076 The Entanglement of Two
Bang!
Bang!!
Bang!!!
Perhaps because her own strength was relatively small, the various sounds of forcefully placing and moving things in the bedroom were not actually too loud, but they sounded quite obvious to Qin Ren.
Creak—
Pushing open his sister’s bedroom door, the sweet fragrance in the room was a little stronger than when Gu Qing was not there. Qin Ren rubbed his nose and grinned.
“Hey, Jie. Not eating?”
“Not eating. I’m dead tired… and I’m full from being angry.”
“Still angry? Sigh, that’s true. I was just scolding Yourong in the kitchen.”
Qin Ren frowned and sighed.
“A little snake, just arrived, and she actually laid a hand on my older sister… hmph! How about this? I’ll go and scold her a few more times!”
As Qin Ren spoke, he turned to go. Gu Qing lifted her long leg and kicked his butt.
“Come back!”
Qin Ren came back and gave a thumbs-up.
“Good kick! A kick from my sister is just so comfortable.”
“Cut it out with that.”
Gu Qing was both annoyed and angry.
“I’m angry at you, you ungrateful wolf! Only now do you know how to put on an act… from the moment I entered the door until just now, how come I haven’t heard you say a single word in my defense?!”
“Aiyo, I was just afraid you two would start fighting again…”
Qin Ren casually pushed the door, gently closing it.
“…But Jie, in my heart, I’m definitely on your side! In this life, how many truly important people can one have? Although there are two snakes in the house, there’s only ever one older sister, right?”
“Hehe, a little late for that…”
Those words were a little more like a human’s. His sister, sitting on the edge of the bed, rolled her eyes at him, then turned to pat her pillow.
Bang!
Bang!!
Bang!!!
“Don’t pat, don’t pat.”
Qin Ren quickly sat down beside Gu Qing and pulled at her.
“I dust this room of yours every week, and I also pat the pillows. They’re soft enough. If you pat them any more, they’ll break.”
“So what if they break?”
Opportune timing, place, and people…
Gu Qing thought of his words again. It was just a pillow. Anyway, her little brother had also turned bad. It didn’t matter anymore.
“I’m worried your hand will break from patting.”
Qin Ren took his sister’s soft little hand and held it warmly.
“The pillow is too hard. I’m afraid it’ll hurt you.”
“Qin Ren, you’re starting to be attentive for no reason.”
Gu Qing’s skin was delicate, but not to the point of being fragile. Her little brother’s flattery was too exaggerated. His sister could only deliberately put on a straight face to avoid seeming too easy to coax.
“Jie, we’ve already had lunch. There’s still something very important I haven’t told you.”
Qin Ren’s serious look made Gu Qing alert.
“What is it?”
Qin Ren’s eyes were full of a soft light.
“I miss you.”
“Pah!”
Gu Qing turned her body away and pulled her hand out of his, plucking at the bedsheet with its light blue heart pattern.
“Insincere. During this time, your mind must have been full of those two fish every day!”
“They’re snakes…”
“Right, two snakes! And that Pixiu.”
Luo Yao was a budding beauty, or rather, a little beauty. Gu Qing had to count her in.
[Entanglement] is an innate human trait. After her fight with Yu Yourong, Gu Qing had calmed down, and her anger had slightly subsided. Now it was time to be entangled in her own status in her little brother’s heart.
“Qin Ren.”
A girl’s emotions always come and go. Gu Qing’s big eyes were filled with a misty haze as she looked at her little brother, her rosy lips stubbornly pursed.
“Do you think I’m superfluous now, that I shouldn’t have come back, that I shouldn’t have come back to our home?”
“Absolutely not!” Qin Ren shook his head seriously.
“Do you think that my sudden return has disturbed you two from cultivating your feelings?”
“Definitely not!”
Qin Ren placed her hand on his own conscience.
“My sincerity can be seen by the sun and the moon. What’s this about disturbing… an older sister is the most important person in a little brother’s life. No one can change that.”
“Can’t Yu Yourong…”
“She can’t!”
“Can’t Yu Ling’er…”
“She can’t either!”
“And Luo Yao…”
“Even more so!”
Her little brother’s firm chest was warm. Gu Qing’s palm could feel his heartbeat, which made her face a little hot. She slightly pressed her straight legs together and asked again in a mumble.
“Then what about Cheng Siyun…”
Although Gu Qing had only found out today that her little brother’s “cheating with a slime” story was true, she had never really believed that the two had really broken up.
“She can’t either!”
Qin Ren’s answer was decisive and sincere, his eyes sparkling with a clean and pure innocence.
After all, there was no rule that said you could only have one most important person in your life. Qin Ren was a good man with a sense of responsibility. Anyway, he could guarantee that his older sister would always be one of them.
“If I’m lying, may I be struck by…”
“…”
“Struck by… thun…”
“…”
Qin Ren stammered. Gu Qing just watched him quietly and urged softly.
“Go on, say it.”
“Cough…”
Qin Ren was a little embarrassed. This was not how the script he had rehearsed went. He forced an awkward smile with a thick face.
“Jie, why didn’t you stop me?”
“Why should I stop you?”
“No, I feel like in a normal situation, you would, right…”
Not long ago, when he was swearing in front of his little sister-in-law, she had even covered his mouth… but Qin Ren wouldn’t mention that now, to avoid causing more trouble.
————————
While Qin Ren was in his sister’s bedroom, Luo Yao and Yu Ling’er were both sitting on the sofa watching TV. But since their relationship was lukewarm, there was a fluffy Tuantuan between them, lazily licking the soft fur on her paws.
Bang!
Bang!!
Bang!!!
The TV was also rumbling. It was playing The Avengers. It wasn’t on demand, but a random broadcast on the Emei Movie Channel, with a Chinese dub that lowered the background sound effects, probably for students of related majors to practice.
“These people are so strange.”
Their looks were strange, and their clothes were also strange. Yu Ling’er was watching seriously purely out of curiosity. As she watched, she couldn’t help but complain.
“They’re wearing such tight clothes… like a shroud. Isn’t it constricting?”
“Hmph…”
Uncultured.
Luo Yao let out a soft huff from her nose, sitting cross-legged on the sofa and tugging at her soft, white little socks.
Logically, she was not very willing to talk to Yu Ling’er. But when she saw that the Sect Master was now as ignorant as Tang Bobo, the Pixiu couldn’t help but find some balance. She casually and softly explained with a blank expression.
“They’re playing superheroes.”
“Grass chicken… heroes?”
A grass chicken is a free-range chicken. The grass chicken clan on the Myriad Demon Continent also had a small sect. Yu Ling’er had encountered them once when she had snuck out of the sect to play while her disciple was in seclusion.
“Superheroes on Earth are people who are responsible for saving people everywhere.”
“Oh, oh.”
Yu Ling’er seemed to understand, but not completely. But she was still willing to talk to Luo Yao to get closer.
She could feel Luo Yao’s distance from her. But from her own perspective, Yu Ling’er really didn’t look at this living little girl differently just because Luo Yao had once been her mount.
“Why do they all wear such strange tight clothes?” Yu Ling’er moved a little closer to Luo Yao.
“Stupid…”
Luo Yao glanced at Yu Ling’er’s approaching movement from the corner of her eye.
“Because saving people is important, so you have to wear tight clothes. This is common sense.”
“I see… then what about this person with a head like a braised egg?”
“He’s a black person. I think he’s called… Dwayne Parkinson.”
“What?”
“He’s the S.H.I.E.L.D. Shield Commander.”
“Shield Commander…”
“Or maybe the Director. I’m not sure. Anyway, it’s all the same.”
…
Luo Yao had mistaken Motherfucker for Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. But to her, these people were just like “Shield Commander” and “Director,” all more or less the same. It didn’t matter.
Clang—
Yu Ling’er was building a bridge of affection between herself and Luo Yao through the TV when she suddenly heard a crisp sound from the kitchen. Only then did she realize that Yourong seemed to have been washing the dishes for a particularly long time today.
She ran over to take a look and found Yu Yourong holding two halves of a cracked plate, looking numb.
“Yourong.”
Yu Ling’er approached with some concern. Yu Yourong just said nothing, silently put the plate in the trash can, wiped the fine sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand, and then continued to wash the pots and pans in the sink, her movements slow.
“Yourong, are you… are you okay?”
“…”
Yu Yourong shook her head in a daze.
[Entanglement] is perhaps not just an innate human trait, but an innate trait of all girls, including snake clan girls.
Yu Ling’er didn’t know what her disciple had been thinking about while she was alone in the kitchen. She looked around. It seemed that the only thing her clumsy self could do was to help her with the dishes.
Whoosh—
The two pairs of hands moved in the sink for a while. Yu Yourong’s movements suddenly stopped.
“Master…”
“Hm?”
“Do you think… we can ever go back to the Myriad Demon Continent in the future…”
“?”
Yu Ling’er froze. She looked up at Yu Yourong in astonishment and found that for the first time in hundreds of years, she couldn’t quite read the expressive eyes of her disciple.
***
-
Grass chicken / Superhero (草鸡 / 超级): A pun. “Chāojí” (超级) means “super.” Yu Ling’er mishears it as the similar-sounding “cǎojī” (草鸡), which means “free-range chicken.”
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Dwayne Parkinson / Dwayne Johnson (巨石帕金森 / 巨石强森): Luo Yao misremembers the name of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson (Jùshí Qiángsēn) as “Jùshí Pàjīnsēn,” which sounds like “Parkinson.”
