"Tianlan, you… y-"Now that Hei had gotten a good look at Tianlan, he was shocked by the changes he had undergone.
"Tianlan. When did you get sword brows?!"
Tianlan raised his hand to his face and stroked his brows. Instead of answering the question, he smiled awkwardly.
But when he did, Hei saw a spark of blinding light reflecting from his teeth. He couldn"t help but cover his eyes, staggering backwards as he did.
"Tianlan, you!"
He rubbed his eyes with the backs of his hands before sizing Tianlan up from top to bottom.
"Sword brows. A sharp aura. An even more piercing gaze. A radiant smile. You grew a little taller. And your clothes are as cool as mine… What the heck? You"re…"
Hei dropped to his hands and knees and let out a mournful wail.
"You"re even more handsome than before!"
Tianlan walked up to Hei with a concerned frown. He placed a hand on his back and rubbed it.
"There, there, Onii-chan. Didn"t you say you would catch up in a few years? You"ve still got time."
"How is this fair, Tianlan?"
Hei raised a tear-stained face and grabbed Tianlan"s robe with both hands.
"Tell me how this is fair!"
When Hei was looking into his eyes, Tianlan"s look of concern shifted into a sinister smile. He leaned down until his mouth was beside Hei"s ear and whispered: "Some of us are just born ugly, Hei."
After saying that, he patted Hei on the shoulder before walking past him, leaving behind the final nail in the coffin. "There"s nothing we can do about it."
Behind him, Hei coughed up a mouthful of blood and fell to the ground, motionless.
***
What"s wrong with these two?
That was the common thought among the spectators. It was difficult to understand what was going on, but it was plain to see that they weren"t true enemies. Far from it.
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The only one who knew what was going on was the receptionist who had been having a bad day. He lowered his head into his hands as he felt that it was likely to get much worse.
It wasn"t until Honghuo spoke that the rest started to understand the situation.
"Who would have thought that you were his brother?"
He walked towards Tianlan with his sister in tow.
"Oh. It"s you. Joint second… Ming Hong, was it? It looks like you found your sister. Congratulations."
Tianlan smiled and waved at Ju Li.
Ju Li had her breath stolen from her. As she looked at Tianlan, with his white aura and his dazzling charm, she couldn"t help but stare.
She remained frozen in place until Hei struggled to extend his hand towards them. He said, "Quick, Honghuo! You… You must cover Ju Li"s eyes before it"s too late. She"s too weak to resist. Her soul… Her soul is in danger!"
Honghuo quickly covered Ju Li"s eyes and turned a malicious glare to Tianlan.
"There you go again, Shao Tianlan!" Honghuo cast a quick glance at the 24 sword maidens then turned back to Tianlan. "Aren"t you satisfied with the attention of the senior sisters?"
"It"s not like I asked for this to happen, you know? It"s actually really inconvenient. I would appreciate it if you could take them off my hands."
Tianlan didn"t know the destructive might of his words. He was surprised to see Honghuo fall to his hands and knees, much like Hei had.
"How is this fair?"
Ju Li placed a hand on his back and rubbed it in consolation.
***
Hei felt a fluctuation in his storage s.p.a.ce that he knew to be a communication request from either Matriarch Radiant Jade or his business partner.
While still lying in a pool of his own blood, he retrieved the communication jade and accepted the request.
"Hey, Partner!"
"H-Hey."
"… What happened to you?"
"Sometimes, you see an expert and realise you"ll never reach their level. The only choice, then, is to cough up a mouthful of blood and admit defeat."
"Is this your true face? Why aren"t you in disguise anymore?"
"Yes. It"s my true face. The disguise is meaningless now." A single tear fell down the side of Hei"s face. "I never would have been able to hide from him anyway."
"Who is it that could have reduced you to such a state? You aren"t even afraid of entire sects."
"Who is it?" Hei saw Tianlan coming over and decided to let things play out on their own. "See for yourself."
***
Tianlan was curious about the jade floating in front of Hei and the image it was projecting.
"What"s this, Hei? Is it some kind of portable movie jade?"
He looked at the projection. There was a young lady in view who was dressed in towels and seemed to have just taken a bath.
Coincidentally, just as he turned to the screen, the girl turned to him. Her eyes widened and her face was drained of colour before she ran away, disappearing from the frame.
Tianlan turned to Hei.
"It looks like a horror movie. I didn"t know you were into that."
Hei sighed.
Tianlan turned back to the screen and saw that the camera hadn"t moved from where it was.
"The editing isn"t very good."
"Wait for it."
Tianlan turned to Hei who had just spoken, then back to the screen, waiting for whatever Hei was talking about.
A few seconds later, the girl returned to the frame and was now dressed in an expensive-looking dress. She had delicate ornaments in her hair and was adorned with understated jewels which accentuated her beauty.
Tianlan placed his hand on his chin.
"So it"s not a horror? Is it a romance? Is she getting ready to go to some formal event?"
He waited to see what would happen next, but the girl was just standing there in silence. He was about to ask Hei what was going on with this terrible movie when he heard the girl speak.
"My name is Su Yuying." She curtsied. "It"s my pleasure to meet you."
Tianlan watched in silence for the scene to continue, but there was nothing. He could tell that the movie wasn"t frozen because the girl was making minute movements, and her cheeks were turning red. He could even feel the awkwardness as if she were standing right in front of him.
Behind him, Honghuo was slowly turning into stone, but Tianlan didn"t notice.
He went to turn to Hei, but his peripheral vision caught the movement of the girl"s eyes. She had followed his movements.
Intrigued, he turned back to the screen and made certain movements, watching for a reaction.
"Hm? This thing is able to react to visual data? Where did you find something like this, Hei?"
Hei remained silent, so Tianlan decided to play around with it.
"My name is Shao Tianlan. It"s nice to meet you."
At the end of his greeting, he smiled.
The result was as he had come to expect.
"Kyaa!"
The girl disappeared from the frame once more.
***
At some point, Hei got up from the ground and stood next to Tianlan, who was fiddling around with the jade.
"This is an interesting toy you"ve got here. The image remains stable even when the jade is moving. And they managed to create a realistic representation of a person using formations?"
"It"s not a representation, Tianlan. What you saw was a real person."
"What?" Tianlan dropped the jade and wiped his hands on his robe. "You can"t be telling me that there"s a soul locked in there, can you? And you call me the creepy one?"
"No!" Hei conjured a folded fan and used it to slap Tianlan"s head. "This is a communication jade. She"s at another location."
"A communication jade with visual data? I haven"t heard of those."
"Hehe. No one has. I made it myself."
"Yeah right."
"Are you doubting me? Not all of us spend our time building harems, Tianlan. Some of us are actually learning things."
"Building harems?"
Hei pointed at the sword maidens and the various other women who were clearly directing their warm gazes at Tianlan.
"That"s not…" The corner of Tianlan"s mouth twitched. "It just happened. I was being low-key and they just started showing up. I can barely leave my abode without being swarmed."
"Low-key. Really?" Hei"s eyebrows twitched as he tried to maintain his cool. "Then let me ask you, Tianlan. This uniform you"re wearing. Is it the uniform of outer-sect disciples?"
Tianlan opened his mouth, but no words came out.
After sorting his words, he said, "This is… Um… It"s the core disciple uniform, but-"
"I rest my case."
"No, wait. Hear me out."
Hei exhaled then turned a stern face to Tianlan and pointed to the ground.
"Explain yourself."
Tianlan looked around and whispered embarra.s.sedly, "Can we go to my place? This is too public."
"K."
Hei shrugged his shoulders and his seriousness disappeared. He gestured for Tianlan to lead the way before following behind him.
Before entering the sect, he stuck his tongue out at the receptionist then turned to Honghuo and Ju Li.
"See you later Honghuo, Ju Li."
Honghuo waved awkwardly, and Ju Li finally managed to catch a glimpse of Tianlan"s back before the sword maidens blocked the view.
***
As they were walking, Hei couldn"t help but notice the wide array of intents behind the looks people were giving to Tianlan. They were so intense that he was seeing them as colours.
"Is this the personality module at work?"
Along with his request for an ability to detect lies, Hei had asked Crystalia for a way to see people"s personalities. It had been something he tacked on and wasn"t something he was relying on, but it seemed to have manifested itself at this moment.
There was the colour pink among most of the women. Especially those 24 sword maidens who were following behind them.
Among the men, there were reds, blues, purples, greys, blacks, a whole slew of colours.
Looking for a sign of any women who weren"t infatuated with Tianlan, Hei discovered an interesting one. She was dressed differently from most of the people there, and if one used scarcity to mean rarity and rarity to mean quality, then she was a high-ranking member of the sect. There were only three other people there dressed in similar colours to her.
In contrast, there were more than twenty dressed in similar colours to Tianlan, and those dressed in white numbered in the hundreds.
Hei pointed to that woman who was sitting on a roof some distance away with a gentle smile on her face and her legs crossed one over the other. She had a different air about her than most of the other women. She gave off the feeling of a mother who was looking proudly at her child.
"Tianlan. Who"s that?"
Tianlan followed Hei"s line of sight.
"Oh, her? She"s my master, I guess."
"Master?! Didn"t I tell you not to accept one of those?"
Tianlan scratched his head. "She came to me and said she was my master. I think she won a bet or something."
"Oh. So you didn"t accept her?"
"Nope."
Hei breathed a sigh of relief, and Tianlan"s master fell off the roof.
***
"What the…"
Hei looked up to a ma.s.sive white mansion that Tianlan seemed to be walking into. It had fabulously maintained greenery and through his spiritual perception, Hei could tell that the place was lavishly decorated on the interior.
"You can"t be serious, Tianlan. This looks like the best place in the area."
Tianlan smiled as he retrieved his ident.i.ty jade from his spatial ring. "The number one disciple obviously gets the best abode."
"… At the Radiant Jade, they offered me a shovel and a mountain." "Scratch that. I didn"t even get the shovel."
Hei lamented the difference in treatment he and Tianlan got. Wouldn"t it have been nice to come to the Shimmering Sword Sect instead?
"Wait... Number one disciple?" Hei conjured up his trusty folded fan and used it to slap Tianlan"s head. "How is that being low-key, Tianlan?!"
***
"I don"t understand this," Hei said as he placed his feet on a soft cushion.
"Ah. Thank you."
He took a sip of the refreshing beverage he had just been given by one of Tianlan"s personal staff and was about to say something when two hands grabbed his shoulders.
"Oh. This is nice."
It was the same maid who had just given him something to drink who was now ma.s.saging his shoulders.
"Now, what was I saying? Oh, yes. I don"t understand this. This isn"t how a main character lives. You should be struggling to fight against some troublesome circ.u.mstance in the sect right now or something. How can you be sitting in the lap of luxury?"
Tianlan leaned back into his couch and enjoyed his ma.s.sage for a while before responding.
"It"s just as you said. There was a whole lot of trouble before I got to where I am now."
"Oh? How did you deal with it?"
"I hit it."
"…" Hei tilted his head. "You hit it?"
"Yeah. When the arrogant young masters came, I beat them off. When their lackeys and admirers came, I beat them off. When their senior brothers came, I beat them off. When their masters came, I beat them off. When the disciplinary committee came, I beat them off. And when the vice sect leader came, I beat him off."
Tianlan finished his drink and handed his gla.s.s to a maid who had been waiting for it.
"After that, they left me alone."
"…"
Hei was at a loss for words. It was true that beating them away was always an option, but it wasn"t one that was available to most main characters.
He shook his head and smiled.
"Tell me the whole story, starting from the beginning."