CHAPTER 206: HER ANSWER

The Curse Master frowned. Even after checking thoroughly with her cursed aura, she couldn’t detect a single trace of curse on Lingluo. With a sigh, she reached into her space ring and produced an item shaped like a jagged black fang.

Lingluo blinked at it, her teary face tilting innocently.

"What is that?"

"Worry not. This is a diagnostic item, it reacts to curses," the woman said solemnly. She pressed the fang against Lingluo’s head. A minute passed.

Nothing. Not a flicker, not even a spark of false hope.

"...Strange," the Curse Master muttered. She repeated the test again.

And again. Each time, the result was the same: the cute little junior in front of her wasn’t cursed in the slightest.

Yu Xuan pinched the bridge of his nose.

’Why is she taking this so seriously? Does she think my sister got hit with some god-level undetectable curse like the one I had?’

Still, he couldn’t help but want to see how far the curse master would go before realizing she’d been played.

Finally, the woman straightened, her expression grave.

"Does anyone hold a grudge against you?"

"No," Lingluo replied meekly.

"An old enemy, perhaps?"

"No."

"...What shampoo do you use?"

"The one with blooming lotus fragrance."

Yu Xuan’s brows twitched violently. What kind of interrogation is this?!

Ming Tianmei, however, stood with her arms folded, utterly calm, as though this nonsense was the most natural thing in the world.

The questioning went on — ranging from "Have you eaten suspicious porridge recently?" to "Did you step on any oddly shaped insects at midnight?" until the Curse Master finally stopped.

Her eyes blinked horizontally. Then, with a peculiar expression, she declared:

"You’re not cursed."

Lingluo gasped, clutching her hair.

"Then what’s happening to me?"

The Curse Master hesitated.

"...I don’t know. Maybe... it’s natural."

"NOOO! How can it be natural?! I’m still young!!" Lingluo wailed, looking so pitiful that even Yu Xuan felt like the villain was the other party.

Before anyone could stop her, she grabbed Yu Xuan’s and Tianmei’s hands and bolted out of the shop in a dramatic escape.

"W–wait?!" The Curse Master half-rose from her seat, but didn’t dare chase. Business rules — using cultivation to restrain customers was bad for reputation.

Left blinking several more times, she slumped back into her chair and groaned.

"What even was that?"

A long silence followed before she muttered the true tragedy.

"...I didn’t even take payment."

Deflated, she buried her face in her hands.

Slightly relieved she hadn’t cursed the junior, and equally depressed she’d been scammed out of sect points, the predator-like curse master sat there sulking like a cheated shopkeeper.

Meanwhile, outside, the trio were already roaming the streets again as if nothing had happened.

***

"Why did you even do that?" Ming Tianmei asked once they were outside.

"Hehe~ I heard a rumor that a curse master was scamming people left and right. I just wanted to test it out," Lingluo said with a giggle.

Yu Xuan and Ming Tianmei exchanged a long sigh.

Like that, they drifted from shop to shop, stopping wherever something caught their attention. Midway, while Lingluo was happily munching on something suspiciously similar to takoyaki, Yu Xuan suddenly grabbed Ming Tianmei’s hand. In the next instant, the two of them vanished without even disturbing the air.

At first, Lingluo didn’t notice. She chewed slowly, savoring her snack, lost in her own little world. But then the silence settled in too deeply. Too still.

Her chewing stopped. She turned around.

Both of them were gone.

For a moment, her eyes darkened.

She knew Yu Xuan liked Ming Tianmei. That strange, half-spoken bond between them was obvious to her even if they tried to hide it. But Yu Xuan was hers — her younger brother. No matter who else hovered around him, that fact would never change.

Her grip on the wooden skewer snapped.

The thought of them wandering off together without her made her feel sad, but then she forced herself to breathe. Her lips pursed into a pout.

"They could’ve at least ended the day with me..." she muttered. Then her gaze dropped to her wrist.

The bangle.

The very same pair of bangles Yu Xuan had bought earlier.

A communication tool on the surface. But the sly senior sister (shopkeeper) had whispered to her about its hidden function. She said this only to her.

It’s a location tracker.

Her pout melted into a slow, dangerous smile. The kind of smile that would make even ghosts hesitate.

Her eyes glinted dangerously as she whispered, "Got you."

Then, with the soft clink of the bangle resonating faintly in the air, Lingluo blurred into motion, vanishing from the street like a predator hunting prey.

***

Yu Xuan led Ming Tianmei into a quiet street where only the wind seemed to walk beside them. The noise of the bustling peak faded behind, leaving a pocket of stillness.

Walking at his side, Ming Tianmei carried her usual calm, mature air, yet there was a faint tension in the curve of her shoulders.

Yu Xuan broke the silence. His voice was steady, but the weight in it was clear.

"So... will you answer me this time?"

She didn’t speak right away. Instead, her gaze drifted towards the sky. She was reminiscing about the past.

Years ago, after a grueling training session under his father, a much younger Yu Xuan had come to her. His face, usually bright and mischievous, was unusually serious.

She remembered how he had stood there, fists clenched at his side, eyes full of determination.

"Tianmei, I like you."

Her younger self had almost faltered then. Her heart had leapt at those words, but she had smothered her own joy. He was still just a boy — too young, too impressionable. She knew if she responded recklessly, she might shift the course of his entire path, maybe even his personality will change.

So she had smiled and replied lightly.

"You’re too young now. How about... we continue this conversation after you’ve grown?"

Back then, he had looked down at himself, then up at her again. Then nodded to himself, indeed they were quite young, and Ming Tianmei was slightly older than him too.

"...Okay. But next time, you must definitely answer me."

The memory still echoed in her heart.

Now, as she stood beside him, she could no longer deny what she saw. The boy from before had grown into an adult. Yes, a lot of immaturity lingered, but that was part of what made him Yu Xuan.

And she... she had already seen glimpses of him at his peak in the past, at least until she returned. The man he would become was incomparable — but even the him before her now tugged at her heart.

Her lips curved faintly, but then she thought of Lingluo.

That stubborn, possessive, dumb-headed Lingluo. The girl who hovered around Yu Xuan like a shadow. Her best friend in this life and the previous one.

At first, Ming Tianmei had considered making a move — just closing the distance, reaching for what she had long waited for. But now... she hesitated. Could she ignore Lingluo’s existence altogether? The answer she came to was absolutely no.

Her steps slowed. She turned her gaze toward Yu Xuan, her expression softer than usual.

"Do you really need an answer?" she asked quietly.

"Yes." Yu Xuan met her eyes without flinching.

Ming Tianmei’s lips pressed together. After a pause, she said,

"Then I will not answer."

Yu Xuan blinked.

"Wait, what does that even mean? Are you saying yes or no? I’m confused here."

"I am neither denying nor confirming it," she replied calmly, though a faint smile tugged at the corner of her lips.

"So... I can still flirt with you, then?"

"...." She gave him a long stare.

"Oh, come on," Yu Xuan pressed, smiling slightly, "sometimes just be simple. We’re not playing chess."

When she didn’t reply right away, he sighed and rubbed the back of his neck.

"I really don’t get what’s going on in your head sometimes."

"Xuan," Ming Tianmei said at last, brushing a loose strand of hair behind her ear with quiet elegance. The gesture caught his eye, and his mind screamed one word only: Damn.

"You need to give me more time. It’s not an easy thing, you know?"

He opened his mouth, but she raised a finger and gently tapped it against his forehead.

"And you, sometimes you need to be true to yourself," she continued softly.

"Even if what you want goes against what others would call right. Even if society would label it... wrong."

Yu Xuan’s eyes narrowed slightly, her words echoing inside him. What exactly did she mean? Why did it feel like she was speaking directly to the parts of him he never voiced aloud?

It always seemed to him that Ming Tianmei knew too much about him. More than anyone else.

’I really need to sit down and have a proper talk with her.’ he thought to himself.