“Stinky pervert!” Yu Xiaocao had to admit that she had been moved by the handsome fellow’s terms of endearment. Her heart started to race as she stared at that incredibly attractive face that no woman could possibly resist. His phoenix eyes gazed at her with deep emotion. Naturally, if this fellow’s hand wasn’t on her butt, she’d be even more moved!

“Eh? Where did this fellow come from? Is it one of the descendants of the wild horses?” At this time, Zhu Junyang noticed a golden-colored, pocket-sized, adorable little horse. He also felt that it didn’t seem quite right. Even a foal who had just been born would be larger than this little creature. The little fellow looked quite small and exquisite and every line of its body showed that it was a top quality horse. In his eyes, this odd little fellow was even more intelligent and spirited than the white head stallion and had a more pure and noble bloodline.

Yu Xiaocao hadn’t thought of a good explanation for him about the little divine stone when the sight in front of her stunned her to silence. The little divine stone unexpectedly began to openly transform in front of Zhu Junyang from its horse shape into its usual golden kitten shape. It also deliberately glanced at Zhu Junyang, who was thunderstruck, with its pair of golden eyes and then arrogantly jumped onto Xiaocao’s shoulder. Its whole demeanor showed that it disdained the world beneath it.

“It…” The expression on Zhu Junyang’s face changed a few times. From the faint golden glow coming off of the kitten, he remembered the golden ray of light that had appeared when Xiaocao was at the stables and was waving her hand at the feed and water troughs. It wasn’t hard for him to guess that the little lass’s secret was minutely linked with the mysterious golden kitten in front of him.

“You need to hide it well! You absolutely cannot let other people see it transform!!” The first thing that came to his mind was the little lass’s safety. If he could, he would rather destroy this golden kitten and allow Xiaocao to live a normal person’s life then have her have to live a life with other people coveting and trying to steal her divine item.

[Do you think this divine stone is an idiot ah?! Do you think I’d easily appear in front of other people?] The little divine stone’s voice was full of disdain and the little kitten moved into a more arrogant position.

“It...it...can even talk?! Did this prince hear wrongly? It was talking to me, right?” Zhu Junyang was once again frightened by what had happened and was actually stuttering for a moment.

The little divine stone sneered and turned its attention over to Xiaocao, [Are you sure you want to be with him? No plans on changing to someone else? This fellow is stupid beyond measure, so what part of him is worthy of you liking him?]

There wasn’t a single person, in his entire twenty odd years of life, who had ever accused him of being stupid before. When he was a child, he had been adorable and cute with a quick and clever mind. As he got older, some people stated that he had an odd personality while others stated he had an explosive temper. There were even some who stated that he was extremely temperamental. However, the only thing that people didn’t say was that he was dumb.

He didn’t get angry by the stone’s sarcastic remarks. Instead, he stretched out a hand in an attempt to grab the little golden kitten so he could inspect it to see just what it was. As his hand reached over, the little divine stone didn’t try to avoid or dodge it. Instead, in that moment before the prince’s hand touched it, it transformed into a beam of golden light and shot through the prince’s fingers and landed on Xiaocao’s other shoulder. It reformed itself into its golden kitten shape.

“Just...what is it?” The look in Zhu Junyang’s eyes became cold. He was afraid that this odd little thing would harm his little lass. In all of the stories talking about magical items, didn’t they all mention that there were some things that relied on sucking the life energy of others to improve their cultivation? His little lass was always so thin and weak. Could this odd object be sucking out her life energy? Would it decrease her life span? One had to admit that Royal Prince Yang had quite an imagination that was better than most authors of xuanhuan [1] novels!

The little divine stone scornfully rolled its eyes at him and lazily remarked, [Xiaocao, are you sure you can’t like someone else ah? This fellow even thinks that this divine stone is sucking out your life energy! And also thinks that I’m hurting your lifespan! Go tell him that, if it wasn’t for this divine stone, your weak and sickly body would have long expired and you would have met the King of Hell. You probably would have reincarnated into a different family by now!]

“It can even tell what this prince is thinking. Does it also have the ability to read thoughts like I do?” Zhu Junyang frowned even more deeply. This fellow had too many abilities; it’d be quite difficult to eliminate it...however, did he even have the strength to get rid of this creature for his little lass?

[At least you know your limits. You want to destroy this divine stone? Maybe in your next life you’ll reincarnate into a dimension where you can cultivate. After cultivating for a few thousand or ten thousand years, then you can see if you can get rid of me ah!] The little divine stone lazily yawned and lost its desire to shoot sarcastic remarks at the prince. It transformed into a beam of golden light and went back into the multi-colored stone on Xiaocao’s right wrist. Recently, it had hit a bottleneck on its cultivation progress. After all, the Goddess of Spirit’s chains were not so easily released.

Zhu Junyang had personally seen that that weird thing had gone into the multi-colored stone that Xiaocao always wore on her right wrist. It was a pretty unassuming, small colored stone. It wasn’t made out of jade or another precious gemstone, and it wasn’t shaped in any pleasing manner. The only thing it had going for it was that it was colored a bit brightly.

After Zhu Junyang became certain of his feelings, he had thought that the reason why his little lass always wore that tiny colored stone strung on some red string was because her family was poor but she still liked to dress up. Because of that, he had especially picked out a gold bracelet embedded with jade stones on it to give to her. At the time, the little lass had looked quite happy with the gift. However, as soon as he turned around, she had placed the bracelet into her jewelry box where she also hid her other treasures and the bracelet never saw the light of day again.

Later on, no matter how expensive or how beautiful the bracelets he sent her were, she would at most wear them for a couple of days and then leave them in her jewelry box. She still continued to wear that small colored stone that was strung on a red string on her right wrist. Now, he knew that the reason why she only wore this stone was because it hid such a secret!

“Lass, are you sure that this creature won’t harm you?” Zhu Junyang had seen the little lass wear the stone for many years. Although she was quite thin, she had never gotten sick. Furthermore, all of her family members were quite healthy and strong. Her parents were in their thirties but they looked around ten years younger. Her godparents were in their forties but they were more energetic and lively than people in their thirties. Furthermore, her godparents managed to have the miracle of having a child in their old age and had given Xiaocao a younger brother. Even the people around her seemed to have health benefits. His lady mother was a perfect example. Was this truly all related to this little stone that looked so unassuming?

When Yu Xiaocao found out that her man was merely worried about her, she revealed an incandescent smile and hurriedly reassured him, “Don’t worry ah! It not only won’t harm me but it also gives me benefits!”

In her heart, however, she castigated the little divine stone for being a meddler. What was it trying to do by appearing so suddenly? It actually even changed forms right in front of Zhu Junyang. How was she ever supposed to explain something so unimaginable? Fortunately, Zhu Junyang was only worried about her safety and didn’t ask her more about the stone. Otherwise, she really didn’t know what she was going to do. Was it better to skim over this event or just tell him everything?

Should she tell him that the original owner of this body had died early and that she was a lonely soul from hundreds of years later that took over? Or should she tell him that her soul had traveled through the millennium with the help of the multi-colored stone for the sole purpose of meeting him? Zhu Junyang had quite a bit of courage, so he shouldn’t be scared by this, right?

[Psh! Being cautious is truly a good character trait but there’s a line between being cautious and being a coward ah! This divine stone has been observing silently for a long time. Although this fellow’s outer appearance doesn’t give one the confidence of reliability, his actual character is quite different. You truly hit the jackpot with this one ah!] The little divine stone couldn’t help but sigh over this. How did this lass manage to come across one of the only good men in this world? Was it because that it, as the divine stone, had brought her good luck?

“Do you dare to say that more clearly?” Yu Xiaocao couldn’t resist the urge to roast the divine stone a bit but didn’t expect that she would actually say that out loud.

“Are you...talking to this prince? Or are you talking to that fellow?” Zhu Junyang continued to long-windedly lecture again to take care of herself and avoid getting hurt by that ‘stone spirit’. ‘Stone spirit’ was the name that he had given to the little divine stone.

Yu Xiaocao apologetically waved at a hand at him to tell him to ‘wait a second’ and continued to listen to the little divine stone’s ‘earnest thoughts’.

[Since you’ve decided on this fellow, that means, in the future, you will be spending the rest of your life with him. Are you planning on hiding this secret from him for a lifetime? Do you think you would be able to hide it ah? This fellow is a lot more shrewd and astute than you, a feeble-minded lass! Do you really believe that he hasn’t sensed that something was off in all these years? In the past two years, you’ve become less and less cautious for the sake of earning money and lost your head. Do you really think he’s that stupid that he doesn’t suspect something? Even if I, this divine stone, didn't appear today, he’s already around eighty to ninety percent close to the truth at this point!] The little divine stone lightly sighed. It didn’t know whether it should consider itself fortunate or not for being stuck with this type of troublesome master.

On one hand, it was lucky that it didn’t encounter a master who had extreme ambitions and wanted to use its powers to snatch the throne. Although this little lass used it like a little hamster slowly accumulating wealth, she also used its abilities to benefit the common people of the Great Ming Empire.

Those medicinal pills and tonics had cured many people and also saved a bunch of commoners from ailments that weren’t easily treated in this medically backwards society. Furthermore, her high-yielding crops had benefited an even larger percentage of the people, allowing them to gradually pull themselves out of poverty and starvation. As for the variety of fruits and vegetables she grew, this all increased the diversity of options for the people’s diets in the capital. All of these things allowed the stone to gradually regain its previous cultivation while also obtaining a lot of merits and good karma.

It was as the Buddhists said, “Everything in the world has karma”. In this strange and desolate dimension, it couldn’t easily throw off its shackles. The more virtue it accumulated, the more it would end up helping it in the future. How could it not rejoice that it had been stuck with a kind hearted and foolish little girl ah?

As for the flip side, how should it describe it? In order to regain its cultivation, it could only help its master, who didn’t have much ambitions beyond earning money, in doing some small things here and there. The thing that affected its spiritual strength the most was helping its master in some way or another.

The more help it gave, the more it recovered. However, if it could only help its master with some trivial matters, how long would it take before it finally regained all of its strength and was able to break through the shackles and return to the dimension where the Goddess Nuwa lived ah? Just thinking about its snail-like speed made it want to cry bitter tears.

“Everyone says that men are fickle creatures, so who can guarantee that he won’t change in this lifetime?” Yu Xiaocao interrupted the stone’s silent lamentations and muttered in a slightly melancholy tone.

Having been unceremoniously ignored this entire time, Zhu Junyang was keenly able to hear her grumbles. Apparently, the little lass had been silently criticizing him this entire time with that stupid stone! He raised a hand and knocked on her forehead. His gloomy voice had a hint of solemness to it, “Don’t worry! There are so many men around you, staring at you as if you’re their prey. How could I possibly bear to change my mind? This prince will only recognize you in this life and I don’t have any room in my heart for anyone else!”

[1] xuanhuan - a broad genre of fictional stories which remixes Chinese folklore/mythology with foreign elements & setting