“You’ve met her?” Once Su Feifei and Shattered Star-Heart had gone, Ye Tianxie asked with a frown. Shattered Star-Heart was plainly someone incapable of pretending, and everything she had just shown proved something.

Liu Qiyue smiled and shook her head, narrowing those beautiful eyes. She crossed to stand in front of Ye Tianxie on light, gliding steps, her jade cheek pressing close, cherry lips parting to breathe out orchid-sweet air. In a voice soft as cotton she said gently, “Little Brother Tianxie, where’s this gift you’re giving your big sister?”

Liu Qiyue was half a head shorter than Ye Tianxie. Her snow-white neck tilted up, and the fragrant breath from her cherry lips brushed softly against his face. A faint, almost-not-there milky sweetness reached his nose and set his mind adrift, and unbidden, an image surfaced in his head of the full, heavy breasts that rose and fell without pause at Liu Qiyue’s chest as she walked. He gave his head a quick small shake, cleared the stray thoughts out, and took Wang Cai’s Deed from his pack and set it in front of her. He had never dared deny or doubt the sheer scale of Liu Qiyue’s allure — and that was one of the reasons he had always deliberately kept his distance from her. She was one of the very few people who could make him lose command of his own mind.

Liu Qiyue reached out a smooth, snowy right hand and took it, lowered her head and read the deed’s description through carefully, then put it away with care. Faced with a hidden item that could hand her an enormous chain business guild — the kind of thing that would drive an ordinary person wild with excitement — she showed no visible ripple of feeling from beginning to end. The toughness of her temperament was on full display in that alone.

Conquering a woman like this would be harder than climbing to heaven.

“An enormous gift indeed.” Liu Qiyue lifted her head, those misty eyes clear as a still pool wide open, and said softly, “With this, your big sister will save who knows how much time and effort… Little Brother Tianxie, tell me — how ought your big sister to reward you?”

Standing this close to Liu Qiyue, the scent coming off her brought on a hazy dizziness in his head. He badly wanted to take a step back, but out of respect for his big sister — and still less wanting to wound her feelings — he stood there as though petrified and said, his expression somewhat stiff, “You’re my big sister. Giving it to you is only right. Between an older sister and a younger brother… there’s no need for any reward.”

The light in Liu Qiyue’s eyes shifted; she watched him quietly for a moment, then let out a soft, delicate laugh, covering her mouth with the back of one smooth white hand and showing a palm as tender as a freshly peeled orange. The endlessly lovely line of her waist beneath that plain, simple dress rose and dipped — and worst of all, Ye Tianxie stood close enough to see clearly how her snowy skin trembled faintly and continuously with the laughter. Combined with her innate coquetry, it made a seductive air that could melt a man’s soul clean out of him. “Little Brother Tianxie, if you won’t take a reward, then your big sister will be going. So as not to waste this enormous gift of yours, your big sister doesn’t dare lose even a little more time… Little Brother Tianxie, don’t forget to go and comfort that beautiful confidante of yours in a while — she’s drunk a great deal of vinegar.”

Her waist swayed as she left at an unhurried pace, and even her retreating figure carried that endless, mind-stirring witchery. This was a vixen through and through — in her face, her figure, the light of her eyes, her expression, her voice…

Not until she had truly passed out of his sight did Ye Tianxie slowly come back to himself. He let out a light breath and murmured, “Only a true favored son of heaven could be worth a ten-thousandth of you. I’m nothing but duckweed on the wind. Even I don’t know what my future is, or where I’ll end up. Why… put yourself through it…”

Liu Qiyue walked out of Ye Tianxie’s home, but she didn’t leave at once. She stood thinking quietly for a while, then picked up her communicator…

“Nightingale, look someone up for me… And find out the Ran family’s present situation, in as much detail as you can…”

“…Speaking of it, if you want to keep a courtyard this size in order every day, there’s a great deal you’ll need to learn. For instance, the first thing is to go and learn the Gardener profession — then you can prune the flowering branches here or speed up their growth, and you can plant higher-grade flowers too. Over there is a small orchard; it needs picking every day, and then the fruit goes in the main hall. If your Gardener level is high enough you can plant higher-grade fruit trees, and I hear some of the fruit can raise a person’s attributes for a while…”

Su Feifei took Shattered Star-Heart around the whole of… Guoguo’s Cottage, explaining everything to her in fine detail. After they had walked the flower beds and the orchard, she turned gracefully. “There, that’s all of it. See? The place is huge, so on your own it’s going to be hard work.”

“It won’t be. It won’t be hard at all.” Shattered Star-Heart shook her head. The courtyard here was large, but this was not, after all, a real-world garden; a great many things were simple to do. Having walked the whole place, she already had a rough idea of what she would need to do each day… In truth there really was very little of it. If nothing unusual came up, two hours a day would see it finished… Two hours, and she could earn a great deal of money, and still have plenty of time left to spend with her sister.

“Hee… oh, little sister, have you and he — my boyfriend — really only met those few times?”

It was not the first time she had asked. And by now she called Ye Tianxie her “boyfriend” without a trace of embarrassment or difficulty, entirely naturally… Clearly she had slipped into the role of her own accord and was carrying herself as Ye Tianxie’s girlfriend.

“Mm. He… is a very good person. The best person I’ve ever met.” Shattered Star-Heart nodded, and at the mention of him her eyes filled with the color of gratitude.

“He is good,” Su Feifei said with a smile, then dropped her voice to a level only she could hear. “…though sometimes he’s very bad, too. Mm, come on, let’s head back to the hall.”

When they returned to the central hall, the three men were already sitting there discussing something. Zuo Pojun was sprawled across a chair in a distinctly unsightly posture, one big foot planted on the table, taking large bites out of an apple picked not long before and making muffled noises around it. “…With Big Sister’s ability, and that ready-made site sitting there, seven days at most… no, three days, and she’ll have the whole thing sorted… mmf mmf!”

The moment he saw the two girls come in, Zuo Pojun hurriedly took his foot off the table, shifted into a perfectly proper posture, and put on a smile in greeting. “Hello there, beauties.”

Su Feifei ignored him outright. Shattered Star-Heart made a small sound in reply, then stole a glance at Ye Tianxie and quietly lowered her head again.

“Chenxin. Have you decided? Are you willing to be my housekeeper?” Ye Tianxie said with a smile.

Shattered Star-Heart nodded and said softly, “Thank you, Big Brother Tianxie. From now on I… I’ll be sure to repay you.”

Ye Tianxie let out a helpless laugh and shook his head. “There’s no repaying involved. I’ve told you, this is friends helping each other… Besides, if I have equipment that needs identifying later on, you’ll have to give me a discount… free would be best, of course.”

“Mm! From now on I’ll… only identify for you.” The instant she said it she felt it hadn’t come out right at all; a flush of pink surfaced on her snow-white face, and for a moment she was too embarrassed to know what to say to cover it.

Zuo Pojun and Murong Qiushui exchanged a look and wore distinctly suggestive expressions. Ye Tianxie was about to speak when he saw Shattered Star-Heart’s expression change. She said hurriedly, “Big Brother Xietian, Sister Feifei, someone outside is calling me. I’ll log off now… I’ll come back later, and I’ll be sure to finish today’s work.”

“Mm, go ahead.” Ye Tianxie smiled. “You can come and go here freely now, any time you like.”

“Mm, thank you… thank you!”

She had said “thank you” a great many times today. She bowed slightly, then vanished from in front of them. Her sister Chenxue had woken from sleep and was calling for her. It was already noon — time to feed her lunch.

The moment Shattered Star-Heart left, Su Feifei plopped down beside Ye Tianxie and said with a grin, in a tone of complete unconcern, “Tianxie, you haven’t taken a fancy to little Chenxin, have you? So sweet-looking, the sort that makes even me feel protective, a soft lovely voice, a gentle temperament — if I were a man I’d have fallen for her on the spot too.”

“Oh…” Ye Tianxie tapped his chin, wearing a thoughtful look. “Now that you mention it, I think I really do like her a little… easy on the eyes, not a trace of the little temper beautiful women tend to have, gentle by nature… a perfect candidate for a wife.”

Su Feifei’s two small hands quietly curled into fists as she fought down the urge to bring them down on Ye Tianxie. Zuo Pojun and Murong Qiushui had both, without any prior agreement, begun playing with their fingernails, wearing expressions of such earnest concentration that fingernails might have been the most fascinating things in the world.

“Tianxie, you like gentle girls?”

The volcano didn’t erupt after all. Instead, Su Feifei’s voice turned gentle all at once — gentle as weightless cotton — and hearing it, Ye Tianxie felt his own body go a few degrees lighter.

“Uh…” Ye Tianxie pretended not to hear, stood up, and said to the two men absorbed in their fingernails, “Pojun, Qiushui, after eating that much your hunger gauge should be back to zero… Come on, let’s go level.”

Zuo Pojun and Murong Qiushui got to their feet, exchanged a look, and didn’t agree. Both shook their heads, and Zuo Pojun said, “Second Brother, for leveling you’d better go on your own. I want to wander around the city with Fourth Brother and give Big Sister a hand while we’re at it.”

Ye Tianxie looked at them steadily for a moment, then gave a small nod. “All right, then.”

“Mm-hmm! Off you go, then. Tianxie and I are going leveling.” Su Feifei stood beaming at Ye Tianxie’s side, her body nearly pressed against his. She wanted nothing more than for Zuo Pojun and Murong Qiushui to stay behind, so she could be alone with him without two great big light bulbs standing around.

“Mm. Let’s go, then.”

And just then, with a ding, a notification that carried across the entire World of Fate rang out loudly overhead.

“Ding… Worldwide Announcement! As of this moment, the proportion of all players in the World of Fate who have completed their first class change has passed 50%. The World of Fate’s three great early-stage System Quests are hereby opened simultaneously! The World of Fate Battle Region Honor Ranking is now open!”

(End of Chapter 167)