Wu Long’s group went through the streets toward the inn where he stayed with his women and guests. On the way he received Ye Ling’s communication talisman message confirming that they did receive a minor attack, but the scope was much less than the one that targeted him.

Apparently, most of the attackers were disposed of by Shen Min and Hua Ziyan who have been consistently improving their teamwork as well as individual skills while Ye Ling only took out the few elites and then oversaw the battle of the others to intervene if needed. The combination of versatile, quick, and deadly attacks from Shen Min as well as a continuous heavy barrage of Spiritual Qi fists from Hua Ziyan would make an opponent even two Major Realms above them overwhelmed if they joined forces, let alone opponents in the same realms as them. 𝒃𝙚𝙙𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝒍．𝒆𝒕

Old Yen and Butler Bang tactfully let the two walk ahead while keeping a distance.

“Mengqi, you must have noticed that there is something different, right?”

When she nodded in silence he smiled at the nervous look in her eyes.

“Don’t worry, it is not that I don’t remember, but that I remember a little more instead. I have changed, so it may require time for you to get used to that… or to decide that you are not willing to get used to that…”

Wu Long slightly paused before saying the last part and as he expected Wu Mengqi’s eyes flashed with shock, but then tears began to accumulate in the corners of her eyes that he did not expect.

‘Eh?’

“Wu Long! If you say that you are not in love with me anymore I am going to say this here and now, I don’t care that your feelings changed, mine didn’t, no, I realized just how much I am in love even more in the period that you were gone!”

She said with some anger. His words that she would choose to not get used to the new him sounded like a gentle confession of a changed heart to her.

“Em… Mengqi-…”

“So even if you don’t want me anymore, I am going to chase you until the ends of the world and even further if I have to, and make you fall in love with me all over again, you’re not getting rid of me so easily”

Wu Mengqi said as she stopped walking and wiped away the tears that continuously came out with her long sleeves. The two following them first stopped when they did and when they saw the tears on her face as she turned to face Wu Long they just turned back where they came from to admire the night city scenery.

“Wait a minu-…”

“No, you wait a minute! What do you mean you’ve changed? You think because you got a little… quite a bit stronger and a little… a lot more handsome you are a different person?”

As she said her words with indignation Wu Long just looked at her with a wry smile.

“W-What?”

She noticed that gaze and said with puffed cheeks and pursed lips that coupled with her reddened eyes and nose from crying made an unbearably cute expression.

“I did not say I didn’t love you, I was just saying that you will need time to know this side of me”

“Eh?”

She looked at him with a slightly dazed expression for a moment, and then a hopeful expression appeared on her face that still had some tears on it.

“So you will stay with me?”

“Of course I will”

“Yay!”

She jumped forward and hugged his neck.

“Hahah, though you now have company…”

Wu Long chuckled as he caught her and when she slightly tilted back her head to look up at him with curious eyes he smiled.

“You see, I have more… Dao Companions now”

“Hmm~, I see~… oh well, the more the merrier, I am content as long as I get to be with you”

Wu Mengqi said while returning her head to his chest, dumbfounding Wu Long and the two in the distance almost stumbled while not even walking. Wu Long looked in their direction and they awkwardly coughed restarting a conversation about scenery in louder voices as he shook his head with a smile and then turned back to the woman in his hands.

“You don’t mind me having other women?”

“Hmm, you know, I actually thought about this when we were younger. You were already becoming ridiculously handsome, and when we walked outside girls would look your way from left and right. I knew that with your looks, you would eventually become a depraved man, but what can I do? As long as you give some of your love to me, I am content being with you. Haa~ I am so so~ kind, right?”

She finished with a teasing laugh as she looked up at him.

“Depra-…!?! Haa~ yes, yes, you’re very kind”

Wu Long first was exasperated at that word but then again he could not completely deny it so he just sighed in the end.

This cheerful personality was what once upon a time saved Wu Long, becoming the only light in his otherwise dark, gruesome, grim, and bloody world. It guided him through the darkest of times and was what he came home for from battlefields he normally had no chance of surviving.

“Though I am quite selfish you know? I will not tolerate any other men-…”

“Wu Long, are you making me angry on purpose? Do I look like someone who will cheat on you? Besides, after looking at your handsome face other men look like toads”

She said cutely puffing her cheeks and he chuckled.

“What if someone as handsome as me, or even more handsome shows up then?”

“Hahaha, I highly doubt that, but even then… he’s not you”

She first said with a burst of playful laughter, but then her hands hugging him tightened as she looked into his eyes that were so familiar to her as she said the last phrase.

Wu Long looked into her eyes, realizing that in them, his reflection was not any different. No matter how much he changed, she saw him under all the layers of the years, under all of that knowledge and experience, she still saw that boy that she fell in love with. That spark of his very being that he saw in Ye Ling while he was not yet aware of her disguise or real name, that spark he saw in Wu Mengqi despite her lacking any memories of their past lives.

His hands tightened around her and she felt warm and secure in his embrace, a nostalgic and yet new feeling enveloping her as he was now a lot higher than her unlike in the past.

“Ah, regarding my other women, I have to warn you…”

Wu Long then remembered one thing he had to warn her about and whispered into her ear while she nodded. She looked surprised at first, but then smiled and talked with him in a cheerful voice. After they hugged like that for some time, they resumed their walk, and the two from behind now took even a longer distance from them.

When they approached the inn, they soon saw a group of nine exceptionally beautiful women waiting for them. Some of them had curious expressions, some slightly nervous.

“Eh?… You said a company…”

Wu Mengqi was ready to be greeted by his other women, but she never expected so many beautiful women at once.

“Hahaha, I am not going to lie, though not all of them, and only five are my women at the moment, I am not sure how many women I will have eventually”

“Heh, greed is a vice, you know?”

Wu Mengqi chuckled, and he returned a laugh.

“I know, but what can I say, I indulge that vice”

She shook her head with a smile and went forward to greet the beauties ahead, but as her face was illuminated by the lanterns of the inn some of the women welcoming them lightly gasped. Butler Bang also froze, looking not at Wu Mengqi, but at Ye Ling.

“Hehe, we really do look a bit alike”

Wu Mengqi said with a smile, as Wu Long already warned her beforehand.

“We truly do, if I wasn’t born on the other continent I would have mistaken you for my little sister”

Ye Ling nodded with a smile, as she knew that they looked very alike even in her past life. He once confessed to her that when she appeared like a goddess in the snow to save him, he thought it was Wu Mengqi who came to get him with her. It was long before they fell in love so this revelation was not particularly shocking to her.

The two women looked at each other and there was an instant feeling of familiarity and kinship.

Ye Ling always wondered why she felt so tight in her heart about Wu Mengqi’s death in her past life despite never having met her, which was why she was so happy for Wu Long in this life when he found her in his memories, but she never understood it. In the end, she decided that it was simply because it was so important to Wu Long.

Wu Mengqi was also surprised since she somehow knew that she would get along with this beauty without even exchanging many words. More so because she was a woman Wu Long chose to be with.