030 Divorce, Reverse Scale, Sister-in-law
Two cups of Zhu Ye Qing, drunk until the green faded to nothing.
Luo Yao didn’t know what Qin Ren and the random woman had talked about in the living room. She only knew that after they finished, Qin Ren officially announced that the snake clan immortal cultivator girl, Yu Yourong, would be staying at their home temporarily.
“Hmph, what temporarily? She just won’t leave…”
“Meow…”
Regarding this, a certain Pixiu, who was already mentally prepared, joined forces with the local native, Tuantuan, to express a certain degree of dissatisfaction to Qin Ren.
The main methods of expression were frantically stealing dried fish and not letting Qin Ren hug her at night.
The first method was relatively easy to suppress. Qin Ren emptied the usual dried fish box, put the contents in a plastic bag, and hid it. When Tuantuan, as usual, stuck her paw into the box and found her fish balance to be zero, she was horrified. She quickly started to fawn and beg for pets, using her body to win back her dried fish freedom.
The second method was more troublesome. The air conditioner at home was still broken and hadn’t been repaired. This summer, Qin Ren was counting on Luo Yao to cool down and escape the heat. But now, this kid would push and kick at night, absolutely refusing to let Qin Ren touch her.
“This eminence needs a cooling-off period.”
She said so after watching a certain news report. Then, after a brief cooling-off period of only about 15 minutes, she brought over a piece of A4 paper with some crookedly written words and slapped it on the coffee table.
“Qin Ren, sign it.”
“Do you even know what signing means?”
Sitting on the sofa, Qin Ren picked up the paper while holding his tea.
“What is this…”
“A divorce agreement.”
“Pfft—”
Qin Ren spat out a mouthful of tea onto the paper. Luo Yao glanced at it with disgust, turned to go back and write a new one, but was stopped by Qin Ren, who grabbed her little hand.
“This unlucky kid… who are you trying to divorce?”
“You.”
“You have to be married first to get a divorce. When did I ever marry you?”
Luo Yao blinked at the sky. So you had to get married first. The TV didn’t show that part…
“Then you marry me now, and we’ll get a divorce. After the divorce, you can never hug me again. Go hug Yu Yourong instead.”
Qin Ren glanced at the JK standing on the balcony, contemplating the life of a snake. He turned his head, pulled the silly little thing into his arms, and pinched her little cheek.
“Although she’s a snake, her body temperature is the same as a normal person’s. She’s not cool at all. Why would I hug her?”
“Oh.”
Luo Yao said “oh” with a blank expression.
So Qin Ren is only interested in her body? On Earth, they seem to call this kind of person a scumbag.
Being gently held in the arms of a scumbag would make a little girl feel at ease. Luo Yao’s emotions calmed down, and she stopped talking about divorce. Qin Ren continued to explain to her.
“I said temporarily, and I mean temporarily. During her temporary stay, she needs to find her master. Her master has treasures that can be exchanged for money. Then she will leave and find another blessed land to settle down.”
“What if she’s shameless and latches onto you…” Luo Yao was a little worried.
“Weren’t you shameless when you latched onto me in the first place?” Qin Ren smiled and scraped her nose.
“This eminence is different.”
Luo Yao wasn’t sure exactly how she was different. In short, Luo Yao could latch onto Qin Ren, but others couldn’t.
No reason.
As the saying goes, a little girl’s face is like a June sky.
After cuddling on Qin Ren’s lap for a while, Luo Yao’s mood also eased a bit.
“Qin Ren…”
She glanced at Yu Yourong on the balcony, wrapped her slender arms around Qin Ren’s neck, and lowered her voice.
“Can you coax me for a little while…”
“How do I coax you?”
“Just… praise me a little.”
The little girl was a bit shy, her gaze drifting to the floor.
“Like, for always helping you with the dishes, not being a picky eater, and letting you hold me when we sleep… in short, for being very good, and stuff…”
“Hahahaha…”
Qin Ren really couldn’t hold back his laughter.
“Don’t laugh!”
Luo Yao’s cheeks puffed out in anger. Hadn’t anyone told Qin Ren that a Spirit Beast needs to be coaxed like this when their mood is about to improve?
“You don’t have to coax me, but you’re not allowed to laugh! If you laugh again, I’ll… I’ll continue to divorce you!”
“Fine, let’s get a divorce. After the divorce, we’ll live separately. I’ll live with Yu Yourong.”
“?”
Luo Yao was stunned.
“Then what about this eminence?”
“You’ll have to find another place. By the way, you can ask Tang Bobo next door if she’ll take you in.”
After hearing this, Luo Yao stared, troubled for a good while, then crumpled up the divorce agreement she had written and threw it in the trash.
“Not getting a divorce anymore?”
“Mhm.”
She “mhm-ed” in a sullen voice.
“We’ll talk about it after we get married.”
“Marry my ass.”
Qin Ren wanted to laugh again. He tapped her on her smooth forehead.
“You little brat, you haven’t even grown any hair, yet you’re already learning from others about marriage and divorce. Aren’t you ashamed?”
“…”
Luo Yao wasn’t ashamed at first, but she didn’t expect that you needed to grow hair to get married. Her face instantly flushed red. She lowered her head, sat in Qin Ren’s lap, and fiddled with her fingers, saying nothing.
————————
“How is it? Fresh?”
After sending the Pixiu back to her room, Qin Ren went to the JK girl on the balcony.
“Very different.”
Yu Yourong looked at the sky.
“I miss my master.”
“I understand. The more unfamiliar the environment, the more you long for the company of someone familiar.”
Qin Ren comforted her.
“Don’t worry. Since the divine sense in the sect token is stable, and your master knows swordsmanship, she won’t be in any life-threatening danger in our territory. I also said just now that I’ll contact some old friends I knew from my exorcism days to help you find out your master’s whereabouts.”
Yu Yourong nodded lightly upon hearing this. She glanced at Qin Ren’s side profile and said hesitantly.
“You’re taking me in and helping me find my master. How should I thank you?”
“No need to thank me.”
But it wasn’t entirely no need. Qin Ren’s eyes lit up, and he coughed dryly.
“Cough… if Miss Yu really feels you must, could you perhaps display some more… snake clan talents?”
Talents?
Yu Yourong tilted her head, her ponytail swaying behind her.
“For example, your tongue. I think it’s very impressive. Are there any others?”
It wasn’t that Qin Ren was just curious. Although he had encountered many strange things during his exorcism days, Demonic Scions were not the Demon Progenitors of the past. They weren’t pure-blooded otherworldly visitors like Yu Yourong. In his four years of exorcism, he had never seen one that looked human.
“I understand.”
Classmate Yu Yourong didn’t hesitate. She grabbed the hem of her school uniform with both hands and lifted it slightly, revealing a waist as slender as a willow.
This was a genuine snake waist.
Not a trace of excess fat, the skin fair and delicate. Just above the two shallow inguinal lines, a small navel was embedded in the flat lower abdomen. And a little below the navel, there was a silvery, fingernail-sized, sticker-like thing.
“This is…” Qin Ren narrowed his eyes. “A scale?”
“Mhm. A reverse scale of the snake clan. All snake clan cultivators above the Nascent Soul stage will have one.”
Qin Ren exclaimed in amazement. He had only heard of dragons having reverse scales before. Now, seeing one on Yu Yourong, he deeply felt that their so-called “descendants of the Divine Jiao” was not an empty boast.
“This thing, if someone touches it, do you guys go berserk?”
“Go… berserk…”
Yu Yourong looked down and pinched her stomach. Did it mean to gain weight?
“It means to get angry, furious, displeased, to power up.”
Yu Yourong understood the first two words and shook her head.
“A reverse scale is just a scale that grows backwards. It’s just a mark of cultivation level, nothing useful.”
“I see…”
Qin Ren was delighted to hear that. He wiggled his fingers eagerly.
“Can I touch it?”
Yu Yourong hesitated, then wondered why she was hesitating.
This hesitation was something she had never felt before, yet it seemed to come from a subconscious instinct. Yu Yourong didn’t know why, but faced with her “benefactor’s” request, she still agreed.
So, Qin Ren reached out his finger, pressed it on the silver scale below Yu Yourong’s navel, and slid it lightly. It was a very strange sensation, cool, not as hard as he had imagined, but with a flexible, latex-like texture.
He touched it twice, then poked it gently for a while. Then he suddenly realized that touching it for too long was a bit impolite. His old face instantly flushed. He raised his head, about to apologize, but was stunned to find that classmate Yu Yourong’s state seemed to be off.
Although the girl in front of him was still holding up the hem of her shirt, her fingertips were swaying weakly. Her pretty face was dyed with a blush like a blooming peach blossom, soft as autumn water. Her delicate brows were furrowed, and her two moist lips were opening and closing like a fish’s mouth, letting out slightly heavy breaths…
“No… no more…”
“…”
At that moment, Qin Ren was completely Spartan.
Damn it, you said the reverse scale was useless…
This doesn’t look useless at all, does it?
Fortunately, this strange state didn’t last long. After Qin Ren stopped touching the reverse scale, classmate Yu Yourong quickly returned to normal.
When asked, she didn’t know why either. She said that when her master and junior sisters touched it while bathing in the past, it wasn’t like this. Qin Ren could only attribute it to some kind of incompatibility with the local environment.
————————
The morning passed in a flash. After lunch, Qin Ren didn’t rush to buy daily necessities for Yu Yourong like he did when Luo Yao first arrived. Instead, he prepared to go out first.
“Luo Yao, I have something to do this afternoon and will be out for about an hour. You take her for a walk around the neighborhood first.”
Luo Yao found Yu Yourong standing foolishly on the balcony again.
“You, Little Fish, come with this eminence.”
“Little Fish” looked at her for a while, then asked an unrelated question.
“Pixiu, when did you… become the Guardian Spirit Beast?”
“You are to call me Luo Yao, or High Immortal. Now that you’ve entered the Qin family’s door, you must follow the Qin family’s rules, understand?”
“Understood…”
Luo Yao didn’t want to answer Yu Yourong’s question. With the air of a boss leading a subordinate, she strutted out with Yu Yourong.
Qin Ren changed his clothes and was about to go out a few minutes later when he heard a knock on the door.
“Tsk, I told you not to forget your key…”
He grumbled as he walked to the door. When he opened it, he found that it wasn’t Luo Yao in front of him, but a familiar face winking playfully at him.
“Brother-in-law~ Miss me~?”
Translator’s Notes
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A June sky (六月的天): The first half of a Chinese saying, “六月的天，小孩的脸” (liùyuè de tiān, xiǎohái de liǎn), which means “A June sky is like a child’s face.” It’s used to describe something that is fickle and changes quickly.
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Spartan (斯巴达): In Chinese internet slang, being “Spartan” (sībādá le) is a meme that means to be completely shocked, dumbfounded, or to feel unwell and want to go crazy. It originates from a viral video.
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Little Fish (小鱼): A nickname Luo Yao gives Yu Yourong, based on her surname “Yu” (鱼), which means fish.
