Luo Fanchen caught it on reflex.
A small white-fox jade pendant — crystalline, silk-fine to the touch, still carrying the warmth of her body.
And, faintly, a special sweet fragrance.
"A love token, is it?" He smiled.
"In your DREAMS!"
Su Jiu'er's pretty face snapped shut into full high-cold mode, lips curling in a light hmph:
"Don't flatter yourself."
"You, little man, are one measly level-six soul apprentice. This young lady is the Nine-Tailed Heavenly Fox Empress of an age. The line of my suitors goes around the mountain."
Ah! Yes, yes, of course!
Luo Fanchen nodded along — and that single motion punched clean through the Empress's freshly assembled armor.
He lifted the pendant to his nose, breathed in, and clicked his tongue.
"Fragrant."
"AH! I'll strangle you — you rotten — that's harassment, you DEGENERATE!" Pearly teeth clenched, she pounced.
They grappled for a while — until Su Jiu'er noticed something was off.
Why does this wretch keep getting more cheerful?
She looked down. She was straddling his lap. An extremely cozy position. Less "assault in progress," much more "lovers' play-fight."
And she didn't dare actually squeeze his throat — so what was this but free advantage, hand-delivered?
"DEGENERATE!"
She shot upright and viciously pinched the flesh at his waist on the way.
"Hsss-AH—"
"You actually pinched me." He sucked air through his teeth. "You do the pinching, AND you call me the degenerate. Woman, where is the logic in you?!"
"This Empress IS the logic." She tipped her lovely face up, proud and devastating.
"Fine. Everything you say is correct." Then his voice steadied into something sincere. "Husband and wife are two birds of one grove — and tomorrow we fly our separate ways."
"I'm the man. So tonight I'll be the big-hearted one and let you win everything."
At the mention of parting, Su Jiu'er's expression dimmed, her voice dropping despite herself — though her mouth, as ever, refused to lose:
"So we part. What of it? This Empress has been dying to get back to Qingqiu for AGES."
Luo Fanchen held her gaze. "I don't know how it is for you. But me — I can't bear to let you go."
Her body trembled. She'd braced for him to snap back in kind — say he'd had his fill of her years ago.
One sentence, and the memories she'd pressed down came flooding — sixteen years of mornings and evenings, all the little moments of a life shared.
The truth was, she'd meant to give him her first kiss tonight, to make the parting sit easier — and the man had gone off-script and simply walked to his room. It had scattered her wits; so she'd dressed up and chased him down, refusing to believe he could keep up the act. Then all the stubborn banter had carried them sideways.
Luo Fanchen took both her jade hands. This time the ever-imperious Su Jiu'er didn't resist at all — she let herself be held.
"I know you have wounds to mend and a tribulation to face. So I won't ask you to stay — I won't make it harder."
"And I need to temper myself alone, become genuinely strong. Strong enough to protect the people I care about."
"Always being the one protected by his own woman — that sits badly with me, in the end."
Her eyes came up at once. "Don't put so much weight on yourself. I have never once minded that you're weak."
Luo Fanchen smiled and looked out the window, something molten flickering in those deep black eyes.
"Wrong."
"You're not the weight. You're the fuel."
"Besides — a man is born between heaven and earth to live as a hero among men, and die a champion among ghosts. A thousand years of life spent drifting would be a bore."
He's grown.
The little boy from those years... has truly grown.
Her heart whispered it. In this moment something magnetic came off Luo Fanchen that she couldn't name.
A beauty's match need not be a hero — but it must be a man with mettle.
An Empress of her generation, proud to the marrow — the world crawled with heaven's-pride geniuses and not one had ever entered her eyes.
But now... now her gaze was going soft and unfocused.
"Fanchen..."
Starlight spilled through the window and lay silver on the flagstones.
The beauty murmured, leaning in, rose-petal lips rising toward the man of her own accord.
Luo Fanchen bent his head, gentle in everything.
In the dark, two first kisses ended together — and something unspoken put down roots.
***
"Don't go back tonight. Stay. All right?"
It was phrased as a question, but his grip on her hand carried a quiet share of won't-take-no.
Su Jiu'er's spine straightened — the retort loaded — and then, slowly, all of her went soft.
"All right. I'll stay."
The heat in his eyes climbed several degrees at once.
Her soft hands pressed her red skirt flat; teeth half-sank into her lip. "The legs... may be touched," she said, very quietly.
"But nothing else. Or something terrible happens to you."
"I'm sturdy. I can take it," Luo Fanchen said.
"You absolutely cannot." The famously glacial blue eyes held, of all things, a trace of pleading. "When you've cultivated to level seventy — a Seventh Order Soul Sage — then, barely, it becomes possible."
"Level seventy," he said, low. "How long, roughly?"
"You've already swindled away my first kiss — what's left that isn't yours? With your gifts, seventy will come quickly. Fifteen, twenty years at most," she offered, meaning to comfort.
"WHAT!"
"You call that QUICK??"
A basin of ice water, dumped from a great height. Luo Fanchen sat bolt awake.
"It takes that LONG?"
She rolled her eyes. "That's called blazing speed, thank you. Soul power gets harder with every rank — a Seventh Order Soul Sage already stands among the true elite."
"So I'm to spend twenty years as a eunuch." His big hand rested mournfully on black silk, face a portrait of suffering.
Su Jiu'er bit down hard on her lip.
"Auntie can't."
"But you could... find another woman."
"WHAT?"
He stared at the bewitching beauty as at a heavenly revelation. That's... permitted?
She sniffed. "What's the shocked face for? Emperors on this continent keep three wives and four consorts as a matter of course. And the soul beast races never had monogamy — the mightiest males hold breeding rights over entire herds."
"I'm not afraid of you looking. I'm afraid you haven't the skill — that no one would want to follow you."
"Cough. Cough-cough."
Luo Fanchen coughed his way through a full recalibration of his worldview. Then again — this wasn't Earth.
And even on Earth... best left unsaid.
Strong. He had to get strong. The souls must rank up; the power must rise!
"Twenty years is too long. Seize the day — fight for every dawn."
He clenched a fist, tasting once more exactly how this world worked: the strong eat meat, and the weak eat slop.
"Get OUT, you shameless thing — who sets THAT as his cultivation goal?!"
Scarlet to the ears, she lashed out another kick. His hand snapped up, faster — one hundred percent clean catch, bare hand to jade foot.
Black silk left, white silk right. The nosebleed nearly won.
Su Jiu'er braced for a whole night of his nonsense — and instead watched Luo Fanchen settle himself formally upright and simply begin cultivating again.
Her jaw dropped.
He works THIS hard?
She touched her own calamity-grade face, suffering a small crisis of fox-faith. Surely I'm not that resistible?
What she couldn't know: Luo Fanchen simply could not endure the torment of look-but-don't-touch a second longer. Better to grind levels.
"BOOM-BOOM!"
A sleepless night, and the sound of breakthrough after breakthrough.
Her sandalwood mouth opened wider and wider — until finally, electing peace of mind through willful blindness, she folded her own beautiful legs beneath her and set to mending her wounds.
Dawn, not yet light.
Luo Fanchen rose, bones crackling off a string of pops.
"Wash up quickly — breakfast's ready, Fanchen."
Su Jiu'er stood aproned at the waist, full kitchen-wife mode, the table set with delicate side dishes, white congee, and soft steamed buns.
"This early?"
He was surprised — he'd woken far earlier than usual himself.
First formal day with his teacher, after all. Arriving early was simple manners — you don't make HER wait for YOU.
He hadn't expected Su Jiu'er to be up too, breakfast already made.
At the table, Luo Fanchen shifted in his seat. Across from him, a pair of beautiful eyes bored into him, unblinking.
"Am I a zoo exhibit?"
"Mm-hm." Chin in her hands, she clicked her tongue in wonder. "When the Pontiff sees you later — I expect you'll scare them both out of their robes."
"Tch! I'm already looking forward to their faces."
"You're overthinking it. Nothing will happen — the Temple sees genius freaks by the basketful," Luo Fanchen said mildly, and bit into a steamed bun, unbothered.
Su Jiu'er shook her head.
Clearly the boy still had no idea just how deviant his cultivation speed was next to everyone else's. SHE had genuinely frightened herself last night.
"Oh, right, Auntie — what does this actually do? You forgot to tell me yesterday."
Breakfast finished, Luo Fanchen drew out the white-fox jade pendant and held it up.