Master, Your Salted Fish Has Arrived - Chapter 38
If Liao Tingyan had been the stereotypical career-driven female protagonist, she might have used Sima Jiao’s power to boost her cultivation, practiced diligently every day, and hunted down rare treasures and hidden realms to sharpen her skills. She’d study alchemy, master artifact forging, dabble in formations, invent new techniques, and lead a grand revolution in the cultivation world—helping Sima Jiao settle grudges, climbing levels while slapping enemies, reforming him in the process, and together rebuilding the ruined Gengchen Immortal Mansion. A proper rise-to-the-pinnacle story.
If she had been the fragile romantic lead, things would look completely different. She and Sima Jiao would act out a drawn-out, cat-and-mouse love drama: fearing him yet being hopelessly drawn to him, trying to run away only to be caught again, running into misunderstandings, suffering identity reveals, tearing apart and reconciling again and again. Fifty episodes of melodrama titled “You Believe Me, You Don’t Believe Me.”
But the real Liao Tingyan? She was just a corporate drone, with zero interest in either ambition or romance. For her, life’s charm didn’t lie in soaring to the top or experiencing fiery emotional collisions, but in passing comfortably ordinary days.
Rise and strive? Sure, possible—but why bother? If it made life more convenient, she’d learn a couple of practical spells: one for cleaning, one for dust-proofing, maybe a basic defense spell or two. No daily cultivation, no meditation retreats, no chasing after the Dao.
Romance? Also unlikely. Back in her world, her peers settled for “good enough” partners and divorced if things fell apart. Love was, at best, one-fifth of life. So when it came to her and Sima Jiao, she didn’t overthink it. The effort itself was exhausting.
Fortunately, Sima Jiao wasn’t love-obsessed either. He never pressed her with silly questions like “Do you like me or not?” He was usually busy with his own affairs, only returning to collapse beside her after work. Yes—collapse. Somehow, he had picked up her “lazy posture with no survival instinct” after staying in her spirit mansion for too long.
But that wasn’t all bad. His depression and isolation had eased, his dark circles even fading. When he was out, she went to classes, learned a couple of spells, or foraged. Shopping trips in bustling markets became her weekend joy, like in her old world. She stocked food and daily goods in her storage, just in case he dragged her to some desert to “dig coal at midnight.”
Sometimes she went out with Yongling Chun’s maids, basking in their flattery while trying on clothes, or brought guards to enjoy the show-off factor. But mostly she preferred going alone, sneaking in extra meals and pampering herself with good food.
Her life at Chen Academy wasn’t glamorous—classmates gave her strange looks and kept their distance—but it reminded her of carefree university days. Probably the happiest years of her first twenty-plus years.
Gradually, she realized Sima Jiao had embedded himself at the academy largely for her sake. Though he acted impulsive and untouchable, he always calculated carefully. He made sure she lived peacefully in a place less chaotic than the rest of Gengchen Mansion. His way of pampering her wasn’t in words, but in quiet protection.
At Three Saints Mountain, even before they were close, he always ensured she stayed safe before fighting. That instinct had only grown stronger. While storms of blood swirled outside, she enjoyed tranquil days.
But thinking too hard about him was dangerous—one could get stuck in him.
Summer heat brought naps, and thanks to Liao Tingyan, even the great ancestor learned to nap. She found a pebble beach by a stream, cooler than his crude water-pit pools. Soon, she was making floating bamboo trays with elixirs and watermelon, inventing summer bliss.
One afternoon, as a leaf drifted down into his hair, she absent-mindedly picked it up and let it float away—only for his black snake to fetch it back like a retriever. The snake had turned into a husky in spirit, obsessed with fetching.
Flower petals floated onto his sleeve. She stared too long. He opened his eyes, pulled her close, and shut them again.
“…That wasn’t what I meant,” she muttered.
“I heard you.”
“What did you hear? I don’t even know, yet you know?”
Later, when he returned pale-lipped from his affairs and stayed home half a month, hugging her daily like an idle vagrant, she worried—though she didn’t dare ask.
When he casually promised to show her the “livelest moment in Gengchen Mansion in ten thousand years,” her heart leapt in anticipation—then crashed when she realized his definition of “lively” was probably catastrophic. He laughed uncontrollably at the deer in her heart going splat, proving he’d eavesdropped on her thoughts again.
Her protests only amused him more.
Eventually, when he asked her favorite thing to do, her mind betrayed her before her mouth could answer:
—“Slacking off.”
He didn’t get it. So he dragged her to a scenic, heavily guarded white lake, pointed at the shimmering fish, and said:
“Go ahead.”
Liao Tingyan: …Go your sister. Do you think I’m a Pokémon?!