Chapter 46

Chapter 46: Can’t Leave

Hu Qing was about to keep guessing, but Shui Xin’s mood was already sour.

“When are you leaving again?” he asked. “I’m coming with you.”

Hu Qing sighed. “With Hu Nuan like this, how am I supposed to leave?”

“Old Monk is thinking of a solution,” Shui Xin said. “Don’t panic.”

Hu Qing couldn’t help it. “You don’t think they’ll… never grow up again, do you?”

Shui Xin: “…”

It wasn’t impossible. No one had ever seen time run backward on a person.

“No.” Hu Qing stood up, jaw set. “I’m taking them home. This place is cursed for me.”

She swept everything off the ground back into storage and hurried out.

Shui Xin followed, protesting, “Hey, I’m not done picking!”

Hu Qing found Chan Ming. “Dad, I can’t bring myself to fall out with them. You go get the kids back. We’re going home.”

She said it clean and decisive.

Chan Ming froze for three seconds, then failed to answer. The guilt on his face was practically glowing.

Hu Qing’s stomach dropped. “Dad?”

Chan Ming coughed awkwardly and spoke with difficulty. “We… probably can’t leave right now.”

Hu Qing blinked, then nodded as realization hit. “Oh. Right, right. They’re helping suppress Hu Nuan’s mental state issue. Fine, we’ll wait. Once it’s handled, we go.”

Chan Ming looked even more troubled. “We still can’t go.”

Hu Qing: “…”

Chan Ming let out a long sigh. “Sit. Calm down and listen to me.”

“I can’t be calm,” Hu Qing said flatly. “The Buddhist Sect brings me bad luck.”

Chan Ming burst out laughing. “Nonsense. This place is auspicious. How could it not bless you?

All of Little Li Realm blesses you.”

Hu Qing scratched her face, dragged a chair over, and sat down with her legs spread, posture saying, Try me.

Chan Ming’s brow twitched. Was she ready to start chopping if he said one wrong word?

He asked, “If Hu Nuan and the others go back like this, what happens when people see them?”

Hu Qing’s mind turned fast, the key point snapping into place. Her aura cooled into something sharp. She gave a cold laugh. “Who would dare touch them in Zhaohua Sect?

Senior Brother Yu isn’t a pushover.”

In the distance, nowhere near the room, an imagined voice said, “Thank you for the compliment, but I really don’t deserve it.”

Chan Ming sighed. “Even our Mahayana Stage ancestor can’t completely block outside eyes.”

Hu Qing fell silent. After a long moment, she said, “Someone from above is eyeing Zhaohua Sect?”

Her gaze hardened. She made a throat-slitting gesture. “Then kill them while their cultivation is suppressed.”

If it came to it, they’d do it. With hundreds of thousands of people, couldn’t they kill a few dozen bastards?

After so many years, could everyone who ascended still be alive? If they were alive, could they all come back? If they came back, could every one of them be rotten?

Even if they were, they wanted profit. Profit meant leverage.

Split them. Turn them. Break them apart.

Hu Qing’s thoughts ran farther and farther. “We could even work with the Demon Clan and Devil Clan, stir up schemes, make those bastards fight each other—”

Chan Ming slapped the table. “Enough.”

The more she talked, the worse it got.

He said, “Hu Nuan and the others definitely touched the Law of Time. Five living people turning back into children—if you take them to Zhaohua Sect, there’s no way to hide it.”

Those five were celebrities in the sect. Inner sect, outer sect—everyone knew them.

“Time and space…” Chan Ming pointed upward. “These days I’ve borrowed plenty of ancient texts from the Buddhist Sect. These are the highest laws. Even a scrap of news is enough to drive the entire world mad.”

He jabbed a finger toward the sky again. “You said there are flies outside. If this leaks, it won’t be flies. It’ll be hawks and tigers.”

Hu Qing cursed silently. What rotten divine tree? What “youth”? This was solitary confinement.

She knew he was right.

“But so many people have already seen them,” she said. “Can we really hide it?”

Chan Ming looked at her.

Hu Qing understood. Hide what you can. Hide it as long as you can.

Her shoulders slumped. “If only I hadn’t gone to Heaven’s Grace Continent.”

“Don’t say that,” Chan Ming said. “It’s the kids’ opportunity. Do what you need to do. Don’t hold them back.”

Hu Qing hesitated. That tone didn’t sound like it was just shrinking bodies. Was there more?

Chan Ming’s eyes were full of meaning. “Our kids are all outstanding.”

Hu Qing snorted. “Anyone who’s been struck by heavenly tribulation lightning has a few outstanding kids.”

Chan Ming said calmly, “Ours are especially outstanding.”

Fine. The grandparent filter was thick enough to block a mountain. Truthfully, Hu Qing thought her kids were sweet too.

Then Chan Ming said, “Go back to Zhaohua Sect.”

Hu Qing stared. “I don’t even have the right to stay a little longer?

Is the Buddhist Sect not welcoming me?”

“Everyone knows you came back from Heaven’s Grace Continent,” Chan Ming said. “They all want to ask you about it. Go back and find Yu Liu Ya. Help him with work. You call him Senior Brother, don’t you?”

Hu Qing’s eyes widened. “You mean… none of you are going back?”

“We have things to do,” Chan Ming said.

Father and daughter stared each other down. In the end, Chan Ming caved with a mutter. “I’m going to… Yun Jing Heaven… for a visit.”

His voice got smaller and smaller.

“Yun Jing Heaven?” Hu Qing burst out laughing. “Go on, go on. Wait—shouldn’t you bring gifts? Do you have any? I have—no one goes empty-handed.”

Chan Ming shot up. “I’m going for serious business!”

Sure you are.

Hu Qing watched him storm out, then turned back with a grim face. “If word leaks that Hu Nuan and the others shrank…”

Juan Bu groaned. “I forgot too. If someone insane kidnaps them just to comprehend the Law of Time…”

“What a damned divine tree,” Hu Qing hissed. “What even is it?”

“I didn’t see it with my own eyes, so I don’t know,” Juan Bu said. “But once your cultivation is high enough, you’ll comprehend a little space-time law no matter what. Slowing it or speeding it up is manageable. Reversing it…” He fell silent for a long time. “It might not be time reversal. Some strange things can make people grow backward. You can build a story around that.”

If it really was time reversal, then she’d have to spin it into something else.

Inspiration struck. “Eight Wilds Six Harmonies Supreme Art,” Hu Qing blurted.

Juan Bu blinked. “What?”

“Tian Shan Tong Lao!” Hu Qing said quickly. “A technique that keeps you forever young. If you go into qi deviation, you turn back into a child.

Uh… bone-shrinking.”

“Qi deviation?” Juan Bu paused. “That… might work?”

Hu Qing slapped her wrist. “Yes! Exactly!

Don’t you have a ton of manuals? Any evil arts? If not, even a proper art can have this consequence if it goes wrong, right? Hurry—pull them out.”

As long as she made a cover story, she could smooth it over.

“There are too many,” Juan Bu said. “I’ll have to search carefully.”

Hu Qing frowned. “I’ve wanted to ask for ages. Why do you collect so many texts?”

There were so many, and so messy—spiritual cultivators, body cultivators, gods, ghosts, devils, demons. And that was only what he’d handed her. She was sure it was just a fraction.

Juan Bu sighed. “It’s not that I wanted to. The one before me liked it. I can store it, so he kept collecting without stopping.”

Hu Qing clicked her tongue. Fine. Either way, it benefited her.