My Enemy Became My Cultivation Companion

"Yue Chi, I can’t let go of any of you."

"Rather than let any one of you be heartbroken, I’d rather be the bastard myself."

"Why can’t the three of us be together?"

Min Ning, unwilling and ashamed, forced the words out through clenched teeth: "Absurd... ridiculous!"

However, Chen Yi merely smiled, as if he’d long expected this, and said, "No matter what you say now, we’ve already come to this point."

The candle flames flickered, crimson lanterns hung high, joy reflected in the clear wine. This scene, this atmosphere, seemed to be urging them to simply let the mistake continue.

Min Ning slowly turned around, no longer looking at Chen Yi, but instead cast her gaze toward Qin Qingluo.

"Qin Qingluo!" Min Ning’s voice clashed like colliding ice blades. "You and I count as figures of some standing, yet we’ve been toyed with in his palm like this, putting on such a... such a..." She was so furious she couldn’t even find a proper word for this absurd situation.

Qin Qingluo’s lips were tightly pressed together, and those sharp serpent eyes of hers were equally frigid.

Looking at the two women in front of him, with tension drawn like swords, the feigned innocence on Chen Yi’s face receded somewhat. He rubbed his nose and sighed. "Yue Chi, Gao Wu, this matter..."

"Shut up!"

"You be quiet!"

The two sharp rebukes rang out at the same time, carrying a fury that seemed ready to execute him on the spot.

Min Ning’s chest heaved violently. She pointed at Chen Yi, her fingertip trembling. "Chen Zunming! You... you actually used this kind of mind-bewitching art! What do you take me, Min Ning, for? What do you take the Annan Royal Mansion for?!"

Qin Qingluo didn’t speak, but that icy gaze of hers was like a tangible blade scraping across Chen Yi’s body.

"Yue Chi," Chen Yi looked at her, his eyes carrying a kind of oddly justified helplessness, "if I didn’t use a little trick, with you and the Prince’s temperaments, would you really obediently, together, stand here in this wedding hall?"

He paused, his tone softening. "Besides, isn’t this, at the very least... a possibility you never completely rejected deep inside? Otherwise, even if it were me, how could I have ’succeeded’ so easily?"

The bridal chamber suddenly fell into dead silence.

Only the crackling candle flames remained, illuminating the exceedingly complex expressions on the three of them.

Seizing the moment, Chen Yi took a step forward, ignoring the two gazes that seemed to want to bore holes through him. He reached out and gently wrapped his hand around Min Ning’s tightly clenched fist, then looked toward Qin Qingluo.

"As things stand," his voice was low, carrying an unquestionable weight, "having bowed to Heaven and Earth, and drunk the wedding wine, you two are now both wives righteously married to me, Chen Yi. From today on, this Annan Royal Mansion will have two mistresses."

His gaze swept over Min Ning, then fell on Qin Qingluo.

"Yue Chi, Qing Luo," he called their names, his tone more solemn than ever before, "I know this matter is shocking, that it has wronged you. But this is my choice, and also... our shared choice. From now on, through wind and rain, the three of us will shoulder it together."

Qin Qingluo closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and when she opened them again, the storm in her eyes had temporarily subsided, leaving only cold calm and a hint of self-mockery.

She glanced at Min Ning, whose hand was held by Chen Yi and whose expression was shifting unpredictably, then at Chen Yi, who looked absolutely determined.

"...What a ’shared choice’." She spat out the words coldly, neither admitting nor further denying it.

Chen Yi understood that, in the midst of such extreme shock and anger, this was already the greatest extent of acquiescence they could give. The hardest hurdle had, at last, been barely crossed.

As for how to make these two proud, high-spirited women truly accept one another in the future, to truly settle down... that would be another long road altogether.

He smiled faintly, tightened his grip slightly, pulling Min Ning a bit closer to him, yet his gaze met Qin Qingluo’s:

"It’s late at night. My wife...s, shouldn’t we be turning in?"

All of this, dreamlike and illusory, vanished the moment the candlelight was suddenly snuffed out, and Chen Yi’s fantasy was extinguished along with it.

Flicking his fingers to pinch out the flame, Min Ning’s expression was unexpectedly stern, and beside her, the female Prince’s dignified brows and eyes also carried a faint gloom.

Everything just now was merely Chen Yi’s fantasy. When it came to matters of lust, he had always harbored all kinds of fantasies, and all along, the Purity Saintess had been exploiting precisely this, letting everything unfold exactly as he desired: from Yin Weiyin realizing his mistakes and repenting, merging with Min Ning, to Min Ning willingly backing down over Qin Qingluo, and in the end, the two women marrying him together, the three of them thus attaining perfect fulfillment...

Everything followed this line of thought, and everything could be fulfilled as he wished. The road left behind by the Purity Saintess was indeed not bad. Now that she herself had perished, Chen Yi could of course follow the pattern as it was.

With the ability of the Ming Venerable he could have his wishes come true, simply gathering the two women into his own world. It was entirely possible they wouldn’t notice anything amiss; even if they did, by then, the rice would already be cooked.

But he did not.

On the contrary, not only did Chen Yi clearly explain everything about the Purity Saintess, at this point he even blurted out his own thoughts.

"So after I said that line, you two would have to go twist and tangle with me in bed. I’m the husband, so of course you two have to stack together, with the Prince on top and Min Ning below if possible, both of you glaring fiercely at me."

As soon as these words fell, cold light flashed in both women’s eyes.

"Yes, just like that."

Looking at the pincer attack from both sides, Chen Yi knew that things would not end peacefully today.

He wasn’t flustered though. His gaze slowly traced a circle over the two equally valiant faces, and he suddenly let out a soft laugh.

This laugh only poured oil on the fire.

"What are you laughing at?" Min Ning said coldly.

Chen Yi couldn’t help but laugh even harder.

Qin Qingluo’s eyes narrowed, her serpent pupils reduced to a thin slit as she squinted at this man. Compared to Min Ning’s barely suppressed rage upon learning the truth, her own mood was much calmer.