"Are you really sure, Shizun?" Bingge looked around stiff and alert. "I'm already familiar with Huan Hua Palace so there's no need to tour me."

"You don't like Huan Hua Palace?" Shen Qing Qiu asked while fanning himself as they stroll in Jinlan City.

"No, it's the little..." Bingge stopped as a woman in fancy robes holding a whip approach them while their headed to the Huan Hua Palace gates. "Her. It's her, stand behind me, Shizun."

"Big Brother Luo! Big Brother Luo! You have returned!" The Little Palace Mistress came with Qin Wanyue lagging behind her. She growled at Qin Wanyue and yelled: "Get out of here! Big Brother Luo had returned, therefore he must be back for me!"

"No, I just came to visit. We'll be going then..." Bingge turned around when Shen Qingqiu turned him back to face the little palace mistress.

"Of course he came for you!" Shen Qingqiu said. "We have some matters to discuss in the underground water prison. Can you lead us there?"

"You bastard!" The little palace mistress cracked he whip on the ground. "You dare return here after all the grief you'd cause?! When you came, we lost Gongyi Xiao and my father!"

"Your father? Gongyi Xiao?" Bingge knitted his eyebrows.

"Ahehehe, I know it's very shameless of me, but let's put the past behind us. Luo Binghe is still the master of Huan Hua so he can visit whenever he want with a guest, right?"

"Why, you cut-sleeve man-snatcher!" She shouted.

Qin Wanyue: "Calm down, palace mistress!"

She was a bout to struck her whip at Shen Qingqiu when a hand came to catch it and send it backwards along with her frail body.

"Binghe! That's too much!" Shen Qingqiu said.

But Bingge's eyes darkened and went cold. "Shizun is right. Huan Hua is my territory and I can bring anyone here. Who are you to harm my guest?"

Qin Wanyue knelt beside to help the little palace mistress up, but she just struck the whip at her. "Big Brother Luo, have mercy! You know the mistress has a temper, please try to understand!"

"Hmph! Why reason with him? He treats me like a fattened pig anyway!" The Little Palace Mistress, Xiao Gongzhu, spat and stood on her own. "Huan Hua helped you with the whole Tianlang-Jun business and everything yet you treat me like this! Fine, walk every nook and cranny of Huan Hua with that bastard! Just don't ever show your face to me again or else!"

And then she stomped off.

"Thank you, Bing-gege. But don't you think that was too much?" Shen Qingqiu said when she left. "She's still a girl."

"It's more demeaning to treat women like frail, delicate flowers instead of equals who can also fight and be evil." Bingge said as they continued walking. "I won't let anyone hurt Shizun."

Shen Qingqiu rubbed his shoulders from the sudden coldness of Bingge's demeanor. This was supposed to be a happy date like Airplane-bro suggested, where they go back to the memories so he can understand more of the world while gaining cool points at the same time.

"But..." Bingge suddenly stooped and sighed. "If Shizun wants me to apologize, I will. Maybe after our 'date', I just don't want to see them again."

"Them? Your wives?" Shen Qingqiu asked. He remembered about Bingge's punishment dream. "Do you really hate your past that much?"

"I hate the person I've become, and the lives I affected because of my dark deeds." Bingge lowered his head. "If only the Shen Qingqiu there were half as good as you..."

"Hey, I'm not that good haha! I'm no saint or somethin'" Shen Qingqiu reverted to his modern Chinese slang now that they're alone. "And Shen Jiu had a rough past... It doesn't make what he did right, but I kinda understand... You too..."

"Me?" Bingge raised an eyebrow.

Eeep, why did I drifted off like that!? Shen Qingqiu panicked. I was about to say him and Shen Jiu are also the same!

Bingge sighed. "I know what you mean, Shizun. The evil Shen Qingqiu and I are basically the same. We become blackened because of our past." He scratched his head. "I understand that, but what he did still... you two are very different."

Shen Qingqiu felt that the mood will just become more gloomy from here, so he changed topic. "Aiyah, we're here! I remember how scared I was when Gonyi Xiao took me here, and he kept reassuring me that he believes in my innocence! Haha, I was trying so hard to be the calm, innocent defendant from that movie I watched---"

"What is Shizun's relationship with Gongyi Xiao?" Bingge's expression became stern.

Ah, my tongue slipped! Stupid, why'd you fed him vinegar so early in the morning! Shen Qingqiu scolded himself. I'm really becoming too lax with him now that he knows I'm from another world!

He hit him with the fan on the forehead. "Why do you have to be so jealous with everyone, huh? Gonyi Xiao is a friend! A very good friend! He's even like a disciple to me! Have some respect for the dead!"

"Alright." Bingge sat on the floor of the underwater prison. "How did he die?"

"Huh?" Shen Qingqiu stopped on hitting. "You believe me?"

"If Shizun says he's a friend, he's a friend." Bingge shrugged. "How did he die? Who killed him? Tell me everything that happened.

So Shen Qingqiu told him how he was accused of bringing sowers, how Bingmei protected him from the little palace mistress whips yet still end up destroying his robe, how he had escaped yet had a lot of guards killed along with Gongyi Xiao.

"He was killed by Zhuzhi-Lang, your father's nephew." Shen Qingqiu said. "I never really decided to trust him or not, since he was kind to me yet keep following Tianlang-Jun's orders. I'm not mad at him for Gongyi Xiao's death either, just... sad for both of them. Zhuzhi-Lang is the type who stays loyal to you even if you just tied his shoelaces once--Oh, sorry that metaphor is too modern haha."

"No, I get it. "Bingge nodded. "Go on."

"Like I said, I don't see Tianlang-Jun or Zhuzhi-Lang as purely eveil bad guys, they're the same as you and Shen Jiu. Poor Gongyi Xiao though, he was a good kid. He reminds me of when you and Bingmei were younger, before I or Shen Jiu threw you in the Abyss."

Bingge's hand was resting on his cheek when he listened to the story, but he was listening attentively. He was just deep in thought with what Shen Qingqiu said earlier. "Shizun, why do you consider Gongyi Xiao a friend?"

"Why'd you ask?"

"Nothing." Bingge averted his gaze. "It's just... now that I think about it, I never really had any friends."

Shizun laughed. "Are you kidding, bro? What about Mobei-Jun?"

"He's more of a business partner."

"Ah, true. But still, it's impossible that a protagonist like you doesn't have any friends." He rubbed his chin and tell himself to think fast to cheer his disciple up. "Oh, what about Ning Yingying?"

"Do you have s*x with your friend? Do you make your friend your wife?" Bingge gave a wry smirk.

"But you never treat her as a friend before all that?" Shen Qingqiu asked.

"No, she just follows me around." Bingge slumped on the hand resting at the side of his face. "The Ning Yingying I know is just a clingy female disciple who yells and shouts until I save her from danger."

"Ah, point taken. I was annoyed by her too when I read the book. A typical damsel in distress, Airplane-bro didn't even bother." Shen Qingqiu was stumped. "What the hell, how sad would that be, being an all-powerful stallion protagonist yet no friends. There's gotta be someone..."

"What does friendship mean to Shizun?" The disciple asked.

"You're asking me? Well..." Shen Qingqiu try to think thoughtfully.

In the real world , as Shen Yuan, he didn't really have much friends either. He was always sick at home, reading novels and praising them or bashing them. He only really had true, solid friends here, like Liu Qingge, Shang Qinghua, Yue Qingyuan, Qi Qingqiu and others who were true to him even when they died like Gongyi Xiao and Zhuzhi-Lang. They all have different personalities, some really extreme, so to find what they're similarities are that makes them his friends would be a tough job.

Eventually, Shen Qingqiu was able to gather his thoughts. "To me, a friend is someone who you work together with to accomplish the same goal. You have fun with them, share secrets with them, spend a lot of time together.... "

"Then, Shizun." Bingge interrupted. "Doesn't that make you my friend?"

"Huh?" Shen Qingqiu stopped making wild gestures and explaining.

"We're helping each other for the same goal: To bring back the Luo Binghe here. I'm having fun with you, and we basically knew almost everything about each other and spend every day together...."

"Yeah, but--" Shen Qingqiu bit his lower lip. Friends don't kiss each other to pass energy to the death!

"So then, Shizun and I are friends, right?" Bingge's face seem to brighten. "I'm actually happy about that."

"You are?" Shen Qingqiu thought to himself, Screw it, let the kid have a friend for once! Look at that giddy face!

Bingge chuckled and gave the most genuine smile Shen Qingqiu had ever seen from him. "Yes. Even though my love for Shizun is not reciprocated, at least I am his friend. "

Shen Qingqiu was caught off-guard by this, and he doesn't know whether to laugh or cry.

"Ah, I really don't know what to do with you." He patted his head. "When you act like this, I can't see you as a wicked stallion protagonist anymore, you're like a little kid in a grown man's body."

"Hehe, I do? Can Shizun pamper this kid more then?" Bingge chuckled.

"Alright." Shizun patted his head and gave him a light hug. The stiff stallion protagonist's eyes widened in surprise. "From now on, you have a friend. I'll be you're friend no matter what."

A ding! suddenly came out of nowhere.

[Cool Points +2500]

"SERIOUSLY???" Shen Qingqiu raised his hand to the air. "Hell yeah! I really don't get the female mind but let's keep this date going!"

"Where are we going next, Shizun?" Bingge tried to calm himself from the hug and stood up diligently.

"You wanna know more about your father and cousin, don't you?" Shen Qingqiu smiled. "Let's visit where I first met Tianlang-Jun!"