Chapter 1

My childhood sweetheart asked me to feed our junior disciple’s spirit pets for her.

I fed the wrong one.

I took a snake as thin as a twig and made him gloriously plump.

Then our master emerged from seclusion ahead of schedule—with a spectacularly muscular chest.

Everyone was horrified.

“Has Master hit puberty again?”

Holding a feeding basin, he asked coldly, “Who fed pig swill to me… to my pet snake while it was hibernating?”

The moment he finished speaking, his robes burst open.

Master had entered seclusion years ago. I had only ever seen his portrait: a slender man, melancholy and aloof, too beautiful to be mortal.

But now…

His chest was so overdeveloped that it had torn straight through the fabric. His brows were slightly drawn together, as though he was sulking because he hadn’t eaten enough.

Only then did I notice the basin in his hands.

Wasn’t that the one I used to feed the little snake?

From the platform, he asked again, coldly, “Someone has fed my spirit snake until it became ill. Who was it? Confess and face severe punishment. Refuse and face severe punishment.”

No disciple dared speak.

After waiting in vain for a clue, he flicked his sleeve and flew away on his sword to investigate personally.

The morning assembly ended, and everyone began talking excitedly.

What sort of training had Master done in seclusion to develop a chest like that?

Every male disciple looked envious.

Someone poked my shoulder.

“What do you think?”

I didn’t know.

But I did seem to have fed his snake until it became ill.

Before entering seclusion, Master had reportedly crushed dozens of his enemies’ mountains with his bare hands.

Now he could twist my head off with those same hands.

I could barely breathe.

Just then, my childhood sweetheart came up behind me and pushed the other disciple away.

“Leave her alone. She’s exhausted from caring for all those spirit pets.”

He smiled at me.

“Aren’t you?”

No.

I’d been feeding entirely the wrong creature.

A few months earlier, we had drawn lots to divide the sect’s chores.

Our junior disciple drew feeding duty.

Her eyes reddened as she tugged my childhood sweetheart’s arm.

“They pee everywhere and hit people! I’m just a frail girl. What should I do, Senior Fang?”

Fang Ye had drawn a dirtier, harder chore and couldn’t trade with her.

He frowned slightly.

Then he asked what I had drawn.

“Watering flowers.”

I answered honestly.

His eyes lit up.

“Then trade with her.”

I hadn’t even managed to ask why before she snatched my slip and beamed.

“Why is your childhood sweetheart so good to me, Senior Sister? You must have trained him well!”

She counted his kindnesses on her fingers.

I’d originally had the room with the best light.

He said she had been pampered since childhood and gave her my room.

I’d saved up my leave for ages to visit Mother at the foot of the mountain.

He transferred it to her so she could visit her little dog.

At the Lantern Festival, I bought a sword tassel with my savings.

He said the soft, pretty pink suited her better.

Making me feed her spirit pets was only one more little thing.

But all those little things piled up like stones in my chest.

And she was the first to cry.

“You keep giving way to me, Senior Sister. Doesn’t it hurt you?”

Fang Ye had always been soft-hearted.

He had been that way with me. He was even less able to bear tears from our delicate junior disciple.

“Don’t blame yourself. I make it up to her every time. Don’t I, Chunyue?”

I lacked nothing in the sect.

But Mother was still down below.

She was the Fang family’s cook.

Every time I gave way, Fang Ye rewarded her with a little more money or a few more days off.

For every little thing I surrendered, her life improved a little.

I could only nod miserably.

He bent to comfort our junior disciple.

I stood beside them, feeling as though a sour plum were stuck in my throat.

Early the next morning, I set out to feed the pets and found Fang Ye waiting on the path, yawning.

Seeing my surprise, he took my bucket.

“You have no sense of direction. Of course I have to show you the way. Haven’t I always?”

Since childhood, he had known how to soothe people.

I was the easiest to soothe.

But halfway there, our junior disciple sent a message. A thorn had pricked her finger while she watered the flowers.

She sniffled and kept saying it hurt.

Fang Ye casually pointed me in a direction and told me to go ahead.

He left so hurriedly that he pointed the wrong way.

I wandered into a deep forest.

Spirit pets didn’t need to worry about hunger; they hunted for themselves. Feeding them was merely an extra treat, a way to build favorable connections.

I searched for half a day.

All I found was a little black snake curled on a rock.

He was thin as a dry twig, with an injured tail.

He wouldn’t wake, no matter how I called.

Feeling guilty, I squeezed his mouth open and stuffed food inside.

“Are you a silly snake? How did you get so hungry you’re skin and bones?”

He ate without waking.

Every day, I stuffed three basins of food into him.

Gradually, he grew plump and healthy. His black scales gleamed like polished jade.

I stroked his round belly.

Very satisfying.

So for that entire month, I’d been feeding Master’s hibernating snake.

A refined, slender spirit pet, proud and graceful as a cool breeze, had become a fat pig.

Who wouldn’t be angry?

Cold sweat poured down my forehead.

My childhood sweetheart called me back to myself, asking what was wrong.

He touched my forehead, concern in his eyes.

“Have the pets been bullying you? I’ll teach them a lesson.”

Thinking of Master’s fists made my eyes sting.

I wanted to tell Fang Ye everything.

I’d barely caught his sleeve when our junior disciple sent another message.

She’d gotten into trouble again.

“Senior Brother, I found a snake! It looks like a wild boar. It’s so scary! Ah! It’s threatening me!”

Fang Ye shook off my hand and hastily mounted his sword.

He pulled me along, too.

“If she’s bitten, you’re a woman. It’ll be easier for you to care for her.”

We flew straight to her.

When we arrived, she’d thrown all her magical weapons onto the ground.

A fat black snake lay among them.

He was too fat to escape.

She’d beaten him unconscious.

I recognized him immediately: my little black snake. Master’s spirit pet.

Fang Ye didn’t recognize him.

He breathed out in relief.

“Luckily, it isn’t Master’s. His snake is long and thin, like a phantom.”

This one was unmistakably fat.

As he helped her up, the snake began to wake, slowly flicking his tongue and opening his eyes.

She screamed and kicked him straight into my face.

“This pig is terrifying! Senior Brother, let’s run!”

With her arms tight around his neck, Fang Ye flushed and lost his composure.

He immediately took off on his sword, calling from a distance that he’d come back for me.

I held the fat black sausage in my arms.

We stared at each other.

Apart from being overweight, he seemed perfectly healthy.

Apparently, the illness Master meant was obesity.

I wanted to make amends.

“You’re adorable,” I told him gently, “but a little fat. Shall I help you lose weight?”

His eyes grew redder with every word.

I took hold of the vulnerable spot a few inches behind his head and carried him to my room.

He saw the spare basin there and opened his mouth in astonishment.

I took the opportunity to pop a handful of laxatives inside.

His eyes widened. His whole body went limp.

I covered my eyes.

“I won’t look. You can have your privacy.”

His hisses contained ten parts humiliation and ninety parts murderous intent.

When the sounds stopped, he lay limp in the basin, eyes closed, utterly exhausted.

I began bathing him.

When he woke, I was wiping his bottom.

He looked at my hand, then at his own lovely backside, and somehow produced a distinctly human expression.

Stiffness. Then despair.

He began writhing frantically.

He was only a spirit pet. A little coaxing would do.

I pulled him straight.

“Who’s a good little piggy?”

“So soft and sweet-smelling.”

“Oh. You’re a boy snake.”

He kept making a fuss.

I lost patience, caught him behind the head, and rolled him into the quilt.

“Before Master finds out, you’ll do a thousand squats a day to lose all that fat. Sweat off, muscles on!”

I stroked his neck.

At last, I got him to sleep.

Before dawn, the sect’s alarm bell rang for assembly.

Still groggy, I got up immediately.

But my little pig-snake had spent the whole day causing trouble and was sleeping soundly, his face buried in my pink dudou—the bodice-like undershirt—his breathing steady.

I couldn’t bear to wake him.

I wrapped the garment snugly around him.

Demonic creatures who bore grudges against Master had crashed into the barrier.

Hearing he had emerged from seclusion, they had arrived in droves to taunt him.

The elders said a grievance belonged to the person who had caused it, then crushed the talisman that summoned Master.

“Chu She, come deal with this.”

Rubbing my eyes, I watched a figure gradually appear in the formation.

Master stood straight, expressionless.

A pink dudou was wrapped around his chest.

One glance was enough.

I was horrified.

That was the garment I’d wrapped around the snake!

The snake was Master?

Master was the snake?

Every disciple was as frozen as I was.

Someone whispered, “Why is Master dressed like that?”

“Master… must have his reasons.”

The demonic creatures’ faces darkened.

“Chu She! Do you think women’s clothes will make us spare you?”

“Pink, too!”

“…”

Only then did he look down.

There was even a lovely butterfly bow.

He pressed his lips together and said nothing.

With a flick of his fingers, the creatures mocking him turned to ash.

Amid a chorus of sharp breaths, his face remained blank.

The pink dudou crumbled to powder, too.

He conjured cool-colored robes, restoring his lofty, unapproachable air.

Then he looked at the gathered disciples.

“Men, crouch down. Women, look up. I wish to choose a… final, private disciple.”

Meaning: a disciple he could shut behind a door and slaughter.

I shrank behind the others, desperately trying to vanish.

Someone patted my shoulder.

“What’s wrong? Why is Master suddenly choosing a private disciple?”