Tu Er stepped into the room and immediately spotted Dong Wei on the bed, his face flushed red, muttering nonsense. Tu Er frowned. “What’s going on?”
Liu Xiaolou said, “We were just talking, and then out of nowhere the guy couldn’t control himself, and it turned into this…”
“You drugged him?” Tu Er’s eyes scanned the room but found no cups, no food. He sniffed around, but there was no strange smell either.
Still, listening to Dong Wei’s voice and watching him twist around on the bed, Tu Er felt a faint, troubling heat rising inside him. Restless. Too restless…
Beside his ear, Liu Xiaolou whispered in a drifting voice, “Brother Tu Er, things have come this far. Shouldn’t we check whether he’s a great joy or a small joy? I can’t quite tell myself, so I’ll have to rely on you to make it clear.”
It made a kind of sense. Tu Er suddenly felt a wave of burning heat build inside him. He swallowed hard, stepped quickly to the bedside, and reached out to test. The moment he did, his eyes went red.
The dazed Dong Wei clutched at his arms. Forcing himself to stay calm, Tu Er said to Liu Xiaolou, “That’s enough for checking. I’m taking him with me. We’ll deal with it later.”
Before Liu Xiaolou could reply, Tu Er scooped Dong Wei up in his arms and carried him out. Liu Xiaolou followed to the doorway, but when he saw Tu Er heading straight for Elder Cai’s study, he dared not pursue or watch any further.
He quickened his pace as he left Linhu Courtyard, turning things over in his mind. It seemed that after his own cultivation advanced a layer, the effects of the Bewildering Fragrance had indeed grown stronger. Under its fragrance, someone like Dong Wei, who was only at the sixth layer of Qi Refinement, would fall under its sway much faster and sink much deeper. And once he was caught, if he didn’t snap out of it early, he’d be completely at his mercy.
But against someone like Tu Er, whose Qi Refinement was already at peak, it still wasn’t quite enough. Especially since the fumigation hadn't lasted long enough, that guy’s breathing had grown heavier, but his mind stayed clear. Even if it interfered with him a little, he was definitely not someone Liu Xiaolou could handle.
Still, Bewildering Fragrance was truly a marvelous thing. The problem was that pine resin essence was hard to come by, burned up quickly, and couldn’t be stored in any real quantity.
When he returned to the Su family’s place and entered the house, he found that Su Xi was already back. She sat by the spring pool with her eyes closed, regulating her breath. He quietly shut the door and tiptoed over to sit down.
No sooner had he taken his seat than Su Xi asked, “Where did you go?”
“Elder Cai summoned me to Linhu Courtyard,” answered Liu Xiaolou.
Su Xi opened her eyes, looked at him. “Why did he call you?”
Liu Xiaolou let out a sigh. “What else could it be? It’s about us, of course. Elder Cai seems to have noticed something’s off. He said that ever since we got married, you still haven’t gotten pregnant, and he wants to know what’s really going on.”
Su Xi frowned. “He may be an elder of the sect, but this has nothing to do with him, does it?”
Liu Xiaolou said, “That’s true, but how could I dare answer him like that? And besides, he definitely wasn’t just asking about pregnancy. I told him you’re not only a cultivation genius, but also completely obsessed with it. Your whole life is cultivation, cultivation, and more cultivation, so as husband and wife… well, we hardly ever do that. I described you like that; don’t be mad at me, alright?”
Su Xi smiled faintly. “Why would I be mad? That’s actually a good explanation. You weren’t wrong. Let’s stick with that in the future.”
Liu Xiaolou went on, “Don’t be too relieved just yet. Elder Cai said he’s eaten more spirit grain than I’ve ever even seen, and he can tell at a glance what a woman should be like after marriage. He’s convinced you’re still an untouched maiden…”
Su Xi’s face flushed red. She snapped, “An elder of the sect, and that’s what he spends his time thinking about?”
“That’s exactly what I told him,” Liu Xiaolou quickly said. “Not every woman’s the same. There are exceptions. Anyway, after going back and forth for a while, I managed to fob him off. Honestly, though, for all his talk about spirit grain, I might have seen even more of it than he has…”
Then Su Xi suddenly asked, “So what should a woman be like after marriage?”
Liu Xiaolou thought of the descriptions he’d read in the Yin and Yang Scripture, and of Sister Qing’s figure and the lessons she’d taught him. He was about to pass that knowledge on, but in the end he forced himself to hold back. “How should I know? This is my first marriage too, you know.”
Su Xi nodded, glanced at Liu Xiaolou, and said with a half-smile, “Of course you don’t know. You don’t have the skill for it anyway.”
Liu Xiaolou was stunned. Weren’t they just having a perfectly good conversation? Things had been going so well. Why the sudden attack? Indignant, he retorted, "It's precisely because we carry on like this that Elder Cai has even accused me of being a sodomite! Can you believe that? If rumors like that spread, how am I supposed to live it down?”
A sudden wave of pity rose in Su Xi’s heart. She soothed him gently. “Let people talk. Words can’t hurt you. As long as you keep your own conduct straight and haven’t wronged anyone, what’s there to fear?”
“Of course I keep my conduct straight…”
Before he could finish, Su Wuniang suddenly seized his collar. He had no strength to resist, and in an instant she pulled him with her onto the bed, the two of them tumbling down as if swept away by clouds. With a flick of her hand, the quilt at the head of the bed floated over and fell across them both.
Liu Xiaolou’s cultivation was too shallow to sense anything, but he wasn’t stupid. He leaned close to her ear and whispered, “So, who is it this time?”
Su Wuniang pressed a finger to his lips, turned her head toward him, and said softly, “Hush. Don’t speak.”
Liu Xiaolou strained to catch any sound outside the door, but heard nothing at all. A thought flickered through his mind: if he were to use the Bewildering Fragrance right now, would it work?
But after thinking it over, he still held back. The Bewildering Fragrance he had now barely worked on someone at the seventh or eighth layer of Qi Refinement, and against the ninth or tenth it was even less effective. As for Foundation Establishment, forget it. If he tried to charm Su Xi and she saw through it, who knew what might happen? Would she beat him half to death, then toss him out with a divorce letter on the spot?
The thought of it made him shrink back. After all, every month he received a steady supply of spirit stones, along with spirit rice, spirit fish, and spirit shrimp whenever he wanted. A life of comfort and stability; he wasn’t about to throw that away.
One wrong step and it would be a lifetime of regret.
He let out a quiet sigh. At the same time, Su Xi beside him exhaled softly, sat up. “She’s gone.”
“Who was it?”
“My godmother.”
“She really won’t give up, will she?”
“She only means well. She’s cared about me since I was little.”
“Tell me about her?”
“My mother passed away early. She was my mother’s closest friend. When I was five, she often came to Shenwu Mountain to take care of me, and every year she would bring me to stay a month with the Cai family at Dragon Lake.”
“No more?”
“There’s more…”
“Then say it.”
“There’s also this: you’d better be careful. My godmother said if you ever make me unhappy, if I’m wronged in any way, she’ll cut you off and find me a new, handsome husband.”
“Cut… cut me off? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means exactly what you think.”
“I… I’ve been framed! At this rate, won’t I last at most three years? The day you hand me a divorce letter, won’t she just cut me then and there? No way, you have to explain for me. It’s not my fault!”
“What are you so afraid of? When the time comes, of course I’ll explain.”
“How can I not be afraid? What’s her cultivation level?”
“She formed her Golden Core ten years ago.”
“I… Madam, save me…”
“Enough. Stop worrying. Just get me through these three years peacefully, and I’ll see you spared. I always keep my word.”
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