Chapter 72#

The Cross-dressing Wife#

Gu Xingzhai never imagined this in his dreams.

In the dead of night, when the arrow was on the string and the atmosphere was just right, a loud shout suddenly came from outside the door, mixed with tension, excitement, and righteousness—

“Senior Brother, fire!!!”

But when Gu Xingzhai and the other sleeping guests threw on their outer robes and hurried out of their rooms, looking around blankly, they only saw a charred mark on the hallway floor no bigger than a cigarette butt.

The man watched as that tiny spark was stepped on by someone, leaving only a thin, long wisp of blue smoke. He was so angry his nose almost went crooked: “Qi Xiao Liu! Why are you howling instead of sleeping in the middle of the night? You call this a fire?”

“I, I’m just taking precautions.” Xiao Liu scratched his head and gave a “hehe” laugh, his eyes constantly peeking into the room behind Gu Xingzhai.

Seeing him like this, what did Gu Xingzhai not understand?

He stood wordless under the moon. After a long while, he let out a long sigh, wiped his face hard, and then grabbed Xiao Liu by the collar with one hand, throwing the trouble-making brat back into his own room.

“Senior Brother, you can’t bully Young Master Lin anymore!” Qi Xiao Liu shouted flusteredly behind him.

Gu Xingzhai paused, turned back beyond endurance, and asked: “You’re fourteen this year, not an age where you understand nothing. Didn’t Master take you to a brothel to catch demons before? The arrow was on the string and had to be shot; do you truly know nothing?”

“What does a brothel and an arrow have to do with anything?” Xiao Liu asked in confusion, but looking at the expression on Gu Xingzhai’s face, he finally realized. “Oh, Senior Brother, so you were just…” He coughed, his face turning red. Only then did he realize what a stupid thing he had done, but he still asked in a low voice under Gu Xingzhai’s murderous gaze, “So, Senior Brother, did your arrow… actually fire or not?”

Gu Xingzhai took a deep breath.

A moment later, the sound of Qi Xiao Liu’s ghostly wailing and wolfish howling came from the room.

Having finished beating the disobedient brat, Gu Xingzhai clapped his hands and returned to the room with a cold face.

A muffled laugh came from the large bed. Lin Xiaodong poked his head out from under the blankets, looking at the man’s face which was as black as a pot bottom, and said with curved eyes: “You didn’t actually hit him, did you?”

“He asked for it,” Gu Xingzhai said stiffly.

But his gaze involuntarily fell on the youth’s face, which still had a faint flush. The capillary dilation from intense movement made the youth look like a ripe, juicy fruit, exuding a soft warmth all over. On his fair neck, dark hickeys left from his passion earlier were faintly visible… Gu Xingzhai’s breathing gradually became rapid again. He sat by the bedside and, ignoring Lin Xiaodong’s complaints, scooped him out of the warm blankets and held him tightly in his arms.

“What’s wrong?”

Feeling the man’s mood was off, Lin Xiaodong stopped struggling. He was quiet for a moment and asked softly.

“Nothing,” Gu Xingzhai replied in a low voice with a hint of suppression. “Don’t move, just let me hold you like this for a while.”

Lin Xiaodong sighed.

After all, the Gu Xingzhai of this world was only a twenty-five-year-old youth.

First, he experienced three years of turmoil, then returned home for a funeral, and now the heavy burden of reviving the sect was placed on him… No wonder he often couldn’t sleep at night recently and would secretly hold him in his arms.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll always be here to accompany you.”

“…Really?”

“Really,” Lin Xiaodong paused and added, “Anyway, I can’t possibly be the one to break the promise first.”

The system listened silently to their conversation in the void and suddenly understood why Lin Xiaodong said that. Because in his way of thinking, leaving this world was equivalent to death, and death was a force majeure, so it wouldn’t count as breaking a promise.

However, not everyone in this world thought the same way as he did. Perhaps in Gu Xingzhai’s heart, this promise meant forever.

The man backed away slightly, suddenly looked fixedly into Lin Xiaodong’s eyes, and said: “When my junior brothers arrive, let’s hold a wedding.”

“A wedding?”

Hearing this, Lin Xiaodong was truly stunned for a moment.

Although Gu Xi had proposed to him in the first world, that was a proposal after all, and different from an actual wedding. For some reason, as soon as he thought of this word, Lin Xiaodong felt a strange rejection: “Two men having a wedding… people will laugh at us.”

“We’ll only invite our own people. As for others’ opinions, let them be.” Gu Xingzhai felt more and more that this idea was a good one. He held Lin Xiaodong’s hand tightly and asked with a bit of expectation and urgency, “Do you have any relatives or friends? It doesn’t matter even if they are demons. Or we can hold a ceremony in each of two places…”

“I have no relatives or friends, you’re overthinking.” Lin Xiaodong broke free from his embrace and turned his head away from the man’s gaze. “I just don’t want to get married. Isn’t this fine? There are no constraints.”

Seeing him like this, Gu Xingzhai’s passionate heart gradually cooled.

“You’re unwilling?” he murmured, lowering his eyes. “Alright then.”

Lin Xiaodong looked at the man’s inexplicably pitiful appearance, sighed, and softened his tone: “It’s not that, it’s just not the right time. Look, my wanted poster is still hanging on the city wall. Although you aren’t wanted by the government, they must have their eyes on you already.”

“Then once this storm passes, we’ll get married!” Gu Xingzhai’s eyes lit up, and he said immediately.

Lin Xiaodong: “…………”

He shut his mouth and thought in self-abandonment: Forget it, let him be.

Anyway, by then, he should have already left this world.

“I don’t understand,” the system said. “Why are you so resistant to a ceremony that has no legal binding effect? Clearly, you agreed very readily when Gu Xi proposed to you.”

“A proposal and a marriage are different,” Lin Xiaodong said flatly.

But actually, he was also a bit surprised; the system should know the thoughts in his head, yet it asked this question as if it were completely unaware.

It seems there are limits to the system’s detection of the host’s thoughts, he thought.

Otherwise, the system should have understood long ago why he was so repelled by the idea of marriage.

Ever since before he crossed over, Lin Xiaodong would often have a recurring dream where he and a man whose face he couldn’t see clearly not only got married but even formed a family and together adopted a pet named Lin Xiaogou—yes, a husky of the same breed as the Lin Xiaogou in the first world.

Reasonably speaking, for Lin Xiaodong, who had known he liked men long ago, this should have been a sweet dream.

But the dreams were always intermittent and couldn’t be connected into pieces. Under these warm appearances, the only thing he could feel was boundless despair. This suffocating feeling of drowning even made Lin Xiaodong begin to suspect if he had some kind of psychological problem. But before he could figure out the truth, the system came and took him through the first world.

And after meeting Gu Xi, Lin Xiaodong never had that dream again.

“Anyway,” he withdrew his thoughts from his memories and said to the system in a certain tone, “In this life, I probably won’t marry anyone. Even if he has eight-pack abs… hmm, still no.”

The system was silent.

“Then it seems your determination is indeed very strong,” it said sincerely.

After all, the only thing that could make Lin Xiaodong temporarily give up the temptation of eight-pack abs was probably a yellow square sponge with dozens of holes.

The next evening.

“Senior Brother Gu!” “Eldest Senior Brother!”

Hearing the voices coming from the inn entrance, Gu Xingzhai, who was talking with Lin Xiaodong in the lobby, was stunned. He looked toward the sound and saw four junior brothers standing neatly at the door, looking at him with excitement.

“You guys…” Gu Xingzhai blinked, suppressed the excitement in his heart, walked over, and gave them a powerful hug. “It’s good that you’re alright!”

“Senior Brother, we missed you so much,” a youth slightly older with freckles on his cheeks sniffled and looked at Gu Xingzhai with red eyes; he was ranked third in the sect. “If Second Brother hadn’t persuaded us to wait until you returned to discuss, I would have gone and killed that dog mmm%￥#…”

“What are you saying!” Gu Xingzhai covered his mouth and frowned. “At the foot of the Imperial City, use your brain.”

The freckled youth responded reluctantly: “Got it, Senior Brother.”

“By the way, where’s Xiao Liu?” the Second Brother standing next to him asked. He was the oldest here besides Gu Xingzhai, looking around twenty or so, wearing a simple linen long gown with regular features and a voice that seemed to carry an aura of righteousness.

“That brat left a note and ran out without a word. We’ve been looking for him for almost half a month and haven’t even slept well!” the Fourth Brother said angrily, and the Fifth Brother immediately nodded. “Exactly, we definitely have to teach him a lesson this time!”

The two of them were a pair of twins, looking almost identical; no one except Gu Xingzhai could tell them apart. Therefore, they were also very convinced by Gu Xingzhai and were even more respectful to him than to Master.

“He’s upstairs; he probably heard your voices and is afraid to come down,” Gu Xingzhai said with a smile.

This place was crowded and not suitable for talking. The group returned together to the room on the second floor, but were surprised to find that besides their brothers, a handsome youth with phoenix eyes also followed them in.

Second Brother frowned tightly, looked at Lin Xiaodong, and then at the calm Gu Xingzhai. He was the first to ask: “Senior Brother, he is…?”

Gu Xingzhai held the youth’s hand and said to the four junior brothers with various expressions: “This is the person I’ve decided on for this lifetime, Lin Xiaodong.”

The clever Third Brother was the first to react: “He’s that succubus the government is offering a reward of fifty gold for?”

“Yes,” Gu Xingzhai nodded.

The several people looked at each other.

Although they were happy that their Senior Brother could find a partner, their profession did indeed have a very large prejudice against demons. It was impossible to say there were no misgivings in their hearts.

But they were all adults after all, unlike Xiao Liu who was still a child and could be blunt. So finally, Second Brother said on behalf of the group: “Congratulations. But Senior Brother, are you sure he can be trusted?”

Gu Xingzhai: “I can guarantee it with my life.”

Second Brother sighed: “Alright then, since that’s the case, we as junior brothers won’t say anything. Just as long as you know what you’re doing, Senior Brother.”

Third Brother pressed his lips together and didn’t speak.

He only gave Lin Xiaodong a cold look but received a gentle smile from the youth, making him slightly stunned.

In fact, from the moment he entered the inn, he had noticed Lin Xiaodong sitting in the lobby at first glance. Without exception, the youth’s appearance was simply too eye-catching; perhaps he didn’t know it himself, but everyone both upstairs and downstairs was intentionally or unintentionally watching him. Third Brother originally thought he was a succubus captured and imprisoned by Gu Xingzhai, but he didn’t expect they were in such a relationship.

“But Senior Brother, can a human and a demon be together?” Fourth Brother couldn’t help asking.

“Why not?” Before Gu Xingzhai could answer, Lin Xiaodong asked back. This stumped Fourth Brother; he was speechless for a moment and said with some embarrassment and anger: “I wasn’t asking you! And I’m the one asking the question, okay?”

“Fourth Brother!”

Second Brother and Fifth Brother both looked at him disapprovingly, but Lin Xiaodong wasn’t angry at his offense. He just smiled and said to Gu Xingzhai: “I’ll go stay in Xiao Liu’s room for a while; you guys chat.”

Watching his departing figure, Gu Xingzhai’s eyes darkened slightly.

Although he didn’t say anything, Fourth Brother felt a small sense of unease in his heart. He bit the bullet and didn’t admit his mistake, but when Second Brother and the others discussed with Gu Xingzhai, the boy gripped his teacup and remained silent throughout.

After dinner that evening, he dawdled as he “passed by” Lin Xiaodong, muttered a quick sentence, and then ran away fast. Lin Xiaodong blinked and stood there thoughtfully. Gu Xingzhai thought Fourth Brother had been rude to him again, walked over with a tight frown and asked: “What did that brat say to you again?”

“Nothing,” Lin Xiaodong came back to his senses and smiled. “He said although he hates demons, for your sake, if there’s danger, he’ll risk his life to protect me.”

“…That brat.”

This time, Gu Xingzhai’s voice carried a hint of helplessness and pride. Lin Xiaodong looked at him and knew—how was he looking after these boys as junior brothers? He was clearly treating them as disciples!

“You group of people all know martial arts; staying in an inn for long will inevitably attract the attention of those with ulterior motives,” he advised. “If there’s nothing else, it’s better to leave the capital soon.”

Gu Xingzhai nodded heavily.

During this time, he had already run through most of the capital. Not only had he found out the details of how Master had gone to the forbidden area, but he had also recovered the belongings Master had left with friends. Calculating the days, it was time to leave this place.

“I asked the blacksmith earlier; the sword being made for Xiao Liu is almost finished, and I expect to get it tomorrow morning,” he said. “After we return to the outskirts of the capital to visit Master’s grave, we’ll get married.”

Seeing the man so persistent, Lin Xiaodong was powerless to refuse.

He couldn’t understand why Gu Xingzhai was so obsessed with marriage.

“As you wish,” finally, he could only say this.

However, on the night before their departure, they met two familiar faces near the inn—the gray-robed Taoist and his disciple, who had finally put on new clothes.

“Hey, don’t leave!” Seeing Gu Xingzhai pulling Lin Xiaodong away from them, the gray-robed Taoist immediately ran over shouting, “I’m not a flood or a beast, nor am I a soldier here to catch you. What are you running for?”

Because meeting you is never a good thing, Lin Xiaodong thought privately.

Clearly Gu Xingzhai shared his thoughts, but out of respect for his senior, he stopped and asked politely: “May I ask what business you have, Senior?”

“It’s not any particular business,” the gray-robed Taoist rubbed his nose embarrassedly. “Actually, I just wanted to apologize to you.”

“…Oh?”

“Aiyaya, wasn’t it because my disciple and I were loose-lipped outside before, causing the news to leak out, and you couldn’t stay in Qingxie Town anymore?” the gray-robed Taoist said. “I don’t like owing people favors, much less proactively harming people—that’s my principle in life. But it’s also a fact that we indirectly harmed you, so I wanted to come and say I’m sorry.”

Gu Xingzhai frowned and asked: “Then how did you find us?”

He knew there was a spell in the profound arts called Thousand-Mile Tracking. Therefore, before leaving, he had specifically burned the Gu family mansion to a crisp to prevent anyone from using Lin Xiaodong’s belongings to locate them. But Qingxie Town was a thousand miles from the capital; if the gray-robed Taoist hadn’t used a spell, how did he know they were here?

“It’s a coincidence. When my disciple and I were resting in the wild, we suddenly smelled a faint fragrance. Following the smell, we found a few drops of dried blood,” the gray-robed Taoist spoke eloquently. “At that time, I immediately realized this thing should be ‘Scent of Charm’. I tried using a tracking spell to investigate and found it pointed to the capital, so I followed it like a blind cat hitting a dead mouse, and sure enough, I found you here.”

Lin Xiaodong’s eyes widened slightly, and he exchanged a look with the solemn-faced Gu Xingzhai: “Could it be from Xiao Liu’s arrow back then…”

Gu Xingzhai nodded: “I’m afraid so.”

He was somewhat annoyed; at the time he only cared about worrying for Lin Xiaodong’s injury and actually forgot to deal with the bloodstains.

“Don’t worry, just to be safe, I’ve already burned that tree,” the gray-robed Taoist said proudly. “But as for whether anyone else discovered the bloodstains before that, I wouldn’t know.”

“In any case, thank you, Senior.” Gu Xingzhai cupped his hands to him. The gray-robed Taoist waved his hands repeatedly, “It’s nothing, no need to thank me. Let’s just consider it even!”

After seeing off the pair, Lin Xiaodong said: “It seems our whereabouts have been discovered.”

Gu Xingzhai didn’t speak, but he thought so too.

Otherwise, in such a vast world, it was impossible that after they left Qingxie Town, nothing happened along the way, only for a reward to be offered exactly when they reached the capital—the person offering the reward probably didn’t know their exact location but certainly knew they had come to the vicinity of the capital.

“We’ll leave the city tomorrow,” Gu Xingzhai decided immediately.