Meng Hu grabbed Xuanji by the waist and held on for dear life.
Mo Xiong, who did not really get what was going on, saw that Meng Hu kept winking at him and also stepped forward to help, grabbing Xuanji’s legs.
The sounds from the room were getting more and more intense, Qingtong could hardly speak anymore.
Xuanji gritted his teeth and said, “Let go!” This stupid, strong tiger. And this imbecile bear is even worse with his innate god-like superstrength. I can’t escape at all.
“Shibo, don’t be impulsive. Shidi is treating Master’s wounds and must not be disturbed,” said Meng Hu, looking earnest.
Before, when they had been in the Crystal Palace, these kinds of sounds could be heard almost every day. The first time he had heard it, shidi had told him very solemnly that it was indeed for his Master’s healing. Shidi had gone through a tremendous trouble to find this healing technique, this he knew, but it sounded like his Master was being tortured, so he could not help feeling a little distressed. What Mo Tianliao had told him at the time was, “This technique will hurt a bit at first, but after a while it made one feel much better.”
Although shifu gave shidi a good thrashing, he did not refute shidi‘s claims.
“That’s bullshit!” Xuanji gritted his teeth and looked down at Mo Xiong, who was still diligently hugging his thighs. “And why did you stop me?”
Mo Xiong looked up, blinked eyes which were a little on the small side, and said in his booming voice, “I don’t know, I saw Meng Hu grabbing you, so I did so too.
Xuanji was so enraged by this pair of idiotic shizhi, he felt his shell was about to crack. He took the tortoise shell and gave each of them a blow to the head, then shook off the two woozy idiots and rushed to the bedroom.
Wham!
With a loud noise, Xuanji hit an invisible barrier and ended up with a big lump on his head.
“Ohh… Out–Outside…” Qingtong pushed at the person who was leaning over him, he could vaguely hear Xuanji’s voice.
Mo Tianliao raised his body slightly, separating their brows which had been pressed against each other, and, with a wave of his hand, promptly erected a soundproof barrier. Before Qingtong could return to his senses, all sounds from the outside world had been thoroughly blocked.
“Who is it?” Qingtong opened his eyes and tried to look outside.
“There is no one there.” Only some Demonic Beasts, although Mo Tianliao kept that part to himself. He leaned closer to kiss those glistening lips, “Baby, we’re in the middle of treatment, don’t get distracted.” After saying that, he began to move more violently, like a punishment.
The movements made Qingtong shake, he bit down on Mo Tianliao’s shoulder.
The inner palace’s barrier was actually a very powerful array, no matter how much Xuanji attacked it with his Half-Immortal beast cultivator’s power it still would not budge, he even pounded it with his turtle’s shell for half an hour. Finally, he sat down on the ground, lowering his head and fiddling with his shell.
“Shibo, are you trying to divine the future?” Meng Hu asked, his eyes brimming with curiosity and his big head leaning close. Legend had it that the shell of a Xuanwu had a divinatory trigram inscribed on it that could tell both the past and the future.
“Yep.” Xuanji’s finger slowly traced over the shell.
“Shishu, could you also divine when will be able to get out from here?” Mo Xiong asked earnestly.
Xuanji glanced at him and then put away his shell. “What I was divining were my chances of beating Mo Tianliao to death.” That is, he was trying to check which was stronger, a Xuanwu shell or an Everlasting Tree.”
Xuanji sat there all afternoon, bitterly waiting in front of the door as the sun set, his figure casting a long, mournful shadow on the ground.
*****
Mo Tianliao held the limp Qingtong in his arms, instead of carrying him to bathe, he was gently patting him on the back in order to sooth him to sleep.
“Bath…” Qingtong tried to push Mo Tianliao away.
“Behave. Your internal injuries are not completely healed yet, skip it for now.” Mo Tianliao kissed his sweaty forehead.
During the almost month-long journey, the pair of them had hardly left the bed, so his internal injuries were almost healed up. Mo Tianliao, however, still felt ill at ease and thought that they should make the most of the healing process.
Qingtong glared at him weakly, then he could not be bothered to care anymore and yawned sleepily. Just before falling asleep, he suddenly remembered something. “Where are Xuanji and the others?”
Mo Tianliao’s divine sense covered the entire inner palace, so of course he knew what Xuanji was doing. He smiled and said, “Playing outside. Go to sleep, I’ll go take care of them.”
Qingtong, who was used to not worrying about anything when Mo Tianliao was around, buried his face against Mo Tianliao’s neck and went to sleep, unconcerned.
Only when Qingtong was asleep did Mo Tianliao slowly get up, tuck him in, and closed the curtains. He picked up the tortoiseshell-coloured candlestick that was playing dead besides the bed and went to the back to take a bath.
There were hot springs everywhere in the Mo Palace, the bathing room in the inner palace was an enormous hot spring. After taking a nice long bath, Mo Tianliao put on some everyday clothing he had in the Mo Palace and walked out, feeling refreshed and relaxed.
The big black bear was sprawled out on his back, sleeping. It was currently winter, a time when bears felt very sleepy, even shape-shifted beast cultivators were no different. The tiger was lying on the bear’s warm belly, but because his body was too long, his head and hind legs did not fit and were draped over the ground, it looked like the big black bear had a tiger-skin rug over it.
Hearing footsteps, the half-asleep tiger looked up. He saw a man with his hair unbound, dressed in pitch-black silk clothes with wide flowing sleeves, a stunning figure. Somehow, he felt like shidi looked quite different from before.
As soon as Xuanji saw Mo Tianliao, he rushed over.
Mo Tianliao quickly turned Taishi into manacles which trapped both of Xuanji’s hands with a click. While holding him he whispered, “Qingtong is asleep, don’t wake him.”
Hearing this, Xuanji immediately became silent. He broke open the Taishi shackles, grabbed Mo Tianliao by the collar and used sound transmission to say, “You deceitful and unfilial bastard.”
“You can’t really say that about me,” Mo Tianliao said with a smile, he was also using sound transmission to communicate. “I raised Qing Tong; he has always belonged to me.”
“Just who decided that?” Xuanji suddenly understood why Tianlang Zhenren always wanted to bite Mo Tianliao to death, if he were a dog, he would have already bitten Mo Tianliao’s head off.
The big tiger stood up, shook his fur, took human form and shouted, “Shidi, when will Master’s injuries heal?
Xuanji glared back at Meng Hu. The hell was he being so loud for?
Only when he looked back inside the building and noticed the deathly quiet did he remembered that Mo Tianliao had set up a sound-proof barrier, so even if they were to murder each other, Qingtong would not hear them. So why had this bastard used sound transmission too?
“I saw that shibo didn’t want to talk, so I just went along with you,” said Mo Tianliao with an innocent expression. He tugged Xuanji’s hand from his collar and turned to answer the tiger’s question. “Completely curing Master’s divine soul is still difficult, even if it were possible, this technique is addictive, so I’m afraid he won’t ever be able to stop receiving treatment.”
Meng Hu became very worried. What kind of nefarious technique was this, to go as far as to cause addiction?
Just the sound of that made Xuanji want to vomit blood. Surprisingly, Mo Xiong simply nodded, “If it’s harmless, then it doesn’t really matter if it causes addiction, you are always with xiaoshishu anyways.”
*****
Although the Mo Palace looked derelict, there was no shortage of rooms for people to use. Mo Tianliao told the three guys to make themselves at home and went to the waterfall to check on the situation outside the palace.
Most of the people from the various sects had been sent flying, including Yun Song and Yun Yuan, and many of the cultivators had been injured, some by the various trap arrays, some had fallen prey to surprise attacks, some had lost fights, and many more were injured by the explosion caused when the Great Mountain Guarding Array had suddenly activated.
The crowd had gathered for a head count; they found that the Elders of the Liuyun Sect and the Woyun Sect were absent.
“I told you that the map was a trap,” said one of the demonic sects’ Elders cynically. “The guys from Liuyun Sect must have known how to activate the Great Mountain Guarding Array. Before, it was Ding Ziyu who locked the Mo Palace inside of that huge array, this was just a way for them to use us.”
“That’s right, they said they were sharing the map, but they just wanted to trick us into opening the barrier together so that they could get in.” The conjecture was immediately echoed by others.
“Then what about the Woyun Sect?” Yun Yuan frowned. She did not believe that Qingtong was involved in this matter, after all, the Woyun Sect and the Liuyun Sect had had a very serious conflict at the recent Three Sects Conference.
“Quit pretending, you righteous path hypocrites are all in it together.” The people from the demonic sects all kept making accusations.
“Earlier, when we were at the gap, I met that Woyun Sect disciple with the cloak.” A seriously wounded man raised his head and coughed for a moment before continuing, “He brought us out of an illusion array, but then he sealed us into a trap array.”
The trap array had concealed a killing array, several of those travelling with him had been killed. He almost did not survive, but then the Great Mountain Guarding Array had been activated and had thrown him out, saving him from death.
Mo Tianliao withdrew his gaze and smirked faintly. He had thought that with such a commotion, the news of his return to life would spread quickly, he had not expected that trapping Liu Bi would fortuitously throw off people’s suspicions. This was good, it gave him plenty of time, now it was imperative that he return to the Half-Immortal Stage before everyone had a chance to react.
—
Author’s Note:
Mini Theatre
“I’ll get pregnant if I don’t take a bath”
Master: I need a bath!
Carpenter: Behave, wait until it’s all absorbed before washing!
Master: I heard that keeping that inside will make you pregnant!
Carpenter: Our species are different, that won’t happen!
Xuanji: …Isn’t the fact that you’re both male actually the bigger problem?
Unedited, please point out any mistakes
I don’t think that this needs to be said but just in case: This is a work of fiction, please don’t think that sex or contraception actually works as it’s shown here.
Like a freaking idiot I just realized that I had somehow replaced Xuanji’s name with Yu Li’s name in my drafts, it has now been corrected. I’m sorry.