Su Jiu'er was already at the bed, snatching up his wrist.
That soul-shaking baby granary hovered at point-blank range. Luo Fanchen's head swam.
Mouth: desert.
Oh, come ON. Have mercy!
Opening the interrogation with THIS pressed to the witness — who could possibly withstand it?
As if unable to believe her own senses, Su Jiu'er swept him with her spiritual perception again and again before finally letting go.
Those sapphire eyes fixed on him until his skin prickled.
"What heavenly treasure have you been sneaking behind my back?"
"...None?" He shook his head, bemused. "I did one casual practice session. Does it really warrant all this?"
"ONE CASUAL PRACTICE SESSION??"
Her voice shot up an octave:
"We parted barely an hour and a half ago, and you've jumped from soul apprentice level ONE to level FIVE. A breakthrough speed that obscene — and you tell me it was one casual session?!"
"Ah — that..." Understanding dawned dimly. "You mean the vortexes in the dantian? If that's what you mean, then yes, there do seem to be four more than before."
Su Jiu'er's red lips fell open. Unbelievable. HOW does he say these things in that placid little voice?
Yes, apprentice levels were the easiest to climb — but not like THIS. Four levels in the time it took tea to cool. Absurd wasn't the word.
And the little man clearly had no idea what the problem even was.
"You truly took no heavenly treasure to force it?" she couldn't help pressing.
Luo Fanchen gave her a flat look. "What is that suspicion in your eyes? Fine — I'll demonstrate again, will that do?"
"That's not what I..."
Before she could finish, he'd already folded his legs beneath him and closed his eyes.
"Since when is this something you can DEMONSTRATE?" She gaped, then pressed a hand to her cheek and sighed, defeated. "Ridiculous boy. Breakthroughs are hard-won — you can't just break through whenever you feel like it, you know."
"WHOOSH—"
The signs bloomed.
Spiritual qi flooded the room, all of it streaming into Luo Fanchen, running the meridians of his four limbs and hundred channels down into the dantian.
Beneath his seat, the faint outline of a six-petaled azure lotus dais shimmered into being.
Above his head, the little loach's phantom hung in its single-colored glow, mouth open, drinking down the qi.
Su Jiu'er's eyes went huge. "THIS is the commotion of a little soul apprentice training?"
"BOOM!"
One soft report. Her pupils snapped tight — she watched, with her own eyes, Luo Fanchen's soul power aura climb a full step higher.
In front of her. In minutes. An actual breakthrough.
This... this man...
Her jaw simply would not close.
Luo Fanchen opened his eyes. Lotus and loach faded away. He shrugged at her and sighed:
"NOW do you believe me, Auntie?"
Su Jiu'er said nothing at all.
"Oh right — what were you saying just now? I was busy cultivating and missed it." He scratched his head. "Something can't be demonstrated? Something's hard-won?"
Color crept up her jade face. This was mortifying. Red-lacquered toes, sheathed in silk, dug hard at the insole of her shoe.
Luo Fanchen pointed. "Auntie, what are you doing down there? Stop clawing — you'll put a run in the stockings."
"AH!"
"You're humiliating me ON PURPOSE, aren't you!"
"You little BEAST — I'll end you!" Pearly teeth clenched, she hiked a leg and kicked.
"Calm — Madam of Qingqiu, I beg you, CALM!" Luo Fanchen's arms swept up and caught the kick clean — one beautiful leg, securely hugged.
"Th-this..."
His heart lurched sideways.
"Grown fat on courage, have we? MOLESTING your auntie now?!" She was one shift from a standing full split — but what was an Empress's flexibility for?
"Storming a bachelor's room in the dead of night, dressed like THIS — if you're not asking to be..."
He never finished the mutter. Su Jiu'er's long leg corkscrewed, tore free of his grip, and the follow-up kick was already arriving.
"Little beast, I will BUTCHER you!!!"
"THUMP!"
The critical hit took Luo Fanchen square in the chest. He folded backward onto the bed.
"Husband-murder! HUSBAND-MURDER!" he wailed, clutching his chest in theatrical agony.
"Hmph. Drop the act." She pursed her lips. "I used the toe, not the heel. You're perfectly fine."
"Heh-heh. Knew you couldn't bear to."
He sat up with a shameless grin. "So — one extra vortex means one soul power level. You never said. I genuinely didn't know."
"Which makes me a level-six soul apprentice now, yes?"
At that, Su Jiu'er perked right up. The little man clearly, truly knew nothing — he hadn't even known what the vortexes WERE.
She studied him with open curiosity, wondering just what species of freak she'd raised.
...Ah. Right. He literally fell out of the sky. There was no more special provenance than that.
Framed that way, she found she could accept it.
"Truly — a breakthrough speed like yours, I have never once seen," she marveled.
"To be fair," Luo Fanchen said, "you're a soul beast. How many human soul apprentices have you actually SEEN?"
She rolled her eyes at him.
"Who exactly are you looking down on? I may not have eaten the pork, but I've watched plenty of pigs run. One hears things about how fast the great geniuses climb."
"I suspect you just called me a pig, and this time I have evidence."
He muttered it under his breath, privately vowing: once cultivation made him strong, the household hierarchy WOULD be restored — the liberated serf shall stand up and sing.
Then Su Jiu'er laughed — swaying like a flowering branch, a living definition of what "calamity beauty" and "treasure of the mortal world" were coined for.
His throat moved. "What's so funny all of a sudden?"
She pressed her red lips together, eyes dancing. "I'm imagining tomorrow. The looks on that Pontiff's and Holy Maiden's faces when they find you've broken through to soul apprentice level six overnight."
"Might not be six." He spread his hands. "The night's still young, isn't it."
Her smile stopped dead. The air went very quiet.
Looking at the man before her — exiled-immortal handsome, his talent now showing its first true edge — she couldn't help but feel it all over again.
When she'd carried him home in her arms, her whole hope had been: don't grow up too ugly, don't grow up too weak. Who could have known the surprises would just keep coming — that some moments he'd set her heart genuinely racing?
Could it really be Heaven's tenderness — a match bestowed by fate? Something subtle and quiet was shifting in Su Jiu'er's heart.
"Auntie... did you miss me? Is that why you came so late..."
"Pah! Shameless! Dream on — who would miss YOU!!" she spat, barely.
"Right, right, of course."
Cut off mid-sentence, Luo Fanchen wasn't remotely bothered. Mouths and hearts, he mused fondly — the tsundere condition wasn't exactly breaking news.
"Here. This is for you."
Unable to bear that see-through-everything look of his a second longer, face glowing warm, Su Jiu'er drew something from the fold of her robes with two jade fingers — and tossed it over.