Chapter 4#
Husband Buys Clothes!#
The sharp sound of the shattering sword made everyone freeze.
Wang Moqing’s face went completely blank.
Ying Qingye’s lips curved into a slight smile, his voice soft but striking in the ears of those nearby, carrying the distinctive pride of youth. “Wang Moqing, did you forget that this sword of yours was forged by my Ying family?”
Everyone in the Immortal Fruit Pavilion was stunned.
Yan Jianxiao blinked as well, turning to look at Ying Qingye, a hint of curiosity surfacing in his beautiful eyes.
Wang Moqing clearly recalled something, his expression shifting through several changes.
The year he first entered the Cangling Sect, Ying Qingye had been sixteen, at the peak of his prominence—the young prodigy everyone curried favor with.
And such people were the easiest to deceive with sweet words.
Ying Qingye regarded him coolly. “Back then, you lied to me, claiming your family was poor and had no artificer, begging my family’s blacksmith to forge a fine sword for you. What you didn’t know is that any spiritual weapon produced by the Ying family is bound by the Ying bloodline.”
“I despise deceit the most. Now, you’ve provoked me again and again… so I need not consider our former bond any longer.”
Yan Jianxiao’s pretty little face went pale as death.
Ying Qingye despised deceit? Then he—he, disguised as a woman, marrying in his place…
“Little sister.” Ying Qingye suddenly turned sideways, raising a hand. “Come here.”
Yan Jianxiao trembled. He didn’t dare admit he was actually a boy, and carefully placed his hand on Ying Qingye’s.
His figure was small and delicate, malnourished, so he had developed slowly—his height barely reaching Ying Qingye’s chest.
Ying Qingye glanced at his thin, slender fingers and furrowed his brow.
Yan Jianxiao’s heart tightened.
Could he have noticed that I’m a boy?
But the next moment, what happened made everyone in the Immortal Fruit Pavilion freeze—
Ying Qingye suddenly reached out both hands, slipped them under Yan Jianxiao’s arms, and grabbed his waist, lifting him like a small, delicate kitten. In an instant, he whisked him over to Wang Moqing and seized the man’s wrist—
“SLAP!!!!”
Wang Moqing covered his face in shock, unable to believe that Ying Qingye had used Yan Jianxiao’s hand to slap him.
Yan Jianxiao was stunned too. When he snapped back to reality, his palm was tingling. Ying Qingye’s low voice sounded behind him: “Curse him—say anything you want. He’s the real waste… A cultivator who doesn’t cultivate the heart or virtue, possessing only cultivation base, is no different from trash.”
The young man’s scorching chest pressed against his back, his breath falling at his ear. Yan Jianxiao’s ears flushed red. Startled, he looked up at him, parted his lips, and mouthed silently: “I can’t speak.”
“?”
Ying Qingye didn’t understand lip-reading, but he keenly sensed something unusual from this. His dark eyes flew wide.
The crowd in the Immortal Fruit Pavilion also sucked in sharp breaths.
“Hilarious. Wang Moqing getting his comeuppance.”
“He loves slapping others the most—never thought he’d get slapped by a five-spiritual-root cultivator himself, hahahaha!!!”
And Wang Moqing had come to his senses too. Since advancing to the Golden Core stage, no one had ever dared treat him like this. He could feel everyone’s gaze landing on him—mockery, ridicule.
“YING QINGYE!!!”
Having never suffered such humiliation, Wang Moqing suddenly erupted, the golden core in his dantian spinning rapidly. “I’ll take your life!”
Ying Qingye was busy pressing Yan Jianxiao for answers and didn’t want to tangle with him. Grabbing Yan Jianxiao’s wrist, he blurred—and the two of them vanished from the spot.
Leaving only rumors flying behind.
…
At the summit of Cangqiong, amidst the mountains, a waterfall crashed loudly against the stone slabs.
“Are you mute?”
Yan Jianxiao had been set down on a rock. He barely snapped out of his daze before nervously clutching at his skirt and hurriedly nodding.
From Ying Qingye’s angle, all he could see was that stubborn little cowlick on top of Yan Jianxiao’s head swaying back and forth.
Ying Qingye: “…”
Ying Qingye had no choice but to crouch down to Yan Jianxiao’s eye level. He reached out and lifted Yan Jianxiao’s chin, studying him.
Yan Jianxiao’s heart raced—frightened from the rapid teleportation just now.
He looked into Ying Qingye’s eyes, but in his mind he was recalling what had just happened. He couldn’t help thinking that the protagonist really does think differently from others…
“Nothing wrong elsewhere, right?” Ying Qingye hesitated, pointing at his eyes and ears. “What’s your name?”
Yan Jianxiao’s gaze blurred slightly, then he mouthed: “No… I-I’m called Yan Jianxiao.”
Ying Qingye: “…”
Damn, he couldn’t read lips.
Ying Qingye thought for a moment, then signed with his hands.
This time, Yan Jianxiao’s gaze grew even more bewildered. What was Ying Qingye doing? Drawing a formation?
Yan Jianxiao couldn’t resist taking Ying Qingye’s hand and writing in his palm, character by character: What-are-you-doing? Drawing-a-formation?
His warm, slender fingers were as pale as scallion whites, their tips gliding across Ying Qingye’s palm, leaving behind a faint fragrance of pastry crumbs.
Ying Qingye suppressed the instinct to curl his palm inward. His expression remained unchanged, but his ears quietly reddened.
“I thought you might know sign language, so I tried it—what’s your name? Write it.”
Yan Jianxiao blinked and wrote his name, then remembering the rumors in the sect, worriedly added: Did you really cough up three mouthfuls of blood? How’s your body?
Ying Qingye inexplicably imagined a sweet, honeyed voice matching Yan Jianxiao’s appearance, and his ears grew even redder, redder, redder.
“I’m fine. I didn’t cough blood. That day was…” Ying Qingye paused, glancing at the small heart-shaped karmic mark on Yan Jianxiao’s wrist, and changed his words. “It was an accident. Don’t worry.”
“My name is Ying Qingye.” Afraid Yan Jianxiao didn’t know which characters his name used, Ying Qingye wrote his name in the boy’s palm as well. “These three characters.”
Ying Qingye was a sword cultivator. His fingertips were rough, calloused from sword practice, and the sensation of them tracing across a palm was strangely distinctive.
Yan Jianxiao blinked and wrote again: Thank you for saving me earlier.
Ying Qingye paused, realizing he meant what happened at the Immortal Fruit Pavilion. He quickly grabbed Yan Jianxiao’s hand and examined it closely.
The hand was delicate-boned, fair-skinned, though the pads of the fingers felt calloused from rough work.
A small “?” floated above Yan Jianxiao’s head, his obsidian-like eyes showing confusion. What was Ying Qingye doing?
He shyly tried to pull back—after all, when he’d worked for the Qiao family, these hands had been burned by fire and frostbitten by cold. They really weren’t pretty.
Ying Qingye noticed his movement and grasped his hand. “Don’t hide… That bastard’s face is too thick. I was worried that slap just now bruised your hand.”
Yan Jianxiao’s ears turned redder than the crabapple blossoms on the tree behind him.
Y-Ying Qingye was worried about that?
Though… he supposed it made sense. Yan Jianxiao recalled the original novel’s plot—Ying Qingye was unstained by the mud he walked through, charming countless women with his gentlemanly bearing.
Judging by now, his temperament was indeed much as the story described.
“How long were you under Qiao Weiyang?” Ying Qingye suddenly asked.
Yan Jianxiao was stunned, not understanding why he’d suddenly ask that, but he obediently wrote on his hand, “Eight years.”
Ying Qingye raised an eyebrow, looking at his face, and guessed: “Then how old are you now? Fourteen? Fifteen?”
Yan Jianxiao nodded, writing: “Seventeen.”
Ying Qingye instinctively squeezed the fragile bones of his hand, surprised. “Ah?”
Yan Jianxiao nodded, but his heart was racing. Fear flickered in his beautiful eyes—fear that Ying Qingye might see through him and realize he wasn’t a woman.
Ying Qingye suddenly frowned.
His face was handsome and hard-edged. When he darkened his expression, there was a oppressive, cold brutality to it that looked rather frightening—utterly unlike his gentle demeanor moments before, as if he were a different person.
Yan Jianxiao felt an unconscious fear. Under that gaze, it seemed all his lies would be laid bare. He raised his hand and haltingly wrote in Ying Qingye’s palm: “So-sorry…”
“Blue doesn’t suit you.” Ying Qingye said suddenly.
Yan Jianxiao froze.
“I’ll take you to change clothes,” Ying Qingye said. “There’s three inches of mud on your hem.”
Yan Jianxiao had originally thought Ying Qingye had seen through him—that he wasn’t a woman—and had been about to apologize, to beg him to let it go. Instead, Ying Qingye said something like this, and he completely blanked out.
When he came to, Yan Jianxiao hastily raised his hand and wiped away the tears that had been startled out of him.
Only then did Ying Qingye notice he’d been crying. An inexplicable tightness seized his chest, and he softened his voice. “What’s wrong?”
Yan Jianxiao shook his head, eyes still red-rimmed, signaling he was fine.
He lowered his head, glancing down at the hand Ying Qingye was holding, thinking that this protagonist sure got familiar fast.
Ying Qingye followed his gaze downward and quickly let go, smiling sheepishly. “I forgot you’re a girl.”
Yan Jianxiao: “…”
Not at all!
“Can I hold your arm instead?” Ying Qingye asked tentatively.
Yan Jianxiao hesitated, then nodded.
Having received permission, Ying Qingye took his arm and led him to the Immortal Garment Pavilion.
…
At the foot of Cangling Sect was a long street, where the Immortal Garment Pavilion was located.
Yan Jianxiao watched in dismay as Ying Qingye pulled him inside, greeted by a dazzling display of rainbow-hued robes—all women’s attire. The garments of the upper cultivation realm weren’t like mortal clothing; their fabrics often bore self-cleaning or insect-repelling enchantments, and were worth a small fortune.
Yan Jianxiao stopped at the door, realizing Ying Qingye meant to buy him clothes. He grew flustered, tugging at Ying Qingye’s hand and writing: I have my own clothes. I can change myself.
He’d thought Ying Qingye was taking him back to a room to change! Not here!
Ying Qingye glanced at him, able to guess that his clothes were all made of the same fabric as the one he was wearing, and said with some helplessness: “Those aren’t nice.”
Yan Jianxiao blinked, the roots of his ears flushing with embarrassment.
Was Ying Qingye disdainful of him…
“It’s inconvenient for you to speak, so I’ll buy you one that self-cleans. Otherwise, if you have an accident washing your clothes yourself, you won’t even be able to call for me.” Ying Qingye patted his hand. “It’s fine. I have spirit stones.”
Yan Jianxiao’s ears were still red, but at least he no longer resisted.
Ying Qingye was right. If he was going to stay by his side, he couldn’t cause Ying Qingye trouble.
The shopkeeper of the Immortal Garment Pavilion was a female cultivator at the Golden Core stage, an old acquaintance of Ying Qingye— since the Ying family’s fall, Ying Qingye often hunted demonic beasts in the beast forest, selling the valuable pelts to her at cost.
Seeing Ying Qingye arrive again, the shopkeeper smiled and teased, “Oh? What goods has Young Master Ying brought this time? … Eh?”
Ying Qingye: “Give me that grey-pink robe, the one that’s your shop’s treasure.”
The shopkeeper paused, her gaze sweeping between the two of them meaningfully before settling on Ying Qingye with a grin. “For this young lady, I take it? Then follow me…”
Behind the Immortal Garment Pavilion were guest rooms for bathing and changing.
Ying Qingye pulled him inside, but Yan Jianxiao grabbed Ying Qingye’s arm, facing him and shaking his head, silently writing: Don’t buy anything too nice. It’s expensive.
Ying Qingye simply pretended his palm was grazed by a kitten’s paw, unmoved.
Yan Jianxiao grew frantic, thinking Ying Qingye hadn’t understood. He tugged at his sleeve, ran in front of him, shook his head, and mouthed: Don’t buy anything too expensive. I can’t repay you.
Ying Qingye, being mischievous, closed his eyes—pretending not to see.
Now Yan Jianxiao had no recourse. He stood there fuming, puffing out his cheeks indignantly, glaring at him.
Ying Qingye was such a devil!
He was bullying him just because he was mute, wasn’t he!