The following days passed much the same. In the morning, Wen Zhihao would wave to Sun Fuyu who headed off to work, and every evening he would welcome Sun Fuyu back home.
Wen Zhihao soon obtained his custom-ordered wooden cart. With padded blankets on the floor of the cart, levitating charms stuck mostly symmetrically on the wood, and ropes haphazardly tied to his flying sword, he took the children and teenagers to the nearby town to enrol them in the free school that Old Third, the brush maker, had set up.
From then on, after breakfast, he would take them to class, and at lunchtime, he'd take them home to eat and have afternoon naps.
One such morning, Wen Zhihao was returning to Liu Zhongmin’s courtyards after the morning school run when Cultivator Hu Jingyan waved him over.
“Disciple Wen, Cultivator Cheng Yahui has been looking for you. They’re currently having tea with Cultivator Huang Jialing by the enclosures,” she said, her brows rising slightly at the cart-and-sword contraption. She had been away the last few days, so this was the first time she had seen it. Poor sword! Her own sword vibrated slightly in agreement.
“Thank you for informing me, Senior Hu,” Wen Zhihao replied. Since it was inconvenient for him to frequently tie and untie his flying sword from the cart, he simply stood on the sword and flew to the demonic beasts’ enclosure with the cart pulled along behind him.
From the air, Wen Zhihao spotted Huang Jialing and Cheng Yahui having tea out in one of the building’s courtyards. The two of them were seated around a square stone table.
They, being of higher cultivation, also spotted him.
“Come down,” Huang Jialing motioned.
So Wen Zhihao had to carefully navigate down and land his vehicle on the widest patch of pavement. He had the feeling of a suburban parent driving a large four-wheel drive down narrow city streets.
“Senior Huang, Senior Cheng,” he greeted them.
“Take a seat,” Huang Jialing motioned to the stone chair next to her.
Wen Zhihao sat down politely.
“Almost a senior yourself,” Cheng Yahui said, a tone of amusement in their voice.
“Thank you,” Wen Zhihao said politely, albeit confusedly. Wasn’t he just still at Late-Stage Golden Core? (He wasn’t.) He was still two whole stages away from Nascent Soul (he wasn’t), and everyone knew it became exponentially more difficult to level up, just like in online MMORPGs.
Pushing that confusion aside, Wen Zhihao asked, “How can I help you?”
Huang Jialing turned to Cheng Yahui.
Cheng Yahui sipped their tea. “I would like to purchase another heart-soothing treasure—I mean, a calming stone.”
“No need to purchase,” Wen Zhihao immediately said. He pulled out the random things he had in his spatial ring: “Here, you can have a few more calming stones. You really paid too much last time. Do you want some talismans too?”
“Disciple Wen, you should not underprice yourself,” Cheng Yahui said seriously.
“However, the materials are free,” Wen Zhihao said truthfully. “The stones are from the forest and the qi is from the sun.” While he knew that most workers were underpaid in major economic systems, in this matter, it was no problem for him to give these things away to Cheng Yahui. “Not to mention all your help in the past few weeks, I really can’t thank you enough,” he added.
“Don’t you have a Dao Companion?” Huang Jialing asked mildly. “Disciple Sun’s sword is only suitable for Early-Stage Golden Core cultivators at most. While I am not a sword-cultivator myself, I understand that sword enhancements can be quite expensive, let alone the purchase of an entirely new magical weapon.”
Wen Zhihao’s eyes widened slightly. Saving money for Sun Fuyu was a great idea! And Sun Fuyu must have spent a lot of spiritual stones to buy Wen Zhihao his new spatial ring. Wouldn’t it be nice if Wen Zhihao could give him a gift in return?
But then he narrowed his eyes slightly at Huang Jialing. Her words were too obvious. “You don’t have a friend who upgrades swords, do you?”
“I’m merely repaying the favour after you suggested I go swimming with my girlfriend, don’t think too hard, Disciple Wen,” Huang Jialing replied drily.
“Then thank you for the suggestion.” Wen Zhihao turned to Cheng Yahui. “Then, if you really want to pay, how about one low-grade spiritual stone?”
Huang Jialing sighed with exasperation, while Cheng Yahui laughed.
“Accept the payment and don’t return it,” Cheng Yahui said, handing over a high-grade spiritual stone. While they could see that the final process of infusing the heart-soothing qi was simple for Wen Zhihao, that was only possible because Wen Zhihao had somehow crafted his own aura to be heart-soothing.
“No, this is too much,” Wen Zhihao resisted.
“Don’t be polite, accept it,” Cheng Yahui said. “Aiya, if I weren’t having tea with Huang Jialing, I would leave the payment here and walk away.”
“Like you did last time?”
Cheng Yahui’s eyes curved. “En, like last time.”
“Okay, then I’ll accept it,” Wen Zhihao said helplessly, putting away the high-grade spiritual stone. “But you have to take some more calming stones then, don’t be polite.” He moved the pile of stones and stack of talismans towards Cheng Yahui.
And then he stood up and took a step back from the table. “And now I’ll walk away so you have to accept it.”
Cheng Yahui laughed. “We’ll see about this next time,” they said with a twinkle in their eye.
Wen Zhihao bowed. “Have a good day, Seniors.” He jumped onto his patiently hovering sword and he and the cart lifted up and out of the courtyard.
Cheng Yahui’s voice drifted up. “Oh, these are even more powerful than before! Aiya, I should have given him more high-grade spiritual stones...Jialing, these talismans look like the ones you showed me before with the unusual handwriting…”
“Unusual is an interesting way to describe it…”
But Wen Zhihao wasn’t listening to their conversation, because he had noticed something familiar again.
That Lin Yijun-shaped hole in the qi fabric of his surroundings.
Still following him. Would he not go away until he saw Zhou Sheng again?
Right now, Wen Zhihao didn’t have Sun Fuyu around. He didn’t have children to look after. It was time for him to stop procrastinating and drag Lin Yijun into the 100% effective cat therapy.
Wen Zhihao flew towards a rooftop overlooking the demonic cats’ enclosures where Lin Yijun was standing. He couldn’t actually see Lin Yijun, but he was still able to move the sword and cart to hover in front of him.
What was the best way to entice Lin Yijun…
“Respectfully speaking, if Senior Cultivator Lin wants to speak to Zhou Sheng, come with me first.”
Then he looked at where Lin Yijun’s eyes should be.
After a long moment, the invisibility over Lin Yijun faded away, leaving behind a scowling face.
“Disciple Wen, what do you want?” Lin Yijun glared at him with red angry eyes and curled fists.
Wen Zhihao’s eyes softened towards this tempestuous young cultivator. “Senior Lin, you are approaching qi deviation.” His own qi spread out, brushing over Lin Yijun’s sharp and jagged qi. “Senior Lin, take a deep breath, now hold, now release it…”
Lin Yijun’s fists tightened as he felt Wen Zhihao trying to suppress him.
“Take a deep breath, release it…Feel the warm sun, listen to the rustling of the leaves...”
Lin Yijun didn’t want to listen. As a Nascent Soul cultivator, he could block the lesser qi. The annoying thing though was that he, as a Nascent Soul cultivator, was constantly absorbing ambient qi, but a lot of the ambient qi had a touch of Wen Zhihao’s aura! And the fringes of his qi aura started to copy Wen Zhihao! Lin Yijun clamped down on the misbehaving qi, hard. He didn’t realise that it made his qi even more rebellious.
Wen Zhihao’s lips pursed. Aiya, how to deal with this kind of protagonist? He certainly didn’t want to get into a fight. And while shouting at children felt good, it wasn’t actually productive towards their upbringing.
So Wen Zhihao’s voice softened. “Lin-shixiong, are you alright? Is there anything you want to talk about? Tell me what is wrong. I will listen.”
Something unfamiliar got stuck in Lin Yijun’s throat. “Don’t ask such meaningless things!”
“Lin-shixiong, it is natural for one to worry about others,” Wen Zhihao said. “It’s not meaningless to ask. Lin-shixiong, your qi is clearly not well. Come here, I can give you something to eat. It’s also very soft to sit in the cart.”
Lin Yijun looked away. Stop it! Stop that!
“Oh, I have this food box,” Wen Zhihao added, taking out a food box. “It’s filled with some of Zhou Sheng’s favourite foods. Maybe you’ll like to try them out too? This way, perhaps you can understand Zhou Sheng better...”
Lin Yijun tensed. He looked sidelong at Wen Zhihao. “...Give me that.”
“You can only eat it while on the cart.”
Teeth gritted. Lin Yijun exhaled shortly. “Will I get to see Zhou Sheng?”
“Yes,” Wen Zhihao said naturally.
“...I’m not getting into your contraption. I’ll follow you on my own sword,” Lin Yijun said.
“I understand that your own sword feels safer,” Wen Zhihao agreed. He slowly moved away from the rooftop and down towards the demonic cats’ enclosure, holding the food box in his hand.
Lin Yijun followed grudgingly. Tch, this is all so that I can figure out why Zhou Sheng likes him more than me…
Wen Zhihao landed outside, put his sword and cart into his spatial ring, and opened the gate to the enclosure for the big cats.
“Don’t be afraid, Lin-shixiong, even the mortal children can play with them.”
Lin Yijun snorted. He lifted his chin and walked in first.
Wen Zhihao followed him in. A large furry white cat immediately padded over, rubbing against Wen Zhihao. The cat purred happily as Wen Zhihao stroked her.
“After you put away your sword and hug this lovely cat, I’ll give you this food box with Zhou Sheng’s favourite foods.”
Easy, Lin Yijun thought. Under Wen Zhihao’s instruction, the demonic beast approached him and waited obediently. Lin Yijun reached out and copied Wen Zhihao’s previous action. The fur was surprisingly soft, not like the stiff fur of other beasts—
“—Achoo!”
Lin Yjiun gritted his teeth in embarrassment. He slowed his breathing, but his body still betrayed him, “Achoo achoo achoo!!”
Wen Zhihao was dumbfounded. Lin Yijun was...allergic to cats?!!!
This chapter is a little longer compared to the previous one, but I wanted to show you all that last line 🤭🤭🤭🤭 I've been sitting on it for a while...
Link: Raising kids without yelling at them. Actually, I wasn't thinking about this article when I wrote this, but I remembered the article in retrospect.
Fanart time! 🥰🥰🥰
From minniemousez, we have
And from VIS we have A nice day to go on a date and pet a cat
💡I should make a fanart page or something 🤔
Also, questions for my lovely readers~
- Do you have original English BL webnovel recommendations? No promises whether I’ll read them or not, but I’m interested in seeing whether there are some great authors that I’ve missed due to my selective reading conditions (basically, fluff 🙈)
- What makes you read original English BL? (Or, what stops you from reading other original English BL?)
WZ talking like he's a million years old and definitly not of a lower cultivation than LY is so contradictory for me, who's used to wisdom being directly proportional to cultivation in wuxia novels.
🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭 that's the point 🤣🤣 Wen Zhihao acts like an old man sometimes, even though he's younger 🤣🤣
Oh boy... being allergic to cats certainly puts the 100% cat therapy effectiveness rate in danger... well this is a start and let’s see how this goes
🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭 yep, this is one of the biggest challenges Wen Zhihao has ever faced!!
Been piling up and reading. Every chapter is as good as always. I really wish I could get one of those WZ stones for my anxiety...
Speaking of BL, I don't really read English BL, mostly cause I read for the plot, characters being gay is just an add on for me.
Finding BL like yours that has a plot regardless of the romance and that's in English is kinda difficult.
Not to talk of how heteronormative, sexist and homophobic some English and Chinese BL stories are written to the point it starts to feel like a female SI in a man's body who's only gay for you (the overly masculine ML without a hint of 'feminity' who's always the top)
One of Wen Zhihao's stones would really be so helpful 🥺 *sends virtual hug to Hande*
Thank you so much for your answer! I'm glad you like the plot in Salted Fish! 🥰🥰🥰
ugh, I agree with you that there is a lot of heteronormative and sexist and homophobic stuff in Chinese BL and English BL (╯ಠ‿ಠ)╯︵┻━┻ Having it as a realistic thing that happens, sure. Having it because it's clear the author doesn't know better and actually holds those views, nope...
Not to talk of how heteronormative, sexist and homophobic some English and Chinese BL stories are written to the point it starts to feel like a female SI in a man's body who's only gay for you (the overly masculine ML without a hint of 'feminity' who's always the top)
*gets certain type of Chinese BL flashbacks*
"wife" — ML always taller and stronger than MC — ML's inhuman s*x drive and need to do MC until he faints or begs for mercy (or more like until he begs for mercy but the ML continues until he faints); either way his waist will hurt and there's no question about it — MC oftentimes needs ML to solve his own problems — most is dubcon or explicit noncon — MC says sth the ML doesn't like, ML is like "Oh? Let me just threaten you with s*x real quick", MC gets cold sweat and backs down (this one I see in summaries a lot. Like excuse me wtf XDDD) — MC gets compared to a small animal a lot, e.g. a cat or kitten — ML freely and frequently manipulates and teases MC and crosses his boundaries — MC and ML have a power/status gap and it shows in their relationship dynamics — MC says or does sth the ML doesn't like, ML is like "Oh? I didn't like that... so let me just do you real quick.... sike! There will be nothing quick about it. Except for preparation cause I'm not doing that, and I'm not using lube either" (hour of silence for all the unused lube and fingers
) — ML is a vinegar tank and acts like he owns MC — MC is either a baby smelling of milk, a shy and nice youth or a seductive beauty ... perhaps even all 3 — "sister-in-law", "Madam" — .....
*snaps back to reality and shudders* >_>
And let's not even talk about the omegaverse/beastman/ger stories
@Loni4ever Exactly! You've said it all!
I have read hundreds of BL, and it's only story here on scribble hub in which the words like wife, mistress was considered as gender neutral!
In other BL, those words are use to tell people who's the 'woman' on the relationship, i.e the bottom. Not only is it sexist to say that only women are under men, it is also homophobic to imply that men who do shouldn't be considered men.
I don't understand why it's so hard to find healthy decent BL???? Or GL in which the characters didn't have a cheating boyfriend previously...( Thus implies that there are no lesbians just straight women playing around).
I will have to end my rant here because I'll never stop if I don't.
@bafflinghaze Therein lies the problem. A lot of this authors write from ignorance and bigotry.
There's a tag Manly gay couple... Come on! You'd never see a "completely straight couple" tag for Pete's sake!
It's bad, the worst part of all this is that decent healthy LGBT+ stories are hard to find. As far as Chinese novels go. Don't even get me started on Yuri!
All I want to see stories in which the main protagonist isn't always 100% straight and white. How nice would it be to have a protagonist of a shounen like Solo Leveling be gay? Or Violet Ever garden be lesbian?
Why can't I simply read stories in which LGBT people are just people, albeit extraordinary characters?
*Forcefully ending rant, collecting your virtual hug*
That being said, if you have any GL recommendations, I'm game.
@Hande I'm not so good with GL recommendations, I really fail at reading them
I imagine that as time passes, we will have more stories where the main protag just happens to be gay ^_^ In fact, I'm sure that these stories exist, except I'm still reading primarily romance so I don't know any off the top of my head either
@Loni4ever Yikes. Now I know why I never wander off the power couple tag. It has some of the BS you cited but MC has a personality and s*x drive!
@Draposible I also love power couples :DDD there are a lot of great stories that don't fit the tag though. Personally, I'm fine no matter how strong the leads are as long as their relationship dynamic is equal and one isn't constantly saving the other. Also, one day I'd like to read a story where the leads are both weak af, but somehow still manage to live a good life together
@Loni4ever I would really like to find stories with OP MC where the ML is a normal dude or a weak guy. Because each time in OP MC novels, the ML somehow manages to be even more OP! What! I want a showy MC, what are you taking the spotlight for! But it's hard to find, I only found one BL like that until now...
@Draposible what, you actually found one?? What's it called? OwO
And yeah, I'd like more of that too. But then again, I'm pretty sure that in a way, it's harder to make the story interesting like that; at least for stories where the plot centers around people making stuff happening with their power. We like to read about someone who faces challenges but eventually overcomes them, and if the ML is weaker than the MC and would have to face more danger, there are several things that can happen: 1. the ML for some reason is completely removed from the plot parts involving danger - which may lead to the story flowing less well and the relationship being less developed in the story because the leads don't have facing dangers in common and can't interact around that; 2. the ML is involved but has to be protected by the MC - the struggle and danger the weak ML should be facing is handed over to MC, making the story potentially more interesting because we get to see the MC facing challenges but also, a pure protector-ward-relationship without occasional changes can get annoying in a story centered around power and might be harder to do well for the author; 3. ML faces his own dangers and handles them well but is still much weaker than OP MC - similar point to the first one, if ML does his own thing and MC is playing in a whole other field a couple of levels above, they can't interact meaningfully around it. Or is my imagination too limited? Lol xD also, if the ML struggles more than the MC, and in case the MC is basically living a smooth life, doesn't that make the ML's life story more interesting to read? At this point he should maybe be the MC
@Loni4ever that's true, especially in cultivation stories. But in modern stories, it's not necessary. In Even the Lames are Tricked by Me, the ML is a stoic, cold but sweet to MC and very impressive company president. And the reason he interacts with MC is because of MC's classmate and stuff. But ML also has a purple aura that makes him an emperor and what not and is thus super powerful even against ghosts and the metaphysic... and that is useful to MC who can use him as a purple aura provider and he's still very contrasted to MC's kind of powerful but still, it seemed overinflated to me. There are many ways for the two to meet and interact even if ML was no good in metaphysics. Also in entertainment novels, ML could be MC's manager or a star of his own level so they could encourage each other to climb up or even a film editor, instead of ML being the film emperor.
In "I ran away when i was forced into a love polygon", MC is very OP and ML is a normal human, but the romance is very slowburn, subplot and only gets realised at the very end.
In "The show must go on", which i haven't read yet, MC is one of these "became the villain" MC's but his love interest isn't the protagonist and seems less powerful.
@Draposible I have seen stronger MC's (sometimes) if it's written as seme protagonist, like Accidental Mark or High Energy QR Code (both recs from me~)
@bafflinghaze right, Beloved husband also has a seme protagonist who is stronger than ML (who is crazy strong too) but it's annoying that MC has to be the seme to be stronger than ML, it really doesn't change the dynamics.