Chapter 154: Junior Sister, Arguing Won’t Work
Silence filled the room for a long time.
Pei Lianxue’s clear, watery orange eyes were full of anticipation, blinking occasionally. Ye Anping felt a bit flustered watching her.
He opened and closed his lips several times, then gently pulled his junior sister to sit with him at the edge of the bed. He took her small hand in his, squeezing it slightly to ensure he hadn’t misheard, and confirmed, “Junior Sister, you want Ating?”
Pei Lianxue leaned against Ye Anping’s shoulder, deliberately shifting her weight towards him and nodding, “Mmm…”
Ye Anping swallowed, seeming to deliberately avoid her gaze. His expression showed a hint of unease. He changed the subject, asking, “Junior Sister, doesn’t Ating always call you Aunt? She…”
“No…” Pei Lianxue quickly interrupted, a slight frown creasing her brow. She lowered her head, patting her small belly, a sense of confusion in her mind. She and her senior brother had shared a bed for months, so why wasn’t she pregnant yet? She had thought about this question a lot recently. Perhaps the method was wrong? Maybe it was because they hadn’t kissed? Or perhaps because she and her senior brother hadn’t had a proper wedding ceremony? She had considered many reasons but couldn’t find the problem. Finally, she decided to ask Ye Anping. —Senior Brother knew everything, so he couldn’t possibly not know why she couldn’t get pregnant?
Pei Lianxue looked up, meeting Ye Anping’s gaze, and said, “I want Senior Brother’s Ating… um, Senior Brother and mine…”
“…”
Seeing Pei Lianxue’s gesture of touching her belly, Ye Anping suddenly realized. His naive junior sister probably thought that sharing a bed and sleeping together would lead to pregnancy. He had never considered his junior sister’s feelings for him before. But after that night a few days ago, even he, a fool, could understand that his junior sister’s affection for him had grown beyond mere “dependence,” “trust,” “tolerance,” or “you raised me, and I’ll grow old with you”… Her feelings for him were no longer simple.
Ye Anping tucked a stray strand of his junior sister’s hair behind her ear. Looking into her captivating eyes, he felt an urge to laugh and asked, “You want a child?”
“Mmm…”
Ye Anping gently flicked the tip of his junior sister’s nose and explained, “Junior Sister, you are still too young. You haven’t reached the age to have children.”
Pei Lianxue puffed out her cheeks, protesting, “I’m not young anymore, I’ve already had my coming of age ceremony.”
“That’s for mortals. Mortals your age would indeed be marrying and having children, but cultivators are different from mortals,” Ye Anping said, raising his index finger solemnly. “Cultivators usually have their first offspring when they are in their fifties or even hundreds of years old. My parents had me when they were over three hundred.”
Pei Lianxue had no room to refute and pouted, lowering her head.
Then, Ye Anping asked again, “Also, Junior Sister, have you considered how you would raise a child after having one? Your current cultivation is at the Foundation Establishment Stage. Do you have enough resources and spirit stones to support a child? Can you provide a stable environment for it to grow up in?”
Pei Lianxue shook her head slightly. “No…”
“That’s exactly it, so don’t think about it now,” Ye Anping said, letting out a sigh of relief. He patted her head. “Anyway, Senior Brother doesn’t want to add another mouth to feed right now. Raising you is already a handful. Adding a child would exhaust me.”
“…”
Pei Lianxue’s eyes were filled with disappointment. She took Ye Anping’s hand and placed it on her lap, lowering her head and rubbing his fingers. She knew she was poor at arguing and that winning an argument against her senior brother was as likely as a fantastical tale. But… she just wanted a child with her senior brother. She wanted it! She wanted it! She really wanted it!
Pei Lianxue felt a strange irritation and suddenly grabbed her senior brother’s index finger, trying to bend it back, just as he used to bend her fingers when she was little.
“Hiss—”
Sensing something was wrong, Ye Anping immediately took a deep breath and quickly held her hand. “Junior Sister, wait!”
Pei Lianxue glared at him angrily, her cheeks puffed out as if she had stuffed them with steamed buns. “Wuwuwu—”
“Senior Brother didn’t say he wouldn’t agree,” Ye Anping said, pouting his lips and quickly trying to comfort her. “Senior Brother only said that this matter of having a child needs to be considered very carefully. Haven’t you also had your coming of age ceremony? You need to learn to think ahead like Senior Brother, consider three steps ahead when playing chess.”
—Senior Brother is my brain!
—Anyway, my thoughts aren’t as detailed as Senior Brother’s.
Pei Lianxue was silent for a moment, then added a little more force.
*Crack—*
It seemed his answer was unsatisfactory. Ye Anping looked at his broken finger and felt that his junior sister was becoming increasingly assertive. He reluctantly withdrew his hand and straightened his finger. “Junior Sister, Senior Brother promises you, we will have children in the future.”
Pei Lianxue’s eyes lit up, and the “steamed buns” on her cheeks receded a bit. “Mmm…”
“But there are conditions. The first condition is that you must cultivate well, cultivate to the point where you can protect the child.”
“Anything else?”
“For the second, you need to learn how to take care of a child. You can’t just spoil them. You don’t understand anything now, how can you teach others well?”
“Mmm…” Pei Lianxue lowered her eyes and pondered for a moment. “I’ll teach the child like Senior Brother used to teach me.”
“…”
Ye Anping froze, imagining the scene. Pei Lianxue, with a little Lianxue, standing on the training platform of the Hundred Lotus Sect under the heavy winter snow.
—”Spread your legs, straighten your arms! Listen to Mother’s command, throw a right hook!”
…
He didn’t know whether the soul that reincarnated into the family of him and his junior sister was fortunate or unfortunate. In the past, he and Pei Lianxue had no choice but to face tribulation. But it seemed like a good path. Nurtured that way, they should be able to raise an exceptional individual.
However, as he thought about this, Ye Anping also realized that raising a child was also a blind spot in his knowledge. There was no child-rearing system in the game, and before he transmigrated, he had never taken care of a child. But since his junior sister wanted a child, he would find a way to have one with her, though certainly not now. At least not until they reached the Core Formation or Nascent Soul stage and had a stable residence.
“Mmm…”
Ye Anping rested his chin on his hand and began to think carefully. When faced with a problem, one must find a solution. There was simply one way to find a solution: constant experimentation, summarizing and reflecting from continuous attempts, and thus finding the optimal path to the answer. Experiment… experimental subject…
Coincidentally, there was a child beside him and his junior sister right now…
“Mmm… Junior Sister, how about this…”
Pei Lianxue tilted her head. “Mmm?”
“Why don’t you try treating Liang Ating as our future child and practice. Summarize and reflect on how to best raise a child. That way, when you really have one, you won’t be so flustered, right?”
“…”
Pei Lianxue thought about it and felt it made sense. She nodded. “Mmm, okay.”
“Phew—”
Ye Anping exhaled, then stood up and walked to the wardrobe. He took out the Xuan Xing Sect uniform and prepared to go to the spiritual spring behind the Chi Long Mansion for a bath.
Seeing this, Pei Lianxue asked, “Senior Brother, are you going out?”
“Mmm… I’ll be back later. I’m going to soak in the spiritual spring in the mountains for a while.”
“What about me?”
“You can’t go. The spiritual energy of that spring doesn’t match your spiritual root. If you soak in it, you’ll develop杂行灵气 (impure spiritual energy) in your meridians. The disadvantages outweigh the benefits.”
Pei Lianxue was stunned for a moment and replied, “Oh…”
Ye Anping put the uniform into his Storage Bag, walked over, leaned down, and kissed her. “Guard the house well, Senior Brother will be leaving now.”
Pei Lianxue pursed her lips and nodded happily. “Mmm… Okay.”
…
