Twice My Love - Chapter 1

The whole sect was talking.

Ji Ning, their eldest martial sister, had gone mad. At the discipleship banquet, she’d snatched the boy the Sixth Elder had already chosen.

I was Ji Ning. Right then, I was trying to bathe my stolen little disciple.

He wasn’t cooperating. Curled up at one end of the hot spring, he stared at me with eyes like black grapes.

He looked like a cornered little beast, still baring its teeth and claws.

“Be good. I only want to get you clean.”

I didn’t understand. When the Sixth Elder’s filthy hand had touched his leg earlier, he’d shrunk into himself like a quail.

Why did my trying to take off his clothes send him into such a panic?

Did even a six-year-old villain have this much modesty?

After he splashed me yet again, I gave up.

“Fine, fine. Wash yourself. I’m leaving, really.”

I said I was leaving, but I stayed by the entrance to the spring.

I couldn’t risk letting my lifeline slip away now that I’d finally got him.

I’d been bound to the Little Red Flower System.

When the villain slaughtered the sect, I stepped in to stop the fighting. He failed to pull back his sword in time and drove it through my heart.

The heroine died, and the consciousness governing the world collapsed.

The system spent an enormous amount of energy sending me back to when I was eighteen.

To make up the loss, I had to steer the villain onto the right path, have him do one good deed each day, and collect enough red-flower points.

I agreed on the spot.

Little did I know the nightmare was only beginning.

“Wait. Am I reading this right? Why the hell do I need a hundred thousand red flowers?!”

When the little villain finally shuffled out, the steam had flushed his face red.

I scooped him up around the waist. Ignoring his struggles, I tossed him into the side hall.

“I don’t trust leaving you in the disciples’ quarters. You’ll live here from now on.”

He huddled under the oversized bedding and watched me warily.

A sharpness no child should have lay hidden in his dark, clear eyes.

“What are you going to do…?”

I noticed nothing unusual and grinned.

“Me? I’m going to…”

My fingertips swept across his neck, spreading cold wound salve over his skin.

His lashes trembled in surprise. The tips of his ears turned burning red.

So easy to tease.

Chuckling to myself, I pinched little Shen Yanbai’s cheeks and made him look at me.

“I’m going to make you my disciple. One good deed a day, and we’ll bring peace and harmony to the cultivation world in no time!”

While he was still staring at me, I pulled away his quilt and untied the sash he’d knotted fiercely around his waist.

“Where does a little brat get all this strength? Come on, be good. Those wounds on your body need treating too.”

Once I was sure Shen Yanbai had fallen asleep, I went down the mountain to Guxi Town.

In a dilapidated courtyard, I found his mother’s mutilated body.

[I told you. His mother was silenced long ago.]

The system had told me: Shen Yanbai had agreed to become the Sixth Elder’s cultivation cauldron only to save his mother’s life.

Yet the moment he was taken away, she’d been killed.

[What if, though…?]

I knew this was a past that couldn’t be changed. I still wanted to come and see.

[You’ve already turned back the timeline. Why couldn’t you send me back a little earlier? Let me actually save everyone while I’m at it!]

The system fell silent.

Without a word, I lifted her body, intending to find somewhere to bury her.

When I turned, I found myself looking into a small, pale face.

How had Shen Yanbai followed me here?!

Before I could think, his crying caught at my heart.

“I… I don’t have a mother anymore… I don’t have a home…”

My hands were full. I couldn’t even hold him.

All I could do was soothe him gently. “Come home with Master. We’ll bring your mother home too.”

I buried his mother on the back slope of Qiwu Peak.

Little Shen Yanbai stayed right behind me throughout. After that first bout of crying, he was unnaturally quiet.

When a kid went quiet, it was usually time for some treatment.

I crouched and pinched his cheeks.

“Cry!”

His eyes reddened at once. He knocked me flat, buried himself in my arms, and sobbed.

“Master… sob…”

Fighting the urge to throw him off, I stroked the little villain’s puppy head.

“Don’t be afraid. Master’s still here. I’ll always be here.”

I had no idea then that a few empty words of comfort would stay with him for so many years.