Chapter 75: A Quiet Conversation (2)

Inside Gu Yuan’s cave abode, Ji Yue and Gu Yuan sat opposite each other.

The cave abode was as plain as ever. There was little inside apart from the meditation mat, a wooden table, a few simple chairs, and that was all. There were no decorations, no luxurious furnishings, and nothing that suggested anyone actually lived here beyond someone who needed a quiet place to cultivate.

Yet the atmosphere between the two was anything but quiet.

The intimacy from earlier still lingered between them, leaving the air warm and filled with an almost tangible tension. Neither of them seemed quite ready to completely calm down.

Perhaps to distract herself and settle her own emotions, Ji Yue quietly took out a tea set and began making tea.

Gu Yuan watched her elegant, unhurried movements as he tried to calm himself too.

The twins, whether Ji Yue or Ji Yan, sometimes felt like forbidden fruit to him. He shouldn’t have touched them in the first place, yet now that he had, he had discovered a taste he hadn’t even known was possible in this world.

Their touch, their scent, their presence... everything about them felt different from anything he had experienced before.

He wasn’t an innocent man without experience, but his experience didn’t seem to count for anything. The twins were unlike any woman he had been with before.

He shook his head. When he looked up from his thoughts, the tea was already finished, and a cup made by the Myriad Fate Empress herself was sitting in front of him. If he had known how few people had ever tasted tea from her hands, he might have felt honored. But Gu Yuan didn’t know, so he simply drank it.

The tea was unbelievably fragrant and smooth, more delicious than any tea he had ever tasted.

"Last time you made tea, and this time too. Do you like tea that much?" he asked curiously.

Like any modern man, Gu Yuan had preferred carbonated drinks in his previous life. With those unavailable in the cultivation world, his next choices would probably have been alcoholic drinks and juices. Tea had always been near the bottom of his list.

Perhaps that would change after tasting this tea.

"Not particularly," Ji Yue replied. "I simply find it enjoyable to make tea for someone I like."

Gu Yuan glanced at the tea in his hand.

"So, you don’t actually care about tea?"

"I care about the person drinking it."

Gu Yuan fell silent for a moment.

...Why did that somehow sound more intimate than it should?

"Anyway, what else don’t you understand about me? You asked only one question."

Ji Yue suddenly brought the conversation back to what they had been discussing.

Looking into her purple eyes, Gu Yuan decided to finally ask about something he had left untouched for a long time.

"Are you Ji Yue? Or Ji Xingyue? And what about the Myriad Fate Empress? What does that mean?"

She had told him earlier that she would explain everything later, but Gu Yuan preferred now over later.

Ji Yue raised an eyebrow at the question. Her smile didn’t change as she answered, "Both. Ji Yue is the name I use in this life. Ji Xingyue is my true name."

"As for the Myriad Fate Empress... that was the title I held in my previous life."

She didn’t try to hide anything, which surprised Gu Yuan quite a bit.

"So you really were an Empress? Then you reincarnated?"

"Yes." Ji Yue nodded.

"Then, how old are you?"

Maybe he had gotten too far with his questions? Gu Yuan suddenly had this thought because Ji Yue was still smiling, but there was something slightly more chilling about that smile now.

"Sixty. Thirteen years older than you."

So, your real age doesn’t count? Only the age of this life?

Gu Yuan didn’t say that aloud. He was also using only his current age when considering their age difference, but there was a rather significant difference between being in your thirties and being tens of millions of years old.

He wisely decided not to comment.

Instead of continuing to pry into her past life, he asked about this life. Like her days, when she first reached the Black Desolation sect.

Back then, apparently the Elders and Peak Masters tried to take her and Ji Yan as their disciples but they refused.

Like he always felt, the life of the two reincarnated empresses, were pretty exciting!

It was then, that Gu Yuan suddenly thought of something and asked, "If you weren’t a cultivator, what would you do?"

"Why would I stop cultivating?"

"It’s hypothetical."

"Then I would cultivate hypothetically."

Gu Yuan was left speechless.

The conversation continued like that in light atmosphere, before it eventually drifted toward the aftermath of the earlier war.

"What about the captives that were sent to the Shadow Prison? What happened to them?"

"Who knows? Maybe they all died. If you’re curious, go out and find out yourself."

Again and again, Ji Yue proved that she had a few screws loose.

Yet perhaps because they had spent more time together now, and she had genuinely grown on him. Gu Yuan found himself seeing her strange reactions as cute rather than abnormal.

Not that casually joking about the deaths of thousands of people was cute.

Their time continued like this for some time before Ji Yue finally stood up. It seemed there were still plenty of matters waiting for her as the Sect Master.

Before leaving, however, she glanced around his cave abode.

"Do you like your current residence?"

"Yes. It’s very nice, and no one interrupts me here... Why?"

"Nothing. You’ll know later."

She took a few steps toward him before leaning down and giving him another kiss. Then she pulled back with a smile.

"Also, cultivate diligently. I have some good news for you later."

Leaving him with words that stirred his curiosity, Ji Yue left.

Alone, Gu Yuan thought for a moment, then decided to go out and learn what had become of the aftermath of the war.