Being asked why he had held back with Kong Min, Qinghe first hesitated. Then tilting his head, he decided to answer his beloved truthfully, "Well, since he is your senior brother, I thought you wouldn't like to see him hurt."
Wei Xiang looked startled, then smiled affectionately at his overly-considerate lover. "You shouldn't have held back on my account. How about this—we can just hold a rematch right now and you can beat him up however much you want in retaliation."
Though Qinghe appeared reluctant, Kong Min jumped up and nodded vigorously. "I staunchly approve! I refuse to believe that this little pretty-face― ehem, I mean, I don't think your lover has the strength to land even a single blow on me while I have my guard up. So this little disciple Feng can just come at me anytime!"
Qinghe still looked conflicted even as he politely defended himself, "Sentinel Kong, I am actually only a level below you, so I don't think―"
However, taking this chance to launch a surprise attack, Kong Min did not even give Qinghe the time to finish his sentence as he abruptly plunged into the shadow realm, zipping through it to appear behind Qinghe through his shadow.
But just as he took a step out of the shadow behind Qinghe, Kong Min felt the air congeal and harden around him, holding him firmly in place. It was quickly followed by the sensation of numerous wind needles prickling him all over his body, precisely poised over a myriad of incapacitating as well as lethal pressure points.
Having suddenly perceived the approach of danger behind him, Qinghe had also whipped around instantly, wind already molded over his fingers into sharp claws that headed straight for his opponent's throat.
In that frozen moment before those claws reached him, Kong Min's eyes widened in instinctive fear at the sight of Qinghe's incomparably icy and ruthless expression.
Having been caught completely off-guard, Qinghe seemed like a different person altogether as he faced the unexpected threat.
Sharp killing intent glinted in his cold gaze, vicious and raging like that of an unleashed beast. The merciless darkness of certain death was reflected in those deep, dark eyes, inescapable and all-consuming to the point of devouring the courage of all those who dared glance into it. A heavy, suffocating pressure saturated the air and turned it jagged, making the very breath in one's lungs seem serrated as it scraped inside their chest.
Keen terror twanged through his nerves as Kong Min felt like he was facing a ravenous abyss of unfathomable depths.
It had not even been a full moment since he'd made that ill-fated choice of sneak attacking this seemingly harmless little disciple, and yet death already loomed in front of him as those transparent claws shot towards his neck.
But just as the tip of those keenly sharp wind claws touched Kong Min's throat, they were forced to a halt. A small bead of glistening blood welled over the point where the claws lightly pressed onto the taut, copper-hued skin.
Having silently appeared, Wei Xiang stood beside them, calmly holding Qinghe's wrist in his hand in a seemingly tender grip, but the claws aimed at Kong Min were nevertheless rendered completely unmoving.
Despite the direness of the situation, only amusement shone in his gaze as Wei Xiang commanded softly, "Qinghe, enough."
Qinghe blinked, clarity returning to his eyes.
Lowering his hand and stepping back, Qinghe looked at Kong Min with confusion and mild surprise as he apologized in his usual pleasant tone, "Sentinel Kong, forgive me, I reacted before I could think. Are you alright?"
For all intents and purposes, Feng Qinghe appeared like a contrite disciple, gentle and refined, completely different from the person who had been exuding naked bloodlust and a wild thirst for battle just now.
Kong Min felt like he would get whiplash from these sudden changes in this little disciple's temperament.
Wei Xiang happily chuckled at his senior brother's unnerved and disoriented expression that was painting a face gone too pale from fright.
Unable to even speak due to the sudden shock and his near brush with death, Kong Min asked Wei Xiang telepathically,
Amusement glittered in Wei Xiang's eyes as he replied,
Even though they were conversing telepathically, Kong Min could easily perceive the affection overflowing in his junior brother's tone.
Sighing, Kong Min commented,
Wei Xiang sensed his second brother's softening attitude and smiled.
With a reluctant expression, Kong Min admitted,
Smiling widely at this unenthusiastic acknowledgment, Wei Xiang spoke aloud in a voice brimming with unhidden pride, "See? My little lover doesn't even have to seduce me. The moment I was exposed to his existence, I was already ensnared. So he really has no reason to go out of his way to seduce me in the first place."
Hearing his beloved speaking such praises of him all of a sudden, Qinghe lightly puffed his blushing cheeks and retorted, "What do you mean by that? I think you are very worthy of being seduced!"
With adoration melting his gaze at his lover's bashful yet indignant tone, Wei Xiang smiled. "I'm glad you think so."
Kong Min sighed defeatedly in the face of this blatant, full-course display of love that was practically being rubbed into his face. "Fine, fine, I get it that you're both smitten with each other. So stop your flirting already."
Then turning to Qinghe, Kong Min finally said, "Since you are not completely incompetent, I guess I'll begrudgingly welcome you to the family, Little Bro. Do come visit headquarters some time, the rest of our brothers are also dying to see just what type of a person managed to captivate someone with such a terrible personality as our Third Brother."
Wei Xiang's lips twitched, but he remained silent. He couldn't in all honesty say that his attitude towards others was pleasant, after all.
Qinghe frowned. "I don't think there are any problems with Xiang's personality."
"Of all things, that is what you get stuck up about?" Kong Min commented incredulously.
Blinking as if in realization, Qinghe immediately delivered a respectful bow towards Kong Min while saying, "Thank you for the invitation and for choosing to entrust your junior brother to me, Sentinel Kong. I will definitely take good care of him."
Kong Min looked at Qinghe with a strange expression, then shook his head with a small, helpless smile. "Yes, you better look after him well."
Wei Xiang felt warmth spreading in his chest as he saw his lover and senior brother finally getting along.
Straightening, Qinghe peeked at Kong Min, and seeing that he didn't look so unwilling or hostile anymore, he breathed a sigh of relief.
After that, Wei Xiang decided to speed everything up and instructed Kong Min to ask Lord Tai to listen to whatever Qinghe had to say.
Surprisingly enough, Lord Tai easily acquiesced to Qinghe's advice and assured that he would ally with the Ping household, if only to escape the current uncertainty of not knowing when he'd be murdered by an assassin sent by the imperial family.
Since he had already promised to protect him, Kong Min decided to go along with Lord Tai for now, much to the old lord's delight.
With their work thus completed, Qinghe and Wei Xiang decided to return to their room.
On the way, as the couple walked along the road in companionable silence, Qinghe thought back to everything Wei Xiang had told him about Kong Min, and how his unreliable senior brother had taken care of him whenever Wei Xiang needed his help.
...
The first time Wei Xiang had met Kong Min, it was just a while after he had wiped out the entire heavenly wyvern clan in the secret dimension situated deep within the Spirit Bewildering Forest.
The Sentinel Grandmaster had introduced Kong Min and Wei Xiang to each other and asked Kong Min to take care of his new junior brother. Then the Grandmaster left the pair alone to bond.
But Kong Min was someone who had been brought up in a boisterous and open-minded brothel. It had been a lively place where everyone took care of each other, laughing and indulging freely in physical pleasures no matter the time of day. Growing up in this kind of a place, Kong Min had long since gotten inured to the pleasures of flesh at a young age, thinking that it was only normal to incorporate such things into one's daily life.
And so, Kong Min's first reaction to hearing that he should 'take care' of this junior brother was to push Wei Xiang down and offer to physically care for his body.
After all, he surmised that this junior brother of his must be quite shaken after his ordeal. And since sex always made Kong Min feel better, he freely offered it to his new junior brother as well, knowing that despite his junior brother looking like he was in his mid-teens, he was already around four hundred years old. So it should be alright, shouldn't it?
To say that the young Wei Xiang was startled at suddenly being pushed down and propositioned like this would be an understatement.
Brandishing his claws and swiping them savagely in Kong Min's direction to make him back away, Wei Xiang panickily escaped.
Tracking his new master's scent, Wei Xiang strode straight to the Sentinel Grandmaster's office and relayed everything while in a furious fluster.
The Sentinel Grandmaster could only sigh as he called in his troublesome second disciple
Then the Grandmaster tried to explain to Kong Min about how, even though Wei Xiang was technically four hundred years old, maturity-wise, he was only fifteen or so. After all, since spiritual beasts lived longer, their children also grew at a slower rate.
Kong Min thoughtfully nodded as he declared solemnly, "Then I'll wait for Third Brother to grow into an adult before offering to comfort him again."
Not waiting for his master to reply to this statement, Wei Xiang swiftly regained his composure and interjected coldly, "There will be no need. Second Brother can just stay the hell away from me."
Smiling brightly, King Min easily refused, "No way! As fellow brothers, there's no need to keep any distance between us. Don't worry, since you are saying that you're not interested, I can take the hint and back off. No need to remain so vigilant."
Wei Xiang remained unconvinced, but the Sentinel Grandmaster spoke on his second disciple's behalf. "Xiang-er, though he might seem unreliable, your senior brother is very trustworthy. Since he has said so, believe him and get along well."
Kong Min eagerly nodded.
And so, Wei Xiang reluctantly continued interacting with his seemingly foolish senior brother.
It was only about a century later that the incident that was responsible for truly bringing together this pair of martial brothers occurred, marked by the time Wei Xiang reached adulthood while in the Order.
One day, Kong Min sauntered to Wei Xiang's door and knocked as usual, wanting to talk to his junior brother about a recent task they had both undertaken together. But no matter how much he waited, the door remained closed despite the clear signs of life within.
Sensing that something was wrong, Kong Min directly used the shadows to get inside his third brother's room. But the second he entered the place, the strong scent of saturated pheromones assaulted his nostrils, thick and potent.
On the bed, Wei Xiang laid in an uncharacteristically disheveled state, his clothes half undone and ripped in several places as if pulled by something sharp, his long hair spread around him in equal disarray. Wei Xiang's eyes had gone completely golden, his claws out and digging desperately into the bedding as if holding on for dear life, shredding the bedcover in the process.
Wei Xiang's pupils seemed abnormally dilated, his cheeks flushed a feverish red. And as he panted hoarsely, he held his body with rigidness as if afraid he'd lose control over himself otherwise.
Seeing his third brother who usually maintained such firm and rigorous self-discipline over himself in this state, Kong Min felt that something must have gone terribly wrong.
"Third Brother, what happened?" Kong Min asked in a calm voice. He instinctively understood that he should act as less aggressive as possible to not agitate his junior brother further.
Wei Xiang tried to focus his attention, but failed. So he could only shake his head in response.
Kong Min firmed his tone and spoke again, "Wei Xiang, until you tell me what's wrong, I can't fix it for you. Come now, try and tell your senior brother about what happened."
And so, with great difficulty, Wei Xiang gritted out a single word, "Heat."
Frowning, Kong Min tried to make sense of what he meant, then his eyes grew wide as realization struck him. If he remembered right, his master had definitely told him about this before.
To confirm, Kong Min asked, "You mean you've reached adulthood, so your body has automatically gone into heat? I suppose this is your first heat period?"
Wei Xiang nodded. Though he would have liked it better if his master had been here instead, Wei Xiang felt that having this senior brother of his nearby was also not bad. After all, Kong Min could be surprisingly dependable when it counted.
On the other hand, seeing his junior brother's miserable state where even speaking seemed to be difficult, Kong Min sighed in sympathy. It appeared that due to Wei Xiang's powerful inherent ability, nature had decided quite strongly that he needed to leave descendants, so his heat was especially forceful this first time.
Walking up to the bedside, Kong Min crouched down, his elbows resting on his knees, fingers lightly interlaced, and his brows furrowed in thought. With hesitation coloring his light brown eyes, he suggested, "If you want to, I can take care of it for you and help you relieve some of your heat."
Wei Xiang stiffly shook his head. Listening to his senior brother's voice speaking in composed tones calmed Wei Xiang enough to let him say, "You're my senior brother…I can't mate with you…"
As if expecting this, Kong Min nodded.
After training, undertaking missions, and facing life and death together, Kong Min had also long since stopped considering his junior brother as a potential partner, so he didn't feel all that comfortable with offering to take him to bed in the first place. But needs must, and they hardly had many options in this situation.
Thinking for a bit, Kong Min finally spoke, "Third Brother, I will take you to people I trust, so let them take care of your heat for now, alright?"
Though he didn't know what this senior brother of his was planning, Wei Xiang was almost at the limit of what he could bear anyway. Anything would be better than leaving this dry hotness burning him up from the inside out, so Wei Xiang nodded to express that he would let his senior brother handle this.
Heaving a sigh of relief, Kong Min stood up and bent down to lift his junior brother. Wei Xiang had already grown to be taller than Kong Min, with a more sturdy and defined body. So Kong Min had to spend some effort to get him up and drape his third brother's arm over his shoulder.
Entering the shadows, Kong Min directly transported them to the brothel where he had grown up so long ago, having still maintained contact with the place despite the passage of so many years.
After laying Wei Xiang down in a room to rest, Kong Min went to discuss some arrangements with the proprietress of the shop.
The solution to this predicament was after all quite simple. All Wei Xiang had to do was spend a night with a few people and get it out of his system by quenching his heat-induced lust. Otherwise, it might end up damaging his body.
Therefore, Kong Min explained the situation and requested the help of several ladies who worked at the brothel, all of whom he trusted very much. The ladies had also taken appropriate medicine beforehand so that they wouldn't get pregnant, which made them uniquely suitable for this task.
And so, making sure that every tiny detail was taken care of, Kong Min chose a moment when clarity returned to his junior brother's eyes to ask him if he consented to this. Wei Xiang didn't mind it much and agreed. Having received his approval, Kong Min let the ladies attend to his junior brother.
But since Wei Xiang was mostly in the grip of his beast-self during his heat period, Kong Min had to stay in the room the whole time to make sure that his junior brother didn't lose himself completely and hurt anyone.
It was a very long night.
By the time Wei Xiang completely spent himself, morning had already arrived.
Kong Min carried his exhausted junior brother back to his room and drew him a bath. Not minding that Wei Xiang was only semiconscious and unable to contribute, Kong Min helped his junior brother into the tub and bathed him until he was clean before wiping him down and dressing him in comfortable clothing. Then tucking his third brother into the bed, Kong Min silently exited the room, leaving Wei Xiang to sleep peacefully.
And as the days stretched to years and then centuries and millennia, Wei Xiang learned to exercise stricter discipline over himself due to his rigorous Sentinel training.
During every subsequent heat period since then, Wei Xiang left on his own to spend the next few night or nights in one brothel or another, gaining quite a reputation as a ladies' man. But thankfully, as the years went by, the time between the heat periods lengthened, and Wei Xiang didn't need to suffer under the influence of his beast side as much.
Nevertheless, whenever he thought back to that first time, it caused Wei Xiang no small amount of embarrassment. After all, who wouldn't feel awkward while remembering that their senior brother had been chaperoning them the whole time they had spent losing their virginity?
As if he was able to sense this, despite his usual mouthiness, Kong Min also never brought up that time in front of his junior brother, staying tactfully silent about the matter.
Needless to say that after this episode, though Wei Xiang and Kong Min still continued to bicker and act as usual with each other, they had inevitably become closer as fellow martial brothers.
...
As his mind pondered over this fragment of his lover's past, Qinghe felt a broad smile slowly spreading over his face.
Qinghe felt very much gladdened that his beloved had felt comfortable enough to share with him something that he thought of as a mortifying bit of his history. It showed just how much Wei Xiang truly trusted him.
"What are you grinning about, my little imp?" Wei Xiang playfully asked from beside Qinghe while extending a hand to lightly pinch his little lover's soft cheek.
Looking up at this seemingly indomitable Sentinel Wei, Qinghe beamed. After swatting away Wei Xiang's obnoxious fingers from his cheek, Qinghe spoke, "I was just thinking about your second brother. He really cares for you a lot."
Wei Xiang shrugged. "All of us in the Order are more or less close to each other. And it's especially so for us three direct disciples of Master. But since the eldest disciple is often gone on tasks pertaining to infiltration and undercover work, it only leaves me and that idiot Kong Min to take care of most of the matters."
Qinghe smiled brightly. "I'm very thankful to him for being there for you."
Shaking his head, Wei Xiang dryly commented, "It goes both ways. The number of times I had to extract him from troublesome situations and cover his backside amounts to a lot more. He also keeps dumping all his paperwork on me, that unreliable fool. And after filling up my schedule with the things he should have been taking care of, that damned frivolous bastard has the gall to come and ask me if I have time to join him and his friends in an orgy…"
Wei Xiang looked absolutely scandalized as he extensively named the many sins of his senior brother.
Seeing his lover's aggravated expression, Qinghe burst out laughing.
It seemed that just as Qinghe had ended up with the troublesome twins, his beloved had also been saddled with an equally as bothersome senior brother. But despite all the annoyances and exasperations that their brothers brought them, Qinghe and Wei Xiang knew that neither of them would trade their family for the world.