The man in the door had the makings of a heartbreaker. Tall and handsome, with a youthful face and flirty features. His slightly wavy hair was messily pulled back, revealing his face perfectly. The red brocade clothes embroidered with golden feathers spoke loudly enough about his status.
“Your Highness!”, someone cried out from farther down the hallway, a bit indignant but also desperate.
Shi Yue looked at him with a deadpan face. The man’s smile widened more and more.
He let go of the door and strutted into the room, looking around and clicking his tongue. “Sheesh, you are hoarding all the beauties for yourself! How dare you, Shi Yue! You can’t come here and enjoy this without me.”
He patted his chest in an arrogant manner, his rust coloured eyes shining.
Behind him, another man ran into the room, wheezing. He was a delicate, scholarly figure with a serious face, immediately apologizing for the disturbance as soon as he stepped in.
“Huo Cheng”, Shi Yue greeted with a sigh and stood up.
The prince ignored his greeting, walking in a circle to the beauty at the entrance and kissing her hand. “There are so many nice little cuties in here, Shi Yue! I can’t believe it. Didn’t we always say we would share?”
“That was what you said. I never said-”
“Even the good food! How rude. I want some of it, too!” He went another circle, never quite stopping, just like a twittering bird. He stole a few grapes and threw them into his mouth, then spotted Tiankong and did the next circle. Looking down, he made an exasperated sound. “You haven’t shared that one with me, either! What’s this, you’re hooking up with such a treasure and never introduce me?”
“He’s not-”
“Beauty, why are you wearing a mask? Such a pretty face, why not share it with the world? Ahh, if you’re bored with Shi Yue, why not follow me? I’ll treat you well.”
Huo Cheng wasn’t a bad person. He was a prince who took his responsibilities seriously and never skipped on finishing his work before having fun.
He just had three very bad habits.
Number one was his passion for sparring that often led him into trouble.
Number two was that, as a prince, he had forgotten that you shouldn’t randomly interrupt people but let them speak. A common court disease.
Number three was that he was a little western dragon. He hoarded absolutely anything beautiful: be it jewels, paintings, or people.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
He hardly even touched the people that he took home, though. There was rarely sexual interest unlike what most people thought, it was more an appreciation of their looks. He liked having them around and surrounding himself with them. Those that he liked sexually were never taken home, his relationships were surprisingly clean.
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“Xiao Han, would you reign him in, please”, Shi Yue called for the fidgety little scholar with a sigh. Lu Han was someone put beside Huo Cheng years ago.
Huo Cheng was a cultivator and already an adult. Technically speaking, he wasn’t a prince anymore – the current king was already his grand-nephew. However, Huo Cheng still looked young and had a youthful demeanour as someone who liked enjoying his life.
The king had placed Lu Han at his side when the boy was just six years old in hopes of Huo Cheng calming down a bit.
And indeed, Lu Han was one of the only people who could stop the prince. As for why, Shi Yue knew – and maybe Huo Cheng knew, too, but decided to reject it.
You couldn’t be seen carrying a sleeping man into his bed and sitting at his side for minutes, mutely staring with a dumb smile and brushing over his hair and cheek… and then saying that you weren’t close.
Huo Cheng had his own problems, if he didn’t want to acknowledge that Lu Han was the most important existence in his life, then it wasn’t a matter that he could involve himself with.
Nonetheless – it was useful when Huo Cheng needed to be controlled.
Lu Han nodded seriously and ran over to push Huo Cheng away from Tiankong. “Your Highness! Behave courteously!”
From the start, Huo Cheng was only playing around, so once he heard Lu Han’s angry tone, he immediately raised his hands in surrender. Finally, he stopped to greet everyone in the room. “My apologies for barging in here like that.”
“Greetings, Your Highness”, all kinds of voices echoed, giving a curtsy before continuing with what they had been doing.
Huo Cheng’s bright eyes jumped right back to Tiankong – the only person who looked peacefully unaffected by everything.
“Dear friend, my name is Huo Cheng. How may I call you?”, he asked amicably. A friend of Shi Yue’s was a friend of his!
“Tiankong”, the man answered simply before going back to listening to the women’s playing.
Huo Cheng looked at him with a silly, stunned face. He hadn’t expected to be treated coldly like that. Confused, he gestured to Shi Yue.
“That’s how he is, it’s nothing personal”, he whispered quietly. “What are you doing here?”
“I was bored”, Huo Cheng admitted. “Besides, I’ve found that ancient array you wanted me to bring.”
“Array?”, an excited voice from the side spoke up.
Huo Cheng felt a gaze on him.
Two minutes later, he was beginning to see what Shi Yue had meant by ‘he had discovered a genius’.
Barely keeping his jaw from dropping, Huo Cheng watched Tiankong transform from a stern, quiet person to an absolute chatterbox who couldn’t sit still.
“Fascinating”, he said dumbly.
“Isn’t it?”, Tiankong responded.
They were talking about completely different things. The masked cultivator didn’t notice.
Shi Yue felt somewhat glad at the sight of his dear friend sitting in a circle with his… new friend? Relationships between cultivators were always a bit complicated to name.
“Darling, you are a gem”, Huo Cheng swooned, pouring Tiankong a cup. He had already noticed that this was very useful for getting the man in a good mood.mTiankong didn’t reject the cup but continued to drink happily while his long fingers moved to draw more and more runes.
The atmosphere was relaxed.
Lu Han, as a servant, was watching from a bit farther away and waiting next to the servant girls. With all of them looking so average, he almost looked like he belonged there.
The three handsome men were leisurely sitting in a circle on the ground. The music echoed on.
“Are you part of the Virtuous Sect, too? Shi Yue, bring him over the next time, as well”, Huo Cheng asked, patting the other man’s shoulder. He was fully intent on forging a good relationship with the masked man.
Shi Yue gave him an awkward smile. “I apologize. I, myself, will have to see how often I can meet him.”
Huo Cheng shut up instantly. For Shi Yue to talk in such a roundabout way, it was clear that things were going on.
“Too bad”, he said with a wry smile. “But Darling, let’s be friends anyway!”
“No”, Tiankong rejected him.
Huo Cheng stared. He thought they were getting along. “Why?”
Although he hadn’t taken off his mask, Huo Cheng felt his gaze move over to him and hold his own. He swallowed. Had he offended the man?
“Too hard to maintain so many relationships”, Tiankong said seriously.
One of the girls playing the qin missed a note.
“Is he serious?”, the prince asked Shi Yue with an incredulous gaze, rudely pointing at the man to his left.
Shi Yue bit into a delicate pastry and chewed it calmly. “I would say yes.”
Xie Yi was just as bad at juggling relationships. He could never focus on more than one person at once when they were in a group. It was a lot of work for him to watch other people’s reactions and decide how to judge them. Everyone he was close to understood that and didn’t take offense if he was unable to interact normally in a group or if he accidentally didn’t talk to someone for a while.
“Well, I mean, you won’t see me that often”, Huo Cheng carefully tried to convince him. “Why don’t you consider it? We would be friends, but without it being too complicated. We’ll only spend time together if fate allows us to meet?”
“Oh.” A pause. “Then it’s fine.”
Huo Cheng looked at him for another while, then covered his face with his hands. “I like him.”
Shi Yue couldn’t agree more. There was something incredibly charming about a powerful man who was so serious and yet innocent about relationships.
“What a wonderful day”, Huo Cheng sighed, waving his hand to call over one of the girls that were on standby after the song had changed. She hid her laugh behind her sleeve and walked over coquettishly.
Huo Cheng quite directly pulled her into his lap. His hands were moving over her silky skin, suggestive and perverted.
Author’s Note
Another bunch release because I don’t want to take forever uploading these 250 chapters xD And I think no one minds? (I sure hope discord turns this into a single ping when I schedule it for the same minute….. otherwise, please tell me and I’ll think of a different way to avoid spamming those with the role)
No chapter at 5PM in this case, tho. Enough pings for one day.
Omg the batch upload makes me want to jump 3meters with happiness.
HC seems to be a decent one.
Thanks for the chapter!
I think Xie yi has autism.
Hyperfocused and very knowledgeable to the things he interested in; tends to infodump; very dense when it comes to social cues and has a hard a time figuring out other people’s gestures/emotions. Although it can be the results of his environment and experiences before but, come to think of it he is really different.
This is just my speculation, okay…
Well let’s say it like that:
He was written this way solely because of his environment (because in the original timeline, he wasn’t like this at all).
However, there’s of course a chance that some of his traits corresspond with traits from e.g. autism, but that would be coincidences, because I don’t know enough about autism to dare to write an autistic character. You can headcanon him being autistic, though.
I’m on the spectrum and trust me. Xie Yi very much shares the same nature ..
A lot of people not on the spectrum also suffer from this ….really not everything can be blamed on autism especially when the child has been clearly abused and most of his habits can be taken as a trauma response
You know i really wonder what’ll happen with this Huo Cheng and Lu Han!!! Does Lu Han have feelings for him too or no? If yes, it must be hard watching all this right? Why am i so drawn into them💀
Ty for the chapter!💜💜💜
I actually am autistic and trauma response or not, Xie Yi reads like a mirror to the soul sometimes. We share a mind, body and soul with so many experiences. One can have both and it can coexist in so many things in life.
Xie Yi never gets a “professional diagnosis” in his life, and I’m also not giving him one. As the author I say, it’s absolutely okay to see him as autistic or traumatized or both or something entirely else – however you think is right, and maybe what resonates with you, it’s all good. I’m glad as long as those that do identify with him for whatever reason feel a bit of relief when they can accompany him through the journey of getting into a better state of both mind and body.
The author just hit me with another cute side ship, I’m all in for it!
Thank you so much for this huge update!!
Okay…… I loved the chapter, but… aaaa prince!!! Don’t do this in front of the baby!!! (even if you don’t know it…) , after all, I feel that a strange atmosphere is coming now.
Poor Lu Han😩😩😩😩😩😩
Great chapter! New character in and I like him
This question have been haunting me for a while : WHO WILL BE THE ONE SACRIFICED FOR THE TALK?!?!! 😂😂😂