“Screw you! Give me back my blessings! It's really important!”

“Okay.”

“Eh!?”

****

“You’ll give me back my blessings!? You’re not messing with me!?”

“Young miss. You need to get away from him!”

“Wait why!?”

“Sure, why not?”

A mess of questions was being asked to the point where it was hard to determine who was talking.

“Pwheee!!!”

An ear-piercing whistle cut through the noise, causing a pall of silence to descend upon the noisy group.

“Thank you Xiannu Liang,” Long Di calmly thanked the Nymph, who whistled on his behalf.

Go figure. He didn’t know how to whistle, so he just asked one of the few people who weren’t contributing to the noise to do so.

“Okay, so since we’re creating the world’s worst orchestra, I’ll bear the burden of being the composer.” Long Di sighed with a worrisome air, compelling all those who were making noise earlier to want to kick his ass.

“Now,” he pointed to First Ban Yan. “I think we can put what you want to say on the back burner for now. So you go first.”

Ban Yan snorted in contempt but composed himself before turning to Yaomu Shou. “Young miss, you need to separate yourself from this person!”

Yaomu Shou wasn’t interested in this. There was a more pressing issue on her mind, “Why’d you bring Mina over!?”

“The young lady!? She asked me, and then I…” suddenly, cold sweat washed his back when Ban Yan realised that he unwittingly followed Mina’s orders to bring her to meet Long Di.

Even worse, is that he disobeyed Demon King Yaomu Wei to do it. It was such an odd thing, for in the moment he sought to follow the orders of his King, Mina’s words bewildered him into obedience.

He sneaked a glance at her and even though she was pale at the moment, probably a consequence of the overdraft of whatever weird ability she used, it was enough to cause a peak expert like him to follow it through to the end.

He narrowed his eyes before asking, “What are you?”

“Nothing you need to worry about for now?” Mina replied. Her grace was not something to be used in the mortal realm.

It could cause consequences hitherto undreamt of. However, receiving communication from her Lady Mingyun allowed her to put down some of her qualms.

Nevertheless, Ban Yan was still a powerful demon and having him bring her all the way here was a drain, both mentally and physically.

“First Uncle, are you asking me to leave him so you can kill him?” Yaomu Shou asked solemnly.

“No, Young Miss!” Ban Yan hurriedly denied this and further explained. “I’m sure you know of the King’s decree. He is an existence that is to be hunted down. His name will soon be known to the masses and when that time comes, there will be nowhere he can escape to. This is coming from prominent places.”

“I care little for what that woman wants!” Yaomu Shou lashed out. “Long Di is one of my people and I will not leave him for the hearsay of others. I looked down on that woman before, but I look down on her even mo-”

“Shou’er!” Ban Yan bellowed, thrusting Yaomu Shou into silence. “As the Imperial Protector, I have to tell you to afford the King, the respect she deserves!”

“Tch!” Yaomu Shou scoffed with a turned head.

“But as your First Uncle,” his voice softened. “The King cares for you, though she rarely shows it.”

Yaomu Shou glanced at him before finally responding, “After she did what she did to me, you’ll forgive me why I have a hard time believing you. You all call me family and young miss, but do you even take me for a rea-”

“Shou’er!” Ban Yan cut her off before she revealed too much. “I won’t tell you to leave him any more! However, just… be careful,” was all he managed to eke out in the end.

He took one last look at Mina before he stepped back, melding into the void.

Yaomu Shou appeared visibly upset, but she then looked at Long Di and asked, “Thank you for seeing me.”

Long Di nodded and asked nothing more. He wasn’t stupid, this most likely related to some secret and if Yaomu Shou didn’t say anything about it, he wouldn’t delve any deeper.

He then looked at Mina, “Well… it’s been a while, hasn’t it? Is your customer service as deplorable as always?”

“You suck!” Mina yelled.

“Negative three stars, just like I remember. How have you been Mina?” Long Di asked.

“Oh, you know. Infiltrated your family, and spent years changing your diapers. Let’s not forget non-fatal death, and who can forget the dragons who allowed me to get close to finding you only for me to run into…” she then shot a glare at Yaomu Shou who proceeded to look at everything else BUT Mina.

“Anyway…” her gaze lingered on Yaomu Shou for a moment longer before pointing it to Long Di once more. “I escaped from… a place, and here I am as a goddess!”

“Eh, five out of ten.”

“Your brain is a five out of ten!” Mina shot back. Long Di was just as good at annoying her as ever before.

“Uhm, Long Di, w-who is this?” Shen Ling stepped forward, sensing the threat of rivalry from this new arrival.

“Oh, this is Mina, a self-proclaimed goddess of re-”

“Your ass is self-proclaimed!” her eyes were practically spitting fire at this point. She then turned to Shen Ling to answer her before being stunned into silence by the latter’s beauty.

“O-Oh my… ten out of ten,” she uttered unknowingly.

“Yep…” Long Di nodded, then remarked, “So with you, five out of ten is just reaching.”

“All of my hate! You have it! All of it!”

“This little sister, you know Long Di?” Shen Ling directed her question at Mina.

Mina then looked at Shen Ling with a look of incredulity, “Did you just call me little sister!?”

“Family-less name is Tempesta, and her given name is Mina. She’s a family friend, Shen Ling,” Long Di advised, not wanting this conversation to Segway anymore.

“Oh, okay then,” Shen Ling then stood back.

“Looks like you’ve been through a lot,” Mina remarked upon seeing Xiannu Liang healing him.

“More or less,” Long Di shrugged. “Did you feel ‘that’ a few weeks ago?”

Mina’s irritated expression changed to one of solemnity before nodding, “We need to talk somewhere private.”

Long Di stood up, telling Xiannu Liang she could continue after he came back. “Okay. Guys, give me a minute.”

Then, without another word, he and Mina walked some distance away until they were out of earshot of everyone else.

“So you felt it too?” Mina asked.

“The whole continent felt it,” Long Di answered with a kind of sombre tone. Something that Mina would never have considered possible knowing him.

He continued, “It felt terribly familiar too. I know you’re no longer in the Anima Palace, but are you still able to sense if…” he paused, not wanting to consider a certain possibility, not wanting to ask the question as if doing so would make it real.

Mina remained silent, waiting for him to finish. She never saw Long Di so… unsettled. As a matter of fact, she never saw Long Di assuming any emotion apart from neutral, so this was new for her and, for some reason, it both saddened and unnerved her.

He took a deep breath to calm himself down before asking, “Are you able to sense if someone got reincarnated?”

“You’re referring to that Uncle of yours?” Mina asked.

“Yes.” Long Di nodded.

She naturally knew about Long Di’s uncle.

They had been living together for years, so this conversation naturally came up more than once. She never expected to hear Long Di bring up this unremarkable Uncle once again.

“I can’t tell if someone new got reincarnated. However, I am able to discern reincarnated individuals,” Mina commented.

Long Di cocked his head in her direction. “You never told me this.”

“You pissed me off for eleven plus years,” she explained. “You’re lucky that I didn’t poison your milk bottle.”

“I think my mom and dad would have had something to say to you about that,” he retorted.

Mina stiffened when she heard Long Di mention his mother and father, a reaction that Long Di missed as he sat himself down in the lotus position.

“W-What are you doing?” she asked, after collecting herself.

Long Di answered, “You want your blessings back right? I have a few that I need to keep, at least for now. But others I can part with.”

“Oh, right!” she grew excited upon learning that she can get back some of her blessings.

“I’ll need to keep my talent at blacksmithing and alchemy. Haven’t even started learning that last one yet, so a bit of time is necessary. As for my physique, yeah, probably gonna hold on to that indefinitely. You can also take away my ability to look cool no matter what I do. It doesn’t even seem to work.”

Mina smiled, “So you discovered your physique? Hehe, what do you think?”

Hong.

Long Di activated his Profound Myriad Heavenseize Physique and admitted, “I’m impressed.”

Mina’s smile disappeared when she saw this. “What the hell is that!?”