“I feel like you can actually hear my thoughts.” Liao Tingyan stared hard at Sima Jiao, her mood heavy.
They were back in their room, and she sat like someone about to start a serious heart-to-heart. She suspected—no, was almost convinced—that this ancestor really could read minds. But she had no proof, and tonight she wanted evidence.
“Yes, I can,” Sima Jiao said, utterly shameless.
Liao Tingyan froze. That easy? She’d prepared to grill him for hours, and here he just confessed? “Ancestor, you’re lying again! You swore you couldn’t read minds!”
He chuckled, propping one foot on a nearby stool and leaning back with infuriating ease. “I truly can’t.” His voice was lazy, amused. In truth, he’d always been sensitive to others’ emotions, and with the True Speech Oath binding him, lying wasn’t an option.
“But recently,” he went on, “when you get emotional, I occasionally hear your thoughts. Only yours.”
Liao Tingyan nearly burst into tears. Only me? What tragic fate was this? She was just an ordinary slacker—why was she cursed to be the exception?
A sudden realization struck her: this had to be fallout from their soul communion. That overly intimate link had mutated his abilities when it came to her.
Liao Tingyan: …I can’t breathe!
If only she’d studied earlier, if she’d had proper “physiological health education” in this world, she’d have never been careless enough to “sleep” with the boss. Now here she was, suffering the consequences.
Sleep, sleep, sleep! Who goes to bed with the boss so casually? Of course disaster follows!
It felt as if she’d accidentally birthed a calamity, and now she sat here miserable, while the culprit chuckled at her distress, clearly entertained.
Liao Tingyan’s thoughts spiraled: Why am I not a magical girl warrior? If I were, would I be in this pathetic mess? She imagined herself summoning glittering weapons, beating the smug ancestor to a pulp, cursing him as the terrible old monster he was.
Sima Jiao’s eyelids lifted, his youthful face carrying a faint warning. “I can hear you.”
Panic. Liao Tingyan immediately began chanting the multiplication table in her head, drowning her violent fantasies with math.
He drawled, almost bored. “What are you afraid of? I won’t snoop for no reason. Besides, I’ve seen filth and darkness far worse than anything you could think. Apart from eating and sleeping, what secrets could you possibly hide?”
Clearly, the ancestor didn’t know her well enough. The moment he said filth, her brain betrayed her, dragging up a catalogue of the “educational videos” she’d watched in her previous life. She’d grown up in the age of information overload, back before strict internet crackdowns. She had, out of pure curiosity (ahem), clicked through plenty of those films—some starting with “a” and ending with “v,” others starting with “g” and ending with “v.”
The human brain is cruel. The more you forbid a thought, the more it insists on replaying it.
Her expression twisted until Sima Jiao pressed his temple and sighed, half-smiling. “I’ve truly never seen anything like this.”
Liao Tingyan frantically scrubbed her mind clean, only to hear him say with mock solemnity, “No wonder you were educated in the Demon Realm. You’ve broadened my horizons. I’ve learned something new.”
Liao Tingyan: The Demon Realm’s reputation is ruined. I’ve let down the Demon Realm.
She fumed for ten minutes straight, then deflated. Fine, she could manage this. If she stayed calm, didn’t get worked up, then the ancestor wouldn’t hear her secretly calling him an idiot. She would live in serenity from today on.
But then it hit her—she had already called him an idiot countless times in her head. Could he have heard those too?
Sima Jiao: “I heard them.”
Liao Tingyan collapsed onto the floor. “Ancestor, please stop holding remote conversations with my brain!”
Then another thought popped up: despite all her cursing, he’d never lashed out or killed her. Could it be… true love?!
Sima Jiao ignored her. Pretend he didn’t hear—his preferred tactic.
She gulped down a sweet, fragrant drink to calm herself. At that moment, he casually tossed a massive tome at her.
“What’s this?” she asked, clutching the heavy book.
“I saw it while handling something and brought it back,” he said, as if it were a trinket.
Its surface was covered in strange markings. When she opened it, light brushed her soul, and she immediately understood—it was a compendium of techniques. Heaven, Earth, Mystery, Yellow; Five Elements; twelve spirit root variations—over 105,000 entries.
It was priceless, the kind of treasure sects locked away as their very foundation. Elders might never glimpse such a thing in their lifetime.
And he had just… “borrowed” it.
“Won’t they search the whole sect for the thief tomorrow and find us?” she asked stiffly.
He glanced over, faintly annoyed. “I’ve killed countless of their people and you weren’t afraid, but now you’re worried about a book?”
…Fair point. Liao Tingyan shut her mouth.
This wasn’t just a book. It was a teaching library. With a single thought, one could enter an immersive lesson in whichever technique they chose.
Liao Tingyan held it like a burning brick. “I love learning. From now on, fifty words a day—no, fifteen techniques a day!” she said flatly.
“You don’t want to,” Sima Jiao countered. Her mind was screaming NO STUDYING! loud enough to give him a headache.
“Then why dump this super-thick workbook on me?!” she howled.
“Keep yelling and we’ll do soul communion,” he said darkly.
She went limp instantly, stuck a sprig of calming herb on her forehead, and pretended to meditate. Within three minutes, she was out cold.
Sima Jiao peeled the herb off and studied her. It had no sleep-inducing qualities. She did. Everything about her radiated a lazy peace that seeped into him. Before he realized it, he was burying his face in her neck and drifting into sleep—ordinary sleep, as if he were just a normal person.
…
The next day, something felt wrong.
Her classmates looked at her with disgust, mockery, curiosity. Their stares made her feel like she’d walked out wearing pajama pants.
She thought it was lingering hostility from the flower banquet, but a few days later, people from the Wood family arrived. Yong Lingchun’s and Yong Shichu’s maternal grandfather demanded their return for punishment.
Liao Tingyan: Wait, what?
The old man scolded them half an hour straight before she finally pieced it together: rumors had spread across the academy. The twin siblings, Yong Lingchun and Yong Shichu, were said to have an incestuous relationship. Worse, whispers claimed that on the night of the banquet they had done that kind of thing at the Brocade Painting Hall.
What kind of thing?!
Liao Tingyan slapped her forehead. Right. The sibling cover story.
Sima Jiao: “Hahahahaha.”
“Ancestor!” she wailed. “This is not the time to laugh!”
But he laughed anyway, even on the cloud carriage back, doubled over with amusement.
Liao Tingyan thought: Is it really that funny?
His laugh twisted into something colder. Playing with his deadly lottery spheres, he muttered, “I heard my parents were siblings. To preserve the Sima bloodline, they were brainwashed, forced to produce me. I thought people here didn’t care about such things. Today, I see they do know shame after all.”
He pulled out a sphere marked with “Wood.” With a snap, it shattered, golden energy scattering like dust.
Liao Tingyan understood—he was choosing his next targets. She braced herself.
That night, he said casually, “I’ll be going out.”
“Oh,” she said, almost like a housewife. “Safe journey, take care.” Then her scalp prickled.
He curved his lips, leaned close. “Is there anything you want?”
“…Want?” she blinked.
“When I return, what should I bring back for you?”
The resemblance was uncanny. He sounded like a husband bringing gifts from a business trip. Except his “business trip” was murder and arson.
“Anything’s fine,” she stammered.
“Then wait for me.” He stroked her face with rare tenderness. The unexpected softness nearly gave her a heart attack.
After he left, she told herself she preferred sleeping alone anyway. His habit of burying his head in her neck tickled too much.
Two days later, he returned in the middle of the night, dripping with dew. He shook her awake, then slipped something icy into her collar.
“What’s this?!” she yelped, pulling out the cold object.
Sima Jiao leaned lazily against her pillow. “Saw it in some treasury. Thought it looked nice. Brought it back for you to play with.”
NEXT
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