Chapter Ninety: A Handful, Then Another

Her reaction hardly seemed like that of someone who had come to threaten another. I turned my head and looked at the pear tree nearby, laden with green fruit, and to my surprise I felt a trace of contempt for my own earlier arrogance, for the haughty way I had tried to pin crimes on her.

After a long while, I finally let out a soft snort. The whole situation was truly awkward and infuriating.

“Why should I go to such lengths to expose your identity? That would bring me no benefit at all. Not only would it drive a wedge between master and disciple, it would also, for no reason whatsoever, make such a lovely little sister like you angry with me. Why would I do such a foolish thing?”

She finished speaking with a smile and slowly walked toward me, one hand resting against her waist. Only when I took a closer look at her belly did I suddenly remember hearing from the Demon King today that the wife of the High God of Ink had a child in her womb.

My eyes fixed curiously on her belly. When she came within five steps of me, I realized I had been rather rude. I gave a few fake coughs and turned my head away, pretending not to look at her.

“How old are you this year?”

After a moment, she asked me.

“Fifteen.”

After some hesitation, I replied stiffly.

At my answer, she studied me again, and with a faint smile said, “If you took off this male disguise and changed into women’s clothes, you would surely be a very beautiful girl.”

I could not deny that hearing such words made me feel wonderfully pleased.

I silently despised myself yet again. How could I be so suspicious, so guarded, toward such a beautiful older sister? What was I being defensive about?

I withdrew the demonic energy I had gathered in my hand, then looked once more at her belly and asked with curiosity, “Is there a little baby in there?”

At my words, she looked slightly startled, then smiled and nodded. “He is not yet five months along. By the time he is born, I’m afraid it will still be three years from now. Perhaps he will come into the world on some spring day filled with blossoms, three years hence.”

As she spoke, a bewitching smile surfaced on her face, and she gently stroked her belly.

“Oh.” I nodded in understanding, though my gaze still could not bear to leave her stomach.

A child born of a mortal and an immortal differed from those born of mortal and mortal unions, which took ten months, and from those of immortal and immortal, which could last nearly a hundred years. Such a half-immortal child required about three years to form, roughly the same as the gestation of demon-born children.

But how long would it take for offspring born of an immortal and a demon?

“May I touch him?”

I asked her softly. When her lips parted and she said yes, I rubbed my hands together and slowly moved closer, then gently placed my hand on her belly.

“Little Green.”

The flower lanterns hanging from the pear tree suddenly lit all at once. At the far end of the pear grove, where the lantern light spilled, a white-robed man—none other than this woman’s husband and master, the High God of Ink—came striding toward us with evident anxiety.

The closer he came, the darker his expression grew. He pulled the woman in green into his arms and shot me a cold, hard glare.

“This disciple of yours from the Purple Lotus Immortal Sect truly has no shame,” the High God of Ink said bitterly to Purple Lotus. “She took advantage of my absence and fondled my wife, who is carrying my child.”

“Fondled?” I looked down at my hand, then up at the woman’s belly again, and felt that this High God of Ink was unbelievably petty. Furious, I shot back, “It isn’t your belly. What harm is there in touching it once? Besides, your wife agreed to let me touch it. Why are you so worked up? It’s not as though I touched your belly.”

“You...”

His white sleeves were just about to fly upward when purple sleeves intercepted them.

Purple Lotus looked amused, unhurried and composed, and said lazily, “Why need the High God of Ink be angered? Hasn’t my disciple already said it was only a touch or two? And it was not your belly that was touched. Why must the High God of Ink quarrel with a child over such a thing? If you were truly to strike my disciple here today, and if word of this were later to reach the others of the immortal realm, I fear it would only invite ridicule from certain immortals with ill intent.”

“You two...”

The High God of Ink’s face had turned livid with rage, and he could no longer speak.

I suppose he had never seen two people as thick-skinned as our master and disciple pair, capable of bringing shamelessness to such glorious perfection.