ALL NOVEL 55. Did you know we’re engaged?
The next morning, Sun Fuyu was waiting outside the pathway to the kitchens for Wen Zhihao.
Sun Fuyu reached his hands out. Wen Zhihao obliged him and pulled him into a hug, while Sun Fuyu rubbed his face against Wen Zhihao like a cat.
“Xiao Yu, I remembered something from my old place.”
Sun Fuyu looked up. “Hm?”
“When two people want to marry each other, one person proposes with a ring. Later, when they get married, they exchange rings.”
Sun Fuyu’s eyes widened as redness bloomed across his cheeks. “D-does this mean we are already married…”
Wen Zhihao’s lips curled up. “It’s closer to an engagement, which is a time before marriage. By entering an engagement, the people involved have agreed to marry in the future. Engagements can last over a year.”
“Agreed to marry,” Sun Fuyu repeated. He buried his face in Wen Zhihao’s shoulder.
Wen Zhihao’s heart tickled with how kittenish Sun Fuyu was. He patted him on the back. “En. I merely thought it would be an interesting fact. Of course, there is no need for us to follow such a tradition if Xiao Yu doesn’t want to—”
Sun Fuyu pulled away from Wen Zhihao’s shoulder. “Want! Don’t want anyone else to marry Wen-ge.”
“Who else would want to marry me?” Wen Zhihao teased.
“...How about Wang Li Wei? I see him coming to the demonic beasts’ enclosure when you are around.”
Wen Zhihao rubbed Sun Fuyu’s head firmly. “He’s just an acquaintance. He comes by when I’m there because he’s still a little afraid of the kittens for some reason. Isn’t the person I see second-most-often Aunty Liu? Aren’t you afraid I would want to marry her?”
Sun Fuyu pouted. “Wen-ge,” he complained.
Wen Zhihao grinned. He grabbed Sun Fuyu’s shoulders and physically turned him towards the kitchens. “Let’s go, they’re waiting for us.”
Sun Fuyu looked over his shoulder at him, a slightly aggrieved expression on his face. Wen Zhihao pinched his cheek, and when Sun Fuyu’s pout deepened, coaxed him with a hug.
That morning, Wen Zhihao was able to harvest some more tropical fruit. He thought that it was time for him to give some fruit to Elder Liu Ru as he had promised.
When he asked Sun Fuyu if he knew where Elder Liu Ru could be found, Sun Fuyu told him that Senior Liu Zhongmin’s set of buildings were on Elder Liu Ru’s mountain.
“Then I’ll follow you!” Wen Zhihao decided.
So after they visited the demonic cats and kittens, Wen Zhihao followed Sun Fuyu to Elder Liu Ru’s mountain. Some of Liu Zhongmin’s inner sect disciples saw them arriving and came over.
“Sun-shidi, who is this?” one of the male disciples named Gao Ming asked curiously.
Sun Fuyu straightened. “This is my shixiong, Fellow Daoist Wen Zhihao.”
“So you’re the famous Wen-ge,” a female disciple named Hu Jingyan said with an upward tilt of her lips. The eyes of inner sect disciples grew even more curious.
Wen Zhihao greeted them politely with his hands together. “This junior thanks the seniors for looking after Sun-shidi.”
“Of course. How can we help you?” Hu Jingyan asked.
“This junior is looking for Elder Liu Ru,” Wen Zhihao answered.
“Speaking of Elder Liu Ru…” Hu Jingyan looked up, causing the others to follow her gaze.
Two small figures descending from the top of the mountain were rapidly becoming larger: Senior Cultivator Liu Zhongmin on her sword and Elder Liu Ru floating down next to her. Liu Zhongmin jumped off her sword in the last few meters, landing on the ground with a solid thump. Elder Liu Ru landed so lightly on the ground that there was no noise.
Everyone gave a round of greetings to the two senior cultivators.
After acknowledging the greeting, Liu Zhongmin spoke first: “What’s this little gathering?” She glanced at the infamous Wen Zhihao.
“Sun-shidi’s shixiong wants to talk to Elder Liu Ru,” Hu Jingyan answered.
Elder Liu Ru inclined her head. “It is convenient for me to talk to Disciple Wen now. There are some matters we need to discuss.”
….matters? Wen Zhihao’s expression stiffened a little, but he still nodded.
“You can use my office, Elder Liu,” Liu Zhongmin immediately offered. “The rest of us are going to train outside.”
Elder Liu Ru nodded. “Disciple Wen, follow me.”
Wen Zhihao nodded goodbye to Sun Fuyu and followed Elder Liu Ru into the main building.
Sun Fuyu’s brows drew together. “Shifu, is Wen-ge in trouble?”
Liu Zhongmin patted Sun Fuyu on the shoulder. “Don’t worry.”
Sun Fuyu gave Liu Zhongmin a worried look.
Liu Zhongmin smiled. “Come now, Disciple Sun. I noticed that your shixiong has advanced a stage…”
Sun Fuyu’s motivation immediately rose. That’s right, he couldn’t fall behind! Although he was still worried about Wen Zhihao, he had to trust that his Wen-ge will be alright. After one last glance in the direction where Wen-ge had gone, Sun Fuyu followed his master and senior martial siblings to practice.
Meanwhile, Wen Zhihao sat down at a table opposite Elder Liu Ru in an office decorated with various swords and sharp implements of different shapes and sizes.
“Firstly, what is it that you wished to speak to me about?”
Wen Zhihao took out the basket of fruit from his spatial ring and pushed it over to Elder Liu Ru. “As promised, these are the tropical fruits that I have cultivated with help of the mortal staff of the Golden Sun Sect.”
Elder Liu Ru’s expression did not change as she accepted them. She had already heard from her wife that these could be considered low-level spiritual fruits. Her own cursory look revealed that her wife was right. She moved them all into her spatial pendant.
“There are two items on my agenda regarding you,” Elder Liu Ru said in a very serious tone. “Firstly, I have heard that you have been writing with an unusual brush.”
Wen Zhihao sheepishly took out his brush pen from his spatial ring, which was filled with ink, and some talisman paper. “Elder Liu Ru has heard correctly. This is a new brush. First, you infuse the ink inside the pen with qi, and then the brush writes easily.” Wen Zhihao wrote a talisman for creating light with passable handwriting.
Elder Liu Ru’s eyes widened slightly.
While the automatic flow of qi in the ink during the drawing of the talisman was inferior to a master talisman cultivator fine-tuned qi control, it was sufficient for low-level talismans like the ones Disciple Wen Zhihao wrote. This craft could greatly benefit non-talisman cultivators who had some minor talisman knowledge. But more importantly, the qi-infusion method would allow talisman cultivators to write talismans using ink with qi infused by other cultivators, and ink infused with different types of qi that one particular talisman cultivator may not otherwise have access to.
“Here, Elder Liu, please accept these.” Wen Zhihao, completely unaware of Elder Liu Ru’s thoughts, took out two unused brush pens that Old Third had made and placed them on the table on Elder Liu Ru’s side.
Elder Liu Ru accepted them. Her eyes then crinkled slightly, as though smiling.
Wen Zhihao’s heart skipped a nervous beat.
“Disciple Wen, will you be participating in the next Intra-Sect competition?”
“I have no intention,” Wen Zhihao said honestly. He knew it was soon, but he didn’t keep track of when.
Elder Liu Ru inclined her head slightly. “Very well. Now that you have reached Late-Stage Golden Core, I will directly promote you to the inner sect and assign you to my group.”
Wen Zhihao: “….”
Late-stage Golden Core? One stage away from Nascent Soul?
He knew that he was a Golden Core cultivator now, but when did he reach the Late-stage????????
Wait, more importantly, can he refuse the promotion?
This chapter's xianxia rec is Heaven's Golden Finger! It's pretty fun, the MC often says English/modern words magically-translated-literally into the language of the xianxia world, much to the confusion of others 🤭🤭🤭