The reaper spread her hands. “That’s precisely it. He’s gone missing.”

“Gone missing…?” Hui mumbled. Did the resentment demons kill him? Can they even kill a reaper? Come to think of it, what can kill a reaper? He frowned at the reaper thoughtfully.

“What?” the reaper asked, crossing her arms.

“Nothing, nothing. Er, Elder Sister… I was just heading out to the Eight Tiers Palace. The last time I saw Si Wang, he was lingering around the palace. I’ll look for him while I’m there,” Hui promised.

“Please do, Landlord of the Underworld,” the reaper replied, deadpan.

Hui winced. How does that sound so much less impressive than Lord of the Underworld, when it’s technically a higher rank? “Yes, yes. Of course I will.”

“Hui, come on. Are you keeping the jade beauty to yourself? Let me see,” Bai Xue said, nudging him.

“It’s the reaper,” Hui said flatly, looking at Bai Xue.

“Eh?” Bai Xue asked, furrowing his brows.

“The reaper. The one who takes your soul when you die,” Hui said.

Bai Xue frowned. “Aren’t you afraid of death more than anything else? How are you talking casually with the reaper?”

“Ah, well, I—I was dead for a while, and we got acquainted—”

A grin started spreading over Bai Xue’s face.

“Not like that!” Hui said quickly, waving his hands. The Seniors were bad enough, I don’t need Bai Xue doing it, too! “No, no. We were coworkers, that’s all, that’s all! And now I suppose… I suppose, I’m her boss, in a way, so…”

“Coworkers to lovers? How adorable. Now I have to meet her. Is she the third member of little Hui’s harem? How cute!” Bai Xue exclaimed.

“No, no, absolutely not!” Hui said, shaking his head.

The reaper snorted. “You don’t have to deny it that hard.”

“Eh? Elder Sister…” Hui rubbed the back of his neck. If she doesn’t want me to deny it… does she like me, after all?

The reaper sighed. “So many useless thoughts.” Turning on her heel, she vanished.

“Beauty! You really won’t show me that lovely face of yours?” Bai Xue asked sweetly.

Hui shook his head. “She’s gone, Elder Brother.”

Bai Xue pursed his lips. “Pity.”

Oh, that’s right. Hui looked down at the white snake curled around his neck. “I met your mother, Zhubi.”

Zhubi tilted his head. He hissed.

“She’s doing well in the Underworld,” Hui said. He went to add more, then stopped. Eh… I don’t know if I should tell him that his mother is currently running the Underworld’s most successful brothel in the Night Market… and that she’s kind of undead. It’s probably best to just leave it at ‘she’s doing well!’

Zhubi tilted his head back the other way and hissed again.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Yeah… I guess you never knew your mother,” Hui said. He petted Zhubi’s head. “She loves you dearly. She sacrificed her life so you would be born safely.”

Zhubi tilted his head back, letting Hui scritch under his jaw.

I’m not sure if he’s listening to me, or just enjoying the attention… oh, well. I told him, and that’s what matters.

“Her name is Black Dragon,” Hui told him gently.

Zhubi stiffened. He shivered, then played dead, drooping over Hui’s shoulders lifelessly.

Hui blinked. Huh?

“Black Dragon? That calamitous flood dragon who nearly wiped out the coastal cities four hundred years ago?” Bai Xue asked, startled. He drew away, eying Zhubi warily. “The Plague of the Southern Sea? That Black Dragon?”

“Er… I didn’t ask her about her past. She seemed… nice…?” Hui tried.

Bai Xue shook his head. “Nice! Only our Hui could meet the Black Dragon and come away with such an opinion. No, no. She was a small water snake who leaped over the dragon gate and became a flood dragon. While the human sects bickered, she quietly cultivated to ninth stage, on the very brink of breaking through to tenth stage and Immortality.

“Once she was that powerful, how was anyone supposed to stop her? She ruled over the Southern Seas as a tyrant, demanding payment for safe passage and stealing goods from anyone who dared not pay. A pirate of the highest degree, who nearly brought all sea trade in the Southern Sect Conference to a complete and utter halt! My mother still complains about her, centuries later.”

“Er… how did they resolve the, er, the problem?” Hui asked, gently patting Zhubi’s head reassuringly. I know Black Dragon’s story, but I don’t know how the humans perceived it. I might as well hear both sides!

Bai Xue shrugged. “What could we do? There are precious few experts in the Southern Sect Conference who can stand up to, let alone handle, a great circle ninth-stage cultivator on the cusp of Immortality. The trade sects and coastal sects all joined hands and attacked her, but she summoned a grand storm, the likes of which the Southern Sect Conference had never seen, and rebuffed them with a laugh, trashing their ships before they even got near her stronghold. In the end, everyone hunkered down and paid her tribute rather than defy her. I think everyone was secretly praying for her to hurry up and ascend already.”

“And then she did,” Hui guessed.

“She tried. Many people saw her fall to the tribulation lightning, but in a stroke of genius—perhaps to be expected for so wily a creature—she reverted to her true, small snake form and vanished into the tribulation storm. Where she went, no one knows. There were rumors that she was quietly healing and stockpiling her strength, preparing to return…” Bai Xue laughed. “It will make a great number of people happy to hear she is in fact dead, and stuck in the Underworld!”

Just as he said it, a small dark cloud appeared overhead. A torrent of rain soaked Bai Xue, but somehow miraculously spared Hui and Zhubi, standing next to him.

Bai Xue blinked. He wiped a hand down his face, confused.

Hui coughed. “Er, Bai Xue… she’s undead, not dead. Still a powerful force, and, er, I told her that I had Zhubi in my safekeeping. She may be watching me.”

“You tell me that now?” Bai Xue asked. He shook his head like a dog and ran his sopping wet hair back, then grinned at Hui. “What do you think? Drenched robes… it’s a good look, right?”

“Bai Xue,” Hui admonished him matter-of-factly.

“Oh right, right.” Bai Xue’s form flickered, and a woman in white robes stood before Hui. She shifted her hair over her shoulder and smiled at him. “So…?”

Hui forcibly averted his eyes, raising his hands to hide Bai Xue from his sight. “Your—your robes… they’re white, I—”

“Oh…? Is it a bit too spicy for Xiao Hui?” Bai Xue purred. She leaned up against him, her wet robes soaking into his. Her body heat brushed against his skin, the wet fabric conducting it directly to his, as though no barriers separated them at all. Something soft nestled around his arm, as she hugged it to her.

Hui swallowed. He glanced back at Bai Xue, only to quickly look away. “Bai Xue, please…”

“Please…?” she asked, tilting her head and fluttering her lashes at him.

“Now isn’t the time…”

Bai Xue pushed him back. His back struck a tree. She grinned. “It isn’t?”

“Over here! I hear there’s a huge gorilla beast—”

Three young cultivators, two boys and one girl, in red robes burst through the bushes. They fell silent, jaws falling open. “Whoa…” one of the boys whispered.

“Stop! Stop looking! Sorry, Seniors, very sorry!” the girl cried, yanking the boys backward.

“Wait, hold on. We could learn—we, er, pointers!” one of the boys stuttered, his eyes running up and down Bai Xue.

“No ‘wait.’ Let’s go, come on!”

The children vanished. Hui put a hand to his forehead. “We’re still in the training zone…”

“We could be elsewhere,” Bai Xue said suggestively.

Hui pushed her away. “Come on, come on. We need to go prepare to be ‘kidnapped’ off to Eight Tiers Palace.”

“Sure. But first… a little fun?” Bai Xue asked, tilting her head.

Hui coughed. “Let’s get off the trial zone first.”

A slow smile spread over Bai Xue’s face. She hummed in satisfaction and led him away, taking to the air once more.