Chapter Ninety-Nine: What If We Sleep in the Same Bed?

“Ha… ha… ha.” I forced out a smile uglier than crying. While his hands were still rubbing my hair, I snatched my own hands away and tucked them under the quilt, then asked, despite my unease, “How could Senior Brother Sanshi know my name?”

He stopped smoothing my hair, glanced at me with a faint smile, and reached over the quilt once more. Then his brows knit in a puzzled line. He bent his head as if checking something, then looked up with a flash of embarrassment.
“You are the first disciple the Sect Master has accepted in over three thousand years. How could I not know what you’re called? A few days ago, the Sect Master and the younger disciple fought four bamboo demonesses in the Bamboo Forge Forest. By now this must have spread across all six realms. In all the Four Seas and Eight Deserts, no one there is likely unaware. Even now, everyone throughout Lingyun Mountain knows you. And I imagine all the immortals, demons, and ghosts in the six realms know it too: the Sect Master has taken a disciple, a little disciple named Fishsong, and…”

“‘And’ what?”

“Then why did you stop?” I pressed, frowning. He had made it entertaining—how could he suddenly drop it? He is effeminate enough as it is, and this halting, hesitant way of speaking is enough to make one intolerable.

He gave a soft chuckle. “And besides, four demonesses barely a thousand years in cultivation couldn’t even deal with you. In the end, those little fiends maimed you so badly you were bedridden afterward, and you became a laughingstock of Lingyun Mountain—of the entire Celestial Court, even.”

“What?”

Only days in bed, and now I was already the joke of the whole immortal world. Those words sent a shiver through me. Ever since I had been brought back to Lingyun Mountain, Purple Lotus had not appeared again. Could he have turned on me because I had been badly wounded by those four demonesses, becoming a jest that shamed him and made him not want to see me?

“Hahahaha, hahahaha…”

The effeminate brother suddenly threw back his head and laughed loudly, then wobbled and rolled onto the floor.

My anxiety had already been rising, and his mockery only fed it. I snapped, “So what if I lost? Have you thought for a moment what happened? I had only entered the sect gate a few days ago. My own master had not even had time to teach me a single move before taking me down to the Mortal World. I had no cultivation, not even a trick of spells, and yet when I stood before those four demonesses, I did not flee. That alone is enough for me to have brought credit to Lingyun Mountain. You people, without knowing who is right or wrong, without understanding the facts, come here to laugh at me. It is too much. Too cruel.”

With that, I pulled the quilt over my head and tried not to think of him.

After a while, with no footsteps sounding in the room, I lifted one corner of the blanket to see whether that insufferable, soft-voiced fellow had actually left—only to find my gaze meeting a pair of gently smiling, teasing eyes by the bed.

“Why are you still here?”

I was still angry, and I called out to him sharply.

The blanket was stifling, nearly leaving me breathless, so I dragged it from my face. He saw me and, smiling, held out his hand as if to help. I swatted it away.

He blinked innocently. “By the order of the Sect Master—your own master—since he is away these days, caring for you has been entrusted to this senior brother.”

“I don’t need it. I don’t need anyone to care for me.” I said, irritated.

He only laughed in reply, nodding. “Then keep resting. Little Dudu and I will take our leave.”

He reached out and took Little Dudu’s plump little hand, then turned as if to go.

As he moved toward the door, his posture made it seem as if he meant not to return, and a strange uncertainty stirred in me. If Purple Lotus had sent him to the Pure Water Pavilion to care for me, then he should know where she had gone.

“Wait, don’t leave yet.”

He had just set one foot beyond the threshold when he pulled it back, turned around, and came back, Little Dudu’s hand in his, smiling as he walked.
“Is the little junior brother feeling lonely and afraid all alone, hoping this senior brother might stay and keep you company? If you’re too frightened, speak to him. I can go right back to the Palace of Smiles and bring the bedding here. Tonight, we can share the same bed, little junior brother.”