Yung tried hard not to laugh, seeing Youjin Chao absolutely terrified of Floofy. He then remembered what he had read on the scrolls about the Su fox clan, and how many bloodlines they had purged throughout the aeons.

“Relax man.” Yung said, “Even if Fairy Nanya learns of our conversation, she won’t mind. She’s a magnanimous princess. And I think this is a good chance to clarify my stance indirectly. So that she won’t misunderstand my motives for hugging her thigh.”

Youjin Chao looked doubtful.

“Hong is still alive and well, isn’t he?”

That convinced the taller boy.

Yung clicked his chopsticks, “Let’s get back on topic. Where were we?”

“You said, ‘just her beauty isn’t enough.’ Did you mean her beauty itself isn’t good enough for you, and everything else about her is?”

“No! I mean that her beauty, by itself solely, isn’t enough. I need the whole package. Looks, character, goodwill, respect, responsibility, a will to compromise, touch, and shared moral values.

“Romantically speaking, she isn’t my type from what I’ve seen the last few days. She’s my benefactor, and I’ll do everything to pay her back. But let’s leave love out of it. However, if she was my type and I could envision a good future together, I would take the risk. Geographical, physical, and emotional distances be damned.”

She’s too young, and I am no pedobear. That’s all there is to it.

“So, Brother Yung is not attracted to her? You honestly do not want to make her yours?”

“Oh, I definitely am. Physically at least. But even if I did desire her body, sexually, I mean… to speak plainly, I don’t want to make her mine based on my selfish bursts of bestial urges. The very notion of owning her, or her body, bothers me though. It reduces her to an object to be possessed, not a yao maiden with free will, and it’s a huge turn-off.” Yung said. He had a sudden thought.

“Tell me, Brother Chao, do you think a man has absolute control over who he feels attracted to physically? Let’s assume when you were still engaged to Youjin Chun, you liked her a lot. Would you say you weren’t charmed by any other girl, even for a split moment of a split second, no matter how beautiful or alluring they were?”

Youjin Chao looked uncomfortable. “I… I would say I was loyal. My eyes may have looked in other directions, but they were not sinful… I can’t explain it.”

"Hahaha, don't worry. You get what I mean. Look. I appreciate female beauty too, but that's about it. At the end of the day, it's just a feeling, an emotion, the animalistic parts of us we can hardly control."

Like humanity back on Gaia. Humans weren’t meant to sit on a chair or fly a plane. Evolution hardly designed them to do that. If humans only followed what their genes said, they’d still be stuck in the palaeolithic age. No, humanity mastered their emotions, responses, and reactions. That’s why they could advance enough to create artificial souls and virtual reality.

Yung took a slow sip of water. It was refreshing and cool. Far better to drink with one’s mouth than inject it through pipes. It made Yung feel alive.

"Renyao are creatures that can rise above their emotions in their bid for immortality. Even if the most loyal, married men walked past Fairy Nanya and told me they weren't even a bit sexually aroused by her bare swaying hips, I'd call it a lie. Stirring to temptation isn't a sin, but acting on it is. And I don't see any reason to act on it.

“In other words, it’s a crush, Brother Chao. And I see no possibility of us sharing enough time together to nurture this crush into a strong physical and emotional bond. With time and geographical distance, this feeling will pass. Besides, I envision a stress-free friendship as the base for my love, not oceans of headaches because we are so culturally different. I’d rather just hug her thigh and be a good servant boy.”

“But right now, you still feel attracted to her. Giving up on it feels, not right. As you said, renyao bid for immortality. How can we possibly achieve that if we give up before even trying? What would that do to our belief, our confidence? I cannot accept this, Brother Yung. We must be strong enough to face any impossibility head-on. Whether it is on our path to the heavens or to a maiden's heart." Youjin Chao was oddly insistent on that point. It made sense. Even many self-development junkies on Gaia had this false notion of what 'giving up' entailed. They thought any vulnerability was bad. Not to say of immortality cultivators here, each with egos larger than Mt. Tai.

Yung sighed. I suddenly don’t want to continue this conversation anymore.

“Love is an action, my friend. Not a feeling.” He said with finality, “Again, you were in love with Youjin Chun.” Who are you in love with now? Yung kept this question unvoiced.

Youjin Chao froze, then smiled ruefully. “I guess I was.”

“What about now?”

“Point taken. This one apologises.”

Yung guessed Youjin Chao apologised for making Yung uncomfortable, not that he changed his stance on what it meant to give up. He could read the indignation in Youjin Chao’s Empathic link.

“It’s fine. But remember this, love doesn’t last automatically. You need to have the intention to see it through, the self-discipline and trust to turn a blind eye to alternatives, and constant active effort to nurture a strong physical and emotional bond through action.”

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“… turn a blind eye to alternatives. If only…” Again, that rueful smile. Yung wondered if he had hit a sore spot. “I would never imagine my first conversation with Brother Yung would be about love. It’s like we are two maidens in a flower field.”

“Ya ain’t. Brother, for a savage madlander, you got some good wisdom.” A voice from behind spoke with awe and amusement, startling Yung out of his seat.

"What the!" Yung exclaimed, looking in the direction of the voice.

It was an old man sitting one table over.

“We’s gotta say. Even my ma couldn’t give me that much advice before I married.” Another man, middle-aged maybe, hollered from the table south of theirs.

“Thanks, mister!” A young man brought a lovely woman to Yung by her hand and bowed. “We married a few months ago, but things changed. 'Twas like our love had disappeared; all I saw were other women’s beauty but my wife’s flaws. Listening to your words cleared away a lot of doubts I had.”

The woman agreed, “Love is an action. I’ll remember this until the day I die.”

The other patrons cheered. Yung spotted the waitress, Xiu Jiujiu, nodding sagely with a shy blush. The restaurant manager was there too, deep in thought. So were a few cultivators from the Youjin clan, looking at the duo with complicated expressions.

“I should treat my missis better. Her foot’s been aching recently. Can’t believe I came here to drink instead of taking care of her.”

“Brother, shame on you! But it’s a good thing you noticed.”

“Yeah, the temptation is not a sin. Acting on it is. Hurry back, you old fool!”

The discussions continued in the weirdest direction possible, and a few people even sent compassionate gazes towards Youjin Chao, muttering how uncouth Youjin Chun was.

….Mother Gaia! We spoke too loud! Yung saw Youjin Chao break into a wild grin.

“Umm…I. No, that.” Yung was not okay with being the centre of attention.

“As expected of the young man who contracted Lord Yaoguai and caught the eye of the fox clan.” The first old man from the table over said.

Weirder was, Yung felt a rush of Heart qi fill his dantian. Worship. Worship did not mean reverence only, but feelings of awe too. Perhaps even gratitude.

“Well…I gotta… um… leave!” Yung stood up and was about to rush to the stairs, but Youjin Chao caught his hand.

“If it’s okay with Brother Yung, can you spare me some more minutes? I have a matter I’d like to discuss.” Youjin Chao’s eyes were serious. His Empathic Link read desire and resolve. “It’s about the second phase of the sect recruitment.”

That got Yung’s attention.

“How would brother Yung like to train together?”

***

“Utter nonsense!” Nanya broke another priceless vase. The queen’s suite was a mess. The curtains had scorch marks, the pots were all smashed, and the bed collapsed on one side.

“How dare that boy! How dare he.” Nanya screamed, then hacked a table in two with her claws. “Inconceivable!”

“I think m’lady is overreacting again.” Su Yafeng said.

"Can you not see, maid? He thinks our beauty is not enough to tempt him! The gall of that creature. Ought he imagine our charms lacking? Are we but mere vases to him?!"

“Ziyou Yung said looks aren’t sufficient by themselves. I think he made sense.”

Nanya screeched, smashing a set of chairs to bits.

Su Yafeng stood expressionlessly to the side, “Especially that part about actively overlooking alternative options and love needing mindful effort to last. I think m’lady should understand this the most.”

Nanya didn’t want to. She took her sword. The bath chamber door was next to go.

“And that part about geographical distance. M’lady, you should consider this too. Oh, and differentiating between bestial urges to mate against true love—”

“Enough of this.” There was nothing left to break. “We will not let this stand. How can there be a man who admits he finds us beautiful, as all men should, and have willpower strong enough to bypass our enthralment, yet decide not to pursue us!”

“…. Will m’lady reciprocate?”

“Out of the question. And not the point.” Nanya sat on the floor, her tail thumping the carpet like a battering ram. “The point is, we are beautiful. It is not because we are not beautiful enough that the boy won’t pursue us, but because he has personal issues.”

“Well… if that line of argument satisfies m’lady, who am I to judge—”

“But what if he doesn’t? What if he does not believe we are the most beautiful maiden in the lands, and that’s why he won’t pursue us?”

“M’lady should stop digging holes for herself!”

“Silent, maid. We are pondering this issue.” Nanya bit her nails. “The boy must try to swoon us; he must! And when we inevitably reject him like we have done all others before, he shall feel grateful that he had even the chance despite his hideous countenance. We may then applaud his bravery in the face of futility. He shall feel like a toad wanting to eat a swan and yet, feel pride that he strived.”

“…. I, I need to send a sound transmission to the matriarch. I fear m’lady has gone mad. It was one scumbag that deluded you; you can’t give up on sanity like this!”

Nanya ignored Su Yafeng and continued to voice her thoughts. “He should admit us as the prettiest. How can he not? How can a true man give up so easily? We… we cannot comprehend this.”

Her mind made up, Nanya nodded. “We must ascertain this ourselves. Maid, dress us in satin! We must gather our cards before we strike to right this wrong.”

“… Yes, madam matriarch. Yes, she’s too far gone. No, it’s not a phase. She’s been like this ever since that person returned from the the Coiling zenith continent.”

“Maid, are you listening? We haven’t the slightest time to waste. We shall show him our charms!”

“…”

***

Su Xiya came back grumpy. But for some reason, she grew just as attached as Silky. The fox rubbed against Yung’s legs all day and took his lap as her bed.

So fluffy!

Yung didn’t mind.

He spent the next few days meeting up with Youjin Chao. The older boy had quite the argument.

They would team up to train. Practice hunting fiends in the forest with a fiendhunter team Youjin Chao knew. Then take on the world. In this case, if all went swell, they’d help each other during the wild hunt of the fiends in phase two.

“Small problem, Brother Chao. Aren’t you unawakened? How will you pass phase one, which checks your talent?”

Yung had read about these talent checker things in those awful webnovels before. They used some gadget or another to make a value judgement on living, breathing human beings.

He'd love to take one apart someday and see the big deal. But first,

“It tests cultivation potential and bone age. Not current cultivation base. Or all the unawakened commoners would be disqualified, and the sects would lose out on latent talents.” So Youjin Chao said confidently while punching his fists. “Trust me; I got a plan.”

Yung did not, in fact, trust him. But whether or not Youjin Chao could get to phase two aside, the practice of hunting fiends would come in handy during Yung’s own trial.

It was a question of trust again. Could Yung trust Youjin Chao to have his back in a hostile environment?

I haven’t felt any malice from his Empathic link. Jung would argue.

Yeah, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Yung would shout back.

He was at an impasse. He’d need to gather more information on Youjin Chao, the fiends in the forest he saw in Silky’s vision, and everything in general. Yung had been too much of a bumpkin, hardly knowing anything of regional politics, let alone the global scene.

And boy, did he find what he sought.

I… The thigh I hugged is too awesome! Yung squealed like a little girl, jolting Su Xiya to attention. The fox eyed him warily, then curled up on the table again.