After Crossdressing and Provoking Long AoTian

Daoist Idle Crane stuffed another mouthful of pork hock and rice into his mouth and chewed in silence.

Yu Qingtang leaned closer to peer at him. “Why aren’t you saying anything?”

Daoist Idle Crane clicked his tongue, looking distinctly displeased. “What is there to say? I knew it!”

“Huh?” Yu Qingtang asked curiously. “Knew what?”

“I knew the moment you went down the mountain, there was a good chance you’d never really come back.” Daoist Idle Crane grumbled, “Once a meat bun gets carried off by a dog, when has the dog ever brought it back?”

Yu Qingtang: “...”

For a moment, he couldn’t decide whether he should defend Ye Chenyan’s honor.

“Go on, then. Go, go.” Daoist Idle Crane closed his eyes and waved him away in disgust. “If you’re determined to make life hard for yourself, then go ahead. Anyway, if you run into trouble later...”

Yu Qingtang nodded knowingly. “I understand. Don’t drag you guys into it!”

Daoist Idle Crane’s beard practically bristled with rage. “Do I look like that kind of disloyal master?!”

Yu Qingtang suppressed a laugh. “So when I cause trouble outside from now on, I should give them your name?”

Daoist Idle Crane: “...”

He cleared his throat, leaned closer, and lowered his voice.

“Tell them you’re from the Heavenly Music Sect next door.”

Yu Qingtang slowly turned his head to stare at him.

“What are you looking at me for?” Daoist Idle Crane looked a little embarrassed himself, but put on a perfectly serious face. “It’s not that your master refuses to protect you. I simply haven’t traveled the martial world much these past few years, so my reputation isn’t what it used to be. Dropping my name wouldn’t scare anyone.”

“The Heavenly Music Sect next door likes showing off. Just use their name. Five hundred years ago, we were practically one family anyway.”

Yu Qingtang: “...”

The Heavenly Music Sect probably did not want these particular relatives.

After a moment’s hesitation, he still pulled two jars of wine from his storage ring and shoved them into Daoist Idle Crane’s hands.

Daoist Idle Crane accepted them suspiciously and leaned in for a sniff.

“Oh! Good stuff. Smells like Nanzhou’s Monkey Wine. Where’d you get this?”

“You can tell?” Yu Qingtang stared at him in surprise. “You’ve actually drunk something this good before?”

“Tch.” Daoist Idle Crane looked at him disdainfully. “Your master was once a handsome, dashing man who roamed the world and mastered every skill worth mastering. What fine wine haven’t I tasted?”

“If I hadn’t had to raise you bunch of troublesome brats, who knows where I’d be right now, roaming free beneath the vast sky.”

“Yes, yes, yes.”

Yu Qingtang had heard this story since childhood. He obediently nodded along.

“He gave you this. One jar for you, one for his master, Tianji Zi.”

“Oh—”

Daoist Idle Crane narrowed his eyes and drew the syllable out. He raised the jar with a distinctly unhappy expression, though he still tucked it safely into his robes.

“Trying to bribe me with this, huh? Hmph.”

Yu Qingtang’s eyes curved with amusement. “Guess why he gave you wine.”

The moment Daoist Idle Crane saw that smile, he felt a sense of impending doom.

“Why?”

“When someone starts acting unusually generous for no reason, you’d better be careful!”

Yu Qingtang leaned to his ear and lowered his voice.

“I promised him before that I’d steal some of your wine for him.”

Daoist Idle Crane stared at him speechlessly.

Yu Qingtang chuckled and patted the jar of Monkey Wine.

“This is definitely worth more than the stuff you brew from fruit picked behind the mountain, so consider this repayment in advance. I’m going to steal yours now! No need to show me where it is. I know it’s under your bed.”

“You!”

Daoist Idle Crane pointed at him with a trembling finger, furious.

“You call that stealing?! Who tells the victim beforehand? That’s not theft, that’s robbery!”

Yu Qingtang dusted himself off and stood.

“Fine, then I’m going to rob you!”

“Get lost!”

Daoist Idle Crane raised the wine jar as if to throw it, then couldn’t bear to waste the wine and settled for rolling his eyes.

“Once you leave, don’t come back!”

Yu Qingtang swayed his head smugly. “No can do. I’m still sleeping here tonight!”

“There’s no room for you!”

Daoist Idle Crane cursed after him.

Only after Yu Qingtang’s figure disappeared did he turn away, squint up at the darkening sky, and gently rub the jar of Monkey Wine in his hands.

He sighed softly.

“Grown up, huh.”

Then he snorted with laughter.

“Hasn’t changed much. Went from a little idiot to a bigger idiot. Heh.”

He tipped his head back and took a drink.

“Ah. Now that’s good wine.”

...

Night had already fallen, and Ye Chenyan still hadn’t seen Yu Qingtang.

At first, Biehe Sect’s Senior Brothers and Senior Sisters had remained somewhat wary of him, but after chatting for a while, they somehow started treating him as one of their own.

They noisily dragged him off to the kitchen to cook dinner, even sharing some of their food so that he too got a bowl of pork hock mixed with rice.

Ye Chenyan heard plenty of stories about Yu Qingtang’s childhood from them.

Like the time Yu Qingtang lost a fight to the wild boar and went crying to his Senior Sisters so they could avenge him.

Or the time he helped Third Senior Brother ask a female cultivator for her name and nearly got carried home by her instead...

It was a completely different kind of colorful life from the one Ye Chenyan had known at Guiyi Sect.

And he could more or less understand now why Qingtang was so reluctant to leave this place behind.

Biehe Sect on Shanyuan Peak seemed somehow removed from all the turmoil of the world.

They lived far away in the mountains, yet remained deeply rooted in ordinary life.

Half immortal, half mortal.

They prepared a room for Ye Chenyan to stay in for the night.

He lay on the bed staring at the ceiling, wondering whether Yu Qingtang had come back yet.

He had memorized the location of Yu Qingtang’s room earlier and was planning to sneak out and find him in a little while.

Knock, knock.

Ye Chenyan immediately sat up.

Curious, he walked to the window where the sound had come from and quietly lifted it open.

Yu Qingtang was clinging furtively to the sill, glancing warily over his shoulder.

Ye Chenyan froze.

“What are you...”

“Shh—”

Yu Qingtang motioned for him to move aside, then expertly climbed in through the window.

Amused, Ye Chenyan pointed toward the door.

“You don’t use doors?”

“Can’t.”

Yu Qingtang answered as if this were perfectly normal.

“After dark, there are mechanisms outside all our rooms. If we open the door carelessly, Master catches us.”

Ye Chenyan stared at him.

“Huh?”

Yu Qingtang gave two dry laughs.

“To stop us sneaking out for midnight snacks. Mostly because he’s afraid we’ll go without him.”

Ye Chenyan looked him up and down.

“...Then what are you doing?”

Yu Qingtang shoved a jar of wine into his arms.

“Here.”

Ye Chenyan looked down, opened it curiously, and took a sniff.

“Fruity... fruit wine?”

“Mm.” Yu Qingtang nodded. “Remember ages ago when I promised I’d let you try the Shanyuan Peak fruit wine my master keeps hidden?”

“Well, I stole some for you.”

Ye Chenyan blinked.

Remembering that old joke, his expression turned strange.

“You actually stole it?”

“Not exactly. The victim knows about it, at least.”

Yu Qingtang sat down at the table and produced a plate of peanuts as well.

“Seventeenth Senior Brother contributed these.”

“I actually got the wine ages ago, but they caught me halfway here and interrogated me about exactly what happened between us on this whole trip.”

Something flickered in Ye Chenyan’s eyes.

He chuckled and sat down across from him, looking faintly expectant.

“So... what did you tell them?”

Yu Qingtang scratched his chin.

“Just... the truth.”

He eagerly pushed his own cup toward Ye Chenyan.

“Pour me some too. I want to know what Master’s fruit wine tastes like. He treasures it so much he normally won’t let us have a single sip.”

Ye Chenyan poured for him while still looking at him expectantly.

“What truth did you tell them?”

Yu Qingtang mumbled vaguely.

“Well, Fifth Senior Brother came back ahead of us, remember?”

“I don’t think he ever figured out exactly what was going on between us. He only told everyone we were safe, and then said...”

Yu Qingtang looked up at him.

“...that we’d become very good friends. Good brothers.”

He extended a fist and bumped it against Ye Chenyan’s, his expression righteous and solemn.

“You know. Through life and death! Absolute trust between brothers!”

Ye Chenyan: “...”

He lowered his eyes to Yu Qingtang’s fist, then to his own.

Slowly, he looked up.

“Don’t look at me like that.” Yu Qingtang held his cup and peeked furtively at Ye Chenyan’s expression. “I didn’t say it. Fifth Senior Brother did.”

“No wonder.”

Ye Chenyan gave a soft snort of laughter.

“Your Eldest Senior Sister kept telling me what a good person I was and comforting me that there were plenty of grasses beneath heaven—oh, she also said that a little blade of grass as interesting as you admittedly isn’t easy to find, but if I work hard enough, maybe I’ll get lucky.”

Yu Qingtang: “...That has nothing to do with me.”

“Our journey was too eventful to explain all at once, but I did my best to give them an objective and impartial account.”

He gestured vaguely with both hands.

“Now they know we’re, you know...”

“All tangled up together.”

Ye Chenyan took a sip of wine and chuckled into his cup.

Then he looked up.

“I also went to see your master earlier.”

“Hm?”

Yu Qingtang’s eyes widened in surprise.

“When? Did we just miss each other?”

“Mm.” Ye Chenyan nodded gently. “I deliberately waited until you’d left.”

“I... took the liberty of asking Senior for something.”

Yu Qingtang stared.

“Huh? Don’t tell me you went asking him for wine too?”

“Of course not.”

Ye Chenyan raised an eyebrow.

“I...”

For once, he hesitated.

His gaze shifted away, and he took another drink.

“I went to get that betrothal letter back.”

Yu Qingtang’s eyes widened instinctively.

“Huh?”

Ye Chenyan lifted a hand.

The red betrothal letter appeared in his palm.

He lowered his eyes to it and couldn’t help laughing softly.

“When I came up with this awful idea back then, Little Junior Sister scolded me for it.” He sighed. “She said that if I treated something like this as a joke, then someday, when I met someone I truly liked, I’d suffer for it.”

He waved the betrothal letter, then fixed Yu Qingtang with an unwavering stare.

“I didn’t believe her at the time.”

“I thought everyone beneath heaven was more or less the same. Who could possibly make me fall so completely that I’d regret everything I’d done before?”

Yu Qingtang blinked guiltily.

Unable to withstand that gaze, he muttered softly,

“You really were young. Raising that kind of flag without hesitation...”

Ye Chenyan turned to look at him and laughed.

Then he touched one corner of the betrothal letter to the candle flame.

Yu Qingtang stared blankly, caught completely off guard.

“Huh?”

“It’s fake. It even says Biehe Sect’s ‘Little Junior Sister’ on it.”

Ye Chenyan laughed softly.

“You and I... from the very beginning, everything between us happened through one twist of fate after another. Neither of us was truly honest at first.”

“But after everything that’s happened, there shouldn’t be any need for lies anymore.”

He propped a hand behind one ear, trying to hide the redness creeping across it.

“When... when you’re willing...”

“I’ll ask Master and your sect master properly, and send a real betrothal letter.”

The flames slowly climbed until they devoured the entire letter.

When the fire was about to lick Ye Chenyan’s fingers, Yu Qingtang’s eyes widened and he abruptly pulled his hand away.

Ye Chenyan paused.

A faint smile appeared on his face.

He turned his hand over and caught Yu Qingtang by the wrist.

Then, quietly, he said,

“I’ve made up my mind.”

Yu Qingtang felt there was something unusual about his expression.

“About what?”

Ye Chenyan lowered his eyes.

“...I can’t keep stopping you from returning to Biehe Sect forever.”

“Besides...”

“When I saw how happy you were after coming back...”

He held Yu Qingtang’s hand, pressed a transmission stone into his palm, and closed Yu Qingtang’s fingers tightly around it.

“I’ll probably still have to go to a lot of places. Meet all the heroes beneath heaven.”

“And then beat them one by one.”

“You... you don’t have to force yourself to come with me.”

Yu Qingtang’s eyes widened.

“Huh?”

Ye Chenyan didn’t meet his eyes.

He forced a carefree laugh.

“...Maybe I shouldn’t have kept pushing you so hard in the first place.”

“If I weren’t constantly getting tangled up in enormous disasters, you wouldn’t have had to cultivate like your life depended on it.”

“You could have stayed here at Biehe Sect and lived as carefree as the clouds and cranes.”

“It might be better for you to stay.”

“Then I wouldn’t constantly have to worry that I might fail to protect you.”

Yu Qingtang gave him a strange look.

“I...”

“But.”

Ye Chenyan suddenly raised his head and looked at him with pitifully hopeful eyes.

“But when I want to talk to you, and I contact you through the transmission stone, you’re not allowed to find me annoying.”

“When I become supreme beneath heaven, when there’s nowhere in the world I can’t go anymore, I’ll come back for you.”

“I’ll take you everywhere to eat and drink, see mountains and rivers...”

“And meddle in other people’s business.”

He hooked one finger around Yu Qingtang’s, as if finally making some great decision.

“Okay?”

“No.”

Yu Qingtang blinked as he answered.

“Huh?”

Ye Chenyan didn’t react for a moment.

Yu Qingtang pointed at him.

“Are you planning to go down the mountain alone and secretly eat all the good food without me?”

Caught completely off guard, Ye Chenyan stammered,

“I...”

“No! Chance!”

Yu Qingtang lifted his chin.

“You’re not allowed to hog all the good stuff!”

“And...”

Yu Qingtang put both hands behind his back.

His eyes wandered everywhere except Ye Chenyan’s face, and his voice grew softer and softer.

“That whole... suffering-for-love thing...”

“I guess I can reluctantly share a little of that with you too.”

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