Immortality Starts With Generosity

“Hello, Lan Yao.” Chen Haoran swirled the alcohol in his cup.

“So the prodigal Young Master Chen can speak after all,” Lan Yao mocked. “That is not what I want to hear, however.”

“Were you tracking me?” It was the only explanation he could think of for how she found him so fast.

“Don’t overestimate your worth. I was merely in the area when I learned you decided to grace the public with your presence.” She kicked out the chair Song Yuelin had vacated and seated herself. “Let us have a chat before you go running off back to your hole.”

“Let me eat at least.” With Astounding bravery, the waiter entered the booth with plates stacked high with meat. Chen Haoran tipped him a gold tael and motioned to the liquor bottle. “Have another bottle ready for when I leave.”

Lan Yao arched an eyebrow at the entirely meat-filled table. “Just pork?”

“They deserve it.” Chen Haoran set aside his cup. While his cultivation probably raised his tolerance there was no need for the risk. Not that he was afraid of Lan Yao, even with a Ninth-Layer cultivation the best it could be was Profound rank. Unlike the other crazy bastards he met recently he could defend himself against her. He smiled bitterly at the thought.

“Do you find this amusing, Chen Haoran?” Her disdain morphed into disgust when he upended a whole sauce dish over his pork chops.

“Not at all,” he replied. “I am incredibly unamused.”

“How appropriate then, that you feel the same as I.” Lan Yao scratched her nail along the table and peeled up wood.

“Whatever it is you’re here for, I didn’t do it.”

“What have you not done? Communicate? Beat my brother? Defy me?” Every accusation was punctuated with a long, screeching scratch that carved a deep furrow into the table.

Chen Haoran glanced at his cup. “Your brother had it coming.”

Lan Yao’s arm whipped across the table and sent his cup flying over the railing. Chen Haoran heard it shatter below. An angry voice started cursing. Lan Yao loomed over him. “You are treading a very dangerous line, Chen Haoran.”

“Are you threatening me?” He flared his qi in warning.

Lan Yao snorted derisively. “So you used those cultivation supplements to advance. Do you really think a mere Sixth-Layer is enough to face me though?”

Yes, but he wasn’t looking to fight if he could help it. He’d given her the impression of being uncooperative, he had an appearance he needed to keep. It would be better to start winding it down though. “You’ll get Lan Fen when I’m done with her. My family has sent a Liquid Meridian realm over and he’s been a pain in the ass to deal with.” Chen Haoran withdrew his qi and looked away.

“All the more reason to transfer her quickly then.”

“And what will I tell my family when my new bride has disappeared? They’ve already gotten word of her.”

“I am confident you can make something up. I trust in your experience.”

“For 15 thousand silver taels? Forget it.”

“What do you want?”

Chen Haoran smiled. “Give me more time with her.”

Lan Yao laughed at him. “Have you really become so addicted to her? To think that bitch could even charm a pig like you.”

Chen Haoran drummed his fingers along the table. “Watch what you say.” Lan Fen had told him the Young Master wasn’t the kind of man who could stomach insults to his person. Chen Haoran on the other hand was very good at letting crap like that slide right off him.

“I wonder what she had to do. I always knew that whore had it in her. I wonder if she’s despairing that she found out her skill too late?”

“Lan Yao.” The tapping of his fingers sounded harsh to his ears. “Your answer?”

Lan Yao smiled sweetly at him. “She must have you wrapped around her finger. Do you think you are special? I know Lan Fen very well, had she known how good she was between sheets all the men in the Lan family would have protested her marriage.”

For the first time since she barged into the booth, Chen Haoran properly looked at Lan Yao. The similarities to Lan Fen were apparent at first glance, vibrant white hair, burning golden eyes, and long lethal fingers. That was also where the similarities ended. Lan Yao was the princess to Lan Fen’s general. Beautiful like a flower in bloom. He looked past the petals and saw the thorns Lan Fen had spoken of so long ago in the somber office.

Lan Yao’s smile had become something ugly. “You have had enough fun, Chen Haoran. Return Lan Fen. I will make sure you are suitably compensated.”

“You really hate her,” he quietly said.

“Of course. Strutting around like she was superior to everyone else. As if I wasn’t just as talented as she was. Heaven was kind when it crippled her.”

“Fitting that you had to rely on Heaven just to equal her.”

Lan Yao froze. Her smile was taut. Her qi rose with the promise of violence. “I am better than her,” she forcefully ground out.

“Are you?” Chen Haoran mused.

Her palm slapped his chest. He felt bile rise in his throat as the blow knocked him off his feet and into the air. He crashed into a table on the main floor, its original laughing occupants scattered screaming. The soft music from the pipa player abruptly stopped and a harsh silence fell over the lively restaurant.

Lan Yao proudly looked down at him from the second floor. “Well?” she proclaimed. “Am I?”

Chen Haoran laid in a wreckage of splinters and shattered porcelain; his chest heavy with pain. It had just been a simple palm strike she hit him with, he had seen no technique nor anything indicating Harmonization. His Earth rank cultivation should put him at least around an Eighth-Layer Profound rank. He’d killed a Ninth-Layer before, the difference shouldn’t have been so large.

“Since when did the Lan family have an Earth rank method?” He blurted out the thought as soon as it came to him. Around him, he could hear the murmuring of their audience spike.

Lan Yao schooled her triumphant expression. “To think you would need to come up with excuses for your weakness, Chen Haoran.”

She recovered well, but he had seen it in that split second. Shock.

She jumped overhead and landed at the entrance doors. “This is the difference in our cultivation,” she said, flaring her qi. “It would be wise to not offend me further.”

After making sure she left, Chen Haoran rose and brushed himself off. Her hit would leave a bruise but hadn’t otherwise broken anything.

“Rough luck with the ladies, Young Master Chen?” Song Yuelin appeared next to him. He took a sip from his cup.

Chen Haoran very carefully did not react with instinctual violence. He was improving. “Stuff it. You saw that too right?”

“Your flight? Yes, it was quite the beautiful arc.”

“Her cultivation,” Chen Haoran ground out. He pulled a wet noodle from his hair. “There’s no way I just got my shit rocked by a Profound rank.”

“I wouldn’t know Young Master Chen, that would require me knowing what rank your cultivation method is.”

“Don’t play dumb.”

Song Yuelin blinked innocently. “How should I know something you haven’t told me?”

Chen Haoran was in no mood for Song Yuelin’s games. “Your sense is better than mine can’t you sense her qi’s quality?” He doubted Song Yuelin would do it but he had to at least try. This information was too important.

“No,” he shook his head. “A cultivator can sense the quality of their own qi because of how intimately related it is to them. The same can’t be said for sensing the quality of another, you can only feel it once the qi is used on you.”

“The question is why did she use it on me.” With the way Lan Yao had done damage control immediately after it was clear she didn’t want it known she had an Earth rank method. Why use it on him though? Did she not expect him to reveal it? Or was it something the Young Master had previously known?

“I wouldn’t overthink it, Young Master Chen,” Song Yuelin said. “The stronger a cultivator becomes, the less tolerant they are of any slight against them. I would assume what happened here is similar.”

Could it really be that simple? Lan Yao really exposed critical information just to put him in his place? Someone who had plotted so deviously around Lan Fen and her own family was that careless? If that were true, what did that say about Song Yuelin then? He had certainly been rude to the other man before. Had he really not slighted him?

“Si-Sir,” a shaking voice said, stirring him from his thoughts. The waiter from before nervously came forward and held out a ceramic bottle. “Yo-Your liquor.”

“Thank you.” He took the bottle graciously.

“What will you do now Young Master Chen?”

Chen Haoran opened the bottle. “Now?” He took a swig. “Now I’ll train and drink.”

And wait for Lan Fen.