Lu Sisi looked down at the items in her hands after being reminded by Chen Yan.
The leather coat was wet, stripped off while bathing Chen Yan, and it had been washed clean.
But... the leather was obviously very coarse!
It was clearly handmade... and crudely so.
The most crucial point was, it stank!
It clearly wasn’t leather produced by modern techniques.
And that stick was even stranger.
Lu Sisi had tried it... it was very hard!
With her strength, she couldn’t even bend it.
Not that it couldn’t be broken, but it couldn’t even be bent!
Girls of this age, especially those from the city, generally don’t have much strength—lack of exercise, perhaps.
But nevertheless, a stick not much thicker than a thumb, even if it couldn’t be broken by hand, should at least be bendable and cause some damage.
Yet this stick... was as hard as iron!
Despite the girl using all her might, the stick didn’t budge an inch!
"You remember I had frostbite when I came back, right?" Chen Yan sighed and said softly, "Now, what month is it? In our Jinling Prefecture, where is there weather that cold?"
Lu Sisi immediately nodded. Recently, the weather in Jinling Prefecture had warmed up, with temperatures reaching twenty degrees.
Next, Chen Yan briefly described how he was suddenly sucked into another world and then captured by a monstrous race and made a slave.
The dangers and miseries of that experience, he glossed over—so as not to cause his girlfriend too much worry.
Even so, Lu Sisi was left dumbfounded listening to it.
"That other world, is it a world of cultivation? Like in novels?"
"Yes, you could say that." Chen Yan nodded.
"Is it... the Domain Realm?"
Chen Yan was taken aback, "You know about the Domain Realm?"
"...Sister Qingyi mentioned it to me." Lu Sisi lowered her head.
This time, it was Chen Yan who was stunned. He gaped, "Gu Qingyi... Why did she talk to you about these things?"
"Sister Qingyi wanted to teach me cultivation," Lu Sisi said ambiguously. "She said in the future, if I were to be with you, you as a cultivator and I a mere mortal, perhaps, perhaps I wouldn’t be able to stay by your side for long."
Chen Yan shivered at once, "She taught you cultivation?"
"Yes." But then Lu Sisi sighed, sounding somewhat self-reproaching, "But my aptitude is too poor, I’ve never been able to get started, so... I guess I can’t really cultivate."
However, Lu Sisi did not mention the cultivation technique "Supreme Heaven Repairing Strategy" to Chen Yan.
Because Gu Qingyi had once told Lu Sisi that she could only tell Chen Yan about this set of techniques when the two of them got married.
Lu Sisi really didn’t understand Gu Qingyi’s reasoning... but Gu Qingyi was insistent and made Lu Sisi promise.
Chen Yan shook his head and said, "Whether you can cultivate or not, it doesn’t matter."
He looked at Lu Sisi and suddenly realized, "The other day, you suddenly seemed depressed. Was it because you couldn’t cultivate and were blaming yourself?"
Chen Yan sighed, "It’s not important."
"..." Lu Sisi looked at Chen Yan, shaking her head, "Now it’s really not important to talk about this. Let’s talk about your experience this time... You went to the Domain Realm, then what? Is that place very dangerous? You..."
Suddenly, Lu Sisi’s heart sank, "Such a dangerous place, do you have to go there again? Can you not go there again?"
Chen Yan’s gaze sharpened.
Then, he suddenly laughed and shouted, "This time, it was an accident that I went to the Domain Realm. I didn’t intend to go. In the future, I sure as hell won’t go to that damn place again!"
Lu Sisi stared into Chen Yan’s eyes, still seemingly uneasy. But seeing Chen Yan’s calm demeanor, she looked at him a few more times and then temporarily believed him.
"Oh, there’s something I don’t understand," Chen Yan suddenly remembered, "When I fainted in the training room, how did you manage to carry me up to the third floor?"
Lu Sisi’s eyes immediately took on a strange look upon hearing this.
"It was I who carried you, young master!"
From outside the bedroom door came a muffled voice.
The door was pushed ajar, and Old Turtle Gui Geng poked half his head in, smiling at Chen Yan, "It was I! This lady couldn’t carry the young master, so I showed myself to help."
Lu Sisi gulped hard, her face flushed red, speaking softly, "Chen Yan, why didn’t you ever tell me there was someone else in your house!? You have no idea, when I found you in the basement and tried to drag you out, I couldn’t move you at all.
This person suddenly appeared behind me, and it scared the life out of me at that time!"
"I have informed you, miss, that I, Gui Geng, am not human but a Turtle Cultivator from the mountains, valued by the mistress as the House Guardian Beast!"
Gui Geng laughed loudly.
Chen Yan waved his hand, "Leave us!"
"Yes, sir!" Gui Geng chuckled as he withdrew his head and closed the door.
Lu Sisi looked at Chen Yan with a complicated expression and whispered, "Has it... always stayed in your house?"
"Is it really not human, but a monster?"
"Yes, it’s an old turtle that has cultivated and achieved enlightenment."
"Then..." Lu Sisi’s face flushed with redness, her eyes evasive, "Then... those few times I stayed over at your place, at night when we were home... was it there the whole time? Didn’t it hear everything?"
Lu Sisi looked like she was about to burst into tears from embarrassment.
From outside the door came Gui Geng’s voice through the wooden panel, "Rest assured, master, I, the old turtle, am particularly discreet, and heard absolutely nothing! Not a word, not a sound!"
Chen Yan was so angry his face turned white, exclaiming, "Shut up! Go back to the Spirit Gathering Array and stay there!"
With Chen Yan safely home, the weight on Lu Sisi’s heart finally lifted. After seven days of anxiety and fear, the girl was actually quite exhausted, unable to eat or sleep well, enduring daily torment.