I yawned as I woke, staring at the unfamiliar wooden ceiling for a moment before remembering where I was. Xincheng. The lord’s residence. Political landmines everywhere.

  Why was I more tired than usual?

  It was quite late in the morning already, almost lunch.

  I turned my head. Meng Rong sat by the window, sunlight catching on the faint glow of talisman ink as she worked with steady concentration. She glanced at me briefly, her gaze cool and assessing, then returned to her inscriptions.

  “I’m going on a stroll,” I muttered, pushing myself up and stretching.

  The last few days had been… awkward. I had underestimated both Meng Rong’s stubbornness and the implications of her condition that I remain within her sight at all times. It meant eating together, walking together, discussing matters together. Even when I simply wanted fresh air, she followed.

  Naturally, that had given rise to rumors.

  “I’m going to take a bath,” I added.

  She didn’t look up. “You bathe too often.”

  For this world, bathing once a day was apparently an eccentric hobby. I didn’t bother arguing.

  She finished her talisman, blew gently on the ink to dry it, and stored her tools in her ring before standing. As expected, she followed me out.

  “You do know,” I said casually as we walked down the stairs, “that our recent behavior is building rumors that we’re an item, right?”

  She tilted her head. “What’s an item?”

  “…Never mind.”

  We reached the bathhouse. To her credit, she stopped outside.

  “Don’t take too long,” she said. “We’re having lunch with my little brother. We also need to discuss the Meteor Child. As for your situation, I believe my master can at least point us in the right direction.”

  I waved her off and stepped inside.

  My clothes were legendary-tier equipment with self-cleaning properties. More accurately, every time I pulled them out of my inventory, they reset to pristine condition. I stored them away and dipped briefly into the cold pool before sliding into the hot spring.

  “Ah… this feels good.”

  I had never experienced a proper hot spring in my past life before I became Yakuza Man. Now I was shamelessly spoiled by it.

  Then I froze.

  Someone was peeping from behind a boulder.

  It was Meng Wu, the Lord of Xincheng.

  He was kneeling in the water on the other side, only his head visible above the steam. Slowly, he moved closer, stopping a short distance away.

  I coughed awkwardly and began to rise. “I apologize. I didn’t realize—”

  He grabbed my arm and pulled me back down.

  “Stay,” he said icily.

  I blinked.

  On second thought… had he been waiting for me? I hadn’t exactly hidden my fondness for bathing at a fixed time each day.

  “…Then please don’t mind me,” I said, settling back into the water.

  He sat beside me, leaning against the stone as if this were perfectly normal.

  Steam drifted between us. The silence stretched long and uncomfortable. I debated whether I should say something, but I genuinely had nothing appropriate to offer.

  Suddenly, Meng Wu spoke.

  “So. How far have you gone with my sister?”

  “W—what? Excuse me?”

  He stiffened. “No, never mind. I don’t want to hear the details after all.”

  “…”

  What details?!

  Meng Wu continued mercilessly, staring straight ahead into the steam as if discussing the weather. “I mean, she’s already so old, you know? I worry for her. I understand cultivators have long lifespans and care little for baser instincts, but I would feel at ease knowing she has you.”

  “I believe there’s a misunderstanding,” I said carefully.

  “Huh?”

  I hesitated.

  Meng Rong was probably too dense to understand the implications of the rumors swirling around us. As a cultivator, she genuinely did not care about such things. Reputation, romance, gossip… they ranked somewhere below talisman ink quality in her priorities.

  But I was different.

  Before I fell into this world, my last coherent thought had been that maybe I should try dating. Try to find something real. Of course, even back then I knew how hard that was. The world was messy. People were complicated. Still, I was a romantic at heart. If I was going to fall in love, I wanted it to be perfect.

  “I mean,” I continued slowly, “she’s pretty, sure. But that’s not the only quality I look for in a woman. I like someone with a really big personality. No offense, but your sister is… trouble. She thinks touching someone’s chest can get them pregnant, and that the mother then bears the egg and has to hatch it—”

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  I stopped.

  Meng Wu was glaring at me.

  Ah.

  I made a mistake.

  He placed a hand on my shoulder. His voice turned dangerously soft. “So. You think you are too good for my sister?”

  I gulped. “N-no. I just think she could do better than me.”

  Meng Wu suddenly laughed. “No. You are perfect!”

  I winced.

  Well, if I was already halfway buried, I might as well commit.

  “But still,” I said cautiously, “she’s kind of weird.”

  He immediately replied, “I know, right?”

  I blinked.

  I noticed then that his shoulders were trembling, not with rage, but with suppressed frustration.

  “That’s why you’re perfect,” he continued earnestly. “You understand her. She may be a cultivation genius handpicked by the Dream King himself, but when it comes to these matters, she’s painfully slow.”

  He leaned closer, lowering his voice.

  “I mean, seriously? Eggs? Hatching them? I don’t know who put those ideas into her head. By the time I realized she believed that nonsense, it was already too late for me to correct it. I value my life too much.”

  “But you’re her little brother,” I said.

  He gave me a long look.

  “You don’t understand.”

  The humor drained from his expression.

  “My sister and I were born in an illegal prostitution ring in the south. We don’t know who our father is. For all I know, we might not even share the same one.”

  The steam around us suddenly felt heavier.

  “The place was eventually demolished when the Tuyin King decided it was unhygienic, lacked class, and stunted the potential of the feminine arts. The Tuyin King has many daughters and genuinely cares for them. He implemented policies ensuring women were treated with dignity. Illegal rings were crushed. Proper courtesan houses, the refined kind, were promoted instead. Brothels still exist, but regulated.”

  He exhaled slowly.

  “The point is, my sister grew up watching crude men and women doing things she didn’t understand. Some drunk patron or maybe even our own mother, gave her a sloppy explanation about how children were made. That was when she formed the misconception that babies came from eggs.”

  I stared at him.

  My jaw slackened slightly.

  That was… an insane childhood.

  The image of Meng Rong seriously explaining egg-hatching rituals to me suddenly took on a far darker undertone.

  Meng Wu continued, his voice quieter now, stripped of its earlier teasing.

  “By the time the illegal ring was dismantled, our mother sent us to an orphanage. Around then, a man claiming to be my father, a scholar, took me in. That was the last time I saw my sister. The next time we met, I had already passed the civil servant examinations. She had become a cultivator under the Dream King.”

  He smiled faintly.

  “I care for my sister. Back in that damned place, she was the one who looked after me. It was no better than the streets. She might not be as clever as I am, but her providence is frightening. We were almost sold off several times. Somehow, through sheer dumb luck, she protected us every time.”

  His fingers tightened slightly against the stone edge.

  “I worked myself to the bone because I wanted to repay her one day. I never expected she would find me again… and continue looking after me like I was still that little boy.”

  He turned to me then, his expression earnest.

  “It would ease my mind if she found someone who would look after her. And I believe that could be you.”

  It had started off humorous. Awkward bathhouse banter.

  Now it wasn’t funny at all.

  I had never had a sibling. My life before this world had not been that kind of tragedy. But I could still understand the weight behind his words.

  After a pause, I confessed something I had not even fully told Meng Rong.

  “I’m not from around here. Maybe you heard bits from Teng Wen or your sister, but… home for me is very far away. So far that I’m not sure she could follow.”

  That was the safest version of the truth.

  He laughed, misunderstanding me entirely. “If it’s a matter of dowry, I’ve got you covered! I may not look it, but I’m wealthy. Not cultivator wealthy, but enough that my sister won’t leave looking like a beggar.”

  I sighed. “It’s not that simple. What if my people don’t accept her? What if she doesn’t adapt? And I told you already, we’re not like that. There’s a reason she keeps an eye on me. It’s probably related to the Meteor Child, but…”

  I trailed off.

  The real reason was the so-called evil spirit she believed resided within me. Though lately, I suspected there was more to it than that.

  Yao Yazhu’s words surfaced in my mind.

  ‘When the Meteor Child appears, the Star of Calamity follows.’

  What were the chances I was that “Star of Calamity”?

  I almost snorted at myself. There was no proof. No divine prophecy stamped on my forehead. I was just a guy who got isekai’d and happened to be strong.

  Still… the timing was uncomfortable.

  I shook the thought away. Overthinking wouldn’t help.

  “Anyway,” I said, forcing a lighter tone, “aren’t we supposed to have lunch? Meng Rong mentioned discussing the Meteor Child with you.”

  His expression hardened slightly, troubled.

  He stood up. “Yes. We’ve delayed that conversation long enough. Let’s settle it.”

  And when he stood…

  Well.

  I averted my eyes a fraction too late.

  That was not a civil servant’s standard-issue equipment. That was a weapon of mass destruction. I momentarily pitied his wife, the poor woman.

  Refusing to lose on sheer masculine pride, I stood up as well.

  He glanced down, then nodded approvingly. “Not bad.”

  “…Ahem.”

  For some reason, that made me blush.

  Fifteen minutes later, we were seated in a gazebo overlooking a koi pond, an extravagant spread of dishes laid out between us.

  Meng Wu and I sat side by side.

  Awkwardly.

  Across from us, the real battle raged.

  “No, you can’t have Xue Hai,” Zhu Shufen said firmly, one arm protectively around the little girl who was busy chewing on a sweet bun, blissfully unaware that her future was being negotiated like a trade agreement.

  “This is for her own good,” Meng Rong replied calmly.

  They had been going in circles like that for the past several minutes. Now I understood why Meng Wu had delayed this discussion for so long.

  Zhu Shufen leaned forward, eyes sharp. “She needs a father and mother who will take care of her properly. Who will watch over her, spoil her, teach her values so she won’t become what you fear. The life of a cultivator is filled with hardship, cruelty, and pain. I cannot want that for my Xue Hai.”

  Her voice trembled slightly, but she did not back down.

  “Look at you. A woman nearing her sixties and still unmarried. What would people say? I know cultivators don’t care about such mundane standards, but isn’t it sad? Clinging to your little brother like this? Is this what they call a brother complex?”

  I inhaled sharply through my teeth.

  That was cold.

  Zhu Shufen pressed on mercilessly. “Now you want to take our daughter away? Why don’t you make your own? I imagine you haven’t even been deflowered yet.”

  I stared at my plate very intensely.

  Was Zhu Shufen fearless? She was provoking a cultivator who could flatten this entire gazebo with a flick of her wrist.

  Meng Rong, however, looked more confused than offended.

  “But I don’t have flowers,” she said, frowning slightly. “Regardless, the Meteor Child is a legendary existence. Even I know too little about it. She is too dangerous to be handled by the lot of you, no matter how many resources you possess. She would be safer with me. With my master.”

  Her tone sharpened.

  “Do I need to put you in your place so you understand the gravity of the situation? ‘Make my own’? What an irresponsible thing to say. Why? Did you and Wu create the Meteor Child? No. You picked her up from a literal meteor.”

  She tilted her head slightly.

  “No wonder the Tuyin King disowned you. You must not be very bright.”

  Meng Wu sucked in a breath beside me, physically flinching.

  Zhu Shufen’s eye twitched.

  The air grew heavy.

  For a brief moment, I wondered if I should prepare to stop a domestic war between a cultivator and a noblewoman.

  Then, in perfect synchronization, both women turned toward us.

  “What do you think?” Zhu Shufen demanded.

  “Tell her!” Meng Rong said at the same time.

  Meng Wu and I stared at each other.

  Brotherhood flashed between us.

  We were not prepared for this.