Chapter 95
Chapter 95: I Can Understand It—I’m Not Worse Than You, Ancient Buddhist Scion
“Don’t ignore me, Xiao Man!”
Tuan Tuan clung to her heels like a stubborn shadow—black fur, attitude, and noise. Persistent enough to give anyone a headache.
Xiao Man stopped so suddenly she nearly stepped on it.
She looked down at the meowing nuisance and tugged at the corner of her mouth.
“Did you get fatter again? You’re a heart demon—you eat lust, you eat malice, and you still shove human food into your face. No wonder you’ve turned into a little ball.”
Her tone was pure mockery.
“Even if you had a human body, I still wouldn’t want you.”
She paused, then added—merciless, surgical—”Don’t ask me why. Figure it out yourself.”
“Mraow! Xiao Man, you’re too much!”
Tuan Tuan exploded. Its fur stood up in every direction, turning it into a walking soot brush. It bounced in place, tail whipping like a spinning blade.
Xiao Man didn’t spare it another glance. She turned and walked away, steps steady, back straight, no hesitation.
Behind her, the black cat spun in furious circles, yowling like it had been betrayed by the heavens.
“It’s definitely because of that blockhead Lin Qing Xuan! That damned Buddhist Scion!”
“Aaah! You’re all bullying me! Teaming up to bully one little kitty!”
It scratched the ground in rage, watched her get farther away—and, with the tragic resignation of a creature addicted to its own suffering, ran after her anyway.
Xiao Man had rested half the morning. By afternoon she was back to work—because that was a worker’s fate. As long as you still breathed, you got up and did it again.
First stop: Lin Qing Xuan’s study.
It was the quietest place in the Lin Manor, and one of the places that demanded the most from her. She moved through it with practiced ease: straightening scattered paper and brushes, wiping down shelves, stacking copied sutras into neat squares as precise as tofu blocks.
Then she went to his meditation room.
Sandalwood burned there year-round. The air was cool and calm, like it had never heard a human complaint. She cleaned the incense burner, emptied the ash, added fresh sandalwood, and watched the ember catch—one bright point, then a slow curl of smoke that deepened the stillness.
Lin Qing Xuan wasn’t careless. The scriptures were always kept properly on his own. At least he didn’t make work where none was needed.
Last stop: his bedroom.
The most private place. The one that always made her feel awkward in her own skin.
She straightened the bedding, folded it into sharp, perfect corners, swept the floor, dusted the display shelf. When she wiped the small table beside the bed, her eyes caught on a few books.
Books Lin Qing Xuan had been reading lately.
Something—curiosity, irritation, spite—made her pause.
Treatise on Relic Karmic Response. Record of Spiritual Resonance with the Unseen. Mystic Chapter of Mustard-Seed Containment.
Each title sounded more mystical than the last, the kind of thing that promised answers and delivered fog.
She picked up Record of Spiritual Resonance with the Unseen and flipped through a few pages.
The text leaned on the idea of lingxi—an almost-mythic rapport between souls, drawn from the saying that true understanding needed only a single point of connection.
It read like expensive nonsense.
Words piled on words—mysterious without being clear, deep without saying anything. After a few pages, her head started to ache. She tossed it aside.
Then her gaze settled on Mystic Chapter of Mustard-Seed Containment.
“A mustard seed can contain Sumeru.”
That, at least, she understood. A Buddhist metaphor: the smallest thing could hold the greatest.
She opened it and read line by line.
Within a tiny relic bead, the book claimed, were laws subtle enough to contain souls from other worlds.
Now that was interesting.
Her eyes sharpened. If this was true, it explained far more than that vague talk of lingxi. It explained why her otherworld soul could form an empathic resonance with Lin Qing Xuan’s relic bead at all.
She kept reading, forcing the mystical phrasing into a modern framework.
Mustard-seed space. A contained world. A pocket of reality.
Call it what you wanted—she could think of it as a parallel universe.
In the modern world, her body had died. Her soul hadn’t scattered into nothingness; it had been pulled, swept, caught—into some mustard-seed space. And from there, it had landed in Xiao Man’s body when she was ten.
As for why she could resonate with Lin Qing Xuan—why this strange connection existed at all—it was because that relic bead inside him carried an “unlimited capacity.”
A thought rose, cold and sharp.
If another otherworld soul arrived… wouldn’t it also fit?
Wouldn’t it also be able to form empathic resonance with him, using that same relic bead?
The more she considered it, the more it made a brutal kind of sense.
And if that soul happened to be a beautiful young girl…
A thin, icy smile tugged at her lips.
She was reaching for the next book when a clear male voice spoke behind her, close enough to make her fingers stiffen.
“Reading Mystic Chapter of Mustard-Seed Containment?”
Xiao Man’s heart lurched. She nearly dropped the book.
When she turned and saw Lin Qing Xuan, the irritation she’d been holding back lit up like dry grass.
“Can you make some noise when you walk? Are you trying to scare me to death?”
“Oh.” He blinked, calm as ever, and nodded. “I’ll be mindful next time.”
His mouth agreed, but his eyes stayed on her—steady, intent. He stepped closer—too close—and reached for her hand like it was the most natural thing in the world.
His affection was blatant now, heavy enough to press down on the air itself, as if he needed to touch her to breathe.
Xiao Man shifted aside in one clean movement, dodging his grasp.
She stared him down, warning written in her eyes. “What are you doing?”
Lin Qing Xuan’s hand hung in the air for a heartbeat before he pulled it back, faintly awkward.
He cleared his throat and tried to steer away from the cliff edge.
“The principles in this book… I can explain them to you.”
Xiao Man laughed—soft, sharp, unimpressed.
“I can read it, thanks. My knowledge system isn’t worse than yours, you ancient Buddhist Scion.”
Lin Qing Xuan had known for a long time that she wasn’t from this world. There was no point pretending now. Fine. The mask was off.
His gaze tightened, serious and searching.
“Then how do you see this empathic resonance between us?”
“How else?” She lifted the book and tapped a line with her fingertip. “It’s the relic bead. Look. ‘Within the relic bead are laws subtle enough to contain otherworld souls.’”
She raised her eyes to his, letting the sting show.
“So I was thinking—what if another otherworld soul comes?”
“And if that soul is a sweet, pretty young girl… I imagine you’d be even happier, Eldest Young Master.”
The words were barbed. They struck home.
Lin Qing Xuan’s face tightened. The light in his eyes faltered.
“Xiao Man, I’m not what you think.” His voice came faster, urgent. “There is only you in my heart. I swear it. I swear to Buddha.”
“No need.”
Xiao Man waved it off like it didn’t matter, smile carrying the tired edge of someone who’d stopped wanting to fight.
“I’m well aware you’re a virgin.”
Lin Qing Xuan froze as if she’d slapped him.
“…What?”
“Exactly what it sounds like.” Xiao Man’s voice stayed maddeningly calm. “And I’ve been in a terrible mood these past few days. You—and your heart demon cat—don’t come provoking me.”
She was truly sick of it.
Lin Qing Xuan looked at her—at the impatience she wore like armor, at the way she refused to show softness—and something inside him ached.
This time he didn’t press. He didn’t argue.
He only made a quiet decision, deep enough to change the way he breathed.
He would protect Xiao Man.
Now, and later.
He would make sure she never felt pitiful again—never had to pretend she was made of stone.