Volume 5 – A Distance Within Reach, Chapter 33: Each Other’s Sunshine


    As expected, Zhang Zixing’s voice kept echoing in quick session.


    “A respectful wee to the eldest young miss of the Marquis of Citysun.”


    “Greetings to the fifth young miss of the Marquis of Order Foundation.”


    One airship after anothernded in quick session. Qianye had quietly retreated to the edge of the airship port and was continuously distancing himself from this troublesome area.


    He secretly counted and found that there were two adopted daughters of dukes, ten lineal daughters of marquis, and three lineal daughters of counts. And this was excluding the main familydies within the enormous groups of followers. This group of nobledies hade for Wei Potian and was precisely this so-called “trouble” the Wei n heir had been mincing words about.


    At this time, Qianye suddenly thought of something. It seemed ckflow City would be extremely “safe” in the period to follow.


    A total of fifteen prominent nobledies had arrived along with their guard units, eachprised of well over a hundred warriors. ckflow City had gained a powerful thousand-man squad in the blink of an eye! There wasn’t much cooperation to speak of among them, but their levels were high and their equipment, excellent. They, alone, could easily defeat an imperial regr army corps of the same size.


    Besides, the expeditionary higher-ups were undoubtedly aware of the fact that a group of nobledies and an imperial fleet hade over to ckflow City. They certainly wouldn’t choose such a time to act even if they had certain ns in mind.


    Qianye was thus afforded with another buffer period. Meanwhile, his control over the reorganized Dark me and ckflow City would only increase over time.


    From this perspective, the problem Wei Potian had invited over wasn’t all that bad.


    But the sudden influx of so many people made ckflow City’s poverty even more obvious. There weren’t enough jeeps in the city to carry everyone not even if they ran back and forth several times. In the end, only the nobledies and their femalepanions were offered afortable ride, while their followers and guards along with Zhang Zixing’s subordinates had to share the troop carrier trucks on the bumpy ride into the city.


    Qianye hadn’t gotten the chance to speak with Wei Potian in private since the moment Nangong Ling alighted from the airship. Presently, he had been surrounded by ten-odd nobledies—how could he have the time for Qianye amidst the constant buzz of feminine chatter. Meanwhile, Qianye had no intention to help him break this siege at all. He absolutely wouldn’t court trouble for himself by approaching these nobledies.


    Qianye called for Song Hu, Duan Hao, and the others immediately upon arriving back at the division headquarters. Together, they began to recruit the rich and powerful gentry of ckflow City to amodate these heaven’s proud daughters. It was just that the standards of the ckflow City upper-ss were a ways off from that of imperial nobility. Although the local gentry were delighted to ingratiate themselves to these nobledies, the process wasn’t exactly a smooth sail.


    Settling thousands of people in was aplicated business, and these aristocratic fellows were exceptionally demanding. Additionally, the nobles of the upper continent were inherently disdainful of the civilians of the abandonednd, theirnguage and behavior a constant disy of their arrogant sense of superiority.


    Arranging for amodations alone took up the entire afternoon. To speak nothing of the other Dark me members, even Qianye himself heard words like “as expected of a rural area”, “why isn’t this ce cleaner?” and “can you bear the crime if our young miss gets sick?” multiple times.


    The actual nobledies were all mild-mannered and refined. They absolutely weren’tcking in manners, at least in front of Wei Potian.


    But those followers were much more difficult to deal with. Their attitudes were usually much more arrogant than the nobledies, and it almost seemed as if their eyes were growing atop their heads. Perhaps one could discern the nobledies’ true manners from their respective maids.


    Fortunately, there weren’t any problems with the imperial army corps led by Zhang Zixing. They quickly settled themselves in after the seventh division emptied half a barracks for them. Even the apanying champions who had to share a room in twos or threes didn’t raise any special demands.


    It was already night time by the time all these uninvited guests of astonishing identities had been arranged for.


    Only then did Qianye find an opportunity to grab Wei Potian and drag him into the dark. He lifted the man by the cor and said angrily, “What the hell is going on?!”


    Qianye could be considered slender and thin among his peers. Wei Potian was taller than him by almost half a head, and his build was stouter than the former by a significant margin. But now, he had been lifted up by this rtively delicate Qianye with no ability to retaliate.


    Wei Potian let out some awkwardughter—it seemed there was no way to fool Qianye. “I’ll speak, I’ll speak! Qianye, can you please let me down first?”


    Qianye let out a cold snort and released his hand, whereupon, like a huge rock, Wei Potian fell to the floor with a loud bang.


    Wei Potian nced at Qianye fearfully while rubbing his somewhat painful neck. He couldn’t help but exim, “Even the arachne viscounts I’ve battled before aren’t as strong as you are. Are you still a human or not?”


    “I’ve told you before that I’m not,” Qianye was starting to get impatient, “now speak! Stop rambling about other things!”


    Wei Potian sensed a rather familiar killing intent and immediately shrunk his neck while letting out a dry cough. “Hehe… that… wasn’t my birthday just a while ago?”


    This so-called “just a while ago” was six months prior—it was Wei Potian’s important twentieth birthday. At first, Qianye had intended to visit the Far East Province after the matters regarding Dark me had settled down, but ns fell through when war erupted on Evernight Continent.


    “So, what of it?


    It turned out that half of the upper continent defensive regions had battled against the dark races in the period preceding the war on Evernight. The Broken-Winged Angels where Wei Potian had been at the time was also called into battle. Under the circumstances, his birthday banquet was canceled and, that very same day, Wei Potian was gravely injured after single-handedly holding back two dark race viscounts on the battlefield.


    Wei Potian’s face flushed red as he said sheepishly, “Erm, while I was recuperating, my family suddenly told me that it was time for me to start a family since my birthday has passed.”


    Qianye stared fixedly at Wei Potian and observed him from every angle. The Wei Potian who usually acted like a local ruffian was actually wearing such a bashful expression.


    Qianye suddenly became spirited and said with augh, “That’s not wrong. What then?”


    Wei Potian’s face turned even redder and was now like a well-cooked lobster. “Naturally, all types of matchmakers began to appear at the doors! As it turned out, my family had already spread news of my marriage arrangements.”


    Qianye found Wei Potian’s reaction quite odd. Wasn’t this normal?


    Marriage was one of the most important events for the aristocracy and signified an alliance with other powers. Wei Potian had long since been designated as the heir and had revealed outstanding talents. His future was extremely promising and was the perfect marriage partner. Daughters of dukes and marquis all flocked to him the moment this news was released.


    But Wei Potian was usually natural and unrestrained in his social interactions. Why was he being so sheepish? He was even more bashful than a nobledy pretending to be pure and innocent.


    Qianye suddenly thought of a possibility and said abruptly, “So, you’re still inexperienced.”


    Wei Potian’s face immediately swelled up with a purple-red color and said angrily while stomping about, “You’re the inexperienced one! This daddy has been peeping at bathingdies since I was ten and ying with twosomes since I was fourteen. Although I don’t have as many women as that perverted sex-glutton Song Zining, I’ve been with no less than a hundred and eighty!”


    Qianyeughed loudly but refused to believe him. Aristocratic descendants would have maids in their room aftering of age, allowing them to understand the ways of the world. However, very few would overindulge in the female charms. The period before the age of twenty was the most suitable time to cultivate origin power andy down a solid foundation. The greater the aristocratic family, the more rigorously they would discipline their core descendants.


    Only hedonistic sons with no initiative would revel in dance and wine each day. That was why Song Zining’s style had always been criticized. He was considered an odd character among his aristocratic peers for having such arge group of concubines at such a young age.


    Song Zining’s love of female charms and his pursuit of misceneous knowledge was seen as self-abandonment. People felt he had no future even if he had great talents. That was also why no one had paid any special attention to what he had been doing outside before the Song n decennial examination.


    Under the gaze of Qianye’s bright eyes, Wei Potian’s momentum grew weaker and weaker until he finally said in disappointment, “Sigh, it’s useless. Let it be, there’s no problem in telling a brother. Laugh if you want to! That Nangong Ling dropped in as soon as I started to recover from my injuries, iming that she was traveling and happened to be passing through Far East Province. She was merely the first, then an entire group of them followed.”


    Even Qianye had realized that Nangong Ling’s so-called traveling was just an excuse and her real reason was to call upon Wei Potian. But it was also quitemon to let two young people meet each other before marriage. Although the essence of a marital connection was for the benefit of the two families, the feelings of the people involved were also important. But there was something not quite right about meeting an entire group at the same time.


    “How did that happen? It’s quite different from the normal style of the nobility.”


    Even though he didn’t understand much about the upper-rank aristocracy, he knew that they paid particr attention to their reputation. Even if the Wei n’s position was quite outstanding, they were nothing more than a regional marquis. Selecting from such a lineup was unheard of even for the concubine selection of an imperial family member.


    Wei Potian’s expression was so bitter that he might be able to wring water out of it.


    This matter was quiteplicated, yet it was also simple—many dukes and marquis favored Wei Potian, and this made it difficult for the Wei n to pick. It was unknown what had been going through the Marquis of Bowang’s mind when he actually announced that he would allow it as long as the two youngsters fell in love.


    Unexpectedly, these nobles had no objection whatsoever regarding Marquis Wei’s unconventional decision! One could clearly see, from the fact that all the nobledies had begun to “travel” and “coincidentally pass through Far East Province”, that they had tacitly agreed to the Marquis’ methods.


    Three more daughters of feudal lords joined the entourage on the way. Their status was far below that of the nobility and their chances of being selected as the next Wei n mistress weren’t that high. But those who felt that their daughters were qualified decided to have them jump into the fray since the marquis himself had announced that the marriage would be allowed as long as the youngsters were in love.


    “Then, you ran over to my ce?” Qianye had asked this question without any change in expression, but Wei Potian could almost hear the killing intent within.


    He paused for a moment and then said sheepishly, “We haven’t met for a long time, right? So I dropped in to see how you were doing.”


    Qianye shot a nce at Wei Potian and said indifferently, “You were wounded, so they came to visit you. This is amon thing even among friends. Why are you so flustered?”


    “Common? How can this bemon?” Wei Potian was suddenly furious and embarrassed. “You have no idea what I had gone through these days!”


    It turned out that these nobledies arrived at the Wei n in session and took turns to visit Wei Potian’s sickroom. Later on, they couldn’t allocate the time in a fair manner so they split into several groups and stayed with him in shifts.


    Wei Potian was badly wounded at the time and couldn’t even get down from the bed. As such, he was “taken care of” by the nobledies in various ways. But thesedies had belonged to rich families since childhood—how many of them had ever done any chores? It was quite easy to imagine the quality of care he received—there was no limit to this potential horror.


    As it happened, Wei Potian could hardly even turn in bed at the time and thus he was faced with a fair bit of suffering. What made the Wei n heir most dissatisfied was that, during this process, he had been in close contact with thedies as well as their maids. He eventually lost count of how many times he had been taken advantage of.


    Recalling those nightmarish days, Wei Potian finally couldn’t resist cursing out loud. “F*ck! It was like pickingdies at a brothel where you grab her chest to see if it’s big enough and her behind to see if it’s curvy enough! But goddammit this time, I became the one being poked and picked. It’s like the whole room was full of brothel patrons and I’m the onlydy!”


    At first, Qiane listened attentively without a change in expression. However, it eventually became impossible for him to hold back and he broke into a howlingughter.


    “Qianye!!!” Wei Potian ground his teeth.


    Qianye’sughter grew so intense that he couldn’t even stand straight.


    Wei Potian pounced over in anger, grabbed the front of Qianye’s shirt and roared, “Are we still brothers?”


    “Yes, of course, we are, haha, haha!”


    “Then stopughing!” Wei Potian shouted.


    “Fine, fine, fine… I’ll stopughing.” Qianye struggled free from Wei Potian’s bear-like grasp with a single move and dashed out several meters with great agility.


    He didn’t even wait for Wei Potian toe back to his senses before he started howling inughter once again.


    Wei Potian suddenly felt helpless after seeing Qianyeughing in such an exaggerated manner. “Qianye, you! What kind of brother are you?!” His fury had reached an extreme. He suddenly charged toward Qianye and the two tumbled to the floor.


    Even then, Qianye was stillughing uncontrobly. Wei Potian sighed helplessly while covering up his face. “I did not want this to happen! It won’t be this bad if only my face was half as thick as Song Seven’s.”


    It was at this time that the night suddenly quieted down. Even Qianye’sughter was broken off for a single moment.


    Suddenly, a fallen leaf floated past Wei Potian’s eyes.


    Wei Potian had an instinctive hatred of fallen leaves. He grabbed at it, crushed it into fine powder, and cursed, “What kind of damned tree is shedding leaves in this season?!”


    It was at this time that a gentle voice rang out, “What’s the joyous asion? And how is my insignificant self rted to it?”