Martial King's Retired Life

The only thing between Young Shiyi, who was seated on my bed, was a tiger-fur rug. Outside of the door behind me was a silver orb, and at my feet was a nail board that cost five copper coins.

“Kneel!” Young Shiyi ordered, arms crossed under her rack.

After I treated Uncle Feng Xue and Luo Ming, Young Shiyi dragged me back to camp, let me eat, then entered my room with me. I had no idea her short disappearance was used to go buy a nail board!

“Please spare me, Young Shiyi!” I summoned all the tears and snot I could humanly summon. “I’m honestly innocent! It’s all a misunderstanding!”

“Explain yourself.”

“I-I don’t know how to. B-Boss just suddenly puked when I was giving her a checkup.”

“That wasn’t the question.”

“Wh-what’s the question?”

“The question is, when did you do the deed? How is Yiren pregnant?”

I shook my head as if my life depended on it. “I did no such thing – never! It has nothing to do with me!”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes… sort of.” Had I not fed Boss Pangu’s heart’s blood, she wouldn’t have suffered those symptoms, so I did play a part, right?

P-p-p-put that sword back in!

No matter what I was interrogated on, I denied it all, so Young Shiyi asked, “All right, next question: what will your child refer to me as?”

I scrubbed my head. “Uh, Young Grandaunt?”

“I knew it’s your child!”

That’s just leading me into a trap!

“Besides, why Young Grandaunt? Who am I to you?”

“Okay, then… First Mother?”

Caught by surprise, Young Shiyi’s head turned into an active chimney. “I never said anything about marrying you.”

I scratched the back of my head. “I thought you wanted to be main…”

The two of us looked down upon making eye contact, though it didn’t take long for Young Shiyi to glare at me again. “If I’m First Mother, then doesn’t that mean she is carrying your child?”

No! Stop it! Stop veering everything back to that!

“No! It’s like this…” I figured out in my head where to start and then related it all back, starting from Pangu’s heart’s blood.

Young Shiyi obviously didn’t know nearly as much as I did on dragons since I had been doing extra research beyond Mount Daluo’s materials, not to mention throwing down with Pangu. In the same vein, she didn’t know anything about the similar symptoms to pregnancy showing up.

“If you want to get to the bottom of the side effects, you’ll probably have to consult my cousin.”

Great minds think alike. I was 99.9% sure my idiotic shifu wouldn’t know squat about the subject.

“Nevertheless, it’s good that Yiren’s injury is no more. Don’t worry too much. Given the energy has disappeared, the crisis is averted. With that said” – Young Shiyi squinted – “you’re not trying to fool me with dragon’s heart’s blood, are you?”

“Absolutely not! I swear on my life!”

Let me tell you an irrefutable fact: a stubborn and clever woman is far scarier than a stubborn and stupid woman.

Following another lengthy explanation, I was finally allowed to sit on my bed, although, technically, she only allowed me on my bed so that she could inspect my condition.

Whilst checking me for scratches and bruises, Young Shiyi queried, “How are you feeling?”

“Nothing in particular. You know Tianhu didn’t hit that hard. Half of it was me exaggerating. That said, I didn’t expect I was so weak; even I was shocked when I gasped so much blood. Still, State Preceptor Lai’s healing ability was even more surprising. It’s true when they say there’s no way anyone can know everything about every martial art.”

“I know you aren’t hurt that bad.”

“R-really? You pulled a sword on him and seemed pretty serious about it.”

“That’s a different story. It doesn’t matter whether you were pretending or not. I get angry just seeing you spewing blood.” Young Shiyi dressed me again. Seeing me relish the sensation of physical contact with my eyes shut, she poked me on the head. “I was asking about the damage you sustained against Pangu. I know you lost your abilities. I was supposed to dye your hair for you while you were unconscious, but I noticed your hair stayed black.”

“I knew you figured it out when I woke up to see my celestial spider silk outer coat missing. Where is it now?”

“Thanks to you losing your strength, it kept emanating frigid energy, so I hid it in a waterfall outside of Nieyao. Three days later, over thirty kilometres of the water trail had turned to ice, drawing a crowd. Luckily, nobody had spare time from our side to go investigate.”

I figured Young Shiyi or Hong Jiu had covered for me when I woke up to find my outer coat missing. Had they not removed it, I would’ve turned into a humanoid icicle.

“Back on topic. How are your abilities now? If you’ve lost a lot, I’ll write a letter to have your shifu and shiniang come check on you.”

“That won’t be necessary. If word got out that they had returned to the pugilistic world, they’d cause a stir. I’d like to continue enjoying peaceful days.”

In addition, I had a feeling that I shouldn’t meet my shifu at the moment. I didn’t know why. Maybe I forgot about something?

“But in your current state…”

“Haha, I’m fine. Yes, I’ve lost all my internal energy; however, it’s not like I won’t recover. As long as I follow the correct method, it’s only a matter of time.”

“Dual cultivation?”

Trivia

If you’ve forgotten what Ming Feizhen forgot regarding his shifu, here is a hint: Matriarch Zi.