Chapter 101: Date Night

Kian didn’t bother with the long path. He scooped Xiao Cui up, carried her through the island’s teleportation mechanism, and set her down in the quiet bed in their city house.

Her feet touched the mattress and she wobbled once, gripping his sleeve. The damp from the bath still clung to her hair, and the night air had turned cool enough to raise goosebumps along her arms.

"Get ready," he said, pinching her cheeks.

"Yep!"

She jumped out of the bed and behind a screen, quickly drying herself and getting dressed.

In a minute, she ducked behind the screen and came out changed, barefoot first, then stepped out in a pale yellow dress with thin straps.

With a thought, Kian shrugged off his own sandy robe and shook himself clean. Then, he pulled on something dark; a new set of clothes.

He wet his fingers, slicked back his hair, and turned just as she smoothed the dress over her hips.

Their eyes met in the little wall mirror.

"How do I look?" he asked. "Qi helps clean myself up better than water, by the way, I just figured it out. Though, I am glad I bathed anyway."

"Before that," she said, twisting to look over her shoulder, "do I look okay? Like a girl someone takes on a date, not a farmhand."

She fussed with a strap. "And don’t just say yes as a lie."

Kian folded his arms and leaned against the doorframe. "A blonde beauty in yellow dress is by default beautiful, but your face is definitely a few extra points on top of that." He looked her over once, slow.

She smiled, happy.

Hand in hand, the couples left home with a pocket full of money.

The night market had thinned to lantern-light and late vendors, but the smell of sugar still hung in the air.

Kian bought two cones of crushed ice soaked in honey and fruit pulp from a stall with a cracked red sign.

He handed one to Xiao Cui, licking his own without shame.

She took a small bite, then made a sound caught between surprise and pleasure.

"It’s cold and sweet at the same time." She looked up at him, lips already stained pale pink. "I have never eaten anything like this before."

Kian caught her free hand and laced their fingers together. "Good, milady. That means the city still has things to offer our date."

He nodded toward the deeper streets. "Come on. Let’s walk around."

He could feel a strange calling around: if he was right, he should be able to see something interesting today.

It was not because Kian had some mystical sense, but just from the noises coming from the distance, he knew the night city was not calm tonight.

The couple drifted past shuttered talisman shops and tea houses leaking soft music.

Xiao Cui pointed at a building with wind chimes shaped as paper cranes, then at a fountain where children had thrown polished stones for luck.

She started to unwind, each step looser than the last, her shoulder brushing his as they talked about which parts of the city she wanted to see in daylight.

Kian listened more than he spoke, and that felt right.

"I really like flowers, Kian! Let’s have a looooot of flowers in our farm. And a lot of mushrooms!"

Kian looked sideways at her, saying with a smile: "What about a few honey bee boxes? We can grow honey of our own."

Her eyes lit up. "We can do that?"

"If you kiss me in return!"

She smiled in excitement. "Then I also want to make a pool in the farm. The sea is dangerous right? But if we can siphon some water, we can make a pool."

"That... we have to see."

She nodded.

They walked, talked, ate streetfood—all hand in hand—and reached three streets over before they even realized.

Three streets over, a crowd had gathered near a half-built pavilion.

Kian’s eyes moved.

Not the usual night-market traffic.

These people stood too still, necks craned, while the crack of wood against stone echoed off the walls.

Xiao Cui’s fingers tightened around his. Kian pulled her closer and shifted them both toward the edge of the crowd, his Qi already coiling in his chest.

"Interesting," he muttered into her ears.

Two men traded blows in the open square—street brawlers, one with a club, one with bare fists wrapped in crude leather. Blood flecked the cobblestones. Xiao Cui pressed closer to his side, but her eyes stayed wide, not scared but surprised.

Kian scanned the ring of onlookers, then stopped.

’Oh, that’s an expected face.’

Across the square, half in shadow, Su Chen leaned against a wooden post.

The servant boy’s new body was not so thin anymore, his face definitely healthier under the lantern glow, but his gaze was locked on the fight with a stillness that didn’t belong to a youth his age.

Kian felt the pull of the system stir at the back of his mind, and he smiled.

Seeing Kian looking at a certain direction intensely, Xiao Cui started to turn her head toward the crowd, but Kian caught her chin with one finger and guided her back.

"No need to look that way. Stay in my chest."

He pressed her temple to his collarbone and kept one palm flat against the back of her head. "I don’t want your good night ruined by someone else’s blood."

She relaxed into him, her fingers curling into the front of his robe. "Jiao Yin was right," she whispered.

"Hm, what did she tell you?"

"That you are a sweet mouthed person. You can easily wrap a simple girl like me in your fingers. Being romantic and whatnot, that which I don’t understand..."

"Funny girl," he said, his eyes still scanning past her hair.

Beside Su Chen stood a woman with an icy face.

She was short and pale, her long silver hair pulled back from a sharp, elegant jaw. Her eyes were also blue in color. Kian observed curiously.

Her white-and-blue robes looked clean enough to belong to a proper sect, not a night brawl. Her hands stayed folded behind her back, and her cold gaze swept over the fighters as if she were counting insects underfoot.

[Ding!]

[Target detected]

[Close person of Su Chen.]

Well, wasn’t this Su Chen’s sister?

Kian’s smile turned slow behind Xiao Cui’s head.

He turned Xiao Cui away from the square, keeping her tucked under his arm as if the fight had never existed.

"Come on, little Cui. Let’s find something sweeter before the last stalls close."

She nodded against his chest, already smiling again, and let him lead her into the lantern-lit street. The hunt could wait. Tonight was just enough to look around.

They walked until the brawl sounds were nothing but a dull pulse behind the low rooftops. Kian found a narrow noodle shop still open, steam leaking through the cracked shutters.

He settled Xiao Cui onto a bench by the window and ordered two bowls from a silent old man behind the counter.

In a few minutes, they got their order.

As soon as she picked up her spoon, Kian leaned back and let his eyes unfocus.

His Qi stretched down the street like an invisible string and filled the fatty Zhang, his puppet he had left in the city. The fatty’s head lifted, lips twitching, and Kian saw through its eyes.

In a few minutes, it was in the area where the fight was happening.

Across the square, Su Chen hadn’t moved from the wooden post.

Secretly, the fatty just observed Su Chen.

Know your enemy, know yourself.

Su Chen’s left shoulder was pressed to the wood, but his right hand kept working.

Thumb tapped middle finger. Middle finger tapped ring. Then a sharp wrist flick. Again, the same pattern, as if the hand were counting something only he could see.

The silver-haired woman said something to Su Chen.

Su Chen frowned, then nodded without stopping the motion. Tap, tap, flick.

Kian leaned deeper into the fatty’s mind and watched the boy’s lips move, but no sound came.

The twitch came from his fingers every time, like a melody only he could hear.

’What is he doing?’

Xiao Cui slurped her first noodle and made a satisfied sound. Kian smiled and patted her head.

"Do you like coming out on dates?"

"I love it. I really love it. In fact, I want to go on a date every day! But I doubt that’s possible."

Kian tilted his head, smile spreading slow. "Between the two of us, little Cui, I think you’d say you love everything. In fact, is there any activity you don’t love?"

He rested his chin on one hand, staring at her with open amusement. "You’d probably tell me you love standing in the rain if I bought you a paper umbrella."

Her cheeks reddened as if he had caught her stealing sweets.

"That’s not true." She dropped her gaze to the bowl, poking a single noodle with her spoon. "I don’t say yes to everything. I’m picky about food, and clothes... and not all dates would be good! But you are my husband now, right? Is that right? But anyway. It’s only that anything new with you feels good."

Kian reached across the table and tapped the back of her hand once, then let his finger linger there. "But you are the type of person to like hanging out doing whatever, right? I like that about you."

She looked up through her lashes, lips parted, and for a second the crowded little noodle shop felt like it belonged to only the two of them.

"I told you already. I’m not good with such lovey-dovey things." She set the spoon down and pressed a palm to her warm cheek. "But... yes, I like doing fun things."

Kian let out a low, satisfied laugh. "I know."