Chapter 41 Romeo and Juliet: "So hard to please!"...

Shu Qing opened her eyes in her sleep, regaining the familiar feeling. Sure enough, she had possessed "A Shu's" body again in her dream. She looked down and saw that her hands and feet were fine, without any injury or pain. It seemed that this time it wasn't A Shu's usual unlucky day.

Well… she glanced into the mirror next to her.

The Ashu in the mirror was no longer the little girl from her previous dream; she had grown into a sixteen or seventeen-year-old girl with downturned lips and a blank expression. She held a pestle in her hand, viciously poking at the bottom of the mortar again and again, crushing the herbs inside into powder, but she didn't stop. It seemed she wasn't trying to grind the herbs, but rather to open up the mortar.

Shu Qing stared intently at the mirror. In her previous dreams, there was no such thing as a mirror; the only one that came close was Jiu Su's eyes in that peach blossom dream.

But at that moment, she was so distracted that she had no interest in seeing herself in his eyes, and even if she had, she wouldn't have been able to see clearly.

This was the first time she had clearly seen Ashu's face.

This is a face that looks almost exactly like hers.

The reason for saying "almost" is that there are still some subtle differences. For example, she is an adult, while Ashu looks like she did in her second year of high school. Ashu's face is slightly thinner than hers, probably because she has been more relaxed lately. Even two days of intense studying were not enough to make her lose weight.

Also, although their eye shapes are similar, her eyes are slightly rounder than Ashu's because Shutong has big eyes, which is hereditary.

However, aside from these minor differences, they are still extremely similar overall. If you could take a picture and show it to someone else, they might even think that it is just a slight change caused by the expression and lighting.

And their expressions of anger were exactly the same—Shu Qing didn't show her anger on her face; when she was unhappy, she would just suppress the corners of her mouth with a blank expression. Someone unfamiliar with her might not even be able to tell she was angry; they might only see that she was very serious.

However, their movements will reveal their weaknesses, such as increasing the force in their hands or speeding up their feet, etc. Just like Ashu is doing now.

With a "bang," Ashu put down the pestle without expression and dumped a bowl of crushed herbs into the small medicine stove with a "thud."

Shu Qing: "..."

What is the reason for this?

She expertly rummaged through Ashu's thoughts, but Ashu was still upset, her mind filled with things like:

"Stinky snake!"

"Dead snake!"

"So hard to coax!"

"It's just this trivial matter!"

A jumble of fragmented thoughts, chaotic and sharp, scattered like the crime scene after she bravely blew up the cell last time.

Shu Qing couldn't piece together the whole story from it all. The only information she could extract was that she was throwing a tantrum at Jiu Su.

Oh wow.

Shu Qing watched with great interest—when Jiu Su was just a pet snake named Xiao Hong, he was incredibly difficult to deal with, and she had to put in a lot of effort to get along with him. Now, who knows what time this is? Judging from the clothes and furnishings, it must be at least several hundred years ago. How difficult must Jiu Su have been back then?

“Sister,” she gave a thumbs-up to her other self, “a pioneer in snake taming!”

At this moment, Ashu lit a fire and began to refine medicine. Refining medicine is different from pounding medicine. If the medicinal materials are crushed a little, it may not affect the medicinal properties, but if the fire is fanned too big, that would probably be a different story.

Ashu stared at the fire under the medicine furnace, her thoughts, which had been scattering everywhere, were forced to cool down, and Shuqing was finally able to piece together some of the cause and effect.

"What do you mean?" Shu Qing could see it, but she didn't understand. She wondered, "What do you mean by 'I just gave Master the Nine-Section Ice Bone Grass'?"

"Isn't it true that whoever is in a hurry should use the medicinal herbs first?" Ashu thought uncontrollably. "Master urgently needs it to restore his meridians, and no one else can use it, so of course I'll prioritize Master's use. What's there to be angry about? Besides, you said you were giving it to me. If I have to use it according to your instructions, how can it be called a gift? You might as well have told me, 'I'll process this for you!'"

Shu Qing understood this time: Jiu Su gave Ashu a precious medicinal herb, but Ashu gave it to her master because of his injury.

There's nothing wrong with how this was handled, but the lack of prior communication is indeed a bit upsetting.

Jiu Su is so petty. She filmed Fa Cai in her first video but not him, and he felt uneasy for a while. If Ashu silently gave the gifts he gave to the elders, he would definitely be unhappy. Judging from Ashu's inner thoughts, there was obviously no prior communication.

Sure enough, Ashu immediately felt a little guilty and thought, "Even if I didn't say it beforehand, it was my fault..."

“But that’s understandable,” Shu Qing thought to herself. “What’s there to argue about? Just talk it out and it’ll be over.”

She judged it to be a trivial matter.

"But he's so hard to appease!" Ashu thought to herself. "We clearly agreed before that no matter what trouble the immortals and the demons had, it wouldn't concern us. Has he forgotten all that we agreed on?"

Shu Qing paused for a moment, then quickly extracted a key piece of information from Ashu's complaint: there was a conflict between the Immortal Capital and the Demon Clan. Given that these were two such powerful forces, it was easy to imagine that the conflict was probably quite significant.

Is there a war going on? Or is it not that serious, just some disputes and friction?

She knew that Ashu was a disciple of the Immortal Capital and was very favored; as for Jiusu... judging from their daily interactions, his status in the demon race must be quite high, and neither of them were dispensable marginal figures.

She thought to herself, "Is this a Romeo and Juliet across races?"

That's no small matter.

Neither side can be said to be making unreasonable demands, so similar incidents may not be uncommon in the future.

As Shu Qing was worrying about their future and lost in thought, the door creaked open and Jiu Su walked in. The young man and woman's eyes met briefly in mid-air before sparks flew and they looked away, and Shu Qing's chaotic thoughts vanished instantly.

"Hmph," she thought, "I've already said all the nice things, don't I have any pride?"

Shu Qing: "..."

This personality is similar to hers; both of them have a temperament that prevents them from being wronged.

She glanced at Jiu Su again. Jiu Su was sitting by the window reading a book. He looked a little younger than she remembered, about the same age as Ashu, with a sharp edge in his eyes. He was dressed entirely in white from head to toe, clean to the point of being aggressive, as if he were ready to mock everything black and gray in the world at any moment.

The two sat in the room, sulking and ignoring each other, occasionally glancing at each other stealthily before looking away again. If their eyes happened to meet, they would immediately feign disdain, snort coldly, and turn their heads away, each displaying the back of their heads, a stark contrast between black and white.

Shu Qing watched and found it a little funny, feeling that they looked like two elementary school kids drawing the Chu River and Han Border on their desks.

"When will these two, who are underage and in a relationship, stop arguing?" she thought aimlessly, her gaze falling on the bed. She was startled to find there was only one bed in the room. "Are they already sleeping together?"

That's not a big deal; the standard of adulthood was different hundreds of years ago. Sixteen or seventeen was considered an adult. But the problem is—she's still residing in Ashu's body, observing coldly, and their five senses are connected. Her current form of cohabitation with Jiu Su is limited to a human and a snake. Is she supposed to observe first...?

Just then, Ashu finished refining the medicine, carefully wrapped up a packet of newly made pills, and walked towards the bed.

Shu Qing almost screamed, "No!"

Fortunately, her worries did not come to pass. Jiu Su closed the book and walked out the door without saying a word, showing no intention of sleeping with Ashu.

Startled by his sudden action, Ashu blurted out, "Hey!"

Jiu Su stopped and glanced back at her. He hadn't yet gotten used to hiding his crimson snake eyes; his scarlet eyes were even more revealing than the light sandalwood eyes that Shu Qing was familiar with. She understood easily: he wanted to wait for Shu Qing to say something more, give him a way out, and he would obediently come back.

However, Ashu didn't see through Jiusu's bluster and was even a little regretful for calling out to him impulsively. She didn't say anything and even gave him a hard glare.

Jiu Su turned around and left.

Shu Qing was caught between laughter and tears.

She suddenly realized that Jiu Su was not an easy person to understand—at least when he was with Qi Yun and Tu Nan, the other two could not tell what he was thinking from his face. Sometimes, they would even come to her for advice in secret for fear of saying the wrong thing and offending her.

She wasn't any better at reading people than they were; at least Qi Yun had met more people in the business world and was better at judging people than she was.

So where did they get their telepathic connection from?

Shu Qing pondered this question in her mind and vaguely came to an answer. Turning back, she began to put herself in Shu Qing's shoes and think about the matter between Ashu and Jiu Su. Romeo and Juliet's love story has no more than three possible endings: either it's better to end it sooner rather than later, which is a bad ending; or it's about having had it all and enjoying the present without caring about the future, which is an excellent ending.

Alternatively, the young couple could unite to solve the problem and mediate the feud between their respective "families"—a highly difficult happy ending.

This is a choice that should have been made long before they were officially in a relationship, but it seems they haven't chosen a path yet.

Shu Qing sighed sadly.

Ashu couldn't understand this otherworldly worry. She angrily climbed onto the windowsill and glared hatefully out the window.

A white shadow flashed outside, and Jiu Su climbed up a big tree in the yard and lay down to sleep on a branch. He even deliberately chose a spot with less dense foliage, facing the window, so that Ashu could see that he was sleeping soundly even while hanging in the tree.

As expected, Ashu slammed the window shut in anger, turned his back, and muttered a curse: "Damn snake!"

Shu Qing: "..."

What a pair of childish fools.