Edited by Qiuxue and Noks
Although being able to reuse a talisman was great and meant that it would be 'environmentally friendly', Xu Yao’s ability was still really frightening. Le Yao had never seen such a person. Because of such a powerful 'skill', he wasn't able to calculate the other’s past and present life. Where had Xu Yao come from and where he wanted to go, or whether there would be any misfortune was impossible to know.
If such a person did not happen to be his husband, he would surely have turned into a lemon essence by now. Xu Yao had all the qualities that Xuanshu Masters would dream about achieving.
“Can the Tianyan talisman I drew before also be used repeatedly?” Xu Yao asked Le Yao. If it could be used repeatedly, certain people would be able to keep their sight open as long as they had one and it would help in reducing their fear of the undead.
“I don’t think so. The Tianyan talisman is used on the living, which makes it different from the talismans used on the undead. If you want to be sure, let’s try it out so as to not waste or increase your workload without any reason,” replied Le Yao.
“Alright.” Then Xu Yao left to retrieve a Tianyan talisman.
There were still some ready-made talismans remaining from before. After taking a talisman, he called over one of the guards who had not yet been given the chance to open his sight and used it on him. After that, he tried using the same talisman on another person. It turned out that Le Yao was right. This talisman could only be used once. The color of the rune would fade away after just one use.
“Before we go, we can leave a few soul-fixing talismans with the Emperor. As for the soul-breaking talisman, I think it’s unlikely that it can be used repeatedly because it explodes with the attack,” said Le Yao.
“Well, I’ll think about it again,” said Xu Yao, and turned around to say something to his father, but saw him still fixed in place, while everyone else, except for Le Yao, had stood up to move their chairs further away.
Xu Yao thought it was a little funny and removed the talisman before going to hold Le Yao, “Let’s go back and sleep. Dad, you can continue playing.”
Father Xu twisted his neck and waved.
At this time, Mother Xu turned and said, “If only I had known earlier that my son would have such a treasured wife… Well, if you don't listen to me in the future, I'll find him to fix you!”
Father Xu argued back, “When have I not listened to you?”
“The small basketI weaved should have been used to store materials for my handicrafts, but you insisted on taking it to turn it into a hat! If it had turned out well I wouldn't be saying anything, yet you made it look like a water bucket… Mmh mmh!”
Father Xu immediately covered his wife’s mouth, “My wife! You are the best wife in the world!”
Mother Xu: “…”
A burst of laughter came from behind him. Xu Yao shook his head and led Le Yao back to their house.
“Mom and Dad's personalities are very nice, but they are quite different from you,” said Le Yao.
“Well. Maybe it’s because we were separated too early.”
In fact, he couldn't quite remember what his parents’ personalities were like before. After all, he had still been young when they had left. He only remembered that his mother was very gentle and his father always amused his mother when he was there. They were very harmonious and never quarreled.
Thinking of the interaction between his parents, Xu Yao asked Le Yao, “Have all the eggs hatched?”
Le Yao answered, “No! The two biggest ones still haven’t moved, do you think there's a problem with them?”
“There shouldn't be,” Xu Yao replied.
Hearing his response, Le Yao decided to take another look at the eggs.
After returning, Xu Yao went to draw the other two types of talismans. Le Yao turned on the communicator's light function, selected the strongest setting, and then carefully took out one of the eggs to examine.
On the Internet, he had found information stating that after the little turtle in an egg had grown to a certain extent, he should be able to see threads of blood silk and a shadow of the body if he placed the egg in front of a strong light. But, even after using the communicator's light for a long time, he couldn't see any red strands in the egg. There was a shadow inside, but it didn’t look like a turtle at all; instead, it was all quite white.
Could it be that the two eggs were unfertilized?
Le Yao repeatedly shone light on the two eggs, but his doubt as to whether there were turtles in them continued to amount. There had been a few cracks on the eggs that had previously hatched. The more obvious the cracks were, the quicker the shell would peel off, until the turtle inside pierced through the film of the eggshell and successfully entered the world. But it seemed that only these two eggs were the same as before.
So Le Yao decided to take pictures of the eggs under the strong light and had them sent to an online forum for queries on pets, asking if the netizens could help identify the eggs.
[Netizen X: I can’t see anything from the picture sent by the owner. There must be no turtle in it.]
[Great grade coffee: According to my many years of turtle breeding experience, there's a 100% chance that the eggs in these two pictures won't be able to hatch.]
[Rabbit Feifei: Am I the only one thinking this egg looks… A little familiar?]
[Alpha harvester: I also feel like I’ve seen it somewhere. It’s colorful!]
[Jessie: Isn’t this the kind of egg that Le San sent a picture of the other day? Shouldn't the owner…]
Le Yao hadn’t expected to be recognized and didn’t rush to reply because several older members had, after taking a glance, said that the eggs would not be able to hatch. So, he pondered on it for a while. He held the egg in his hand and shook it lightly. There was no sensation of a liquid flowing inside it. He gnawed on his lip before hitting the egg!
The shell broke and the pile of cotton present inside swelled up into a big ball in its place!
What the hell?
His first thought was that Xu Yao had been deceived. The shop must have been selling real and fake eggs. But after thinking about it again, if unfertilized eggs were also mixed in, the buyers would definitely complain if they got an unfertilized one. Thus he peeled away at the fluffy cotton ball carefully and with curiosity. As he slowly stripped away pieces of cotton, he suddenly froze…
There was a necklace inside the cotton ball!
It was a white necklace with a thin chain. Its most eye-catching part was the pendant, which was a transparent blue stone. He didn't know what kind of stone it was. Its surface was polished to make it very smooth and round, and it felt cold. What made the necklace even more amazing was a tiny bead of light slowly revolving around the pea-sized stone, just like how a meteor orbits around a miniature planet.
Le Yao had never seen such a thing before, not in his last life, nor in his current one.
No matter how stupid he was, he soon understood that this sort of a fake egg had been created by Xu Yao himself. So he crushed the other one, and its inner contents were exactly the same as the previous fake egg. This one, though, had a bracelet wrapped within the fluffy cotton ball.
“You like it?” He didn't know how long Xu Yao had been standing for behind him. He gently hugged Le Yao from behind and then placed the necklace around Le Yao's neck.
“I like it. When did you buy it?”
“I ordered it a month ago. It's custom made, no one else has one. In addition, it’s not an ordinary gem, it’s an energy stone,” said Xu Yao. "Don’t you feel something special after wearing it?”
“It’s cool all around me, but not too cold. It’s amazing.”
“The temperature here isn't high, so the effect wouldn't be obvious. You will realize how amazing it is once we return to Huaxia. Truthfully, I had wanted to make a ring for you, but the designer said that the size of the stone wasn't suitable for making a ring, so I ordered a necklace and bracelet instead.”
“To be honest, these things are perfect for me. I don’t like rings very much. It becomes inconvenient to do any work with them on my fingers.” Le Yao peered at the energy stone. “Is it natural? There’s a bead of light orbiting it.”
“Yes. And it will change with the angle. If you don’t believe me, you can try rolling it around a bit.”
Le Yao tried moving the pendant and found that it was true. No matter how he changed the direction, the bead of light floating around it would maintain the same angle from the pendant, just as it was in the beginning. The bead of light could move, but it moved with the pendant, so that its trajectory remained unchanged; it was extremely novel.
The bracelet was the same, but the pendant in it was smaller when compared to the one on the necklace. Le Yao raised his wrist and looked at it carefully, wondering, “Why didn't you make two sets, one for you and one for me?”
Xu Yao then led Le Yao to his study and took a flannelette box out of the drawer. “Open it and see what's inside.”
Le Yao didn’t know, so he wondered if it would be the same type of pendant he was wearing around his neck. Upon opening the lid, he found that there was indeed a necklace and a bracelet inside, but the inlaid stones in these two items were totally different from his.
The stones on his necklace and bracelet were shaped into small balls, whilst Xu Yao's stones were set into two rectangular tags of different sizes. The tags were made to look like a natural gem, with one side being very flat and the other side uneven. From the flat side to the uneven side, the color of the stone gradually changed from a deep blue into a lighter blue. On the uneven side, he could see a sunken semicircle. In terms of size, it would be just right to add a round stone on each tag.
Where did the original pendant on his necklace and bracelet come from? The answer was obvious.
“I really thought about buying you something ready-made, or selecting some raw stones to have them custom-made for you. But I couldn’t choose the right one and so it ended up being divided into two sets. The original stone is called 'Heart of the Galaxy', a very rare kind of energy stone. Although it is small, the energy contained in it can't be underestimated. The two beads you're wearing are the most energetic and clearest parts of the original stone. Isn't it proper to give the best to the one I love the most?”
“Yeah~ I like it very much. Thank you.” Le Yao smiled with crooked eyes. Because of the bead of floating light, the stone looked like it was alive. Le Yao picked it up and looked at it again. “When you put such valuable things in the eggs, weren't you afraid that I would think they were bad eggs and throw them away?”
“If that was the case, Leslie would still have reminded you in time.”
“Ah. That’s right too.” Le Yao fondly touched them before placing his little pendants onto Xu Yao's two tags. He saw that the two balls entered into the sunken grooves perfectly. He sighed, “What wonderful workmanship, to be able to just cut out the shape of the pendant.”
“Did I swap them wrongly? Perhaps I should have given you the tag and kept the ball.” Xu Yao smiled and whispered in Le Yao’s ear, “It's clear that you're the one who contains me.”
Le Yao: “…No!”
An Old Rogue! Able to start talkingyelloweven at such a time!
As soon as Xu Yao saw that Le Yao had half-turned and made a precautionary move, he lifted him up and said, “If you don’t give it to me, it doesn't matter. You are mine anyway.”
Le Yao pointed to himself before saying, “This one can be given.” Then he pointed at the necklace and said, “This one can't.”
“You said it yourself.”
Le Yao: “…”
After that, Le Yao discovered what it meant to crush one's own foot while trying to maneuver a rock.
The next day Le Yao got up a little later, but in a good mental state. As expected, Xu Yao wasn't at home, but Le Yao had gotten used to this. After getting up, he took a bath and ate breakfast alone. Then, as Xu Yao had suggested, he began to check for leaks and fill in the gaps for all that he had not yet bought.
The books required for the undead brothers of the Flying Wolf Division had been prepared and this matter was being handled by Yan Jie. As for cinnabar powder and paper pulp, all things related to talismans and offerings had also been purchased. Additionally, there were items for children to use in all seasons, clothes for the old couple and materials for handicrafts which had also been bought. There was nothing lacking, but it seemed that he could still bring some more gifts for the brothers in Huaxia.
Le Yao didn’t know what everyone liked and he couldn’t just buy things only for the undead. However, that would mean buying different gifts for a lot of people, so instead, he simply purchased a few ingredients necessary for dim sum, which he decided to make for the soldiers after discussing with the chefs on Huaxia. In any case, since he didn’t usually cook for them and he didn't spend any military money so it shouldn't create any problems.
“Yan Jie, do you have anything special you want to eat? I’ll buy it together if there is,” said Le Yao.
Yan Jie didn’t make a sound.
“Yan Jie?” Le Yao still didn’t receive any response, even as he got closer to him.
“Yan Jie!” Le Yao finally shouted.
“Ah!” Yan Jie was shocked. “What’s the matter, Mr Xiao Le?”
“Are you alright?” This person had been running around outside these days, so Le Yao had not paid him much attention. Now he noticed that Yan Jie seemed as if he had not been sleeping well, because of the dark circles around his eyes.
“I'm fine.” Yan Jie asked, “What can I do for you?”
“Don’t always be saying ‘you‘; don’t be so polite. I just wanted to ask you if there were any snacks you'd like. I’m buying ingredients.”
“Ah… it's fine.” Yan Jie finished speaking and began to wander away again.
Le Yao sighed and felt that something was wrong. Later, when he met Han Mo, he asked, “Brother Han, is Yan Jie alright? How can he be so distracted all the time?”
Han Mo replied, “He's alright. Maybe he's just a little worried.”
“Worried? What's there to be worried about?”
“President Yang Hengtian, the President of the Yang Company, will be joining us this time on our journey to Huaxia, so that he can conduct a preliminary inspection for the relocation project. This morning, the General arranged for Yan Jie to be his assistant for the duration of the inspection. He seems to be a little afraid of President Yang, although I don’t know why that is so.”
Le Yao: “…”
…
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Yan Jie: Don’t ask, I don’t want to say Q.Q
Stay safe and healthy y’all