Chapter 276: Acting Naturally

Ye Tinglan felt a sticky, overwhelming emotion, her trust in the little man now unparalleled.

She would never have imagined that not long after withdrawing her divine sense, the conversation over there had slowly begun to go awry.

In fact, the very next line was already slightly off; Dugu Miss Qingli hung her head, murmuring softly, "You... treat her very well."

"What, do you think I'm just craving her, or that I'm doing this just to anger you?" Lu Xingzhou glanced at her sideways, "Change your name then; how about White Fish?"

Dugu Miss Qingli didn't understand why he kept bringing up fish, but her face flushed red for once, and she squirmed as if sitting on pins and needles, "It's... it's just because of what you told me before..."

"I told you before, this is a matter between two people; if she isn't willing, could I brainwash her? Do you really think she's some sheltered Young Lady with no experience, easily won over by a few sweet words?"

"Of course not..." Dugu Miss Qingli steadied herself, finally speaking in a small voice, "You are still quite worthy, it's just that you have a lover; isn't that a bit... awkward?"

Lu Xingzhou asked, "Do you care about this?"

Dugu Miss Qingli held her breath, not knowing how to answer.

She hadn't planned on finding a man anyway; what was there to care about? Even if you had three palaces and six courtyards, she wouldn't care. The problem was the Master; knowing the other party had Shen Tang, what exactly was he thinking now?

Dugu Miss Qingli naturally didn't know the Master harbored thoughts of forgetting love in the future; that too would be something where having three palaces and six courtyards wouldn't matter. For Dugu Miss Qingli, the most incomprehensible point was this one; she simply couldn't imagine a scene where the Master and Shen Tang fought over a man out of jealousy; that would be the end of the world.

Especially since the status of these two was not as simple as ordinary women fighting over a man.

One is a Princess of Great Qian, the other is the Grand Preceptor of Great Qian; if you two start fighting over a man, won't Great Qian fall into civil war first...

But the parties involved themselves couldn't be unaware of this; if they themselves didn't care, what could a little Bai Mao disciple say?

After holding her tongue for a while, she turned her head and said, "I don't care."

Lu Xingzhou said, "You really don't care?"

"Of course I don't care."

Lu Xingzhou's smile seemed somewhat profound.

Dugu Miss Qingli: "?"

She suddenly realized and shouted in anger, "I was talking about her, not myself!"

"Then what about yourself?"

"What does it have to do with me? Even if you find ten thousand women, it has nothing to do with me... mmph mmph..." Dugu Miss Qingli's voice grew louder, and Lu Xingzhou suddenly reached out and covered her mouth.

Dugu Miss Qingli didn't expect this rascal to suddenly ambush her; just as she was about to resist, Lu Xingzhou's voice sounded urgently, "Someone is coming. Do you remember what we are supposed to be pretending?"

Dugu Miss Qingli: "..."

She was third grade, and Lu Xingzhou was only fourth grade, yet the external disturbance was detected by Lu Xingzhou first.

In Ye Tinglan's imagination, her disciple's heart should have been as clear and cold as ice, but when alone with a man discussing such topics, it had long since collapsed, her CPU a tangled mess.

It was even more chaotic now; the two had originally been sitting side by side, but now Lu Xingzhou had one arm around her shoulders and one hand covering her mouth; she was struggling unconsciously, looking exactly like a cold female swordswoman being forced, which was incredibly realistic.

Footsteps were already coming from outside.

Lu Xingzhou leaned close to her ear and whispered, "It needs to be even more realistic; it would be best to seal your cultivation, but that is too prone to errors, so we won't do that. Just say you were controlled after consuming our poison; act it out more convincingly."

Dugu Miss Qingli said resentfully, "I can't act."

"You just need to not use your power; the rest is just acting naturally." As Lu Xingzhou spoke, he leaned in and kissed her cheek.

Dugu Miss Qingli instinctively wanted to unleash her martial qi to knock him away, but she held it back tightly, pushing only with the strength of her body.

Lu Xingzhou pinned her down immediately, his lips already on her porcelain-like cheek; it was ice cold, like ice cream.

Dugu Miss Qingli knew what he meant by "after all, it's not like it hasn't happened before," but judging from the previous arrangement, it shouldn't have happened; she had remained calm, yet suddenly it did.

That had indeed happened before, and it was far more than that; it involved tongues, something Shen Tang hadn't even experienced back then!

At that time, that damn contact was something Dugu Miss Qingli could have forgotten; it was just an accident, nothing worth dwelling on constantly.

However, Shen Tang's three questions deepened the memory of humiliation and anger; that was one thing, but what truly made her unable to forget to this day was that the accident had boosted her cultivation.

At that time, she had only just reached fourth grade not long ago, and there was still a very long distance to the third grade bottleneck. Logically, that disturbance of the state of mind should have hindered her further, pushing the third grade bottleneck even further away... but the reality was not so.

At that time, Lu Xingzhou used a reverse cultivation-draining method to give his own cultivation to her... and that wasn't all; combined with the result of yin and yang union, she received a huge boost; in the short cultivation process that followed, her fourth grade cultivation shot up rapidly, and by the time she went to the capital, she was already at the third grade bottleneck.

In Dugu Miss Qingli's career, where she had been called a genius since childhood, this belonged to an extremely rare period of rapid growth.

Dugu Miss Qingli's physique was special, but this was not fully reflected in cultivation speed, but rather in power. As for cultivation speed, although it was much faster than ordinary people, it could not crush other geniuses. On the contrary, compared to geniuses like Shen Tang and Pei Chuyun, due to the excessive coldness of her ice nature, she belonged to the typical "sole yin cannot generate," so her cultivation speed was actually hindered slightly, making her efficiency inferior to that of Shen Tang and Pei Chuyun.

When she first met Pei Chuyun, the little demon girl had already reached fourth grade, while she was still far behind... yet the time it took to break through to third grade was about the same.

The role of that tongue kiss back then accounted for at least seventy or eighty percent of the weight; it was far more than just a small boost.