Chapter 42
Chapter 42: Personality Flaws
Shui Xin saw how many people were watching him. He also saw Hu Nuan’s eyes—bright, intent, like she’d just discovered a brand-new world.
He refused to beg for help. Too embarrassing.
He forced his spiritual power up and flew farther away. Hu Qing chased him, and wherever he fled, her fists followed.
Since ancient times, whose kid finally got raised, only to suddenly shrink back again? What was this—an immortal jellyfish?
Once they were so far away no one could see them, Shui Xin finally yelled, “Stop hitting me! Stop hitting me! You’re killing me! I didn’t know either! I’ve walked that path since I was little—countless times—and nothing ever happened. The moment Hu Nuan went there, it collapsed. That means it was waiting for her! This meeting was fated! She’s fine, aaah—”
Hu Qing hit even harder. “If either of you had listened to me, this absurd mess never would’ve happened.”
Her teeth clenched as she punched flesh to flesh. “What are you hung up on? What are you hung up on? What good is it for Hu Nuan to come here? You planned this, didn’t you? You wanted her to open a grand formation for you, didn’t you? Didn’t you?”
That was the biggest injustice of his life.
“I’m her uncle!” Shui Xin shouted. “What bad intentions could I have? I just wanted her to come home, have fun, meet the family. Is that not allowed? Go ask anyone you want—no one dares dislike her. From Old Monk to the little monks, how many gifts has she gotten?”
Hu Qing laughed in anger. “You think I lack your monks’ incense money?”
Her fists paused for a heartbeat, and then grief surged up like a wave. “The whole Little Li Realm is dirt poor! I almost couldn’t make it home, and you still keep causing trouble—fine! I’ll beat you to death!”
“Dying, dying, dying—!” Shui Xin gave up trying to escape. He dove straight down and crashed into the mud, letting her hit him. He was tough. She couldn’t actually kill him.
He shut his eyes and silently recited an arhat sutra, treating her beating like body refinement.
Only when Hu Qing was panting and out of breath did she finally stop, bracing her hands on her knees.
Shui Xin lay there, battered into something that looked less like a person and more like a collapsed well soaking in water.
“Bai Wen,” Hu Qing said hoarsely. “We’re leaving.”
Bai Wen released Shui Xin at once, then shot upward. Its body expanded, and it carried the exhausted, swaying Hu Qing away.
Shui Xin lay in the water and tried not to scream at the pain. Bai Wen was a dog. With its intelligence, it had avoided Hu Qing’s wild punches perfectly and offered up only the places that hurt the least.
Dog.
Why couldn’t it just be a good artifact? Why did it have to become sentient?
He stayed down until his injuries knit back together. Then he sent Hu Nuan a message: “Is your mom not mad anymore?”
The reply came fast. “Huh? Mom? Isn’t she out playing with you, Uncle?”
Shui Xin’s expression twisted. Playing? Playing your uncle.
Hu Qing still hadn’t returned. A cold fear crawled up his spine. She wasn’t out there smashing Buddha statues to vent, was she?
Sin, sin.
He rushed to find her. Not here. Not there. Nowhere. Finally, he found her a thousand miles away, on the peak of a lonely mountain.
It was already evening. The sky was heavy and dim. A lone figure sat with arms crossed, and even from behind, the loneliness felt sharp enough to cut.
Shui Xin rubbed his shoulder. Should he let her hit him again, just to get it out of her system?
He flew over, landed, and sat down beside her. Together they watched the half-disc of the sun struggle on the horizon.
A long time passed without a word.
Hu Qing hugged her knees, face buried in her arms, unmoving like stone. At last, she lifted her head and stared into the fading light, as if looking at the last thread of day—or through the sky into another world.
“Are you okay?” she asked quietly. “Sorry. I lost control.”
Shui Xin understood. “Is Hu Nuan’s problem hard to solve?”
That beating hadn’t been only about anger at him. There was more beneath it.
Hu Qing’s voice was tired. “I know raising a child alone isn’t enough. When Master Qiao Yu took her in, I was grateful. Relieved, even.”
She swallowed. “I thought… if the roles of father and mother were both there, she’d be fine once she grew up. Master Qiao Yu did incredibly well—better than a biological father.”
She laughed, and it sounded like it hurt. “Her parents were both there. He and I did our best. The elders, the disciples her age, even Jin Xin and them—did we do badly? Shouldn’t she be the happiest?”
Her nose stung. Tears rose, stubborn and hot. “But… but I…”
Shui Xin caught her wrist before she could shake herself apart. “Don’t panic. There’s always a way.”
A tear slipped free. Hu Qing buried her face at once. “I can’t help suspecting… it’s a personality flaw.”
Then, even quieter: “And what if it’s congenital?”
Shui Xin blinked. He tried to translate it into something he understood. “A born devil seed?”
Hu Qing snapped her head up. Her tears were gone as if they’d never existed. “Or maybe my fists just aren’t hard enough.”
Shui Xin went blank.
“It’s not that,” Hu Qing said, exasperated. “It’s her mind. Her development.”
Shui Xin frowned. “She’s not stupid. What’s ‘incomplete’?”
Hu Qing exhaled slowly. “Security. She’s severely lacking it, and it’s hard for her to build.”
“What’s unsafe about her?” Shui Xin demanded.
Hu Qing looked at his head like she couldn’t believe it came attached to him. “You really are not clever.”
Shui Xin tried again. “Once her cultivation is high enough, she’ll naturally feel secure.”
Hu Qing shook her head. “That’s confidence. What I mean comes from the world around you, from other people, from relationships and mutual feelings. It’s… belonging. It’s an identity formed through being seen and accepted.”
Shui Xin stared at her. “What kind of scripture are you reciting?”
Hu Qing ignored him. “Let me put it this way. If everyone in your temple hated you and didn’t acknowledge you, wouldn’t you be unhappy?”
Shui Xin snorted. “I’d beat them all.”
Hu Qing closed her eyes. “Right. Of course you would.”
Shui Xin hesitated, then said, “So you mean Hu Nuan… she needs people to care about her?”
“It’s not that simple.” Hu Qing’s smile was thin and bitter. “She only has me. I’m her whole world—her one support. If I don’t acknowledge her, her world collapses.”
She stared into the dying light. “She still hasn’t built an inner world that truly belongs to her.”
Shui Xin forced himself to follow. “That sounds like falling into devilness—”
Hu Qing shot him a look sharp enough to cut stone.
He coughed and corrected himself. “Fine. It sounds like she hasn’t grown up yet. And she gets to start over. This time, we do better.”
Hu Qing’s shoulders sagged. “Isn’t that exactly what I thought before? Now I’m afraid it can’t be patched.”
Because the worst part wasn’t that Hu Nuan lacked love.
She had companions. A master. A sect. Elders who doted on her. She’d never lacked warmth. And yet today she’d exploded in a way that made everyone afraid. That meant something deep inside her was still sealed shut—still lonely, still that closed-off child.
And then Hu Qing felt something in herself shift.
If Hu Nuan could leave everyone she spent every day with and only care about her mother… then what about Hu Qing?
Wasn’t she the same? Able to cut off anyone, anything, even herself, at any time—and only caring about one Hu Nuan?
The flaw wasn’t only in Hu Nuan.
At the root of it, they were the same kind of people—unwanted, unanticipated, abandoned.