It was the start of the evening when Cai Yin went back to the Dream Realm.

Hong Ye came out of the mysterious mist into which Cai Yin disappeared not long ago, with an unreadable look in her crimson eyes.

But as soon as she saw Wu Long, her eyes and expression brightened, "Darling~!"

She ran into his embrace, and their passionate kiss reflected in the crimson eyes of her twin who came out of the mist next, stopping on the spot.

There was a mix of different emotions in those eyes, as Hong Yue looked at the two, but the most prominent of those was confusion, "Didn’t you say...?"

She didn’t finish, seemingly hesitating.

"Mm?", Hong Ye half-turned to her twin, parting her lips from Wu Long’s with a slightly distracted look, and then realization appeared in her eyes, "Oh~! That’s right! Hehehe, I forgot~"

She delivered the answer in an ’I made an innocent blunder’ tone of voice, which left Hong Yue speechless.

"What is it?", meanwhile, Wu Long raised his eyebrow with a curious smile, looking at the beauty in his arms.

"Hehehe, I had a devious scheme to sulk and pout about you putting Sister Yue up to having a serious talk with me behind my back, so I can get pampered a lot~", Hong Ye made her twin even more dumbfounded by spilling everything to Wu Long with a giggle, not to mention that Hong Yue heard it was a deliberate plan rather than a genuine emotion, as well as the reasoning behind that plan, for the first time, "But it went out of my head as soon as I saw Darling~"

Wu Long added onto that bewilderment by laughing with sincere amusement, "Hahahaha, why would you need to sulk and pout to get pampered? You can get pampered anytime you want"

"Fufu~, sometimes it’s more fun to think of clever ways to get what you want, don’t you think?", Hong Ye grinned with a mischievous look in her eyes.

"Heh, then you’ve got to think of something more believable than this, no? I mean, it wasn’t really ’behind your back’ if we talked about it already, and I warned you yesterday after dinner as well", Wu Long shook his head with a wry smile, completing Hong Yue’s bafflement with his words.

"Hmm~...", Hong Ye made an innocent thinking face which Wu Long found unbearably cute, but shook her head right after, "It’s too much hassle to think about it a lot, and it’s not like I can think of anything real to sulk about~... I just jumped at a random idea that seemed like it’d work~"

Wu Long chuckled, as he leaned in to kiss the beauty once again.

"Y-You knew? Why did you act so surprised then?!", Hong Yue finally unfroze from her shock, and asked her twin.

"Mm? Ah~ well, I did know, but I wasn’t acting - I thought you’d take a day or two to think it over, so I was surprised you went through with it the same day that Darling told me... besides I didn’t know about your conversation about Theft Dao~", Hong Ye replied in a lighthearted tone, shrugging her shoulders.

"Then what do you mean you talked about it before?", Hong Yue added another question.

"Well, I wouldn’t have encouraged you to proceed with that conversation if I wasn’t sure you both were ready for it", Wu Long answered instead, causing the older twin sister to have a sudden look of realization that she should’ve known that was the case.

"I wouldn’t be able to be so honest and open during our talk about our past, or rather, I might’ve avoided it and ran from it as much as possible if it wasn’t for Darling. No, more than that, I wouldn’t have even known about much of what we discussed to begin with... It was his support and encouragement across a long series of conversations that allowed me to realize, accept, and eventually come to terms with a lot of things we talked about last night", Hong Ye leaned onto Wu Long.

She spoke with a peaceful and calm smile that contrasted quite a bit with her usual demeanor, "Before our conversations with him I never realized there was that hidden and irrational unconscious resentment toward you for not knowing anything about my struggles, or that my decision only appeared to be selfless, and that despite the intention behind my actions being genuine, it was deeply selfish. That I didn’t think of how you would have felt, but cared more about what I wanted, even if what I wanted was to protect you"

Hong Yue also belatedly realized that her little sister was surprisingly very aware of her own feelings and thoughts about what happened in the past, as well as the possible effect her actions could have had on the older twin.

It was as if she already had this talk on her own in her head, over and over again. In fact, that was what Hong Yue thought happened - that Hong Ye simply spent a much longer time examining what happened in her head, and thoroughly introspected it on a deep level.

She thought that it was just a result of the latter’s much more mature and sensitive side that was usually carefully hidden behind the slightly twisted personality and carefree attitude - after all, that was how Hong Ye managed to hide the truth from Hong Yue for so many years in the first place.

But now that Hong Yue heard from them directly, it became clear to her that perhaps she idealized her little sister’s ability to deal with emotional pain and maturity in dealing with life too much. Hong Ye undoubtedly had emotional resilience, but she was as young and as inexperienced outside of their very limited world as Hong Yue.

Even Hong Yue’s realizations of her guilt toward Hong Ye, her gratitude that was intricately interwoven with guilt and even unconscious resentment. All of those, she was able to realize through her interactions with Wu Long.

So that when the two sisters had that conversation, they both were already aware of their own thoughts and feelings, they both were ready.

Without help and support from Wu Long, both of them would’ve likely had a very hard time dealing with those scars of the past, and it would’ve likely taken them a lot longer, and a lot more pain to reach this point, if it was even possible at all as time passing could’ve added more complications and obstacles for them to resolve.

As she thought to that point, she couldn’t help but feel gratitude to this man.

Hong Ye, on the other hand, took her twin’s gaze directed toward Wu Long to have a slightly different meaning, causing her to grin and inwardly once again praise the genius of Gong Cui and her win-win-win strategy.

Although, even objectively Hong Ye’s observation wasn’t far off - she just slightly misjudged the degree to which Hong Yue was aware of what Hong Ye saw in that gaze.

"Khm~", realizing she stared at Wu Long for a slightly prolonged moment of silence, Hong Yue awkwardly cleared her throat while turning her gaze away, "So... are we going to the Silverleaf Trade Hall now? Where’s that master of the Theft Dao you mentioned?"

"He’s been in the Iron Claw City since this morning", Wu Long chuckled, "We’ll meet him there, but first we’re stopping by the Crow King’s Nest"