The Chu sisters, Chu Yuechan and Chu Yueli, were waiting for us at the entrance. Their looks were complicated. On the one hand, they could feel that we'd gotten stronger, but our cultivation was too low, which seemed strange.
On the other hand, Yue and I were holding hands, which made Yueli look at me like a traitor to the motherland, even though she understood that all of this had been sanctioned from above.
"Esteemed fairies, greetings. Were you able to get the blood?"
"Greetings, Lun. Yes, though I still don't know why you need it."
"With that blood, I hope to read one interesting manual, though that's still a long way off. Did the Great Mistress break through?"
"The Great Mistress was still in seclusion for her breakthrough when we received news from the Palace a month ago. You're two months late."
"How much time has passed since we entered?"
"Eight months. Disciple, you've changed."
"Master, I received the Dragon God's blood. My body became much stronger, and there is other news I would like to tell you."
"Not now. We should leave this place first. Cultivators from other sects come here often. I'd rather not attract their attention."
We disguised ourselves as best we could and flew toward the closest city to rest a little before the long trip back to Frozen Cloud Palace. Though now I was sure I could have run to the Palace in a few hours. But of course, I wasn't alone, so I flew with everyone else.
"Esteemed fairies, you wouldn't mind if we stopped at the Ten Thousand Beast Mountain Range along the way, would you?"
"Why?"
"I'd like to visit my clan. I won't stay long. I don't have any family or friends there. I just want to give them some resources. Their life is hard."
"Only briefly."
Why did I need to do it? I didn't. I was simply taking care of my clan. In the end, those people had taken care of me after I became an orphan. Even the chief, whom I didn't particularly like, brought me food at first until he was sure I could take care of myself. There was no carefully calculated plan here. Just basic decency.
What could a clan isolated in a mountain range need? The answer was everything. Absolutely any little thing would help them. From ordinary iron to blankets. And sweets for the children, naturally. That was probably the most important part. Not in terms of survival—they had survived for hundreds of years without me and would survive hundreds more—but in terms of morale. And that morale had been sinking lower and lower with every passing decade.
That was why those people fell at Trash Che's feet when he freed them from the curse. But nobody took into account that those same people had saved him and shown him the Phoenix trial grounds, meaning they'd given him very valuable compensation for all of it.
If I'm being honest, the idea disgusted me, but what they really needed were girls. Dozens of girls.
The blood in the clan hadn't been refreshed for centuries. Of course, the Phoenix inheritance kept anything bad from surfacing, but everything had to have a limit. The problem was that this looked an awful lot like slavery.
We needed people who would offer a resettlement program to girls who had no other options left. Fortunately, this world was full of girls like that. But only after Trash got his deus ex machina from the chicken.
Fortunately, buying everything we needed was very easy. I had a lot of beast cores in my spatial ring. Yue and I hadn't been able to deliberately collect cores, but every now and then some ended up in our hands.
And the Black Moon Merchant Guild was always ready to buy any number of cores. That was where I bought a great many goods, including one really shitty body-tempering technique.
Yes, the technique was genuinely bad and only worked for practitioners who hadn't reached the Nascent Profound Realm, but it was perfect for my clan. Trash would free them soon, but there was still plenty of time before that happened.
And even after they were freed, the older generation wasn't exactly overflowing with cultivation talent. Someone would need it.
All of this took no more than a day. Fortunately, cultivators could move very quickly, and spatial rings solved all the logistics too.
Just imagine for a second: if all these cultivators put their power into something useful instead of being pompous assholes, what kind of world could they build? Any futurist's dream. Perfect roads, no hunger, no crime, almost no disease. How much useful shit could they accomplish? But...
The trip to my clan took two days.
"Little Lun," the first person I ran into was my neighbor, who often told stories about the good old days when the grass was greener, the Phoenix was wiser, people were braver, and so on.
"Feng Lao, long time no see." I bowed respectfully to the old man.
"You've grown awfully fast, little one. And who are these beauties with you?"
"My wife, Feng Yue, and my seniors from the sect I joined, Chu Yuechan and Chu Yueli."
"You joined a sect? But what about...?"
"I told you I'd be able to break that chicken's curse, Feng Lao."
"Do not speak that way about our God. In any case, welcome to Phoenix Village. Little Lun, your house is still empty. You can stay there."
"We won't be staying that long, Feng Lao. We'll just meet with the chief and leave. We were passing nearby, so I decided to visit and give you some resources."
"You were always a kind boy. Your parents would be proud of you. The chief is at home. He's probably already been told you arrived."
Why wasn't the whole village there to meet us when flying beasts didn't exactly descend from the sky here every day? Because we'd come on foot. Our flying beast hadn't dared approach the Phoenix barrier. We had to use our own little legs.
Long story short. The chief was still the same asshole, his milf wife was still just as hot—she even smiled when I winked at her—his children were adorable even though I disliked the little brats because of their father, and everyone was genuinely grateful for the resources.
"Feng Lun," Yuechan addressed me, "we can stay here for a couple of days if you want. We have time."
Everything was clear. The girl either wanted to get to know me better outside the walls of the cold Palace, or lose her virginity right here, away from her sisters' eyes. Not that anyone would condemn her for it—the girl was carrying out an order, after all. Just cockroaches in the head. Unfortunately, no cultivator had yet appeared who cultivated Dichlorvos profound energy and had no cockroaches in his head.
"Let's just rest in a small town I once saw instead. For now, I don't want to stay too long near the Phoenix inheritance."
"Why do we need to rest in a town? Then let's fly straight back to the Palace."
"Yuechan, Yue'er and I aren't as strong as Sky Profound cultivators. Give us a couple of days to rest."
"Why not rest at the Palace?"
"We'll have to work hard there. Besides, I have some business in that town. It's not far from our Palace, by the way, but there's a huge lake nearby, and the land lies low, so it's fairly warm there. A pretty little town. We'll rest there for a couple of days."
Yuechan stared at me long and hard, then simply nodded. She understood me very well. We needed a house where she could live before and after the pregnancy. Frozen Cloud Palace was completely unsuitable for that.
In canon, Yuechan accidentally found Phoenix Village and settled nearby. Completely by accident. Just as it was entirely accidental that only her child could restore Trash's ability to cultivate at the cost of her own talent.
That's why I don't like this little club of schemers, which also includes one fried chicken. They have absolutely no moral values. Use a child as a backup battery? Easy. Why not? That's nothing compared with their other crimes.
I'm being a little hypocritical too. It's not as if Yuechan and I decided to conceive a child out of great love. It was a thoroughly calculated decision made for power, nothing more. But I was ready to take responsibility. The child would be loved. The child would never become a bargaining chip in my games. He or she would have everything I could give.
Even if I didn't like this cold idiot at all, though she was a first-rate beauty—there was a reason so many people fought over her—the child would still have a mother and father who loved each other. I wouldn't even have looked in her direction if not for Feng Qianhui's order. But that didn't mean I couldn't build a family with her. Fortunately, this world allowed a little more freedom in that regard, and she wasn't going to be my only wife.
We reached the town relatively quickly. There I soon found the mayor's mansion. The mayor, like me, was a Spirit Profound practitioner, so he didn't get cocky. The girls weren't wearing Palace clothes and were generally trying not to draw attention, though it was obvious to everyone that we weren't ordinary people.
Twenty minutes of polite conversation, twenty minutes of bargaining—and I became the happy owner of a small mansion on the outskirts of town.
We settled in immediately. The compound was clean and ready to use. There just weren't any servants yet. As far as I understood, the local "little king" had been preparing the mansion for his grandson, but I offered such a good price that it would have been a sin not to take advantage of the opportunity. It worked out well for me too.
We obviously wouldn't find servants among the locals. There would be a couple of less talented disciples in the Palace who, in exchange for some extra benefits in the form of resources, would agree to move here and help Yuechan.
Of course, in a hole like this, anonymity was the best protection because nobody would deliberately search for her here, but...
Naturally, I at least bought some weak security arrays for the house. Arrays like that were fairly expensive, of course, but they were worth it. I'd save up more money and buy something better.
Making money wasn't hard for a cultivator. The problem was that the expenses were also huge.
My smart wife slept in a separate courtyard that night because she understood where this was going. And naturally, just as we'd expected, Yuechan came to visit me as soon as it got dark.
"Let's get this over with quickly."
"Yuechan, do you understand what responsibility awaits us?"
"Yes. I fully understand my responsibility to our Palace."
The slap from my facepalm could probably be heard in the Northern Demon Region.
"Yuechan, you know about the side effects, let's call them that?"
"Of course. The Palace Mistresses explained everything to me."
"Then listen, Yuechan. If you treat my child—our child—as a side effect, I will kill you and everyone dear to you. Now go back to your room and think it through properly. It's not too late to change the plan. Talk to your sister."
Like a typical hardcore cultivator, the lady decided to pressure me with her energy and freeze me at the same time. I merely raised an eyebrow in question.
One second, and I was beside her, gripping her neck tightly. The lady had to understand that with just a little more force, I'd break her vertebrae. No Sky Profound Realm would save her.
A second later, I let her go. She left the room, and I went to bed. Sleeping without my beloved wife beside me was sad, but we couldn't sleep together until I'd gotten rid of the "hot potato" in my balls.
I didn't see the ladies for two days. They held either a girls' night or a women's council in their rooms. Naturally, they were discussing me—the asshole.
In any case, two nights later Yuechan calmly entered my room again and started undressing.
"I understood everything, and I agree with you. It isn't a side effect. But I'm ready."
After that, I tried to be gentle. Not for this idiot's sake, but for our baby's, so that he or she would never see their mother looking at their father with dislike. Ideally, there should be love in her eyes. But simple respect would do just fine too.
I'm not some giant or the famous bald plumber everyone knows about—though nobody admits it—but with the constitution of a dragon, bringing my partner to the peak a couple of times wasn't particularly difficult.
Her Ice Heart technique went straight to hell after about twenty minutes, and after that the woman merely tried not to moan too loudly, which wasn't exactly easy.
As for me, of course I suffered terribly. Making love to a first-rate beauty is so hard, but what sacrifices won't a man make for the well-being of his beloved sect?