"That was a good warm-up." I teased them. as I was training with the devil himself, this is really a warm-up in my eyes.
Yuan Jia only smiled at me. She knows that I was just nagging about the harshness of my own training so she didn't take it to heart.
Hu Anjing on other hand was different.
"Junior Uncle, do you want me to warm you up too?" she told me while she was cracking her knuckles.
I was stunned.
'How did I forget that Hu Anjing would always have something to answer...' I thought.
Yuan Jia started laughing at my reaction.
"No thank you. Right now I am in my prohibition period." I flatly rejected her. Seriously I need a break from spars and whatnot.
"Don't be like that junior uncle, let's—" Hu Anjing started to retort but her words stopped suddenly.
She kept looking at me with her mouth open. After a few seconds, she closed her mouth just to open it right after.
"Junior uncle, what realm are you in right now?" Hu Anjing asked me in a flat tone.
After her question, Yuan Jia looked at me and even she had a shocked reaction. She had her eyes widen a little with a frown evident on her face.
This amused me a little. Looking at Hu Anjing I spoke.
"I am at the first stage of the Meridian Formation realm." I told her.
There was silence in the surroundings for a few seconds. Hu Anjing was dumbfounded and Yuan Jia's frown deepened.
"…How?" Hu Anjing could only utter a word.
"Well, do you remember that I was training with my grandpa? That's how…" I gave her a vague answer. I can not disclose the family secret on the herbal mix and Li Bao.
Yuan Jia only sighed and patted me on the shoulder.
Hu Anjing who had no idea of this training had stars in her eyes.
"Junior uncle, you should share the good things, no? Count me in next time." She told me with a toothy grin.
Yuan Jia stopped patting my shoulder and looked at Hu Anjing weirdly.
I couldn't stop myself from breaking into loud laughter.
"HAHAHA, of course. My lovely junior niece, you can have it all to yourself next time." I told her while I cupped her cheeks 'lovingly'.
Hu Anjing was taken aback. Shouldn't Lu Huang tell her that he can't take her? Why did it turn out this way?
I didn't want her to get the same fate as me so after a bit of laughter I composed myself. Looking at Hu Anjing I put my hand on her shoulder.
"Do you know what they call my grandpa, Li Long?" I asked her to give her some clue.
She looked at me with confusion.
"…I don't know." She shook her head. It seems that because of her past she didn't know much of world's common knowledge.
I smile at her and spoke.
"They call him the heavenly sword demon."I told her.
Before Hu Anjing could come up with an answer I resumed my words.
"As his grandson, I can assure you that the demon part of his nickname is true." I only told her that much and let her imagination guide her more…
Yuan Jia nodded and Hu Anjing was in thoughts for a couple of seconds.
"Let me give you a hug to uplift your mood junior uncle." Hu Anjing told me in her childish tune.
'As expected, she won't back down in teasing…' I thought.
Without any resistance, I took her into an embrace. Although I am pretty much way younger, I'm not short for my age and I am only 10 or 15 centimeters shorter than Hu Anjing, so the hug wasn't a 'boob to my face' one if you must know.
As I was repairing my mental scars in Hu Anjing's embrace, I turned to Yuan Jia who was looking at us.
"By the way, I might have found a good disciple material for you, big sister Jia." I told her.
"Oh, really? Who is that?" she asked me and from her look it was evident that she was interested.
I could even feel Hu Anjing was waiting for me to continue while we were hugging.
"At the time of the 'Li Heng' incident, I came across a junior sister on the outer court. She was supposed to warm his bed or something. Anyway, after we took care of that problem she wanted for us to spar so I did so just to satisfy my curiosity. To my surprise, she was very talented and could react to my moves very fast." I told her some half-truths.
"She was that strong?" Yuan Jia asked with amusement.
"Not really. From what I think she must have some physique that lets her react to attacks faster or something." I shrugged while answering.
My shoulder hit Hu Anjing's chin and she looked at me with anger.
"Sorry, sorry." I told her while stroking her chin with my thumb.
This time I didn't even realize that we were taking our play to another level until big sister Jia couldn't stop herself and throw a pillow at our face.
With that, we come out of our 'uncle and nephew' play and looked at Yuan Jia.
I only had one question.
"Where did that pillow come from?" I asked her with a straight face.
"From my storage ring." She told me.
"You keep a pillow in your storage ring?" I was stupefied. Isn't it a waste of space?
"Do you want me to use a sword next time?" she asked back with a raised eyebrow.
"Ah! Now I understand. Truly a must-have item for one's personal storage ring." I accepted her logic fast. Even if it is only to hit me and Anjing, it is worth the space it occupies. On other hand, you can sleep anywhere, anytime with this. Truly a must-have.
"Back to the topic, I think you can do this girl a favor and accept her as your disciple before grandpa Long gets the wind of her." I got back to my serious mode.
"You think that she is good enough to be my disciple?" she asked me with the same amount of seriousness.
"Hmmm, She has to prove herself in the eternal wail trial…" I wasn't going to give Lai Xinyue a free meal. All I'm doing is a contingency plan. If she becomes Yuan Jia's disciple even if we have no good relations, there won't be any bad blood between us as well.
"Good. Don't tell me her name, let me see if she would come in my eyes naturally." Yuan Jia told me with a small smile.
After that, I told them a little about my last days and asked about theirs.
It was at that time that I got a message from uncle Aram that he has sent the information to my room.
He probably was cautious so that I don't know about the identity of his informants. Well, it doesn't matter to me as long as I get the result that I am looking for.
After I told Yuan Jia and Hu Anjing that I have some matters to attend to we had our goodbyes, after that, I went toward my courtyard.
Inside my room, I could see an information jade.
Taking the information jade into my hands I took a deep breath.
What would the back story of this MC be? Well, there is no point in speculations when I can find the truth right after.
Injecting my Qi into the jade I looked at its contents.