My Gentle and Pure Sect Leader Husband - Chapter 51

After leaving the horse carriage that was pushed out of the pit to the three little ones, the adults had to use their lightness skill to rush to the nearest post station.

But the nearest post station wasn’t large and could only sell two horses.

Wang Lianhua gracefully stood next to one of them, reaching out to stroke the horse’s mane, and whispered, “Good child.”

The horses at the post station were all very docile, and even those that weren’t docile wouldn’t have stubborn temperaments in front of Wang Lianhua—animals often had better self-preservation instincts than humans.

Yu Luocha saw Yan Hongyin walk toward the other horse and stood in place, lowering his eyes in thought.

Yan Hongyin’s horse had a slightly darker coat, very similar to the one she kept in the capital. With a tap of her heel, the tall horse trotted over to Yu Luocha. Sitting upright on the horse, Yan Hongyin looked down and asked him, “What are you thinking about?”

Yu Luocha paused, then sincerely said, “I’m considering the possibility of using lightness skill to travel to Luoyang.”

Yan Hongyin could see Yu Luocha’s discomfort. Yu Luocha was accustomed to acting coquettish and weak in front of Yan Hongyin, but once Wang Lianhua was nearby, that competitive nature between men would unconsciously begin to emerge.

Of course, it wasn’t the kind of competition between romantic rivals, but more like a young man trying to prove to an overprotective father-in-law that he was indeed a worthy partner.

Beside them, Wang Lianhua had already somehow collapsed laughing on his horse’s back, and even in this state, he didn’t forget to direct his eyes, full of amusement, toward them.

Yu Luocha looked at Yan Hongyin with an aggrieved expression.

Yan Hongyin’s heart softened for a moment, but…

“You promise your riding skills aren’t a problem, right?” she asked.

Yu Luocha’s eyes brightened, his amber eyes containing sugar sweeter than the baked sweet potatoes from that night. “I promise it will be steadier than the tallest camel in the desert!”

Yan Hongyin raised her eyebrows, released the reins, placed her palm on the saddle, shifted backward, and made a gesture of invitation.

As Yu Luocha mounted the horse, he didn’t forget to steal a quick kiss on Yan Hongyin’s cheek in front of Wang Lianhua, causing Wang Lianhua to tighten his grip on the reins, making the poor horse neigh in response.

Yu Luocha very solemnly placed Yan Hongyin’s hand on his waist, and said seriously, “Wife, do we need to go quickly or slowly?”

It had been many years since Yan Hongyin had sat on someone else’s horse like this, entrusting the reins to another person.

She felt somewhat uncomfortable and pressed her lips together, saying softly, “Just about the same pace as those three little ones is fine.”

The fatherly figure rode over with a stern face and asked Yan Hongyin, “Do you want to come over to my horse instead?”

Yu Luocha immediately became alert, squeezed his legs against the horse’s belly, and rode away with Yan Hongyin.

Wang Lianhua snorted, applied pressure with his palm, and closely followed them.

Yan Hongyin let out a sigh of relief.

In fact, she still hadn’t called Wang Lianhua “father” until now.

…It wasn’t that she didn’t want to acknowledge him or had any grudges. She had no complaints or dissatisfaction with this father and didn’t reject his closeness or when elders referred to him as “your father,” but when it came to herself, even the simplest of titles was something she couldn’t bring herself to say.

Yu Luocha’s voice drifted to her ears with the wind. “He won’t mind, after all, you’ve only met him for less than a month.”

Yan Hongyin also understood what Yu Luocha meant, but…

She frowned with concern.

When those emerald green eyes of this undeniably beautiful father revealed disappointment, there was a fragile vulnerability that was truly pitiful.

No wonder her mother had written in her letter—after experiencing a gorgeous young master like Wang Lianhua, looking at most men in the world would never appeal to her again.

…..

Yu Luocha’s secret guards and the messenger birds Yan Hongyin had sent were following behind the three little ones. Evidently, the three little ones had some other small ideas and weren’t planning to rush at full speed to Luoyang city.

So Yan Hongyin’s group of three also stopped at a tea stand by an official road, intending to wait and see what small plans the three little ones had.

The tea stand originally didn’t have many people. The vendor brewed a pot of tea and brought it over, along with some mixed grain pancakes he had made himself.

Not long after they sat down, a dusty horse carriage also stopped by the roadside.

Yan Hongyin turned to look. It was a young man and a sickly-looking man. The young man appeared to be in his early twenties with a sword hanging at his waist—a sword that looked very thin.

The man was pale, his lips colorless, yet his steps didn’t seem heavy, obviously indicating excellent internal martial arts. His fingers had calluses, but not on the inside of his palms; instead, they were distributed on the fingertips and the sides of the knuckles, which meant his weapon was likely not a sword or saber but more in the line of hidden weapons.

Such a person…

Yu Luocha tilted his head close to Yan Hongyin and lowered his voice, “Is this the Li Xunhuan you mentioned earlier?”

Yu Luocha’s voice wasn’t loud, but the young man on the other side looked up. Those eyes were sharp and cold, like a lone wolf in the wilderness, carrying a kind of proud fierceness.

“I like his look,” Yu Luocha smiled slightly.

Yan Hongyin noticed that Wang Lianhua’s gaze remained fixed on the young man, so she asked, “What is it?”

Wang Lianhua’s fingers gently rubbed his lower lip, his expression quite peculiar.

“I’m thinking…” Wang Lianhua said in a playful tone, “I hope Shen Lang hasn’t had time to return to the island yet.”

Yu Luocha hadn’t met Shen Lang, but Yan Hongyin had recently seen him. She didn’t have Wang Lianhua’s sensitivity to other people’s facial features, but from Wang Lianhua’s words, she quickly realized and let her gaze linger for quite some time on the young man who seemed increasingly vigilant after being stared at by all three of them.

But Yan Hongyin sensed that Wang Lianhua’s mood wasn’t particularly pleasant—judging by his relationship with Shen Lang, such things should have made him more interested.

The young man said something to Li Xunhuan, who wasn’t in good condition. Li Xunhuan then looked in the direction of the three, smiled politely, and pushed down the young man’s hand that was already on his sword hilt, pulling him toward them.

As the young man approached, hearing the rhythm of his breathing, Yu Luocha’s expression slightly changed.

Wang Lianhua saw this, the corner of his lips moved slightly, and he used sound transmission to speak to You Luocha. “Bai Feifei and I once discovered an unnamed heart method in the ruins of the ancient Loulan city. This technique required practicing breathing and meditation from childhood. Neither of us met the conditions, so I gave the technique to her.”

It was evident that Bai Feifei didn’t want her child to follow in her footsteps, so she hadn’t taught him her own techniques.

Yu Luocha closed his eyes briefly, concealing the coldness in his eyes, and replied through sound transmission as well, “Practicing internal energy techniques of unknown origin, truly brave.”

This heart method was a secret of the Loulan royal family, but because this technique required children to establish a special breathing rhythm from the time they could remember, and to expand their meridians by soaking in the Loulan sacred pool, even so, this technique would still cause many children with insufficient talent and physical condition to explode and die.

“Bai Feifei’s medical skills, pharmaceutical knowledge, and martial arts research are not inferior to mine,” Wang Lianhua said. “Consider this a favor I owe you. In situations that don’t involve Ah Yin, you can ask me to do one thing for you.”

Yu Luocha and Wang Lianhua exchanged a glance, and then the two reached an agreement and both turned away.

Yan Hongyin’s fingers tapped lightly on the table twice as she quietly watched Yu Luocha.

Yu Luocha gave her a look that said “I’ll tell you later.”

Li Xunhuan and his companion sat down beside them and gently asked the stand owner to bring them a pot of hot tea.

“If there’s some food, that would be even better,” he said.

Then he looked over in the direction of the three again. This time, he saw Wang Lianhua’s face, which had been turned away from him earlier.

Li Xunhuan’s hand suddenly trembled, nearly spilling the wine he had just poured from his wine gourd.

“Senior Wang?!” he exclaimed in surprise.

But quickly, he realized that the Senior Wang in his memory shouldn’t have such a young face. He looked carefully at the three again, pondered with a serious expression for a long time, and then suddenly understood, “So Senior Wang already has both a son and a daughter…?”

Wang Lianhua: “…”

For a moment, he wanted to twist Li Xunhuan’s head off to see what was inside.

But he had reformed and turned to good, so he couldn’t rashly go twisting the heads of fools—Wang Lianhua told himself—his daughter was the current head of the Jinyiwei, and his lifelong friend was a righteous hero.

As he thought about it, Wang Lianhua’s emotions calmed down again.

Yan Hongyin, who suddenly gained a brother, twitched the corner of her mouth and wisely remained silent.

Yu Luocha burst into laughter, laughing while winking at Wang Lianhua. “Isn’t that right? Both son and daughter, still vigorous in old age~”

Wang Lianhua gave a cold laugh.

Yu Luocha felt a chill down his back. Some indescribable premonition made him immediately stop his self-destructive behavior, close his mouth, and shift closer to Yan Hongyin.

Yan Hongyin silently sighed.

…Why did you have to provoke him?

Wang Lianhua picked up his teacup and walked directly to Li Xunhuan’s table, sitting down. He asked the young man who had been tense and vigilant the whole time. “What’s your name?”

The young man ignored him.

Li Xunhuan scratched his nose awkwardly and was about to speak when Wang Lianhua continued, “My medical skills are excellent. I can treat him. Are you sure you don’t want to talk to me?”

Wang Lianhua’s finger pointed directly at Li Xunhuan, who looked like a tuberculosis-stricken ghost.

The young man’s eyes brightened, and he immediately said, “My name is Ah Fei!”

Wang Lianhua frowned. “No surname?”

This wasn’t like Bai Feifei’s style.

This child was the fruit of her love, a continuation of her and Shen Lang’s relationship. She would definitely have marked this child with the names of Shen Lang and Bai Feifei.

Sure enough, the young man hesitated, looked at Li Xunhuan, but still spoke up. “My surname is Shen, Shen Fei.”

Li Xunhuan was somewhat surprised.

He and Ah Fei had known each other for a long time, but this was the first time he realized that Ah Fei actually had a surname.

Wang Lianhua: “You know who your father is.”

This sentence wasn’t a question.

Ah Fei didn’t refute it.

Next, he asked, “Your mother… is she still alive?”

Ah Fei’s face finally showed confusion because before his mother left, she had said that many people might recognize who his father was, but she hadn’t mentioned that people would ask about her.

“You know my mother?” he asked.

From Ah Fei’s reaction, Wang Lianhua understood something. He drank the somewhat cool tea in his cup and said hoarsely, “Of course I know her.”

****

Li Xunhuan was returning to Luoyang this time because Lin Shiyin had written to him asking for help—due to the disappearance of her son, Long Xiaoyun.

By the time the two groups left the tea stand one after another, Wang Lianhua was already sitting in Li Xunhuan’s carriage.

With an extra horse available, Yu Luocha lost the opportunity to have his wife pressed against his back. He looked at Yan Hongyin with very resentful eyes.

“It’s getting dark,” Yan Hongyin ignored Yu Luocha’s unspoken hints. Her legs applied force, and horse and rider shot off like an arrow from a bowstring. The wind created sharp and bizarre sounds as it passed her ears. “Let’s enter the city.”

….

In Luoyang city, there were also Jinyiwei and Luocha Sect strongholds. Yan Hongyin and Yu Luocha changed into low-key attire. Now they were sitting in a private room of a teahouse, listening to the storyteller’s clappers downstairs, while their eyes watched the four children huddled together in an alley below.

“Where did they find this little fellow?” Yu Luocha, dressed in brocade clothes that made him look like a wealthy merchant, leaned by the window, looking at the additional child.

This child looked somewhat chubby, and when squatting there, he resembled a meatball. But the hand that was now holding a small knife and carving a white radish appeared exceptionally nimble.

Yan Hongyin noticed that Hua Manlu and Ximen Chuixue subtly maintained some distance from that child, but Lu Xiaofeng was squatting right next to him, with obvious signs of familiarity. “He must be a child that Xiao Feng knew before.”

“Tsk, this style of making friends wherever he goes…” Yu Luocha pondered for a moment, “Do you think Chu Liuxiang might want to have children?”

Yan Hongyin spoke mildly. “If you get poisoned or beaten to death someday, I wouldn’t be surprised at all.”

Although Wang Lianhua appeared indifferent about Lu Xiaofeng, in reality, he cared a great deal for this child. With his pride and territorial sense, he could accept Lu Xiaofeng following them because of Yan Hongyin, but if it were truly someone else…

“I’m not afraid of him…” Yu Luocha muttered, then when he saw the radish in the chubby child’s hand gradually taking shape, his gaze paused, “Ah Yin, what do you think that radish seal in the child’s hand looks like?”

Yan Hongyin, who had also seen the radish, was speechless for a moment. She took out a jade pendant from her bosom, turned over the python pattern side, and on the other side was a pear blossom carving that exactly matched the pattern on the radish seal now in Hua Manlu’s hand.

She hadn’t previously looked deeply into why the waist pendant of the Jinyiwei Commander would have a pear blossom carving, but now she understood. It was because her mother had established the covert forces of the Jinyiwei that now spread across various prefectures.

“Umm…” Yu Luocha organized his words and asked, “Can this thing be casually printed?”

“This side is just a private seal. Unless they are high-ranking Jinyiwei, ordinary agents and informants wouldn’t recognize it,” Yan Hongyin flipped the jade pendant over. “This side is the symbol of the Jinyiwei.”

Yu Luocha glanced at the python pattern on the jade pendant and, with Yan Hongyin’s tacit permission, memorized the pattern.

Then he heard Yan Hongyin ask, “What’s the origin of your badge?”

“Badge… the Luocha badge?” Yu Luocha looked up and said cheerfully, “Well, it commands the entire Luocha Sect.”

Yan Hongyin raised her chin, indicating for Yu Luocha to look down.

The chubby boy had apparently tried his hand at a simpler pattern first and was now working on another vastly more complex one.

Yu Luocha could already see the outlines of the Seventy-Two Earthly Fiends gradually appearing on the new radish seal.

“This chubby kid… is talented,” Yu Luocha thoughtfully looked at the plump boy squatting there with a small knife flashing between his fingers. “What’s his background?”

“Heir of the Luban Sect,” Yan Hongyin answered.

Yu Luocha hadn’t expected Yan Hongyin to really provide an answer and blinked. “When did you have someone investigate?”

“No need to investigate,” Yan Hongyin poured a cup of tea and took a gentle sip, casually putting the Jinyiwei jade pendant away. “One thought is enough to know.”

Most of the Jinyiwei’s intelligence was stored in the minds of the Jinyiwei, and Yan Hongyin’s mind was undoubtedly the final gathering place for intelligence.

Yu Luocha placed the Luocha badge he carried with him on the table, with the Seventy-Two Earthly Fiends design facing up, allowing both of them to clearly see that the little chubby boy, merely based on a print mark on a piece of paper, had reproduced such complex carving to nearly ninety percent accuracy.

Yan Hongyin didn’t bother thinking about what these children were printing these seals for, and only asked, “Your badge, how many people recognize it?”

Upon hearing this, Yu Luocha revealed a meaningful smile.

“The Luocha Sect is different from the Jinyiwei. Inside it… there are many from all walks of life, monsters and demons, and not a few evil ghosts who crawled up from hell wearing human skin. To suppress them, fear is the most effective means.”

The corners of the man’s eyes and brows curved dangerously with the air of bloodshed.

“Seeing the Luocha badge is like seeing Luocha himself in person.”

“Let’s hope these little ones… don’t print it casually.”

Otherwise, it would be like a catfish rushing into a pond, stirring up Luoyang city until it’s turned upside down.

“Wife, if it rains these days, shall we beat the children?” Yu Luocha thought of the possible trouble and said in a gentle tone, “It’s not like we have anything else to do anyway.”

“First, we should blame you for leaving such things lying around carelessly,” Yan Hongyin didn’t agree with Yu Luocha’s attempt to shift responsibility.

Yu Luocha gave a light snort, the aura around him completely dissipating. He reached over to hook a finger around Yan Hongyin’s hand holding the teacup, looking extremely aggrieved. “Still, no matter what, children shouldn’t steal love letters from the adults.”

Yan Hongyin’s eyebrow twitched, and she looked at Yu Luocha with an expression that was hard to describe. “You call that thing a love letter?”

“Why doesn’t it count?” Yu Luocha’s tone lifted flirtatiously, exuding an air of deep affection, gazing at Yan Hongyin with deep emotion, “That was the only indenture I was willing to sign in the first half of my life~”

“Not exactly,” Yan Hongyin brushed off Yu Luocha’s entwining fingers, picked up a pastry, took a bite, chewed and swallowed it leisurely before slowly saying, “You also signed a marriage certificate to marry into my family.”

Yu Luocha, who had deliberately used his left hand to write a flamboyant “Ah Yu” that even he couldn’t recognize: “…”

If I had known this day would come, back then when signing the marriage certificate…

Yu Luocha deflated, slumping on the table, inwardly full of regret, his mind still recalling the image of Yan Hongyin in her wedding dress. His heart filled with another wave of remorse.

That was a marriage certificate!

If I had known… if I had known!

In the alley below the teahouse, the chubby boy’s radish Luocha badge had taken shape, and the children gathered around, all showing expressions of surprise.

Yan Hongyin turned her gaze back to Yu Luocha, whose expressions were changing unpredictably, and suddenly said, “In a month, His Majesty will select a prince consort for the Grand Princess Qu Ya and choose an auspicious day for a grand wedding.”

“Huh?” Yu Luocha raised his head, puzzled, “Is that princess your friend?”

“No,” Yan Hongyin said flatly, “But I must return to the capital early for her wedding banquet.”

“Return to the capital early?” This phrasing didn’t sound like someone merely attending a wedding banquet as a guest. Yu Luocha still didn’t understand why Yan Hongyin had brought this up out of nowhere and tentatively said, “Is Ah Yin going to help prepare the wedding banquet?”

Yan Hongyin paused, then, holding her teacup, said leisurely, “No, to try on a wedding dress.”