He asked question after question which was unlike him. He barely spoke but it seemed when he was stimulated by either Rui Fei and Qilin Hao he couldn’t help himself. He would speak more than usual which was incredibly tiring.

“I, I can’t be there for you so….. I,” she said unwilling to go into detail. There were certain things she felt should be kept from her son with good reason. She was the parent and would willingly bear the burden just so that her son didn’t have to worry about anything.

Ji Yao was at a loss for words. None of this made sense at all. If she wanted to be there for him then what was all this for? Then why couldn’t she be here and not speak through this transmission? “Then why not be here with me than make yourself ill by breaking off such a sacred part of your body?” he asked.

“Don’t misunderstand…. that’s not the cause of my illness. There are things I can’t tell you so I hope you can understand,” she said but by this point, she desperately wanted to change the subject and so she successfully deviated his attention by going back to yesterday’s secret-spilling session.

She didn’t even wait for Ji Yao to respond before asking, “So whose this boy that um….. captured your soul? Is he nice? How is his family like?”

Ji Yao, “…”

He saw exactly what she did right there but he felt the need to defend himself before his mother’s misunderstanding takes root. He knew what she was insinuating which was far from what his relationship was like with Rui Fei.

“It’s not like that it’s….,” he said before pursing his lips to figure out the right words. He couldn’t mention that this person was one of Prince Rui’s children considering the history between her and that vile man.

“It’s just that I don’t like it when people touch me and I like my things a certain way but this person… he just crossed the line multiple times in less than 24 hours…,” he explained but suddenly paused his explanation out of nowhere like he was lost in thought.

“And?” asked Qilin Hao recalling how she was the same until she met Ji Wen. When she reached the age to marry the formidable one arranged for her to wed another Qilin from the opposing faction so they could join arms and fight against the Huishe clan.

But when he got near her she grabbed him by his antlers and smashed him to the ground with no sympathy. It was like if she gets close to anyone who wasn’t her parents her body would go on the defence and attack whoever had the audacity to lay a finger on her.

All Qilin were like that but she was worse. She couldn’t even give it a chance because her body felt like if she didn’t fight she would die instead. This was the incident that finally got her title revoked. She was already a black sheep to her father but this sealed the deal ending their relationship.

So when she came to this strange place and met this young dashing pirate standing on top of the mainmast of Red Bane while sending lightning bolts to The Custodian (Zhang Li’s ship) she was intrigued. But not as intrigued as when the man jumped off the mainmast and accidentally landed on top of her after being blown off course by a powerful wind courtesy of Zhang Li.

At first, Ji Wen thought he had squashed her like a bug but she was fine and feisty too. Ji Wen was slow to respond and it was because of that delay that Qilin Hao realised her body finally wasn’t resisting someone. Her heart skipped a beat as she stared into his panicked eyes.

Ji Wen kept apologizing as he tried to get up but before he knew it Qilin Hao rolled his body over and pressed him down before… ahem, *cough kissing him *cough *cough. At least she was nice enough to enquire about his relationship status first before she did that.

Let’s just say it was game over for this pirate king. He fell so hard that one would think he was given a love potion.

“I don’t know but….. he um…. he hugged me last night and I didn’t hate it. It’s….. it’s confusing,” he said after a long silence, longer than the time it takes to say pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis which is a word by the way.

(Haha, give it a try….. it’s a funny word to pronounce.)

Qilin Hao brushed her hair with her fingers before saying, “You are half Qilin which explains why you are the way you are and the fact that the one person who you aren’t averse to is a boy then it means he is kinda like your… your, um… soulmate. Just that since you are both the same sex then… in the Qilin clan they would be called karmic soulmates,”

“According to clan rules they didn’t have to be together unlike when it was a qi and a lin with such a connection. So… yep, you can have whatever relationship you want with him but if you decide you want to be with him then make sure you both understand what you are getting into because a karmic relationship can be either intense or cathartic.”

Ji Yao tried to make sense of her words but he failed. He didn’t have these kinds of thoughts towards Rui Fei. If anything, he wanted to be as far away as possible from him but that was of course impossible especially when his father was determined to make them get along.

Now she was telling him that there is a high likelihood that Rui Fei was the only person he might not be averse to. Everyone, introvert or extrovert needs some type of interaction with others.

It was a part of being alive but imagine being told that the only person you can tolerate hugging and touching other than your family was the one person you find annoying. How could Ji Yao easily accept this?

Feeling defeated Ji Yao sprawled his legs on the ground wishing he could just live his days in this cave and forget the outside world. He feared he won’t be able to resist the urge to beat up Rui Fei when he goes outside. Then it would be better if he stayed inside this cave for the rest of his life. At least he would have a cavefish for company and paint alongside Qilin Hao.

Unfortunately, Ji Wen would never allow that. If it was up to him he would drag Ji Yao outside by the leg. ‘Sigh….  story of my life,’ thought Ji Yao as he squeezed the water out of his sleeve.