The man pondered for a moment, then refrained from offering platitudes like "You're a victim too," and instead said quietly, "Maybe... it's just because I find you pleasing to the eye?"
"..."
Seeing Shen Yunhao's bewildered expression, the man smiled slightly and explained, "Sometimes I don't like to follow conventional rules and I value first impressions. In other words... if you were the kind of person I dislike, then the way I chose to handle things today would be completely different from what I'm doing now."
As he spoke, he picked up his coffee cup, which had been empty before, but now he had unknowingly filled it to the brim with steaming hot coffee.
He took a leisurely sip before looking at Shen Yunhao, his tone slightly teasing: "You're not a bad person. The only thing I'm not entirely satisfied with about you since you came in is that you keep calling me 'senior,' making me sound like some old monster... If I really liked putting on airs, I wouldn't have let you see my face, nor would I be sitting here offering you coffee, understand?"
Shen Yunhao pursed his lips, feeling conflicted.
Not call him "senior"? Are we really supposed to listen to him and call him "Brother Liuyue"?
In the context of 21st-century memory, this is perfectly fine, even quite natural.
But on the Tianji Continent, calling someone who can be on friendly terms with the Demon Emperor and whose cultivation is unfathomable "Big Brother" seems rather strange...
Thinking about this, he felt his mind was in complete chaos, with two completely different worldviews colliding in his mind, making it impossible for him to distinguish between them.
Just then, the living room door was suddenly pushed open from the outside.
Dressed in a black robe, Ye Wushang, with his usual indifferent expression, slowly stepped into the modern-style living room.
"Wu Shang? You've come at the perfect time."
Upon seeing him, the man smiled, stood up, and conjured up another cup of coffee out of thin air, handing it to him. "Here, try it. It's a new flavor I just developed."
Ye Wushang took it expressionlessly, without even looking at it, and took a sip.
He held the cup in silence for a long while, and just when Shen Yunhao thought he wouldn't comment, he woodenly uttered two words: "Delicious."
The man rolled his eyes and said irritably, "Waited so long and all you said was two words? Boring, boring... Alright, alright, I've said everything I needed to say to this kid. Take him out, I need to go prepare for Xiaoyu's duo queue..."
Shen Yunhao: "..."
Ye Wushang nodded and was about to turn around when he seemed to suddenly remember something. He turned back to the man and asked in his flat tone, "Xiao Qi, do you know about Xiao Ruo's matter?"
"Um?"
Liu Yueqi, who was about to leave, stopped in his tracks, a puzzled look on his face. "What? Has this girl... gotten into trouble again? Did she sneak out to cause trouble again?"
Shen Yunhao, standing to the side, was also stunned for a moment. He suddenly recalled Bai Xiaoruo's unusual behavior before he came over—she was hesitant and reluctant to speak, repeatedly urging him to "behave well"...
"Plop..."
He couldn't help but swallow hard, a very ominous premonition welling up inside him.
Bai Xiaoruo always referred to Ye Wushang as "Uncle," which clearly indicates that Bai Xiaoruo, the nine-tailed fox, is Ye Wushang's brother or friend...
Adding to that Ye Wushang's sudden question at this moment...
He stiffly turned his neck to look at the man named Liu Yueqi, and an incredibly absurd yet incredibly accurate thought instantly formed in his mind!
Just as Shen Yunhao's scalp tingled and he dared not think any further, Ye Wushang glanced at the bewildered Liu Yueqi, then at the ashen-faced Shen Yunhao, realizing that the two hadn't seemed to be discussing Bai Xiaoruo, and said in his usual tone:
"Xiao Ruo... may have secretly pledged her life to this boy."
"puff--!"
Liu Yueqi spat out all the coffee he had just drunk!
He coughed violently, his face filled with shock and disbelief, his eyes wide as he looked at Ye Wushang, then abruptly turned to Shen Yunhao:
"What?! What did you just say? Wu Shang, say it again?"
"I said, Xiaoruo might..."
"Cough cough cough! Cough cough!"
It's unclear where Shen Yunhao got the courage, perhaps it was a sudden surge of survival instinct. He hurriedly spoke up, forcefully interrupting Ye Wushang, his voice trembling with anxiety: "Um... um! Senior! It's a misunderstanding! It's definitely a misunderstanding! Xiaoruo and I... we... we haven't reached the stage Senior Wushang mentioned! We've only... we've only had some... some interest in each other... we're still in the initial contact stage!"
"..."
The entire living room fell into a deathly silence.
Liu Yueqi's expression changed visibly from shock to blankness, and then from blankness to an extremely complex and indescribable strange look.
The look in his eyes when he looked at Shen Yunhao was no longer gentle and appreciative. It was as if the other person had suddenly fallen from an old brother he met in a foreign land to a thief who was so audacious as to steal his family's heirloom!
To put it bluntly... this is how fathers-in-law view their sons-in-law.
Shen Yunhao could only lower his head at this moment, wishing he could find a crack in the ground to crawl into.
He is now extremely grateful that he didn't call out "Big Brother".
Otherwise, that would be too damn embarrassing!
The atmosphere remained stiff and frozen for a long while.
Liu Yueqi took a deep breath, her mouth opening and closing repeatedly, as if she were using immense strength to suppress some kind of impulse. But in the end, she couldn't hold back any longer, pointing at Shen Yunhao's nose and bursting into a tirade:
"I'm so fucking done to you! I treated you like a buddy, and you actually want to call me your dad?!"
...
Shen Yunhao walked out of the Xuanming Palace dejectedly. His back looked somewhat exhausted from surviving a disaster, mixed with... an indescribable embarrassment.
Bai Xiaoruo, who had been waiting anxiously at the palace gate for a long time, suddenly jumped up and rushed to Shen Yunhao in a few steps. Her big eyes widened as she grabbed his sleeve and asked repeatedly, "How is it! He... he didn't make things difficult for you, did he?"
Shen Yunhao glanced at her listlessly, sighed deeply, and continued to move forward without saying a word, like a wandering soul.
Upon seeing this, Bai Xiaoruo felt a sudden panic.
She was well aware that Shen Yunhao was going in to meet her mysterious father. Could it be... could it be that Liu Yueqi said something unpleasant to him?
"Hey! Stop sighing! You're driving me crazy! Tell me what happened!"
Seeing that Shen Yunhao remained silent, Bai Xiaoruo was both anxious and angry. She simply ran to the middle of the road, put her hands on her hips, and angrily blocked his way. "Did that old man bully you? Tell me, and I... I'll go find him and settle the score right now!"
"..."
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