Chapter 278: Nervousness

~~~

“Lady Ling is right.”

Liu Jin glances at Lu Mei out of the corner of his eyes. She is not wearing her disciple robes today, a privilege afforded to her by her position as a Core Disciple. Instead, she is dressed in a too-thin white dress with gold accents and a red sash around her waist. While the sight is undeniably pleasing, the circumstances make Liu Jin enjoy it less than he should.

“Somehow, I am not surprised you think that,” he says, bringing back his attention to the materials he is working with: phoenix feathers, blood of a mantis snake, and stoic jellyfish venom. All are highly volatile items and need to be handled with care. Most people would not dare have them so close together, but for someone as skilled as Liu Jin, working with them to create medicine is simply a way to relax his mind.

“Whether you like it or not, she speaks the truth,” Lu Mei says, sitting on his bed. “You may be the Emperor of the Storm Dragon Empire, but your country is still unstable. As much as I’d like to keep you all to myself, you need alliances to solidify your position. That means marriages. Might as well get used to the idea that you will have to let your future wives settle things between themselves.”

“That’s not the issue,” Liu Jin says. The mantis snake blood glows ominously on his table. Liu Jin takes a deep breath and mixes it in. “If it was just you and Xiao Shuang, I would not worry.” Much. “However, it is not just the two of you. It will never be just the two of you.”

It would always be Lu Mei and the Eternal Flame Clan and Xiao Shuang and the Divine Frozen Palace. The Sects would try to work their will on him through the two of them and might even try to poison them against each other. The same went for any other prospective concubines he might end up with, an eventuality that Liu Jin would rather not focus on right now.

“That is a valid concern,” Lu Mei admits, “especially considering how many gifts I have received lately.”

Liu Jin stops working and turns his head to the side.

“What?”

“Oh? Did I not mention it?” The look on Lu Mei’s face is perfectly innocent. “Jewels, dresses, scrolls, and other trinkets. Now that people realize the Eternal Flame Clan wants to push me as Empress, everyone is in a hurry to get in my good graces. Lord Feng Gui and Lord Feng Shang have even sent me a few cultivation pills. I suspect they do not want me to be outdone by your wife.”

Liu Jin’s pupils narrow into slits.

“Those meddlesome…”

His throat constricts with anger. The glow of poison around him is faint, yet the reagents he is working with are instantly obliterated. It is already starting. They want to pit Lu Mei against Xiao Shuang.

He won’t let it happen.

“As much as I appreciate your rare burst of possessive anger, you are missing something important,” Lu Mei says, looking at her nails, not the slightest bit bothered by Liu Jin’s aura. “Do you really think I am the sort of person who’d let herself be manipulated by anyone else?”

Liu Jin’s eyes return to normal.

He takes a deep breath and lays his hands flat on the table.

“No,” Liu Jin admits, “but those with power have a way of seeing their will done. I don’t want you to be in that sort of situation.”

“I already am.” Lu Mei crosses her arms. “I chose to be in it the moment I chose you. I am not running away. I don’t think your wife will either, will she?”

Liu Jin thinks of Xiao Shuang.

“No,” he admits. “She probably won’t.”

“Well, it is settled then,” Lu Mei says. “Rather than worry needlessly, you should trust us to handle this part ourselves. Besides, you are uniquely ill-suited to help here.”

Liu Jin blinks.

“Excuse me?”

“I want you to consider every time someone was hostile to you,” Lu Mei says, raising a well-manicured finger to underscore her point. “Now consider your attempts to prove yourself trustworthy to them. Have you ever been able to convince anyone to get along with you when you’re actually trying?”

Liu Jin opens his mouth.

He closes it.

“Every time you have tried to appear trustworthy, you’re inevitably suspected. Every time you try to clear things up, you end up looking more suspicious,” Lu Mei points out. “Over half the Eternal Flame Clan thinks you’re an insidious manipulator who has tricked his way into power, and the only reason they won’t say anything is that you have managed to impress and bribe all the right people.”

Over half…?

Surely not…

Right?

“Some people are also grateful to me because I saved their lives,” Liu Jin points out, perhaps a bit sullenly.

“My point is someone like you is not qualified to even try to help ease tensions between other people.”

“… that actually hurt.”

“You’ll survive,” Lu Mei says dryly. “Trust us to handle ourselves. That is the only way this will work.”

Liu Jin wants to warn her about the terrifying power that Emperor Realm cultivators can exert when they put their minds to it. However, what would be the point? Perhaps Lu Mei has never felt an Emperor’s power in the same way as him, but she’s neither ignorant nor naive. She knows what lies in her future.

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As much as he wants to shield her and Xiao Shuang from the machinations of their respective Sects, such is beyond his power. It is going to happen. It is already happening. The only thing left for Liu Jin is to let them deal with the issues that might arise between them and trust them to not let themselves be used.

Xiao Shuang and Lu Mei are by no means weak or helpless.

He already knows that.

“You are right,” he says softly.

“That is often the case. By the way, you realize this means I will have to meet your wife sooner rather than later, right?”

Liu Jin suddenly has another reason to be nervous.

~~~

Mud is not one that gives himself to nervousness.

The opposite was true once upon a time. Before he was Mud. However, his master’s teachings have erased such things from his being centuries ago. He no longer feels the pressure of a moment bearing down on him. He is not tortured by the difference between expectations and reality.

However…

Those bothersome feelings have begun to creep back into his soul for some reason.

Master Xun sits in the middle of his meditation chamber surrounded by smoke of changing colors. It is a familiar sight. Mud still remembers the first time he’d been brought here. He’d been nothing more than an Outer Disciple, and the smoke got in his throat and irritated his eyes. He’d hated it, and no matter how much he complained, his master would not change his habits. At some point, he’d even started thinking Master Xun smoked so much for the sole purpose of making him uncomfortable.

Mud has since outgrown such thoughts. His body can no longer be bothered by mere smoke.