Bai Yingting is said to be settling down in his hometown after returning. He is going to get married, have children, and open a private school.
Xue Huai hadn’t seen this person for eight years, upon seeing him again, he realized that he had contracted some pedantic and artificial diseases. He’s far different from the scholarly older brother he had known eight years ago.
When the two people talk and the conversation gets disagreeable, he just treats the conversation between them as an ordinary social interaction. Later on, he realized that the Bai family seemed to be interested in connecting the red threat between him and Bai Yingting. Xue Huai closed his door to visitors1To close one’s door to visitors means to shut the door and decline to receive guests., saying that he needed to prepare gifts for when he visited his grandparents.
That’s not entirely false.
It’s true that Xue Huai also needs to prepare the gifts to visit the elderly: top-quality immortal herb pills and a big box of peaches. The Heavenly Courier has always been slow in delivering goods, and couriers such as the green bird also often slack off, so he has to wait at home. There’s nothing to do at the Shenhua Terrace, so he lays leisurely at home since he doesn’t like to go out much.
The Bai house was handed this over to Xue Zong to deal with and to play Tai Chi.
Xue Huai rejected Xue Zong’s proposal to have him bow down with Bai Yingting again and said, “When the time comes, there’ll be big brothers and younger brothers all over the place. If you’re not annoyed, I’m annoyed. Father, help me push it off. Why not? Also, last time it was Yun Cuo, Young Master Yun, he’s clearly not interested in me. Father, do you think that everyone in the world likes your son?”
Xue Zong looked at him with a worried expression and said, “Father is just afraid that when you grow up, you won’t have anyone to keep you company in the future. There are many good men and women in this world, but why can’t I find someone who’s good enough for you? Your Aunty Liu always says that the young man surnamed Bai is good, but I think that this young man is not good either. He is pedantic. That’s what happens when you read too much, your mind won’t be very bright anymore.”
After finishing speaking, he said sternly, “However, last time that kid surnamed Yun was definitely interested in you! Father has been there before, and old ginger is spicy. You unlucky little kid, why do you still won’t believe me?”
Xue Huai perfunctorily said, “Then wait until I’m older. Isn’t it good for a son to stay with his father when he gets older?”
Xue Zong smiled and said, “Oh my, your little mouth is so sweet. That’s fine. Father will wait for you to bring my daughter-in-law to the door, I won’t rush you.”
Xue Huai：“……”
He sent Xue Zong, the head of the family, to help him block the peach blossom2Blocking peach blossom means that when the other party approaches, another party comes forward and uses some methods to drive the person that is approaching away.and stays at home, growing mushrooms in peace.
After returning from the gambling market last time, he switched the Wushi Spiritual stone and the black iron that sealed ten bloodthirsty bats, and then put it back in the exquisite gift box as it was. He also explicitly prohibited his family from entering his room, giving a special warning to Mrs. Liu.
What’s left is just waiting patiently, like fishing.
Three days later, something did happen.
Ignoring the warning, Mrs. Liu entered Xue Huai’s room when no one was around and opened the valuable sunken wooden box.
As soon as she touched that black iron, ten ferocious, bloodthirsty bats instantly broke through the seal and pounced at her ferociously, with their bloody mouths open, their sharp teeth and ghastly claws slicing through her skin and luxurious robe.
This woman, who was noble and indifferent in front of other people, directly screamed in fear. The ten bloodsucking bats, as big as half an arm, had their red eyes shut, wrapping around her like a tidal wave, creating suffocating coldness and pain. She screamed sharply, “Ah! What is this! Take it away! Take it away!”
Everyone heard her scream and rushed over, but was forced back by the fierce bats. The gluttonous ghost in Xue Huai’s room has been crouching for a long time. Seeing that the bats were about to extend their claws to restrain her and bite open her neck, it rushed forward and stuffed all the ten bats into its belly as Xue Huai had instructed, and then made a full separation.
Xue Huai arrived late.
Mrs. Liu was so frightened that her face turned pale. She pointed at Xue Huai, crying while laughing, “You, Xue Huai, Xiao Huai, how could you keep such a thing in your room!” Her tone was rather unkind at first, and she scolded in a frightened tone. Before she could finish a sentence, she realized that this was not good and softened her tone, wiping tears from her own eyes.
Xue He rushed over and saw the wound on his mother’s body, feeling both surprised and scared. He dared not say anything and only squatted down to hold her.
Xue Huai leaned against the door and said in a calm voice, “I have already said that no one is allowed to enter my room without my permission.”
Mrs. Liu cried even more sadly and said, “Aunty Liu was just helping you tidy up your room and changing your bedding. You just put such a valuable item in a box and didn’t put it away properly. I am worried that it will be eaten by this gluttonous ghost that you have raised, and this is why I came to your room to tidy up. Xiao Huai, Aunty Liu didn’t mean to. Who would have thought that you would keep such things in your room?”
Xue Huai said, “Aunty Liu, I remember telling everyone at least four or five times this month that no one is allowed to enter my room. This is one of them. Secondly, the black iron sealed blood bats, which I planned to use to introduce blood for the Sword Spirit at the Shenhua Terrace, and I’ve only bought them for a few days.”
Speaking of which, he glanced into the room, where the gluttonous ghost was chewing on the last of the half-dead bat. He was taken aback and innocently looked up at him.
Xue Huai waved his hand and said, “Eat ba.”
Then he continued, “Thirdly, Aunty Liu.”
Xue He heard his tone and suddenly sensed something—Xue Huai’s tone was the same as more than ten days ago when he pointed an arrow at him!
In that instant, a chilling presumption surfaced in his mind: Xue Huai knew everything.
He knew that their mother and son duo were hostile towards him, he knew those tactics they used in private, this wasn’t an ordinary petty fight, Xue Huai was playing for real! That was the reason why Xue Huai’s attitude towards them had changed drastically recently!
Before Mrs. Liu could even realize what had happened, he saw Xue Huai tilt his head—this was his habitual behavior when he tried to screw people up.
Xue Huai asked, “I didn’t expect Aunty Liu to be so afraid of bats. After all, those bats that follow me around all day, and those bats that follow my father around, are also raised by you, aren’t they?”
“Although I don’t know what your purpose is—monitoring or spying—I don’t want to worry about them. I just want to ask you one question: Your room in the backyard below the secret door in the Quantai—would you allow me to go in and clean it for you? After all, I am also doing this out of good intentions. Getting it cleaned by your own family member is more effective than raising some gluttonous ghost, isn’t it?”
The surroundings were so quiet that even a dropped pin could be heard. These servants who came here are all loyal servants who have been working in the Xue family for more than a decade, but this is the first time they have seen the young master and the second madam get so angry.
Listening to this situation… the madam’s actions indeed cannot be exposed to light3见不得光 means that the do-er does something illegal, embarrassing, unethical, or something negative that they do not wish the public to know..
After Xue Huai finished speaking, he made a gesture inside the room, indicating that the gluttonous ghost was allowed to leave.
The gluttonous ghost listened to his words, half understanding and half not understanding, only feeling that he had been criticized in a hazy way, so he rushed out in anger and leaped up to the house-elves amidst the exclamation of the servants—leaping out of thin air for more than twenty zhang, vigorously wandering in the sky, and when he came down again, he clearly held several bats in his mouth—they had been bitten to death, and the demonic breath receded, gradually revealing themselves to the people.
Xue Huai glanced at the crowd and said, “As the saying goes, a family’s shame should not be exposed. This matter, just have a look and forget about it. I also believe that Aunty Liu didn’t mean it. As for the Quantai’s secret door, wait until my father is back and ask him to make a decision.”
He looked at Mrs. Liu, who was trembling in Xue He’s embrace suddenly felt as if he were the villain—he couldn’t help but let out a laugh, shake his sleeve, and leave4扬长而去 is an idiom meaning to turn and leave abruptly, to swagger off without a second thought of those who left behind..
In the evening, Xue Zong returned from Shenhua Terrace. Xuehuai did not see him and asked the old man to tell him all the causes and consequences.
That secret room in the backyard, because Xue Huai has put out the report, no one dared to move or destroy the evidence. Xue Zong, with a green face, led people to investigate, and indeed, they found hundreds of demonic bats inside. Mrs. Liu also admitted to using these bats to monitor their movements.
That evening, Xue Zong was so angry that he didn’t even eat his meal. The old man asked Xue Huai repeatedly, “His Lordship is in a bad mood right now, and it is still up to the Young Master to decide how to handle the Second Madam and the Little Young Master.”
The Xue family is engaged in the business of making weapons in the Immortal Realm and naturally has a private prison in their home. This private prison was built at the request of the owner of the North Heavenly Fuli Palace—When the heavenly realm was in turmoil and the astrolabe was in trouble, the demons were captured from everywhere to suppress it. The prison in the heavenly realm could not be stuffed anymore, and the magic tools to suppress demons were also lacking. Therefore, the Xue family remodeled eight mansions for free and donated several tens of thousands of demonic locks to suppress the demons.
At that time, Xue Huai was still young and occasionally caught a few demons while walking on the road, so he was very familiar with this place.
Seeing Xue Huai not speaking, the old man said again, “This matter can be big or small, Young Master. Fortunately, you have discovered… It is said to be surveillance, but there is still a lot more that can be done. It’s especially dangerous on the master’s side. There are a lot of secrets on the Shenhua Terrace. The old master didn’t even tell you, but the bat heard it all. How can that be? The old master is very angry now. When the late Madam is here, there isn’t so much of a problem.”
He is talking about Xue Huai’s mother, Murong Mi. Anyone who stays in the household for a long time is biased towards Xue Huai’s mother’s side, and even seeing Mrs. Liu was not pleasing to the eye.
Xue Huai was half covered with a piece of white robe and soaked in the hot spring, remaining silent.
This young master has always been vengeful and always handles everything clearly. For him, the best choice right now is—to let Xue Zong divorce his wife.
But Xue Zong liked Mrs. Liu’s appearance; otherwise, he wouldn’t have married such a powerless and inexperienced woman back home. Mrs. Liu had her shrewdness and small calculations but at first she also had some feelings for Xue Zong. When Xue Zong pursued her, he also coaxed her into the house with extravagance.
Arriving home, her son was barely acknowledged. Xue Zong was careless and casual, and all the servants in the family were turned towards Murong Mi, at the same time, they also treated her with courtesy. That kind of emotion is probably indelible, which is why there is a motive to kill under the pain.
It’s hard to say whether such a person is pitiful or hateful.
Xue Huai is soft-hearted, and yet he would never go soft on the pair of mother and son who were suspected of having killed him in a previous life.
Xue Huai said lazily, “Torture in jail and punish according to family law. But let’s reduce her jail time a little bit, release her in three days, and let her roll back home to think about it. As for whether to divorce her wife or not, let them carry the feud and enmity of the elders by themselves. As long as they don’t offend me, I don’t care about the rest.”
The old man asked, “Young Master, then what about the Little Young Master?”
“Xue He, if he has filial piety and wants to accompany his mother, let him go.” Xue Huai said, “He’s already so big, he should know how to act in a proper manner. Moreover, ask him not to come beg me. If he does something wrong, he should pay the price. He begged once, and I let his mother spend an extra year in the dungeon.”
The old man left.
Xue Huai continued to soak himself in the spring water.
He didn’t feel too happy about settling on this side of things for the time being. In short, it’s not love and respect between brothers or a good thing for the family’s satisfaction. If this was in his previous life, he might have been happy to win in this one, but when he comes back to life again, he just finds it very boring.
Coincidentally, he was reborn at the age of sixteen, and he thought, a little greedily, that it’s good if only he were a little younger, why couldn’t he go back to the age of seven or eight once again and snuggle up a little more to the happiness of that time?
He kind of misses his mom a bit.
At this moment, a green bird swooped in from the sky and stopped on a rock by the hot springs, then lowered its head to put down a silver plate.
The silver plate contained an old sachet, half old and half new in color. It is obvious that someone did it a long time ago but did not finish it, and someone later patched it up.
This is a very old thing, with the popular patterns and styles from about ten years ago. Xue Huai reached out from the water with a loud clatter and picked it up to take a look—it was filled with Immortal Angelica dahurica and Eupatorium Fortunei, which were his favorite spices recently.
In his previous life, he didn’t use incense very much because hanging a sachet on when he went to the battlefield always felt strange. In this life, he picked up his previous hobby and started to use incense. Occasionally, he also brought a sachet with him. He became obsessed with it and often changed it, but no one knew which one he liked best.
“This is?” He asked the green bird.
The green bird answered, “Someone asked me to find it in the Shennong Hall. It was an old item belonging to Young Mater Xue’s mother. Back then, Mrs. Murong had moved from place to place to seek medical treatment and had been to many places, and some things could not help but fall behind. She embroidered this sachet for you before she passed away, but unfortunately, it was not completed. When the madam used up all her phoenix feather thread, she handed it over to the maid of the Shennong Hall for safekeeping along with the sachet. She intended to finish the embroidery when she found all the threads, but when Madam’s condition worsened, she was not able to finish it. The clinic keeps changing again and again, but I’ve always forgotten to bring this sachet back to you.”
Xue Huai wondered and said, “So that’s how it is.”
He took it over and carefully looked at it: The person who mended this sachet was obviously not very skilled, the stitches are fine and tight, but they were really unsightly. Not sure how much effort it took to embroider it.
Inside the sachet was a yellow note that wrote:
My son Xue Huai, may you be like orchids and peyote5兰芝佩玉 lit. orchids and peyote is an idiom meaning blue-blood nobility., do not take anything for granted in life, even if no one’s there, your youth will never diminish.
Murong Mi celebrates Xiao Huai’s tenth birthday.
His mother passed away before he was ten years old, which was clearly a birthday gift she wanted to give him. At that time, boys from well-known noble families had to wear swords, pouches, and controll spiritual beasts from the age of ten.
This heartless, stunning mother of his never gave him any birthday presents. At most, she would give him a few kisses on the face as a reward, and that’s it. At that time, it was not Xue Zong and Murong Mi doting on their son, but it was the por of father and his son doting on her together.
He didn’t expect that she would still prepare a gift for him.
Xue Huai held this sachet and didn’t know what to say.
The green bird flapped its wings and said, “Since it’s delivered, I’ll leave first, Young Master Xue.”
Xue Huai stopped him and said, “Wait, who gave me this thing? It must have taken a lot of effort to find it, right? How can I thank him?”
The green bird said, “That person said there’s no need to tell you. I hope you can be as happy and carefree as Mrs. Murong and have a worry-free life. However, it’s not necessary to wait for anyone on the Naihe Bridge. What cannot be let go will be reunited.”
