Ordinary Night

As her divine soul returned to her body, the rich, enticing aroma of food instantly assailed her nostrils.

‘So fragrant… is this Shangguan Yunzhu’s cooking?’

The ears on Lu Qiancha’s head perked up alertly, catching the light clinking of dishes coming from the direction of the kitchen.

A moment later, footsteps approached from afar, and Shangguan Yunzhu placed several exquisite side dishes on the simple wooden table.

“Dinner is served, Little Qiancha.”

Her voice was light and cheerful as she called out to the small blue figure still “facing the wall” in the corner.

“Don’t call me Little Qiancha, I’m not little. Call me Senior Brother!”

Lu Qiancha instinctively bristled and turned her head, her little face puffed up.

“Yes, yes, I know, Senior Brother Qiancha.”

Shangguan Yunzhu’s eyes held a smile, her tone filled with doting compliance, but the actions of her hands were unambiguous.

A small wooden spoon filled with food was already precisely delivered to Lu Qiancha’s lips.

“Ah, open up—”

“I have my own hands… paws!”

Lu Qiancha turned her head away in anger, protesting, “I don’t need to be fed! Stop treating me like a child.”

“Mhm, mhm, I understand,”

Shangguan Yunzhu nodded repeatedly, her eyes sincere.

“I’m definitely not treating Senior Brother Qiancha like a child.”

Her smiling expression, however, clearly spelled out four big words: ‘actions speak louder than words.’

“Nghh…”

Faced with this extremely gentle yet utterly perfunctory “respect,” Lu Qiancha squeezed out a whimper that was a mixture of anger and helplessness.

She had no choice but to sit down in resignation, holding the wooden bowl with both paws and drinking the soup with loud gulps.

“So, Senior Brother, why did you come to this Peach Blossom Spring anyway?”

Shangguan Yunzhu rested her chin on one hand, her amber eyes filled with pure curiosity.

“Could it be… you really just snuck out to play?”

“How is that possible! You actually believe that kind of reason? I’m not a child.”

Lu Qiancha nearly choked on her soup and put down her bowl in a fit of pique.

“Then why did you come?”

Shangguan Yunzhu tilted her head and pressed on.

Lu Qiancha grumpily scooped up a large spoonful of meat soup.

“I accepted a sect mission to investigate a group of missing people and followed the clues here.”

She finished the soup with a few gulps, then slumped her small, miserable face onto the table, her entire body exuding an air of listless despair.

“So… did you find the people?”

“I found them,” Lu Qiancha said, propping up her cheek, her face full of frustration.

“But every single one of them is so happy here they’ve forgotten all about going back, and they’re refusing to leave! Am I supposed to knock them all out one by one, tie them up like dumplings, and throw them back to Jiangling City?”

With that, she resentfully licked the grease from her lips, her slightly bulging tummy pressing against the table through her clothes, looking exactly like a little wolf that was too full and lazy to move.

“That is indeed a tricky situation…”

Shangguan Yunzhu nodded in deep sympathy.

After the meal, just as Shangguan Yunzhu was about to get up and clear the dishes, she saw the small blue figure had already skillfully hopped off the chair.

Its paws stacked the dishes with great familiarity, and with a few pat, pat, pat steps, it carried them steadily into the kitchen.

“Hm?”

Sensing the probing gaze from behind, Lu Qiancha turned her head in confusion.

“What are you looking at me for?”

“It’s just… very surprising.”

A light danced in Shangguan Yunzhu’s eyes.

“I didn’t expect that Senior Brother would be so… adept at these trivial household chores.”

“I have no choice,” Lu Qiancha subconsciously rolled up her sleeves (though she had no sleeves), opened the water bucket, her tone tinged with a hint of helplessness.

“My master is busy trying to attain immortality, and when my junior sister joined the sect… she was a whole size smaller than I am now. So the burden of running the household fell on me, didn’t it?”

“Who wouldn’t want to be a hands-off manager and just lie flat? To put it bluntly, it’s all because life forced me to.”

“Waah—!”

Shangguan Yunzhu’s eyes instantly lit up like little stars.

She pounced, hugging the slender body tightly in her arms, her cheek rubbing excitedly against her soft, tender face.

“You’re such a good, responsible child!!”

“Hey, hey! Shangguan Yunzhu! Let go! Stop rubbing!”

Lu Qiancha felt like a piece of jelly being repeatedly kneaded, her voice going off-key.

“Why did you stop calling me Sister Yunzhu?”

Shangguan Yunzhu finally stopped, pouting slightly, her amber eyes looking at her with a watery gaze, a hint of grievance at being “demoted.”

“I! Am! Older! Than! You!”

Lu Qiancha enunciated each word, her head feeling as big as a bushel.

“But Qianqian was calling me so sweetly before? ‘Sister Yunzhu’~ ‘Sister Yunzhu’~”

Shangguan Yunzhu dragged out her words in imitation, her expression innocent yet insistent.

“…That was for the role!”

Lu Qiancha’s mouth twitched.

She had to pretend to be a child back then.

“Then can’t you play the role now too?”

Shangguan Yunzhu pressed her advantage, acting coquettishly, resting her chin between Lu Qiancha’s two fluffy, pointed ears.

Hoo~~

A warm breath brushed unimpeded across the sensitive inner part of her ear.

“Guu~”

A strong, tingling sensation exploded like an electric current.

Lu Qiancha’s entire body jolted, and she instantly leaped back half a step.

She stuck out a paw and smacked it against Shangguan Yunzhu’s face, trying to push away that overly close, mischievous smiling face.
“I! Re! Fuse!”

“Oh…”

Shangguan Yunzhu, having been pushed away, was left with a rather noticeable paw print on her face.

The disappointment in her eyes vanished in a flash, and she immediately perked up, her eyes shining as she suggested, “Since you’re older than me, then how about I call you… Sister Qiancha?”

“…No.”

Lu Qiancha rested a paw on her forehead and looked at Shangguan Yunzhu with a weary expression.

“As I recall, you’re the sect’s publicly acknowledged ice beauty, aren’t you? Please don’t ruin your own image, okay?”

“Where am I an ice beauty!”

Shangguan Yunzhu immediately retorted as if her tail had been stepped on, her tone filled with an aggrieved accusation.

“Master and Mistress only care about whether I’ve become successful, urging me to cultivate all day long, and only allowing me to ask questions when I don’t understand. As for that guy Qingfeng…”

She curled her lip, her face full of disgust.

“He’s two-faced, and we have nothing to talk about! Other than putting on a cold face to make him stop bothering me, what else could I do?”

Hearing her words, Lu Qiancha’s mouth twitched involuntarily.

She had felt that this ice beauty was a bit of a fake before, but it turned out there was this backstory.

Too lazy to argue with this ice beauty any longer, Lu Qiancha turned around, leaving her with a view of a fluffy, big-tailed back, and buried her head in washing the remaining dishes in the water bucket.

Seeing Lu Qiancha busy, Shangguan Yunzhu naturally couldn’t stay idle and went over to help her wash the dishes in the bucket.

Shangguan Yunzhu, naturally unable to stay idle, immediately went over, rolled up her sleeves, and started to help.

The two of them worked in silent, tacit cooperation.

After they finished cleaning, just as Lu Qiancha was moving toward her meditation cushion—

Whoosh!

A pair of jade-like hands shot out like lightning again.

They scooped her up steadily and carried her back to that small, warm bed.

“Ngh…”

Lu Qiancha was placed on the soft bedding, her little paws pawing symbolically in the air a couple of times as she issued a threat.

“If you pull a sneak attack like this again next time… I-I’ll really scratch you.”

“Pfft~”

Shangguan Yunzhu couldn’t help but chuckle, tapping Lu Qiancha’s nose with her fingertip.

“Then next time I hug you, I’ll give you a heads-up first.”

“No!” Lu Qiancha said decisively.

“No hugging! And I don’t need a heads-up! I’m not a little pet you can just hug whenever you want!”

“Mhm, mhm, mhm, I’ll listen to whatever Senior Brother says.”

Shangguan Yunzhu nodded like a pecking chicken, giving Lu Qiancha a very serious, perfunctory response.

With that, she wrapped her arms around Lu Qiancha’s body again and helped her change into her nightgown.

Lu Qiancha struggled futilely a few more times, but in the end, she resignedly gave up her resistance, hugged her tail tightly, and curled herself into a warm, blue furball.

“…Hmph, I’m ignoring you. I’m going to sleep,” she huffed and closed her eyes, declaring a truce.

“Mhm, mhm, go to sleep,”

Shangguan Yunzhu chuckled softly, her fingertips lovingly stroking that rebellious tuft of hair, her voice as gentle as water.

“Goodnight… Little Qiancha…”

“I told you not to call me Little Qiancha!”

Lu Qiancha’s protest gradually became muffled in the warm, dark embrace…

…………

In the end, amidst all this chaotic yet strangely comforting roughhousing, the little wolf cub’s breathing evened out, and she sank completely into a deep game of chess with the Duke of Zhou.

(TL note: The Idiom: In modern Chinese, “meeting the Duke of Zhou” (见周公 – jiàn Zhōu Gōng) or “dreaming of the Duke of Zhou” (梦周公 – mèng Zhōu Gōng) is a very common and elegant euphemism for going to sleep or dreaming.)