Dao Companion Crippled, Coveters Move

Chapter 219 218: Liyuan Who Gets No Response from Her Dao Companion

Carrying a basket of pastries, Qing Yueqiu arrived nervously at the gate of her Master and Mistress's courtyard.

After making a mistake last night, Qing Yueqiu wanted to do everything she could to make it up to her Master and show her sincerity. After a morning of failed attempts, she had made the first batch of pastries of her life, ready to bring them for her Master to try.

'I hope Master doesn't dislike them... I hope he doesn't think they taste awful.'

Qing Yueqiu took a deep breath and knocked slowly on the gate.

A moment later, the gate opened.

To her disappointment, it wasn't her Master who appeared, but her Mistress, Ye Liyuan.

"Yueqiu, what are you doing here? Here to ask Ah Han for guidance again? Unfortunately, he left early this morning and I have no idea where he went. He's still not back, it's such a headache."

"Master is out..."

There was a hint of disappointment in Qing Yueqiu's voice. After all, the pastries had just been made and were at their best. If her Master was gone for too long, they wouldn't be optimal, even if she kept them warm.

The young woman couldn't help but feel let down. She had spent the entire morning working just so her Master could taste the best batch of pastries she could make.

Ye Liyuan assumed Qing Yueqiu was dejected because Pei Yuhang wasn't around to answer her questions about cultivation.

So, she smiled, rubbed her nose, and volunteered, "If your Master isn't here, you can always ask your Mistress, you know. I'm not the best teacher, but I have my own insights. I can definitely help you."

"No... Mistress, I didn't come to ask Master for guidance... Last night, I made him angry, so I spent the morning making a batch of pastries for him to try."

Qing Yueqiu took out the small bamboo basket, showing the pastries she'd made to Ye Liyuan.

The young woman's face flushed with embarrassment. It was her first time making them, after all, so she had no experience. She had tried to shape the pastries into cute animals like little fish and bears, but they came out of the steamer all crooked and misshapen.

She had painstakingly picked through them, selecting the few that weren't quite so ugly...

Now, being scrutinized by her Mistress, the young woman felt utterly humiliated. She even started to regret taking them out at all.

"Wow, Yueqiu, did you make all of these? They look wonderful~"

Ye Liyuan's surprised and delighted voice took Qing Yueqiu by surprise. She picked up a pastry from the basket and asked, "Can I have one now?"

"Of course you can, Mistress..."

After speaking, Qing Yueqiu waited nervously for her Mistress's verdict.

"Mmm~ They're delicious~"

Ye Liyuan mumbled indistinctly while giving Qing Yueqiu a thumbs-up, affirming the young woman's culinary talent.

'In fact,' she even thought, 'I should have Ah Han get Yueqiu to cook more often. Then the Cold Palace Sword Mansion will have two master chefs to serve me! Heh heh heh~'

But then, a question popped into her mind: why did Qing Yueqiu need to apologize to Ah Han?

'Yueqiu is so well-behaved and sensible, she'd never get into trouble.'

With her bold and straightforward nature, Ye Liyuan spoke her mind directly to Qing Yueqiu. She even took the young woman's hand, asking if Pei Yuhang had deliberately punished her.

"If Ah Han is deliberately bullying you, you have to tell me, okay? I'll teach him a lesson for you!"

As she spoke, Ye Liyuan threw a couple of playful punches into the air.

"No, it's not like that! Master would never bully me on purpose. It's all my fault..."

Qing Yueqiu lowered her head, hesitating over whether to tell her Mistress what had happened last night.

'If Mistress finds out that some shameless woman was making a pass at Master, she'll definitely be furious...'

"Yueqiu, are you hiding something from me? Lowering your head like that is very suspicious, you know~"

Ye Liyuan leaned closer to the young woman's face, her beautiful eyes narrowing as she declared confidently, "Ah Han himself has admitted that I'm a super detective with unparalleled powers of observation. Nothing escapes my sight.

Don't even think about hiding things from your Mistress~"

Under Ye Liyuan's persistent questioning, Qing Yueqiu had no choice but to tell her what happened the previous night.

Upon hearing the story, Ye Liyuan was, as expected, furious, and she cursed Pei Yuhang for being so unfair.

"What? Yueqiu, you helped me drive away a Fox Spirit who was trying to seduce Ah Han, and he punished you for it?!

How dare he! What is Pei Yuhang thinking? Don't tell me he's mad that his own disciple ruined his fun?"

Hearing this, Qing Yueqiu quickly grabbed Ye Liyuan's sleeve and said in a small voice,

"Mistress, please don't speak ill of Master. He only punished me because of my own recklessness and for breaking the rules of public order in Xuanyuan City. It had nothing to do with that woman."

Seeing the fuming Ye Liyuan, the young woman thought, 'This is bad.' This was the exact situation she had feared most: her Mistress, not knowing the full story, would get angry and go confront her Master...

In the end, if her Master thought she was the one stirring up trouble behind the scenes, Qing Yueqiu really didn't know where she would go to cry.

She couldn't bear the thought of her Master wrongly accusing her. Just imagining such a scene made it hard to breathe, and her chest ached with anxiety.

Ye Liyuan shook her head. "No. Even so, Pei Yuhang shouldn't have punished you! Yueqiu, you did the right thing, you shouldn't be treated like this!

You're a good disciple who did a good deed, yet you were scolded and punished by a bad master last night. Then you get up early this morning to personally make pastries to apologize, and in the end, you don't even get to see that bad master's face..."

The more Ye Liyuan spoke, the more she felt it was unfair to Qing Yueqiu. She then recalled how Pei Yuhang had left that morning without so much as a word and still hadn't returned.

The "new and old grudges" piled up, making Ye Liyuan determined to send Pei Yuhang a message with her Transmission Token and demand that he come back and give her an explanation!

"Hmph, who knows what lake Ah Han is fishing by right now. I'm going to make him come back this instant!"

Ignoring Qing Yueqiu's attempts to stop her, Ye Liyuan took out her Transmission Token and sent a message to Pei Yuhang.

...

...

「In the Saintess's bedchamber.」

White clothes and a black skirt embroidered with a bewitching Red Lotus Pattern were scattered across the rug beside the bed.

Amidst the white clothes, a Transmission Token began to emit a jarring BUZZ, shattering the hazy, amorous atmosphere of the bedchamber.

The entangled shadows within the red bed curtains stilled.

The man pulled back the curtain and reached for the ceaselessly vibrating Transmission Token, apparently intending to answer the message.

SWOOSH—

Two strips of bright red silk shot out from behind, gently binding Pei Yuhang's arms and preventing him from reaching the Transmission Token on the floor.

"Honestly, can't you be a little more focused? It's just a message, you can call back later... At least show Miaoyan a little respect~"

A pair of jade-white arms wrapped around Pei Yuhang's neck from behind, and a seductive whisper, as if capable of stealing one's very soul, tickled his ear.

"What if it's Liyuan..."

Before Pei Yuhang could finish, a slender finger pressed against his lips.

Shang Miaoyan cupped Pei Yuhang's face, turning his head to meet her gaze.

Her red lips parted, like a Banshee at sea beginning her song, luring sailors to leap from their ships and be dragged by the whirlpool of desire into the bottomless Abyss.

"Xiaohan, don't worry. It's not so likely~"

"And finally, I hope that for this moment, at least, your eyes are only on me. Don't think about any other women, okay?"

Shang Miaoyan's voice was no longer forceful, but instead held a hint of pleading. She pulled Pei Yuhang back, and with a flick of her slender finger, the parted red curtains closed once more.

Only faint, flickering silhouettes could be seen within.