Qing

Once certain moments happen, they demand a lifetime of remembrance from someone—yet such moments are rarely mutual. Qing was merely one of the thousands of blood slaves whom Xu Yinhe had rescued during the blood calamity in his youth. To her, he was unique, but to him, she was merely a pitiable little girl. A wretched creature no different from the countless blood slaves driven by the Blood Ghost Sect. Xu Yinhe's only faint impression of her had likely come during the treatment of the blood slaves, when he caught sight of the character "Qing" on an escape list compiled by the infirmaries. "He is the rising sun in the heavens, while I am merely a maggot struggling in the gutter. Yet the radiance of this rising sun gave the maggot hope to live on..." In Cangyuan, this was Qing's answer when the protagonist demanded to know why she helped a villain do evil, and it was also the dying murmur she uttered while gazing up at the ceiling of the Black Prison. "Phew..." Slowly letting out a breath, Xu Yuan raised a hand to pinch between his brows and muttered with mixed emotions, "What a cliché story..." "You certainly observed her quite closely." A soft, languidly seductive voice suddenly echoed from behind Xu Yuan. "Though that woman Qing isn't as simple as you think, Changtian." "..." Hearing that familiar voice, Xu Yuan's temper immediately flared. Damn it, she had robbed him blind, and this wretched woman actually had the gall to show her face before him! Yet considering the immense chasm in cultivation between them, Xu Yuan swallowed his irritation. A gentleman's revenge is never too late, even after ten years. "When did you get here?" "A little while ago," the seductive voice replied with a chuckle. "Matters outside are mostly settled. For an occasion like the Grand Banquet of the Prime Minister's Manor, I, the Chief of the Black Scales, still have to make an appearance, after all." Xu Yuan rolled his eyes. "I mean when did you arrive in this room." "Hmm... probably around the time after you entered it." "..." After a moment of silence, Xu Yuan grumbled, "Since you were already here, why didn't you speak up?" Accompanied by swaying footsteps, a curvaceous figure stepped gracefully over to the desk. She was dressed in that same elegant, form-fitting qipao. Lou Ji glanced at the dust gathered on the aged desk and decided against sitting on it. Her emerald pupils reflected the lamplight as she said with a beaming smile, "Big Sis didn't feel entirely at ease with that woman." Looking at Lou Ji, whom he had not seen in a while, Xu Yuan glanced toward the old wooden door left ajar. "With that Minister of Justice's strength, handling the Princess of Sien shouldn't be difficult." Lou Ji replied with a bright smile, "If she harbored no private schemes, it wouldn't be." Xu Yuan knitted his brows slightly. "What do you mean?" Lou Ji raised a slender finger and hauled Xu Yuan right out of the rocking chair, taking the seat herself. Crossing her shapely, long legs, she said with a grin, "Your guess was right. That woman Qing truly adores your father. But the environment she was born and raised in warped her temperament, so the way she expresses love is a bit twisted." Forcibly pulled to his feet, Xu Yuan felt rather annoyed, but hearing Lou Ji's words, he raised an eyebrow. "Twisted?" Lou Ji's mesmerizing, serpentine eyes rested on the direction in which Qing had departed. After pondering for a moment, she described, "How should I put it? It's roughly the sort where she is so deeply inferior that she dares not show herself to pursue him, yet so arrogant that she wants to sever all contact between him and every other woman." "..." The corner of Xu Yuan's eye twitched. Now this was a detail he had never known from Cangyuan. After a brief silence, Xu Yuan probed, "So... what did Qing do?" Lou Ji waved her hand dismissively. "Nothing much. Just a little friction with your mother." The corner of Xu Yuan's mouth twitched, and he asked in a low voice, "This 'friction'... wouldn't happen to be an attempted murder over jealousy, would it?" Thwack. Lou Ji flicked her finger from afar, delivering a burst of air against his forehead with a bright, enchanting smile. "You brat certainly understand these things." His head recoiling from the sting, Xu Yuan rubbed between his brows, dumbfounded. In the terminology of anime fans from his previous life, Qing was more or less a yandere. "Old Man was actually pursued by a crazy woman once." Xu Yuan quite enjoyed hearing these romantic scandals of the older generation, but soon a question arose. "Still, if Qing made a move against my mother, how is she still alive?" Although people with such pathological affections were portrayed as terrifying in anime and TV shows from his past life, that was an illusion created because the victims were mostly incompetent. Trying fancy tricks like that before his father would have only one outcome. Show your face, and die. If nothing else, his maternal uncle would have been the first to chop Qing into minced meat. Lou Ji reminisced briefly. Finding a full explanation rather troublesome, she smiled and said simply, "The situation back then was quite complicated. Qing was very powerful, and from the shadows, she did many things alone to help your father. Your mother investigated and uncovered all of them." At this point, the corner of Lou Ji's lips curved upward. "So Qing's assassination attempt on her was actually the result of your mother deliberately creating an opening to draw Qing into the open." "And then Qing was persuaded in one go?" Having listened closely, Xu Yuan blinked. He didn't believe someone who had spent her entire life in darkness could have her nature changed by mere preaching. "There must be more to it, right?" "Naturally." Lou Ji gently ran a slender fingertip across the yellowed, aged desk before her. In her alluring eyes, the silhouette of that woman from back then seemed to flash past. She said softly, "Your mother promised Qing that Qing could assassinate her whenever she wished—anywhere, anytime, by any means. Furthermore, with Qing operating in the dark without sharing intelligence, she could easily disrupt your father's overall plans." Hearing all this, Xu Yuan suddenly understood a little—he understood Qing's words from earlier, and the sense of inferiority that had flashed in her eyes before she left. "Decades have passed, and Qing still hasn't changed?" "Rivers and mountains are easily altered, but human nature is hard to change." The complexity in Lou Ji's eyes faded, replaced by a radiant smile. "The environment of the first half of her life has kept Qing's emotions perpetually unstable. And while you're quick-witted, Changtian, you have quite a loose tongue. If you were to trigger her illness and cause an accident, anything could happen..." "..." Xu Yuan was speechless. "Go do what you want to do. Big Sis is watching." As Lou Ji spoke, she seemed to recall something and quietly reminded him, "By the way, don't mention Qing's matters to your father or your maternal uncle. Hmm, better not mention it to Xu Changge either." Xu Yuan turned back and glanced at her. "In all these decades, my father never knew?" "That is Qing's own wish." Lou Ji let out a light chuckle and shook her head slightly, her tone laced with an elusive sentiment. "Always saying things like, 'a rotting maggot cannot look upon the sun'... Heh." Hearing this, Xu Yuan nodded and walked slowly toward the door. Reaching the threshold, he suddenly paused and asked, "With Qing's cultivation, she should be able to reshape that body of hers, right?" Lou Ji gave Xu Yuan a deep, searching look and asked softly, "What? Looking to find yourself a stepmother?" Xu Yuan's gaze was frank, and he answered calmly, "I just think that Qing shouldn't have to live in the shadows her entire life." Lou Ji tilted her head and murmured, "Everything Qing has is built upon that shell. If she were to do that, she would become useless to him. "And that is an outcome Qing could never accept."