Chapter Text
Shen Qingqiu was furious.
He was furious with Yue Qingyuan for sending him on this mission with the brute.
He was furious that he was currently wrapped tightly in annoying thorny vines that prickled his skin and sucked his blood and qi dry.
And most of all, Shen Qingqiu was furious with the brute, Liu Qingge, for putting them in this situation.
As a scholar, of course, he had his guesses that the plant currently clutching them must be the Nine-Turn Vines of Fertility, which, if it had its fill, would release its victims. The poison from its thorns—an aphrodisiac—would remain in the victim's meridians, and if left uncured, the victim would die.
But there was another possible flora, and it was far more bothersome than the first. It was not easy to identify, as their components were almost identical. He immediately pushed away the unsightly thought.
Either way, both possibilities were unacceptable, so he had to come up with a plan because he could not trust the brute to find a way for them to escape the clutches of this vile plant.
"Stop struggling. You're just wasting your strength," he said with a hiss.
But of course, his words fell on deaf ears as the brute kept struggling, only causing the vines wrapped around him to tighten further.
Liu Qingge answered with a sneer on his pretty face. "What do you want me to do? Wait for us to die? Unlike you, I don't plan on dying."
"We would not be here in the first place if not because of you, meathead!" The Lord of Qing Jing Peak threw his fan at the Bai Zhan Peak Lord in anger, hitting the latter squarely in the face.
The two once again exchanged foul words, unable to throw blows at one another due to the vines that continued draining them and nurturing the flower bud between the two Peak Lords.
Meanwhile, as the two unleashed their fury, the petals of the Nine Petals-Blossom Vines of Life slowly unfurled one by one until the bud fully bloomed, revealing a small infant sleeping within.
Shen Qingqiu noticed it first.
"No, no, no! Fuck! It's the Nine Petals-Blossom Vines of Life!"
Liu Qingge diverted his gaze from his shixiong and followed the direction in which he was staring.
"What is that?" a dumbfounded Liu Qingge blurted out.
"That thing, my idiot shidi, is an infant born from this plant using both of our blood and qi," Shen Qingqiu explained, exasperated by his shidi's stupidity.
"Hey! I know that's a baby!" Liu Qingge protested.
The vines slowly loosened around them until they were completely free.
Shen Qingqiu scoffed as he picked up his fallen fan and turned to leave, unable to use his sword because his qi was still recovering.
"Of course you do," he grumbled sarcastically, that did not escape the are ears of the other cultivator.
The War God was about to verbally attack his shixiong when both of them froze at the sudden shriek of the infant. Exposed to the cold wind, the naked plant baby shivered and wailed. They slowly turned their stiff heads toward it.
"Shixiong, what do we do?" The infamous and fearsome Peak Lord of Bai Zhan was now so stunned that he addressed his loathsome rival formally.
"Now you want me to tell you what to do?" Shen Qingqiu raised an eyebrow. "Well, shidi, let me tell you—get rid of it."
"What? Are you insane? I know you're a scum, but that's our baby!" Liu Qingge stormed toward the flower and awkwardly grabbed the wailing infant in his hands.
Shen Qingqiu was horrified by the way his brute of a shidi held the still-crying baby.
"That's not how you hold an infant! You're going to break his bones! And it's not 'ours'; it's a plant!"
He immediately yet carefully took the infant from Liu Qingge.
He recalled the days at the brothel when one of his jiejies had given birth. She insisted that he watch over her baby whenever he visited and taught him how to properly hold an infant.
As soon as the small creature felt comfortable in his arms, the crying stopped. The Xiu Ya Sword finally got a good look at the little thing he held.
It was a boy—a little beast, a creature that would surely grow into a monster—and he had to end it before it grew into something he would regret.
But all of those thoughts vanished the moment the creature opened its eyes and cooed at him, its tiny grabby hands clutching his robes tightly. Bright, innocent green eyes framed by long lashes and a beauty mark beside his left eye stared back at him. Luscious dark hair covered his tiny head, pink chubby cheeks begged to be pinched, and a small smile bloomed on the boy's lips.
The cold and domineering Peak Lord of Qing Jing Peak, the Xiu Ya Sword himself, was too awestruck to move because the combination of himself and his shidi had somehow resulted in an adorable baby.
"Shen Qingqiu?" The voice of the brute snapped him out of his daze.
He cleared his throat and looked away from his little one.
"As I said, shidi, he is not 'ours'....phe is mine."
He declared this, causing the brute to protest.
"He's mine too! My blood and qi were used, remember?" the other parent exclaimed before failing to take the infant back.
"As if I would share a child with you. Besides, he looks more like me than you. Right, Shen Yuan?"
As if agreeing, the baby now named Shen Yuan, gurgled happily.
"But you didn't even want him in the first place! You planned to kill him, you scum!"
"Well, I changed my mind. Besides, you can't even hold him properly."
"And you can? What do you know about taking care of a baby? You don't even care about your students!"
"As if you care for yours. And Shen Yuan is different because he's my son."Shen Qingqiu rolled his eyes.
The child looked back and forth at his new parents.
In his thoughts, he cursed. Why, of all possible novels and games, had he ended up transmigrating into the trash novel Proud Immortal Demon Way? Worse of all, he was now the son of the Scum Villain and the Bai Zhan Peak Lord—a man he had assumed would look like a muscular barbarian rather than this ridiculously pretty cultivator.
Oh well, that's a problem for later...