Chapter 182.2

182.2 – Sanshoku Dango

Do I resemble a panda? Xue Qilin is surprised.

“Foolish and soft, isn’t it just like a panda?”

“Wait a second–! I can understand foolish, but what’s the deal with soft?”

“Oh, that’s what Little Sister Temple Master said. According to her, you feel really soft when embraced, unlike a martial practitioner.”

“Eh? What the hell?”

What in the world is that Little Seven telling others? Xue Qilin is dumbfounded.

The lass’s reaction made Li Wanting laugh uproariously.

“Ha-ha, what a cute reaction.”

“Uh…” Xue Qilin shifted her gaze around, embarrassed.

Li Wanting laughed. Saying nothing for a while, she caressed the book on the table. Her regular but somewhat vigorous face is dyed with helplessness.

“Little Sister Palace Master is right…” She suddenly raised her head and cast Xue Qilin a look of reproach, “Young Ancestor, although it’s inappropriate to ask, but your usual foolish appearance wouldn’t be a facade, would it? You’re actually a rather sharp person, right?”

Xue Qilin scratched her head and didn’t respond. She isn’t tacitly agreeing or buying time in order to think of an answer, she simply doesn’t know the reason behind the other party’s words.

All along, she has just frankly played the role of “herself”. She is nothing but herself, she just lives purely as herself.

However, Li Wanting, who doesn’t seem to be torn about this, sighed swiftly.

“Anyway… Young Ancestor, you wanted to comfort me, right?”

“La la la, what do you mean by comfort?”

Xue Qilin played dumb and said, “I was just stating a fact.”

Although she did indeed mean to comfort the other party, but it would be a lack of tact to admit it.

People are rather full of contradictions. They want to be comforted when they are down, but they don’t want to be comforted by comfort alone. Because there are often white lies or excuses mixed in with comfort.

Li Wanting was distracted for a moment, and then raised her hands in surrender.

“This really is–” Li Wanting smiled helplessly, “A hard-to-deny argument…”

“That’s because facts are always hard to deny!”

Xue Qilin spread her hands naturally, which caused Li Wanting to burst out laughing.

After laughing for a good while, Li Wanting, who appears to have hidden her frailty and frustration in a corner of her mind, got the conversation back on track.

“It will take quite a few more days to repair Empyrean Universe… It will take some time to forge the exterior.” She looked at Xue Qilin accusingly, “Why didn’t you bring back the exterior? Forging it anew will waste a lot of time.”

In the Martial Demon Realm, deep in that cave, Xue Qilin removed all of Empyrean Universe’s exterior components. But she didn’t bring them back.

Xue Qilin wrinkled her nose and uttered, aggrieved, “How could I bring so many parts? Unlike Little Seven, my sleeves can’t fit an entire room.”

“If Little Sister Temple Master heard you, she would be upset with you again.”

Qi Qiqi’s angry face suddenly appeared in her mind, and Xue Qilin shrank back and looked around, wincing.

“Little Seven… she wouldn’t have heard it, would she?”

“Little Sister Temple Master isn’t here, how could she hear it?”

Li Wanting doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“Maybe… the walls have ears or something.”

“Pfff–“

Xue Qilin’s overly suspicious appearance prompted Li Wanting to laugh out loud.

“Ha-ha-ha-ha, is Little Sister Temple Master that scary? But she’s so cute.”

“Cute? It’s true that she’s pretty. But how can she, who frequently uses violence against others, be described as cute?”

Li Wanting’s eyes lit up, as if a cat seeing fish.

“She used to follow me around, saying ‘Big Sister Ting, Big Sister Ting’. It was really cute.”

Then, looking worried, she covered one side of her face and sighed heavily.

“Is she perhaps at the rebellious period? However, that is also cute! A fuming appearance is particularly adorable!”

Uh… is this Little Ting possessed by Nangong Mingming?

Xue Qilin quickly shook her head and cast this thought away.

No, no, no, unlike an admirer, she’s more like a big sister who loves her little sister dearly…

–uh, a siscon [1]?

This term flashed through her mind, and Xue Qilin’s expression became strange at once. She didn’t expect Li Wanting to have such a side.

“Hmm? What’s wrong?”

Li Wanting noticed Xue Qilin’s strange gaze and asked in a tone of surprise.

“It’s nothing.”

Xue Qilin suddenly craned her neck to peer. She seems to be looking for something.

“By the way, where’s Little Phecda?”

Two days earlier, in order to strengthen the structure of the place where the core gem is located in Empyrean Universe’s main part, Li Wanting borrowed the gem that hosts Phecda’s spirit from Xue Qilin, saying that she wants to measure its size and so on.

“Um, Phecda? She seems to be asleep.”

Makes sense.

Xue Qilin mused — if Phecda was awake, she would have shouted the moment I came to visit.

“Hey, more for me then.”

Li Wanting raised her eyebrows and expressed her confusion.

“Oh, it’s nothing. I sent someone down the mountain to buy dango. I planned to share them with Little Phecda.” Xue Qilin stroked the earring hanging from her ear, “But she actually fell asleep… he-he, I have no choice but to eat them by myself.”

From Xue Qilin’s appearance, it appears that she is happy that Phecda is asleep. However, Li Wanting, who doesn’t seem to be aware of this, just blurted out in reply, “I see. Do you mean Flower Little Dango’s?”

Xue Qilin’s eyes brightened as a result.

“Of course! The Flower Little Dango’s sanshoku dango [1] are the best!”

Xue Qilin, with a bright smile on her face, gestured one small circle after another, which seem to depict the shape of sanshoku dango. The two buns atop her head bounced and jumped with her movements, giving off the impression that they will just jump away.

“Can you imagine? It’s not easy to prepare small dango well… Not only must the texture and taste be good, but the colors must also be bright and eye-catching in order to be regarded quality goods!”

Xue Qilin isn’t a foodie, but she has a weakness for Flower Little Dango’s sanshoku dango. If it wasn’t for the fact that they are a bit expensive, she would like to eat them once a day.

“Oh, Little Sister Temple Master has introduced this shop to me. Are they really that delicious? I heard that they are rather expensive. It’s a rare occasion, do you want me to wake Phecda up? –wait…”

Li Wanting revealed a half-doubtful and half-curious expression.

“The sword’s exterior hasn’t been repaired yet. Can Phecda even eat like this?”

The reason why Phecda can appear in front of people in human form is entirely due to the ‘transfiguration spell model’ engraved on the mechanical sword. Since Empyrean Universe’s exterior hasn’t been repaired yet, Phecda naturally cannot appear in human form.

One cannot eat without a mouth–

That’s the reason why Li Wanting asked this question. After all, she is the person most familiar with the various spell models on Empyrean Universe after Xue Qilin.

[1] – siscon is a person with an unusually strong and probably sexual attachment to their sister

[2] – sanshoku dango