Zhuan An & Qian Ki 4

"So you are saying that the Emperor, without noticing enjoys the benefits of having way too many wives and concubines?" Duan Hin got the idea and smiled.

"In my opinion, yes. Since when I met the Emperor for a brief moment, he didn't seem like the sharpest man ever," Xiao Fan spoke but held himself enough to not tell about the words he had exchanged with the Queen.

"See you have observed that my method of handling women works." Duan Hin didn't mind this talk at all. 'Unlike the youths back at Ulaanbaatar, he has some sense,' he thought. "But tell me more of the outside," he asked for more.

Xiao Fan complied and thought of something, "Well it takes more than a week to move across the continent, and even then there are other landmasses around the largest mass of land," he gave him some generic information.

"Then why do you come here? We habit such a small plot of land." He was surprised to hear this, and also confused.

"Have you ever heard of the Four Ancient Ones?"

"The Four Ancient Ones? Never." Duan Hin answered.

"The people in the outside world think that this is a tomb for the Four Ancient Ones. That is the reason they came here," he told the Chief.

"So you are a tom raiding party? We don't have much, please just leave," Duan Hin noted that they hadn't much in terms gold and valuables.

"Then what is that huge tower in the middle of this place? And all the other places," Xiao Fan questioned. 'If this place didn't have anything, then why was there so much of everything? Don't they know what those places are?'

"They are our holy sites, and no one should enter a place that has those guardians," he spoke and made a knowing look at him.

"Oh, sorry¨ Xiao Fan nor anyone else had had any notion that they were trespassing on holy ground. ¨Explains why you are hostile towards us."

"We have our reasons," Duan Hin agreed.

After having been briefed on their holy sites, Xiao Fan knew it was better to change the topic before Duan Hin proposed them leaving those holy sites alone, "So what kind of place Ulaanbaatar is? Do you all live there?"

"No one really lives there. Or shouldn't but that is a rule almost no one follows."

"Another holy site?" Xiao Fan could guess.

¨Yup, but after some time everyone moved into those massive temples that can accommodate our people ten times over.¨

¨So the rule was broken due to convenience?¨

¨Indeed it was," he grudgingly said. Xiao Fan could see that he shouldn't talk more about this topic.

'Maybe that's why he didn't ask us to move,' Xiao Fan reasoned, "So we are arriving at Ulaanbaatar soon?" he changed the topic, again.

"A few more hours, and well start seeing the tops of the temples." Having travelled these roads so many times, Duan Hin could give an accurate estimation on their time of arrival.

Nodding his head, Xiao Fan spoke, "Thank you for your time." He wanted to leave and so made some respect to this cultivator above him before getting back to the women.

"Come and meet me anytime," Duan Hin didn't take this badly.

"I'll come if I need something while staying at Ulaanbaatar," He replied while waving his hand as a goodbye.

Xiao Fan wouldn't deny this offer as it might come handy in the future, 'These barbarians aren't all that primitive as they seem to be. They are more like lacking resources. Huge potential!' Talking with the Duan brothers had made him switch his opinion concerning the native tribes.

At first, they had been nothing but barbarians, seeing as they had no clothes and little when it came to Body Weapons and armour. However, getting to know them more he realised that they weren't so by choice, they were so because the place they grew in was too small and their culture self destructive.

Ending his moment of pondering, he caught up with the women. "How is it going?" The situation, at first sight, seemed better.

"Better," Zhuan An could at least speak, though she still didn't look at Qian Ki, who was beside her. She was still looking into the woods.

"You seems much better," Xiao Fan spoke and came over to the side where to Zhuan An was looking towards, ignoring Qian Ki.

"Just kidding. What did Ki'er do?" Xiao Fan wasn't going to be salty over what had happened.

Getting called by that name made Qian Ki happy. "Told her a story that you don't need to know," she spoke. In her opinion, Xiao Fan didn't need to know that she had narrated the story about how her secret had been revealed to Xiao Fan.

"Fine. You did what you said," Xiao Fan wouldn't pursue. He left that there and spoke to the victim, in a soft and humorous tone that he used when joking around with Zhuan An. "Didn't I say that before her eyes are red?"

"Her other eye was blue!" Zhuan An defended, without herself realising that she was feeling much better.

"Was it? Or were you trying your luck?" Xiao Fan could see that Zhuan An might have bitten too much.

"I said that I wouldn't try to harm the two of them," she again defended, this time by referring to what she had said in the carriage.

Seeing that she was already looking at him, her face mostly fine Xiao Fan continued, "Like a fox couldn't lie, isn't that in your sect's blood?"

"But I said."

"Okay, okay. Now let's ask the other one." Xiao Fan took his eyes off her and looked towards Qian Ki.

Zhuan An instinctively did the same, but a moment later when realising what she had done, sapped back to looking at the forest. "Bully!" she then exclaimed.

"But did you get scared or was it instinct?" Xiao Fan asked the woman trying to hit him, ¨Qian Ki doesn't have any more red in her eyes you know?¨

It took Zhuan An a moment to register which one, nevertheless at the end, she concluded, "Instinct... I moved my head because my instincts told me so."

"Should one heed their instincts blindly?" Xiao Fan took a risk in trying to make Zhuan An not be afraid of Qian Ki. He knew it was a risk, but not taking it might mean that the two women couldn't communicate.

There was a noticeable pause.

"One shouldn't trust their instincts blindly," was her reply. She, having mastered the awl-pike so far knew that trusting one's most primal feelings wouldn't always work because they might lead one to chose the wrong path.

"Good. Now, look at me"— Xiao Fan then made his next move —"keep following me"—he repeated while walking over to the side where Qian Ki was—"Good!" he clapped his hands in joy when seeing Zhuan An having followed him so that her eyes also saw Qian Ki walking next to him.

"When did you become a physiologist?" Qian Ki inquired when Xiao Fan had become proficient in things like these.

"Oh, it's not me. It is something that I ate that made me become like this," Xiao Fan explained why his wits were on a level that Qian Ki hadn't seen before.

"I ate it too," Zhuan An was certainly fairing better noted by how she joined the starting conversation between him and Qian Ki.

"You got something for her? Where is my piece?" she rather quickly became waiting for something.

"Meanies get none!" Zhuan An spoke out again. 'Hopefully, hubby doesn't give her the Bit of Wit immediately,' she hoped as, in her mind, this was a suitable punishment.

"She does have a point," Xiao Fan agreed with Zhuan An, who was slowly going back towards the openness that a Rising Fox Sect disciple would show.

"Grrrr." Both of them soon heard some voice leaving Qian Ki which was akin to a panther or a lion.

"If you don't get something, the best way to get it might not be threatening," Xiao Fan wanted to note her this, "you'll get yours when Zhuan An feels like it," he then said something that came out of his mouth, not thinking much of it.

"That's rather low," Qian Ki argued.

On the other hand, Zhuan An didn't say anything since before that her hand went into the pocket of Xiao Fan from which her hand took out a Bit of Wit. "You'll get this when I feel like it," she clamoured at her, and not noticing she looked straight into the eyes of Qian Ki.

"Look, you aren't even scared of looking into my eyes!" Qian Ki, of course, noted this and wanted Xiao Fan to realise this.

"Wait, what did I say?" When that all had passed, Xiao Fan had only realised that he might have said something improper.

"You said that I could keep Qian Ki's Bit of Wit until I feel like giving it to her," Zhuan An was ready to explain things to Xiao Fan, like always.

"I might have overestimated your growth a little," Qian Ki, now seeing that her something was taken away, focused on criticising Xiao Fan.

"Sure. Now she actually gets to keep it," if she wanted to be like that, whatever, "though on the note of growth, how much has your cultivation risen?"—he then moved his hand—"The spot you grabbed still hurts."

"Oh, I'm at the Second Grade of Body Strengthening Realm after that recent event," she proudly stated how strong she had become.

"Wow!" Zhuan An was the first to react, "That's like so high!" Zhuan An was awed by the cultivation of Qian Ki.

"Give me my Bit of Wit now?" Qian Ki tried to get the herbs back now that she knew her cultivation.

"Nope!" Zhuan An didn't.

"I'll take it from you." Qian Ki wasn't very diplomatic.

"Try it! Hubby will make you regret it big time!" But Zhuan An knew her strengths in the current situation. Like she knew that there was zero possibility in Qian Ki laying a hand on her body.

'Things are going towards better again,' he thought.

The two of them might be bickering, but it was good enough of a start. Long as they could talk to the other could their friendship be guided towards the better.

'Now that this is handled, the question of Fei Sun will pop up back soon... I need to think something to say to that,' he reassessed the situation. It was going well, but they were currently going to Ulaanbaatar, so they would meet Fei Sun at some point, guaranteed.

"Ki'er, the Bit of Wit will not help you much anymore, you are already so smart, so there is no rush." But to defuse the current situation, he used some pretty words.

Words which worked like magic.

"So it's something that raises your intelligence? In that case, you are right since if so I might as well not need it. What if I go around the spectrum and end up as an idiot?" she made an outrageous statement.

"Yeah, you have no hurry." Xiao Fan agreed with her statement, not caring how bonkers it was.

"If you were so smart, wouldn't you have taken one when you could have had the other benefits of the Bit of Wit?" He might have gone with it but, Zhuan An wasn't.

"What do you mean? Not get all the benefits?" Qian Ki didn't know what a Bit of Wit was, so how could she know how it worked.

"While you only get the intelligence boost. Me, Xiao Fan, Du Lan, and Fei Sun, will get the reflex boost, hearing, and everything else that grows in the Body Activation Realm," she explained.

Xiao Fan listened to this nodding until, for some, reason Zhuan An decided to say the name "Fei Sun" Which made Qian Ki remember that name that had started the whole fight.

Qian Ki now having heard the name remembered a few things and while they walked forwards, she turned her head to look at Xiao Fan. "Fei Sun," she demanded to know more.