After Death, I Became My Shijie’s Palm-Sized Birdie – Chapter 73
by Little PandaSigns of Chaos
This time it isn’t a reward — she simply wanted to kiss her shijie
What she’d bought had, once again, turned into an ownerless thing…
Wen Qiwu’s lovely eyes narrowed slightly as she brought out the medicine that had been simmering over Phoenix Fire in her Mustard Seed Space. Having just promised her shijie to feed her the medicine herself, she naturally couldn’t go back on her word.
After the Medical Immortal’s improvements, Yun Heng’s medicine was no longer so bitter — at least not bitter enough for her to use it as an excuse to play the pitiful one before her shimei — so she had long since taken it herself. As for sweets… apart from the ones her shimei fed her personally, the rest were hardly necessary.
Now that her shimei had made a point of offering to feed her the medicine herself in order to comfort her, the reason Yun Heng’s ears had flushed pink was that she’d imagined Ah Que’s method of feeding medicine.
But who could have guessed that when her shimei said “feed you myself,” she truly did mean nothing more than with her own hands…
“What is Shijie thinking about?” Wen Qiwu fed her the last mouthful of medicine with a smile laden with meaning.
Yun Heng shook her head. Her seemingly breezy expression carried a trace of barely detectable grievance — and the sight of her shimei’s smile made it all the clearer that Wen Qiwu was doing this on purpose.
Setting the empty medicine bowl aside, Wen Qiwu sat down beside her shijie, wrapped her arms around her, and gently rested her head on her shoulder.
“Then let me guess what Shijie is thinking. You must feel… that I’ve gone back on my word, that I don’t keep my promises?” Wen Qiwu’s gentle voice carried a note of teasing.
Yun Heng said a feeble “No.”
Seeing her shijie looking so wronged, Wen Qiwu didn’t soften the way she had earlier. After all…
“So I guessed wrong? Fair enough — I’ve never been able to guess what Shijie is hiding from me.” Wen Qiwu sighed.
Yun Heng’s body tensed abruptly. She hurriedly clasped her shimei’s hand. “No need to guess. Whatever you want to know, your shijie will tell you.”
“Then tell me, Shijie — where exactly did you go this morning?” Wen Qiwu’s tone eased a little.
“I went to find Bai Jiao.” So it was about that. Yun Heng seemed to breathe a shade easier.
“To see the City Master? And then ran into thieves?” Her words made it clear she already knew Yun Heng had only come by that bracelet this morning.
“Mm.” It wasn’t anything major, but Yun Heng confessed honestly: “After you fell asleep last night, I noticed faint traces of Demonic Qi circulating through this city, so I meant to speak with Bai Jiao about it. But I didn’t find her at the City Master Manor — instead I ran into several furtive demon race cultivators.”
“One of them was holding a crescent bracelet — a treasure belonging to a friend of mine. They admitted the thing was stolen. I’d rather not have made a scene, but they intended to kill me to silence me, so I struck first.”
“A pack of thieves, and they dared act that brazen.” Wen Qiwu’s voice turned cold. “It wouldn’t be wronging them to hand them those two words: ‘served them right.'”
Yun Heng patted her shimei’s back gently, coaxing her out of her anger.
“I suspect Jiaoyue City is in for some turbulence. Ah Que, don’t stray too far from me for a while — let’s wait for Bai Jiao to settle matters here first…” Yun Heng instructed.
“All right.” Wen Qiwu nodded, then stole another glance at her shijie. “That’s everything from this morning, then?”
By her reckoning, the timing was about right too.
“That’s all.” Yun Heng lowered her voice and quietly hooked her shimei’s little finger, using the small gesture to curry favor.
Wen Qiwu’s expression toward Yun Heng softened completely. Half resigned, she said, “And here I thought something big had happened that you needed to hide from me. Shijie, don’t scare me like that again.”
Every time her shijie hid something from her in the past, it had never boded well — she’d been frightened out of her wits enough times that she couldn’t help seeing soldiers in every bush and tree1.
“I just didn’t want those demon matters troubling you.” Yun Heng was gently kneading her shimei’s hand when, all of a sudden, an exceptionally sweet, refreshing candy was placed in her mouth.
Then she felt something impossibly soft brush lightly against the corner of her mouth.
That feeling… was sweeter than the candy on her tongue.
Caught off guard by the stolen kiss, Yun Heng’s ears slowly turned red.
From where Wen Qiwu sat, she had a perfect view of her shijie’s scarlet ears. Now that was more like her shijie! That earlier bearing… who on earth had she learned such wickedness from?
Wen Qiwu laughed softly by her shijie’s ear, warm breath spilling over it — and the ears seemed to redden further still.
At the sound of that laugh, Yun Heng immediately gathered her shimei into her arms. The shimei, whose eyes seemed to hold scattered starlight, curved her brows and pressed a fingertip to her own lips.
That one had been a reward — for confessing obediently and not doing anything dangerous behind her back. But the earlier punishment wasn’t over yet.
“Shijie, City Master Bai Jiao was wounded so gravely — can she still keep the city in hand?”
At the mention of Bai Jiao, Yun Heng’s voice grew graver. “They’re only wounds. Trust her — no one who can sit securely in a City Master’s seat in a place like this is simple.”
“And since I’m here, I’ll naturally help her. It’s simply not the right moment for me to act yet.” Yun Heng met Wen Qiwu’s gaze, her eyes glinting with amusement. “When the time comes, your shijie will show you a spectacle even livelier than the Dragon Gate Grand Ceremony.”
Wen Qiwu’s lips curved up. “Shijie…”
“Mm?”
“In the hundred years I was away, who taught you to be so wicked?” In Wen Qiwu’s memory, her shijie had been far more wooden — whereas now it was as if someone had poured ink over that wood for a century and more.
“Taught me what?” Yun Heng asked, bewildered.
“…Never mind.” Yun Heng’s gaze was too limpid; Wen Qiwu could find no impurity in it whatsoever. So no one really had taught her shijie wickedness?
Or was it… the heart demon? That was it — it had to be the heart demon. That wicked thing must have worked its influence on her shijie’s character! Whether or not it was actually the heart demon’s fault, as far as Wen Qiwu was concerned, the fault was its.
Wen Qiwu hugged her shijie and nuzzled into her arms. Yun Heng bit her lip softly, looked down at the person in her embrace, and wondered whether she might steal a kiss of her own.
“Shijie, has the heart demon been bothering you these days?” Wen Qiwu asked.
“No. If it comes whispering again, I’ll tell you straight away,” Yun Heng said.
Good girl. Wen Qiwu lifted her head — whether deliberately or not, her lips ‘accidentally’ grazed her shijie’s cheek. “Shijie, was today’s candy sweet? Do you like it?”
“Sweet,” Yun Heng said — but as she spoke, her gaze was fixed entirely on Wen Qiwu, and beneath that thin, melting snow showed through a desire that belonged to a mortal of the secular world. Who knew how much of the candy’s own sweetness she could still taste after her shimei’s kiss?
Wen Qiwu’s breath faltered slightly. Her shijie perhaps had no idea how… heart-itching that beseeching-a-kiss look of hers was.
She pecked at her shijie’s somewhat bloodless lips. This one wasn’t a reward — this one was because she wanted to kiss her.
Yun Heng hadn’t expected to be kissed a second time. She froze for an instant, then gathered her courage and pressed her lips to Wen Qiwu’s of her own accord. A faint lingering bitterness was wrapped in sweetness — just like their mingling breath — and only after a long moment did they part.
Yun Heng’s lips, pale to begin with, now carried a moist sheen of red — and so did Wen Qiwu’s. She steadied her breathing a little before nestling into her shijie’s arms and saying sweetly, “Then I’ll go buy some more later.”
Wen Qiwu was holding a paper bag with several candies inside — the local coconut milk candies Xiao Tong had given her. She’d found them quite tasty herself; if her shijie liked them, they could buy more. Who knew how much longer she’d be taking medicine, or how long she’d go on pleading for shimei-fed sweets after that? Best to stock up.
The corners of her mouth lifted, as if she’d already thought up some future amusement.
“I’ll come with you,” Yun Heng said at once.
“All right.” Wen Qiwu nodded. This was Jiaoyue City’s busiest season — and the one most likely to breed danger. She knew that going out alone would worry her shijie, just as she worried about her shijie.
After the City Master Manor’s people had dealt with the street vendors, daytime Jiaoyue City looked far more normal. At least the pedestrians no longer hurried about as if afraid of being haunted by ghosts.
When Xiao Tong heard they meant to buy sweets, she immediately recommended an old shop on the city’s east side. The family who ran it were cultivators who had entered the dao through food; besides ordinary confections, they also sold sweets infused with spiritual power. Eating those not only benefited one’s cultivation but tasted superb — like delectable spirit delicacies.
Arm in arm with her shijie, Wen Qiwu walked down the street until they found the candy shop Xiao Tong had described. A long queue had already formed outside, and the sweet fragrance hanging in the air made mouths water.
While Wen Qiwu was buying candy, a clamor suddenly erupted from the noodle shop next door. The lunch rush wasn’t over yet; business was brisk, and there was hardly an empty seat.
The noise came from outside — the shop had overflowed, so the owner had set tables and chairs out on the street. The ones making the racket were two very young-looking cultivators. What they’d fallen out over was anyone’s guess, but one of them slammed the table and rose, looking ready to come to blows.
The owner hurried out to smooth things over, terrified the two would smash his little shop to pieces.
But the two were no good sorts. One of them shoved the peacemaking owner several meters away, sending him crashing heavily to the ground.
“Who do you think you are? You’re nothing but a dog from over there, and you dare bark wildly in Jiaoyue City! Go ask around — whose name does the greatest power in Jiaoyue City bear now! Believe me, even if I killed you this instant, the master behind you wouldn’t dare come make trouble for me!” One of them drew the blade at his waist.
“Heh. Nothing but an old thing the Jiaoyue City Master all but exterminated, and you really think you’re somebody? Greatest power — laughable. Once our Master arrives, that old frog will be down on his knees on the spot, weeping and begging for mercy!” The other gave no ground either — but what he produced was a hidden weapon, and striking first, he drove it straight through the first man’s heart.
Screams rose all around, and voices in the crowd shouted about reporting it to the City Master Manor. But the winner didn’t look panicked in the least. He even straightened his clothes at leisure, sat back down, and carried on eating his noodles — as though the place he’d shortly be thrown into wasn’t the City Master Manor’s great prison, but his own home.
Wen Qiwu caught the scent of blood thickening the air. Somewhat familiar… wait — that face?!
The man lying lifeless in the pool of blood was face-up, eyes wide open — no doubt unwilling to accept dying without even the chance to strike back.
And as his spiritual power dissipated, the layer of disguise on the dead man’s face dissolved away, revealing his true appearance.
Wen Qiwu and Yun Heng had both seen that face before — he was the black-hearted stall vendor taken away that day! The innkeeper had said the man was thrown into the great prison, and by Jiaoyue City’s law he should have been sentenced to heavy punishment. So what, then, was this corpse doing here?
Footnotes
- 草木皆兵 | caomu jiebing | Literally 'every grass and tree is a soldier.' From the Battle of the Fei River in 383 CE, when the routed Fu Jian of Former Qin mistook swaying trees on a distant hill for enemy troops. It describes paranoia so deep that harmless surroundings seem hostile — the lingering aftereffect of a bad fright.
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