Chapter 13
“Very well.” The two young knights didn’t dare refute her at all, they only answered her respectfully.
The teenage girl extended her right hand towards Long Haochen: “Little brother, I am Li Xin. Let’s go! I’ll take you to see Uncle Nalan.”
Long Haochen rejoiced greatly and took her hand. “Thank you, Elder Sister, I am Long Haochen.”
Li Xin’s tender palm’s grip was strong, her skin was clearly somewhat rough, obviously because of her sword training. However, Long Haochen’s hand gave her a different feeling. For someone of his age, Long Haochen’s hand was quite smooth and, to Li Xin, it felt soft and comfortable to hold.
Upon entering Haoyue Hall, Long Haochen immediately felt a quaint atmosphere. The ground was covered by grey slates and a total of twelve thick pillars were supporting the entire Hall. In front of them, there were six huge stone chairs; each one was 3⅓ meters high and each of them had numerous decorative patterns drawn on them that Long Haochen had never seen before.
Long Haochen pointed at the six stone chairs as he asked, full of curiosity, “Elder Sister, what is that?”
Li Xin’s look became solemn, “This is the symbol of our Knight Temple’s supreme glory, the Divine Thrones. Only a Divine Knight can possess one of them. Little brother, do you know about Divine Knights? It is the highest rank that we, knights, can attain: the ninth step of the vocation. All of our senior Divine Knights are legendary. It is said that they faced, by themselves, the seventy-two legendary demon gods in battle.”
It was the first time Long Haochen had heard about the title of Divine Knight. Xingyu never told him anything regarding Divine Knights.
“Big sister, how formidable are Divine Knights? Why are they called Divine Knights?”
Li Xin replied, “That’s because they possess a divine throne. Only after one is approved by the throne can one become a Divine Knight! You can’t consider them as mere chairs, each of them is a genuine artifact left by the gods. My goal is to one day become a Divine Knight!”
Long Haochen, who seemed unconvinced, said, “But there are only six of these divine thrones, what if there aren’t enough?”
Li Xin chuckled, “Silly boy, how can it be so easy? What do you think Divine Knights are? How can I explain to you that we, the Knight Temple, have at present only three Divine Knights. To turn into a Divine Knight truly is incredibly difficult.”
As she was speaking, Li Xin had already brought Long Haochen to the second floor. The face of Haoyue Hall was very high, but, in reality, it was because every floor was very tall, so there were only three auxiliary floors.
Both of them went to a spacious room on the second floor and Li Xin said: “This is Uncle Nalan’s room, but it is still early. He hasn’t arrived at the hall yet. He should arrive quickly, though.”
After she said that, Li Xin lowered her voice and her face approached Long Haochen’s ear: “Long Haochen, should I call you, ‘Little Brother’? or ‘Little Sister’?”
“Eh?” Long Haochen was a little frightened by that sudden act and gave her a perplexed look.
Li Xin grinned: “You can stop pretending. I originally ran away from home, cross-dressing with male attire, to come to the Knight Temple, or else they wouldn’t have easily accepted a girl like me. You are the same as Elder Sister, right? How can a boy possibly look as beautiful as you? Plus, after a few years, once your body starts to develop, especially here like Elder Sister’s, you will not be able to conceal yourself anymore.”
As she spoke, she pulled Long Haochen’s hand to her chest.
Although she wore a soft armor, a soft feeling still entered Haochen’s hand. He originally wanted to refute her words, but couldn’t say anything at that moment. His face became incredibly flushed.
As far as he remembered, he hadn’t even been so intimate with his mother! Even if he didn’t understand the meaning of a man groping a woman, he subconsciously let out his bashful feelings and his shy face looked as if it was bleeding at that moment.
“Yah, such timidity! Little Sister, you are really lovely. Rest assured, I will properly look after you in the future, in this Haoyue Hall.” As she said that, Li Xin laughed while holding Long Haochen’s little face between her fingers.
Long Haochen reacted, “Elder Sister, I am really a boy, not a little sister…”
At that moment, his hand was still being pushed against Li Xin’s chest, his brain was completely heating up and his voice became really low.
“Eh?” Li Xin understood all of a sudden, “You are really a boy?”
Long Haochen desperately nodded. Moving his hand away, he looked like a little child who made a mistake, and took a few steps back.
Li Xin looked a little vexed: “But how can your hand be so soft? And how can you look so beautiful? Did I really misunderstand? Argh! I got groped! Little Brother, tell me, how will you compensate me?”
She wanted to leave the Hall back then, but at that moment, she saw Long Haochen at the entrance. After a single look, she was reminded of the scene of herself arriving for the first time at the Temple Hall, and she had a good first impression of Long Haochen, who tried to enter. But, at that moment, she realized her own mistake of taking the initiative to hold that little boy’s hand. Wasn’t that an excessively indecent act? In her heart, Li Xin was depressed. Luckily that little boy in front of her looked only about ten years old.
“I-I really don’t know.” Long Haochen said frankly, but, in his heart he thought, It was you who pulled my hand to make me grope you, I didn’t really want to grope you!
Li Xin’s face was white and red and after having spent a long time thinking, she said helplessly: “Okay, I’ll let you go, little guy. But you have to keep this a secret! You can’t let other people know. In the future, I will be your Elder Sister; an Elder Sister who had let her little brother hold her is no big deal.”
To be able to run away from home to choose to become a knight, that girl’s disposition wasn’t weak. She quickly found a lame excuse to deal with that twisted situation.
“Xin’er,1 what are you doing here?” at that moment, a growling voice resounded.
Long Haochen and Li Xin turned around at the same time and found a huge giant entering the Hall.
No mistake, he was really a huge giant. His body was at least two meters tall, but more exactly, he was 266cm tall, a 2⅔ meters tall strong-man. Even in a solid building such as Haoyue Hall, the ground could be felt shaking under his weight.
“Uncle Nalan, you should really lose some weight; otherwise, you will hardly leave the first floor. If you don’t, I’m afraid of the day when Haoyue Hall will collapse from the inside.” Li Xin snappily said.
That “strong-man” was Haoyue Hall Master, Nalan Shu.
Nalan Shu, who just heard her words, didn’t get angry. He laughed out and simply said, “Even by only drinking I will gain weight, what can I do? Yi, are you the one who brought this little girl? She’s your family relative?”
“I am a boy!” To be misunderstood as a girl by Li Xin was still okay, even if she made him grope her, but upon hearing that fatty uncle speak like that, Long Haochen, who was depressed and discontent towards him, immediately protested.
“Um?” Nalan Shu seemed distracted, while Li Xin refrained from laughing upon seeing Long Haochen’s behaviour and told Nalan his goal.
“What kind of letter is it? Show it to me.” Nalan Shu directed his hand towards Long Haochen.
Long Haochen took a deep breath and calmed down his depressed heart, then he placed the letter in Nalan Shu’s hand.
Upon opening the letter, Nalan Shu looked pleased, but, after a little look, his complexion completely changed. His tall body stood straight; and when he finished reading the letter, he wore an extremely serious look.
*[advantage]: by having their erection in contact with her
*[ cent bills]: China has cents in bills called jiao
*[Guoshu]: Guo here means country and shu means technique
*[ 190 centimeters]: Over 6ft tall
*[Lake Cui]: Cui Hu, also means Green Lake
*[hundred dyuan bills]: 100yuan is their biggest bill
*[Daoist Fierce Tiger]: The author of this novel
*[Noodles]: made of wheat
*[Rice Noodles]: made of rice
*[Zhang Tian Tian]: Tian means sweet
*[Bajiquan]: Also known as Eight Extremities Fist, but Bajiquan sounds nicer to me
*[Long Taos]: side characters in Chinese operas who perform acrobatics and fight scenes
*[12.47 to 13.07]: don’t ask me about the tree sap